Rescue (27 page)

He hasn’t seen her cell phone or the purse she took to the
dance. Maybe Tommy has them. “I’ll see if I can find out,” he says.

Webster sits on her bed. Who gets reprieves like this?

“Want half my sandwich?” she asks.

He tells her no, even though he’s hungry. “Gina came,” he says. “Tommy came with his dad. Tommy saved your life. Did I mention
that?”

Rowan looks concerned. “I wish I could remember something.”

“Maybe you will, maybe you won’t,” he says, deciding to take Rowan up on her offer. He picks up the other half of her sandwich.
Turkey, white bread, no dressing. Tastes delicious. “It’s probably better off if you don’t.”

“I was drinking, wasn’t I?” she asks, wiping her mouth with a napkin. She has to do everything now with her right hand.

“Yes, you were.”

“Are you mad?”

“Mad? Yes.” He meets her eyes. “But mostly all I’ve felt is fear. You’re a very lucky girl.”

Webster won’t tell her about Kerry, the girl who didn’t make it. Not yet.

“But I’ll be rip-roaring furious if you ever get drunk again,” he warns.

“I’m sorry.”

“Do you know why you did it?”

“I just did it,” she says, moving the tray out of her way.

“You were angry when you left the house.”

“Maybe I was still angry,” she says. “It’s hard to know.”

“A lot of people came here to visit you,” Webster tells her. “Tommy’s dad lent me a family car. The cruiser is back at Rescue,
and I had the keys in my pocket. They’re a good family.”

“I knew you’d like them,” Rowan says. “Dad, I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine how horrible this was for you. And I’ve been such
a bitch.”

“You certainly have,” he says. “If you feel up to it, I’m going to ask you to do some makeup work. If you fail math and English,
you won’t be able to go to UVM.”

“I’m
at
UVM, remember?”

“Do you remember the last time you saw me?”

“The night of the dance. I was furious with you.”

“Do you remember why?”

“You read my diary.”

“So you’re not angry now?”

“Now? I’d have to be crazy to be angry now. Though I’m a little pissed off about my hair.”

“I didn’t read much, if that’s any consolation.”

She shrugs and sits up straighter. “It doesn’t seem like such a big deal. But I don’t want to think about it. It’s embarrassing.”

“Nothing’s embarrassing now,” he tells her.

“I’m still hungry. How long did I go without eating?”

“Four days.”

“Cool. I wonder if I lost weight,” she says. She presses the sheets down at the sides of her hips and stomach.

“The last thing you need to worry about is your weight.” Webster finds her foot again under the sheet and holds on to it.
“Look, there’s something I want to tell you.”

Rowan waits.

“Your mother has been here nearly the whole time you’ve been unconscious.”

“My what?”

“I found her just last week. When I told her about the accident, she came right away. She kept me from losing my mind.”

His daughter’s eyes open wide. He waits for the fact to sink in.

“Where did you find her?” she asks.

“She’s been living in Chelsea,” he says, moving closer to her on the bed.

“Where is that?”

“It’s a city near Boston. I think once when you were younger, we talked about where she came from, and I showed you on a map.”

Rowan leans back and inches the covers closer to her chin. “How did you find her?”

“On the Internet. It was easier than I thought. I drove to Chelsea and talked to her.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“You weren’t in a mood to hear about it,” he says. “I had to think about how to tell you. And then, next thing I know, I’m
in a helicopter with you strapped to a backboard.”

“What’s she like?”

“She’s an artist, Rowan, a painter. She’s very good. She’s had a complicated and difficult life. But the reason I’m telling
you this now is that she wants to meet you.”

“She wants to meet?” Rowan pulls the covers right to her mouth. She looks stricken.

Webster hopes that a nurse doesn’t choose this moment to come to the door. “If you would like to meet her,” Webster says,
“it can be arranged.”

“Meet her
here?
Like this?”

“Would you rather wait until you get home?”

Rowan lowers her eyes, thinking. “Will I make it home for graduation?”

“Absolutely. But probably not much sooner than that.”

“Can I think about it?”

“Of course,” he says.

Rowan scrutinizes him. “Are you and she…?”

“Are we what?”

“You know… like, reuniting?”

