Rescue (19 page)

He meets her in the driveway.

“Where are you going?” he asks. He wipes his hands on his old jeans. He has on a short-sleeved maroon T-shirt that reads
HART-STONE MARAUDERS
.

“Out,” she says.

“Rowan?”

“I’m meeting Tommy at the mall. We’re going shopping for his mother’s birthday and then we’re going to the talent show at
the high school. There might be a party after that.”

“What party?”

“I’m not sure.”

“You know I don’t like that.”

“I’ll call you when I get there.”

Both know a cell phone call is only slightly better than mean
ingless. If she wanted to, she could easily lie about her whereabouts. Would she lie to him?

“You have gas in your car?” he asks her.

“Enough.”

She lifts her head and tosses her hair, a gesture he hardly ever sees her make. Webster doesn’t want Rowan to go, but there’s
nothing he can do.

He aches to put his arms around her. Three months ago, he would have done it. He worries about car trouble, about her getting
lost, about predators. But he can feel the shield she’s put up against him.

“So,” she says.

He wants to say,
Don’t drink.

He watches his daughter slide into the Corolla. He knows he’s making her nervous. He ought to move away, go back into the
garden, but he feels as though he has to see her out of the driveway. It’s an old habit, impossible to break. He’s watched
her leave in the backseat of a girlfriend’s mother’s van, and driving away after she got her license. The old impulses just
don’t go away.

She backs the car around, slides her sunglasses forward, adjusts her hair, and heads down the driveway. He watches until she
makes the turn onto 42.

He likes the feel of the earth, the smell of it, the mounded rows of seedlings. He’s already harvested lettuces, and the peas
should pop soon. He has a lot of weeding to do tomorrow, the tomatoes to put in. The day before, he worked on the fence, securing
it against deer, though he’s heard from others that a vegetable garden in Vermont is a crapshoot. Koenig’s wife, Ruth, said
that last year the deer ate all the pink and blue flowers she’d put in. They
left the rest alone. Webster has planted marigolds all around the inside border of the fence. It’s supposed to work with small
pests. Already he has bigger pests, the tunnels in the lawn suggesting moles. Squishy places where the foot sinks in. He supposes
it’s just a matter of time before the critters reach the garden.

He pictures Rowan on the road. Does she drive with only one hand? Does she text while she drives?

By the time she heads for college, he’ll have had her for eighteen years. Maybe that’s all he’ll get. He has to be ready to
settle for that. Sheila had only two.

He squats, digs the spade deep into the black dirt, and rests the heel of his hand against the wooden end. He wants to lie
down. He wants to let the worry sink into the dirt.

When he gets home after his shift, Webster can smell the alcohol as soon as he enters the kitchen. He takes the stairs two
at a time and yanks himself into Rowan’s room by the doorjamb. She’s not there. He can’t tell if she’s slept in her bed or
not. After nearly falling down the stairs to get to the living room, he finds Rowan on the couch wrapped in a summer quilt.

“Rowan!” he yells, standing over her. The reek of alcohol is strong and so is something else. He glances at the carpet and
sees a dried stain of vomit.

Jesus Christ.

He shakes her and gets a moan.

Shit, he thinks. Is his daughter having a blackout?

He shakes her again and says her name. She opens her eyes and focuses. He sees the moment of panic. Conscious and alert.

“What the hell?” he says to her.

Rowan moans. “I don’t feel good,” she says.

“How much did you have to drink?”

There’s a slight movement under the blankets. Rowan’s hand going to her stomach. “I don’t know.”

“Did Tommy do this to you?” Webster demands, his blood pressure soaring.

“No,” Rowan says. “He was getting pissed at me.”

“Did he drive you home?”

“Oh, God, Dad, why are you doing this?”

“I’ll do a hell of a lot more if you don’t answer my questions!”

“Tommy got me into his car,” Rowan says. “He was sober. I don’t remember anything after that.”

“Jesus Christ, Rowan. Why?”

“Why what?”

“What the hell happened to you?”

She coughs, and he thinks she’s going to throw up again. Was she in such bad shape earlier that she couldn’t even make it
to a toilet or grab a pan from the kitchen?

“I don’t know,” she says weakly. “I guess it runs in the family.”

