The Mill River Redemption (41 page)

“Claudia, it’s not what you think. There’s nothing going on—”

“That’s bullshit!” she yelled, and the tears began to flow. “Just tell me the truth. What was it about me that you didn’t like? Was I not pretty enough or funny enough? Was there not enough sex? Or did Emily just rock your world in some other way?” She was starting to feel nauseous. Her stomach wasn’t used to handling massive amounts of food, much less an overload of pure sugar and fat, and her emotional state did nothing to help.

“God, Claudia,” Kyle said. “How could you think something like that? I love you, and I thought you felt the same way about me.” He shook his head, and his brown eyes narrowed in anger. “After all this time we’ve been together, do you really not trust me at all?”

“Do you deny that you were at Emily’s today?”

“No. And, quite frankly, I can’t believe you were checking up on me.”

“I wasn’t,” she retorted. “I decided to drive past Rose’s house on my way home, to see the lawn vandalism you were talking about at the cookout, and there you were, coming out of Emily’s house. It didn’t look like you were there on police business, either.”

“I wasn’t,” he said, with the same harsh tone that she’d used, but he didn’t elaborate further.

Claudia raised her chin and tried to look determined. “Then I was right.”

“No, you’re not. In fact, you couldn’t be further from the truth,” Kyle snapped. He wheeled around and walked out through her front door, slamming it shut behind him.

With her stomach twisting uneasily, Claudia stood in her foyer long enough to hear him start his pickup before she ran for the bathroom. She barely made it in time to raise the toilet seat and
lean over the bowl. She gasped and sobbed in between heaves, feeling as if she were disgorging more than the contents of her stomach. It was almost as though the wonderful memories she’d made with Kyle and the happiness that had warmed her soul for the past several months were being ripped out, piece by piece.

When she was finally able to catch her breath, she flushed the toilet and sat back against the wall. Losing Kyle was too much to think about right now, too much for her aching heart and roiling stomach to handle. Feeling empty in every sense, she closed her eyes and tried not to think about anything at all.

“H
OW IS HE
?” E
MILY ASKED AS
I
VY CAME OUT OF
A
LEX
’
S HOSPITAL
room. While Alex was being moved to the pediatric critical care unit, she’d gone down to the cafeteria and brought back coffee and sandwiches for everyone. She was the only one who had yet to see Alex after his surgery, but she feared how Rose might react to her presence.

“Still heavily sedated,” Ivy said. “Kid, it’s scary how fragile he looks, the poor thing. Rose is holding up, but just barely, I think. It’ll be a good thing when Sheldon gets here.” She looked with interest at the tray of cups and sandwiches Emily held.

Father O’Brien approached them. “I just found out that there’s a Ronald McDonald House near the hospital. Since it looks like Alex will be here a while, I’ll call over a little later, once it’s open for the day, and see if there’s any space available for Rose and Sheldon. In the meantime, they also operate a family room for parents and relatives of sick children over on the fifth floor of the Baird Building. You can get cleaned up or even take a nap over there.”

“Thank you, Father,” Ivy said. “I hadn’t even thought about how long we might be here.”

“Anything I can do to help,” he said.

“I’m not sure Rose will want to leave Alex’s room, but she’ll need to rest at some point to keep her strength up,” Ivy said. “Em, we can take that tray and sit down out here if you want to go on in.”

“Sure,” Emily said. She handed the tray to Father O’Brien and then took a cup of coffee and a sandwich from it. Ivy leaned wearily on her cane and started walking toward the waiting area. The priest didn’t follow her aunt immediately, though. Instead, he turned to Emily with a thoughtful expression.

“Emily, do you remember the conversation we had yesterday? When I asked you whether you still loved your sister?” he asked in a quiet voice. When she nodded, he continued. “I think what’s happened to Alex has had a profound effect on Rose. And, I think that if there’s anything left of the love you once felt for her, she needs to know it, and feel it, now more than ever.”

Father O’Brien held her gaze for a moment longer before he headed in Ivy’s direction. Emily took a deep breath and quietly entered Alex’s room.

Rose was sitting in a chair at his bedside. One of her hands rested on Alex’s small arm, and her head was slumped forward until her chin nearly touched her chest. Emily tried to ease the heavy door closed, but the soft click of the latch startled her sister awake.