“No,” he says, shaking his head and smiling. “No, Rowan, we’re not. We’ve talked, but it’s mostly been about you.”

“What’s she like?”

“The same and different. Not as feisty. Older. All of which means nothing to you, since you don’t remember her when she was
younger.”

“No, but I can imagine. Or try to.”

“There’s something I should tell you before you and she meet.”

“What is it?” Rowan asks.

“Your mother didn’t just go away. I sent her away.”

Rowan looks blank, as if she doesn’t understand.

“I sent her away,” he repeats.

“She didn’t just drive away?” Rowan asks, baffled.

“Well, yes, she did, but it was because I made her.”

Rowan glances out the window. All she can see from her bed is the sky.

“You remember I told you that she left because she was sick, she was an alcoholic, and needed professional help?”

“Yes.”

“Well, she did. But after the accident with you in the car, I couldn’t trust her with you, and I couldn’t be with you every
second of the day. So I sent her away.”

Webster watches Rowan.

“If I hadn’t sent her away,” he says, “she’d have gone to jail.”

“Then you saved her life,” Rowan says.

He shakes his head. “No, Rowan. I saved your life.”

“And your own?”

“I don’t know about that.”

Rowan nods. “But didn’t she say she would go to rehab?”

“We couldn’t afford rehab. It wasn’t an option. Not as many places to go then as there are now.”

Even though he’s a medic and knows what nerves produce—the heart pounding, the dry mouth, the sweaty palms—he’s powerless
to prevent the symptoms. He has them all.

“You couldn’t afford it?” Rowan asks.

Webster remembers his father’s offer to finance rehabilitation. Only Webster’s pride had kept him from accepting that help.
“It wasn’t an option that minute. That day. If she stayed in town another two hours,” Webster says, “the police would have
had to arrest her.”

Rowan’s face is pale. “Would she really have gone to jail?”

“I believe so, yes,” Webster says. “It was her second DUI, her second accident. In this case, she’d injured a man. They were
going to put her away for a while.”

Rowan raises her knees under the sheets. “Wouldn’t they have made her go to rehab?”

“Well, I suppose jail is rehab in a way. Though not always. Jail is a bad place to be. Almost no one comes out the better
for it. And she was in no shape to survive that.”

For a moment, Rowan is silent.

“But she’d have been out years ago,” Rowan says finally, “and maybe she’d have gone into rehab, and we could have been a family
again.”

The words sting. A family again. He’s had this thought himself a thousand times. By sending Sheila away, he had destroyed
the
family. “The truth is,” Webster says, “I think your mother and I would have been divorced within the year. I couldn’t trust
her anymore. I’m sorry to have to tell you this. I’d hoped I’d never have to. The drinking was a clue to who she was. Or maybe
it made her who she was. She was reckless, she wanted adventure. She hid things.”

“If she wanted adventure, what was she doing with you?”

Webster smiles. “When I met your mother,” he says, “she was outrunning an abusive boyfriend from Boston. They were both drunks.
She was looking for a place to rest. I must have seemed like a good place to lie low. She actually said that once: lie low.”

“She was pregnant when you married her.”

“Yes,” Webster says.

“Allison Newman told me just before Christmas. Her mother used to work in Gramps’s store.”

Webster tries to remember the women who worked for his father. He can recall only three of them, but he knew their first names
only.

“Would you have married her if she hadn’t been pregnant?”

Webster sits forward. “I can’t honestly say, Rowan. I loved her. There was a time when I loved her so much, it hurt.” He pauses.
“But if the relationship had run its normal course,” he adds, “and I’d seen the lying and the drinking, I might have ended
it. We weren’t even living together when she got pregnant.”

“So,” Rowan says, “I’m what? A mistake?”

Webster turns to his daughter. “Rowan, look at me,” he says. “Do you feel like a mistake?”

It takes her a while to answer. “Sometimes I do.”

Webster briefly closes his eyes. Why didn’t he talk to Rowan about this when she was younger? But how does a dad know when
his daughter is ready for a conversation like this?

“Rowan, listen. A baby, when it comes, is never a mistake. Never. A baby is the exact opposite of a mistake.”

Rowan turns her face away.