Webster roughly pulls her to a sitting position. Her head bobbles. Her skin is green. Just looking at her nauseates him. “You
listen to me,” he says to his daughter. “This I will not tolerate. There’s nothing alcoholic about you, so don’t goddamn use
that as an excuse. You did this to yourself. I don’t know what game you’re playing here, but you’d better knock it off.” When
Webster lets her go, she slumps back onto the couch. She turns her head away.

When Rowan was twelve, Webster told her that her mother had been an alcoholic and that was why she had to go away and get
help. He never dreamed that his daughter would see this as her legacy. He’s pretty much told Rowan everything that’s fit for
an adolescent girl’s ears about Sheila and him, but he’s withheld one important fact. He hasn’t told her that it was he who
sent her mother away. He should have done it years ago.

Webster rakes his scalp with his fingernails. Shit. There’s nothing he can say to his daughter now. For all he knows, she
might not even remember this conversation.

She isn’t so sick that she needs to go to the emergency room. He’ll just have to wait until she’s slept it off. She’s already
on her side, so that’s OK. He’ll wake her up every half hour for another two hours. He hopes she’ll have a pounding headache.

He falls into a chair across from her. Sleep will be impossible now. As his eyes adjust more and more to the gloom, he can
see that there are two stains on the carpet. He heaves himself out of the chair and finds a bucket and a rag from the kitchen.
He should have Rowan clean it up in the morning, but he doesn’t know if he can tolerate the smell. The more he scrubs and
rinses, the more infuriated he becomes. If his blood pressure keeps rising, he’ll have a heart attack. He thinks of getting
out his cuff. He can’t remember the last time he was so angry with his daughter. Maybe never.

She can’t remember the drive home. And Tommy? He’ll ream that kid out the first chance he gets. Tommy her boyfriend? Jesus
Christ. Who would sit by and watch his girlfriend get shitfaced unless he had ulterior motives? Webster shakes his head. He
can’t go there.

When Webster is done with the cleaning, he washes his hands, makes himself a cup of coffee, and sits again in the chair opposite
the couch. Being angry with someone he loves brings on a sick feeling inside his chest. Too close to the bone. Memories he
doesn’t want rise up to meet him. Sheila drunk with the baby in
her arms. Sheila at Rowan’s birthday party. The image of Sheila weaving on Route 222. He will not,
will not,
let that become Rowan.

When he wakes, there are streaks of light around the shades. Something else, too, a knocking at the door. What time is it?
He checks his watch. Almost eight a.m.

When he peers through the glass of the kitchen door, he opens it fast and closes it again behind him. He’s so rough with his
movements that Gina takes two quick steps backward. Tommy stands to one side.

“I’d like to know what you have to say for yourselves,” Webster barks at the pair. For an instant, Webster remembers the Tommy
he once liked. Six three, maybe six four. A dark hairline going straight across a high forehead, full lips, a nice smile.
The first time he met the boy, Tommy came to the door to pick Rowan up, his car not much better than hers. Rowan, employing
manners she’d never needed before, came to get Webster to introduce them. She warned Webster ahead of time, and because he
was surprised and pleased for Rowan that she had a date, he didn’t ask a lot of questions. “Be home by midnight?”

Rowan didn’t answer, but Tommy did. “Will do.”

Webster liked the kid straight up. Shy, but giving it his all. Honest face. Dark eyes that didn’t slide away when they met
Webster’s. Good handshake. Not trying to prove anything. And the way he looked at Rowan. She’d said something funny—what was
it?—and the kid laughed and gazed at her in a way that told Webster everything he needed to know. That’s all you could hope
for, really.

But now? Webster feels betrayed.

“It wasn’t Tommy’s fault,” Gina says.

“Then you explain to me,” Webster says, pointing back and forth to each, “how a girl can get so drunk, with friends who care
for her just sitting by and watching. Was it funny? Did you get a kick out of it?”

Tommy puts his hands up. “Mr. Webster, I should have been there, but I wasn’t. We went to the party together, but we both
knew I would have to leave at some point to go home to see my grandmother, who just came from Indiana. When I got back to
the party, I found Rowan stumbling around.”

“How long were you gone?” Webster asks.

“An hour maybe?”

“She got that drunk in an hour? And where were you?” he asks, looking at Gina.

