Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Sawyer
WE DRIVE TO West Lake in Jake’s truck, Hattie sitting up on the seat between us, taking in our surroundings with the kind of joyous expression that makes Labs such wonderful companions.
I reach over to rub under her chin. She gives me an affectionate lick on the back of my hand. “She enjoys every moment of the day, doesn’t she?”
“She does,” Jake agrees. “That’s how she sees life. It’s an adventure one day to the next, and she can’t wait to see the next thing we do together. It doesn’t matter whether the sun is shining, or it’s an overcast rainy day, she still sees plenty to enjoy.”
“Dogs could give humans a lesson on that, couldn’t they?”
“We could all learn a lot from Hattie.”
We drive to the hardware store between West Lake and Hales Ford Bridge.
It takes us forty minutes or so to get there, and we ride with the windows down, country music playing on the AM radio.
Jake parks near the front of the store, and we go inside, Hattie trotting between us on a leash.
The employees there know her. A woman from the customer service desk walks up and gives her a treat, for which Hattie thanks her with an appreciative tail wag, chewing happily as we head for the lumber department.
Jake talks with the young man working there, telling him the number of boards and sizes we’ll need to repair the dock. Once I’ve paid for the stack, we pull around back to the loading door, where two employees neatly arrange the boards in the back of Jake’s truck.
“You may regret signing on for this,” I say, glancing at the substantial pile of wood behind us as we pull away from the hardware store. “It will take a while to replace all of those.”
“That’s okay,” Jake says. “I don’t mind. We can do a little every day until it’s done.”
“I appreciate everything you’ve done to help me out. It’s above and beyond the call of duty. I don’t know how I’ll pay you back.”
“No payback needed,” he says.
We head up 122, turn left a couple of miles out and end up on 834, the road that will take us back to Route 40. The road is two lanes and not very wide given the amount of traffic these days.
A rectangular white box truck pulls out from a side road just ahead. Jake hits the brakes, and the boards in the back slam forward. Hattie glances at Jake with a worried expression just as she’s thrown from her seat onto the floorboard. I reach down and help her up.
“Sorry, girl,” he says, rubbing her head. “We almost hit that guy. Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m fine. Did he not see us?”
“I don’t know,” Jake says, shaking his head and hanging back from the truck which is now weaving back and forth against the solid yellow line on the road.
“Do you think the driver is drunk?”
“Early in the day but could be.”
We watch in silence for another minute from a safe distance. The truck drives straight for fifteen or twenty seconds and then begins to veer again, jerking back into his lane.
“Should we call 911?” I say, glancing at Jake.
“Yeah,” he says, “This looks like something that might end badly.”
Just then another car comes around the corner, and the truck veers into the driver’s lane. The car hits its horn, shrieking past the truck, barely missing it.
I tap 911 on my phone, telling the operator who answers what we’ve just witnessed, hardly able to keep the urgency from my voice.
“Can you tell me your exact location, ma’am?”
Jake gives me the road names, and I relay them as calmly as I can.
“I’ll alert any deputies in the area,” she says.
“Thank you so much,” I say and end the call.
“I don’t want to get too close to him, but maybe I should try to go around and head him off?”
“That seems dangerous,” I say.
“Yeah,” he agrees. He starts to blow the horn then, pulling up closer behind the truck to get the driver’s attention.
Just then, there’s another bend in the road ahead. We’re far enough back that I can see the car coming, a small white sedan.
My stomach drops as I feel what is about to happen even as we are unable to stop it.
“Jake! Watch out!”
The truck veers sharply into the other driver’s lane. The car attempts to avoid it, but it’s too late, and the truck hits it head on.
There’s a loud boom announcing the impact of the truck with the car. Jake slams on the brakes, and we slide to a screeching halt.
This time, I have my arms wrapped around Hattie, holding her tight against me so that she doesn’t fly into the dashboard.
Jake pulls the truck over, and we both jump out, leaving Hattie inside.