“It’s just me,” Emily said as Rose’s head snapped up. “I brought you some things from the cafeteria.” She approached slowly and handed Rose the cup and the foil-wrapped sandwich. “The coffee’s not great, but I figured it was better than nothing.”

“Thanks,” Rose said. She set the sandwich on a rolling table next to Alex’s bed and took a sip from the cup.

Emily stood staring at Alex. He was so still, other than the subtle rising and falling of his chest, and it was heart-wrenching to see his slight form connected by countless tubes and wires to so many monitors and other equipment surrounding the bed.

“Has there been any change?” Emily whispered.

Rose shook her head. “The doctors said there shouldn’t be while he’s sedated like this.”

“Do you know how long they’ll keep him this way?”

“At least a day, maybe more. It depends on what happens with the pressure on his brain.” Rose reached up to Alex’s face and gently stroked his cheek, then the bit of his forehead that wasn’t covered by the bandages.

Emily nodded, although Rose’s gaze didn’t leave Alex to notice it.

“I suppose Sheldon should be here soon, right?” She saw a tear slip from the corner of her sister’s eye and run down her cheek.

“Soon, I hope.”

Emily nodded again, feeling awkward and out of place. She took a few steps back and was about to make a quiet exit when Rose spoke again.

“I understand now,” she said. “What I took from you.”

Emily froze. Rose slowly turned her tearstained face and looked up at her.

“Alex is the most wonderful, precious thing in my life, just like Andy was in yours. If Alex doesn’t wake up, or even if he does and he’s not himself, it’ll be because of me. Just like Andy’s death was because of me.”

Emily felt her breathing becoming ragged as Rose’s words went straight into her middle, slicing into a hurt that remained deep inside her.

“I
was
drinking that day, during the afternoon, before Mom asked me to pick up Andy. I’d been sleeping for a few hours before she woke me up, so I figured I was okay to drive. A deer did jump out in front of us on the way home. I don’t know how fast we were going, but I didn’t react in time. It was almost like everything was in slow motion. I swerved to avoid the deer, and then the car was flying through the air. I honestly wasn’t sure whether the alcohol
affected my driving or not. I’m still not. But it might have. I was afraid of going to jail, and I didn’t admit anything after the accident. Why would I, when my blood alcohol level was normal when they tested it? Besides, the damage was done. There wasn’t anything I could do to change things, to bring Andy back. I just told myself over and over again that it was completely an accident, hoping I could convince myself of that.”

Emily was trembling as she listened to her sister. She was afraid of what she might say if she tried to speak. She wiped her tears with the heel of her hand and wrapped her arms around her middle.

“I knew, deep down, what I’d done,” Rose said, leaning forward to smooth the blanket covering Alex’s chest. “On some level, I knew I was responsible for Andy’s death and for messing up your life. But, I didn’t really acknowledge it. I pushed it away. For all these years, I’ve tried to ignore the guilt and go on with my life. I’ve been so selfish, and I never knew or even tried to understand how it must’ve been for you, losing someone you loved with everything in you.”

“You still don’t know how it feels, not really,” Emily whispered, looking at Alex.

“Maybe that’s true,” Rose admitted. “I can hardly think about the ‘what ifs’ with Alex. I’m not as strong as you are, Em. I don’t think I could survive losing him.”

“For Alex’s sake, I hope that’s not something you have to find out.” Emily turned and reached for the doorknob.

“Emily?”

She stopped, wanting desperately to leave the room and ignore her sister, but for reasons she couldn’t comprehend, she turned back to look at Rose.

“I am truly sorry for what I did to you. And to Andy. For all these years I refused to acknowledge it, and what I am. I’m … I’m an alcoholic. Probably have been since high school. It was always
easier to drink than deal with a problem, and then after the accident, it was the only way I could escape the guilt.” Rose’s body shook from the force of her sobs.

“It’s pathetic that it would have to come to this for you to admit anything,” Emily said. “You should’ve dealt with your drinking a long time ago.”