“I wasn’t there,” she says. “I never went to the party. But I heard that when Tommy left, she went for the vodka in a big
way. I’m so sorry. I wish I’d been there. I would have stopped her.”

“Some class of friends you hang out with,” Webster says.

“How is she?” Gina asks.

Webster opens the door and cocks his head in the direction of the living room. Gina slips around Webster and heads for Rowan.

“She’s right where you left her,” he says to Tommy as the kid enters the kitchen. “You’re the one who brought her home?”

Tommy nods. “I was the designated driver all night.”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“I don’t know,” the boy says, flustered. “I knew you were on duty.”

“You think I wouldn’t come home to take care of my daughter?” Webster asks. “And why did you leave her here alone?”

“I had to go home,” Tommy, stricken, says. “My parents insisted I be home early.”

“You realize she could have died,” Webster points out. “She vomited twice. Thank God she had enough sense to puke over the
side of the couch. Never leave someone in that position.”

Tommy lowers his head. He looks as though he might be sick, too.

“It’s not your fault,” Webster says, relenting and putting a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “It’s entirely Rowan’s fault. I should
be thankful you got her out of there.”

When they reach the living room, Gina is already kneeling on the floor in front of the couch, murmuring to Rowan, who seems
awake enough to listen.

Tommy stands awkwardly behind the couch. Entitled to be there, but not.

Webster paces.

“Where’s Tommy?” he hears his daughter ask.

He watches as Tommy puts a hand on Rowan’s shoulder. She reaches up from the covers to hold it. It’s a simple gesture, but
it means something. The boy held his ground against Webster’s roaring. Backbone there. Restraint as well. Webster might have
provoked another boy to be defensive. He takes another deep breath. He has to calm down.

The late morning light is garish. Rowan shades her eyes and begins to cry. Webster leaves the three of them and crawls upstairs
to his bed, trailing unwanted memories behind him.

While he sleeps, he dreams of Sheila.

A
cop meets them in front of the warehouse. “Jumper down,” he says.

“Really?” Webster asks. “I couldn’t believe it when the call came in. Has anyone ever had a jumper down?”

“Not in my memory,” the cop says. “Quechee Gorge maybe.” He motions toward the back of the building.

Koenig has the backboard, the trauma bag, his jump kit. Webster carries the rest. They set out on a run. A clot of cops stands
around a limp patient. They move out of the way when they see Webster and Koenig coming.

“He’s conscious. He’s talking,” one of the cops says.

A security light illuminates the scene: surreal, metallic, framed in black. The patient has fallen onto his back. His left
knee is bent backward in an unnatural way. A bone is sticking through his skin. A new cop to the scene says, “Oh Jesus,” and
turns away.

Webster glances up. Two stories.
Maybe
you could kill yourself falling two stories.

“The guy in front, security, actually heard the thud,” the first cop adds. “Ran around back here to see what was going on.”

Webster squats next to the patient and applies the c-collar. “We’ll have to splint that,” he says to Koenig, pointing to the
fracture.

“ETOH,” Koenig says, sniffing. He wraps a blood pressure cuff around the man’s arm.

“Sir, can you tell me your name?” Webster asks.

Why isn’t the guy screaming? Even though it’s late May, he has a multicolored cap on his head, as if knit by a grandmother,
blood pooling under it. Webster applies a pressure bandage. The man has on a denim jacket and jeans, one boot. The guy should
be yelling his head off with pain.

“Randall,” the man says.

“OK, Randall, can you tell me where you’re hurt?”

“My back. Knocked the wind outta me, I guess.”

“Your head hurt?”

“Not too bad.”

Webster stabilizes the head. Head wounds bleed profusely. It’s not as bad as it looks. He checks the pulse in the guy’s ankles.

“How old are you, Randall?”

“Thirty-four.”

Koenig glances at Webster. The guy looks to be in his late fifties, if a day. Hard living.

“Randall, were you pushed or did you jump?’

“I guess I jumped.”

“Can you feel either your right or your left leg?” Webster asks.

The man tries to look up. The exertion seems to tire him, and he lies back.

“BP one hundred twelve over sixty-eight,” Koenig reports. “Pulse thready and weak. Respirations twenty-four. Breath sounds
equal and bilateral.”