“You were deeply loved from the moment you were born,” Webster adds. “Certainly by me, that goes without saying. But by your
mother, too.”

“If she loved me so much, why did she leave me? And why did she drink so much? Why did she risk my life?”

“I think you’re going to need to ask her those questions.”

He pauses.

“Somewhere inside, the drunk has to want to get better. Otherwise, nothing works. Your mother wasn’t there yet.”

He stops again.

“I couldn’t have her driving around drunk with you in the backseat. End of story. And I’m guessing that wasn’t the first time
she’d had you out in the car after she’d been drinking. You and she were incredibly lucky that day. On Route 222, an unexpected
curve, a slow reaction time? She’s lucky she didn’t go head on with a tree.”

“Is she sober now?”

“Yes, she is.”

“What did Nana and Gramps think of her?”

“They didn’t like her at first. Or they didn’t like the fact that I was marrying her. But after the wedding, they were fine.
And after you were born, they were over the moon.”

Rowan taps the empty can on the patio table. “Were they happy when you sent her away?”

“No, they weren’t. I had to explain it to them. I mean, they knew, they could see it, but I talked to them anyway. I could
hardly avoid it. You and I were living with them at the time.”

“What was I like when I was born?”

Webster smiles. “Wrinkly. Red-faced. You had a pointed head.”

“I did?”

“All babies have pointed heads. The ones that are birthed naturally. And, boy, were you in a hurry. You were practically born
in the car.”

“I was?”

“I was all set to deliver you.”

“What did… my mother… think?”

“She wasn’t thinking anything, Rowan. She was in pain.”

“Is the pain really terrible?”

Webster tosses his cup into a wastebasket. “I think that’s another question for your mother.”

“I might have had brothers and sisters.”

Webster leans forward. “Rowan, honey, listen to me. You didn’t. OK? That’s your given. You didn’t have a mother most of your
life. That’s another given. You’ve been dealt that hand, and that’s what you play with. You can wish you had a different given,
but it won’t do you any good. People start feeling sorry for themselves, that’s pretty much the end of them.”

“What makes you know so much?”

Webster shrugs. “I don’t know so much. I know a lot about a few things. I know about raising a child from birth to seventeen.”

Rowan narrows her eyes. “You don’t know everything.”

There’s been enough conversation for one day, Webster decides.

“You have months, years, to digest this. The most important thing you have to do now is rest.”

“The most important thing I have to do is grow my hair,” she says.

W
ebster waits until the next day before reintroducing the subject of Sheila. Webster has alerted Sheila that the visit is likely
to happen in the morning. Tommy and Gina are scheduled to come later in the day. Webster has to make this happen in the morning,
if at all.

“So how are you doing today?” Webster asks when he walks in the door.

“Good,” she says. “They’re going to begin physical therapy for the shoulder, and they have to make sure I can walk a fair
distance without losing my balance. I can’t risk falling on the shoulder.”

Webster sits on the bed. He smiles.

“You didn’t notice they washed my hair.”

“I did notice. You look great.”

“I tried to figure out how to handle the bald spot.” On a hook on the back of her door is the hat Webster bought her. He went
to the campus store and asked a young woman if she knew what Rowan meant. The woman sent him to a boutique not far away that
sold the right kind of cap.

“Rowan, do you remember I asked if you’d be willing to meet your mother?”

“Yeah.”

“And have you thought about it?”

“I’d like to do it,” she says. “I’d like for you to be here, and I’d like to work out a prearranged signal with you for when
I want her to leave. You can go get a nurse and have her interrupt us, or something.”

“And what will the signal be?”

Rowan ponders possible codes. “I think I’ll just say, ‘I need a nurse.’ ”

Webster laughs. “That’s pretty straightforward.” He stands. “I’m not allowed to make phone calls in here. I have to go out
into the hallway. Be right back.”

“OK,” Rowan says. “Maybe you should get me my hat.”

Webster tosses it to her.

Ten minutes later, when Webster sees Sheila in the corridor, he says to his daughter, “She’s here, Rowan. Do you want me to
bring her in?”

“I’m scared,” Rowan says.

“So am I.”

Webster walks out into the corridor and signals to Sheila.