“You’re right,” Rose choked. “I should’ve asked Mom for help. A couple times, I almost did, but each time, I convinced myself that she’d compare me to her own mother and turn her back. I’ll always regret that I never reached out to her before she died. But, I did just ask Father O’Brien to help me get clean, because I want to be a better mom for Alex if … when he wakes up. He deserves that. Just like Sheldon deserves a better wife, and you deserve a better sister. So, I’m asking you whether you could find it in your heart to give me that chance. Is there any way you could forgive me for what I’ve done to you?”

Emily stared at Rose for a long, silent minute. “If I had been responsible for Alex’s accident,” she finally said, “would
you
be able to forgive
me
?”

Rose looked again at Alex. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “It would be hard, maybe impossible. I don’t think there would even be a chance of me forgiving anyone for something like that unless I loved the person who did it just as much.”

Does love really enable forgiveness, or does it make it harder? Maybe it does both
, Emily thought.

Memories began swirling through her head faster and faster. Rose, sitting next to her in the seat on the school bus, yelling at the fourth-grade bullies to shut up after they’d made fun of her red hair. Rose yanking hard on that same hair during a squabble as she’d pulled on her sister’s blonde hair at the same time. Rose reading to her at bedtime all those nights when their mother had been working late. She and Rose sitting in their room, both of them
covered in chicken pox and dabbing calamine lotion over the unreachable itchy welts on each other’s backs. Rose secretly and meticulously supergluing their mother’s favorite mug back together after the dishwasher incident. Rose “borrowing” her allowance money without asking so that Linx could pick up a six-pack after she’d snuck out the window. Rose teaching her how to put on eye makeup and telling her how it felt to kiss a boy. Rose sobbing and slurring on the phone while Emily had been trying to study for her college midterms. And after that Christmas visit when she’d finally brought Andy home to meet her family, Rose hugging her goodbye and whispering how happy it made her to know she’d found such a great guy.

When Emily closed her eyes, trying to make some sense out of the emotional vortex in which she was caught, it was Father O’Brien’s face that appeared in her head. “You were inseparable … you loved each other very much,” he’d said, and of course it was true. She had loved Rose, in spite of and because of their differences, through those years of arguments and tears before Rose had left home, and afterward, until Andy had died. The question now was whether any of that love remained. Father O’Brien’s quiet, ancient voice echoed deep within her, “If you still love her at all, you may not recognize it right now. But, I think you do, and that love is the key to forgiving her for what she did.”

The heavy door to the room suddenly swung open, and Sheldon burst in.

“Rose,” he said as he rushed past Emily toward her sister and Alex, and Rose stood up and fell into his arms. Emily caught the closing door and slipped outside. Her continued presence would be an intrusion, and she needed to be alone.

From Alex’s room, she hurried through empty hospital corridors. She encountered a door marked
STAFF EXIT
and pushed it open. The fresh air outside provided exquisite relief. The hospital
was so sterile and stifling, and her swirling emotions seemed hell-bent on squeezing the last bit of oxygen from her lungs.

There was a park bench a few yards from the door, and Emily sat down upon it. The sky was a clear midnight blue and filled with stars, so much like the night of her first date with Andy. After dinner, late in the evening, they’d gone back to campus and sat on the red granite bench in the Ross Commons Courtyard. He’d kissed her for the first time under these same stars, with the same cool night air caressing her face.

Later that spring, he’d surprised her with a weekend getaway in a cozy cottage at Branbury State Park. They had planned to hike to the Falls of Lana or up through Rattlesnake Cliffs, but in the end, it had been impossible to tear themselves apart long enough to get out of the cottage. And again, Emily remembered, there had been the crisp nighttime breeze, flowing through the open windows of the cabin as Andy had made love to her.

Their future plans had fallen into place so quickly after that. “You can teach while I finish school,” he’d told her as they had lounged together, his fingers drifting over the soft skin of her belly. “Once I start my own practice, we can get a house. Something old and beautiful for you to restore.”

“Something big enough for kids,” she’d said. “At least two or three.”

“At least,” he’d agreed, whispering the words against her mouth.

She’d dreamed of marrying Andy, having a family with him, nurturing and cherishing their children before sending them off into adulthood. Then, they would grow old together, playing with grandkids in that same house, watching the seasons change from its windows.