I dread what we’re about to see. I hang back a bit, fear washing over me in a tidal wave.
Jake disappears around the back of the box truck, and I stand for a moment until the feeling of cowardice shames me into motion.
I force myself to walk and then run. But what I see brings me to a halt.
I gasp. The entire front left side of the sedan is under the enormous truck.
I instantly know the driver could not have survived this impact. I stand staring at the wreckage, frozen in both body and mind. Jake is at the back door of the car, peering inside.
His voice is ragged when he says, “There’s a little girl in the backseat.”
I make my feet move, but they won’t respond to the command from my brain.
“Sawyer,” Jake calls out again. This time, I literally hurl myself forward, running now to the back of the car and willing myself not to think about anything beyond what I can do to help. “Is she—”
“It looks like she’s unconscious,” Jake says. “Here, let’s get the door open. It’s locked.”
Jake looks around for something to break the back window.
He grabs a rock from the nearby ditch. The child is on the other side of the back seat, and he taps the glass with the rock, then gives it a forcible crack.
It breaks, and he reaches in to unlock the door, but it doesn’t open.
Jake lifts and pulls on the latch until it gives.
The girl, five years old or so, in a booster seat, is still strapped into her seatbelt.
Her head droops to one side, and blood trickles from her nose.
I force myself to look at the front of the car, where the impact was so great, crushing the front of the vehicle into the driver’s space.
There’s a woman in the seat, but she’s clearly not alive.
Jake meets my stricken gaze, and I fight back a wave of nausea.
“Should we try to get the child out?” he asks, looking at me with an edge to his voice. “The car could catch on fire or—”
I struggle to think clearly. “Can you lift her out but keep her inside the car seat?”
“I’ll try,” he says. He slides across the backseat, unsnapping her seatbelt.
He tries to lift the car seat, but the top left edge is stuck under a piece of the car’s door molding.
Jake tugs and pulls until he is finally able to free the seat, lifting the child up onto his lap, and then sliding back from the car. He stands, still holding her inside the seat and tight against him, looking at me. “What should we do?”
“Let’s get her over on that bank of grass, off the road.”
Just then a small red pickup truck pulls up. A man in a Franklin County Eagles baseball cap and overalls jumps out and runs toward us.
“Oh, my gosh,” he says, looking horrified. “Is that Ava’s car?”
“I don’t know who it is,” I say. “We were behind the truck when it had a head-on with this vehicle.”
He glances at the child in Jake’s arms, and tears begin to slide down his face. “That’s Ava Miller. This is her granddaughter, Hannah. She takes her to preschool every morning. Where’s Ava?”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “The car was crushed—” I can’t finish the sentence, and I know he doesn’t need me to.
His gaze now hangs on the vehicle wedged under the front of the box truck, and a look of profound sadness descends over him.
I feel the depth of it, and I’m flung back to the hospital in New York and the patient faces imprinted on my memory.
Sadness engulfs me just as Jake says, “Sawyer, we have to help her. Come on.”
He sets the seat in the grass. I drop down onto my knees, pressing my fingers against her wrist pulse. I feel nothing.
“She’s not breathing,” I say. And then I let my instincts take over from there, thinking what I would do if I were in the ER, if this child were brought to me there. I feel for a pulse. There isn’t one.
“Can you get her out of the seat, Jake?”
He struggles with the snap on the belt holding her in the seat. As soon as it loosens, he gently lifts her and places her on the grass. I begin to work as hard as I know how, as hard as I ever have, something frantic inside me screaming, “You can’t lose her. You can’t lose her.”
And I won’t. I work without conscious thought, determined to breathe life back into this child.
I hear Jake say he’s going to check on the driver of the truck.
I keep working until the child coughs and gasps for air.
Her eyes flutter open. And she looks at me, her voice quivering when she says, “Grandma. Where’s my grandma? ”
My heart drops, and I feel the blood leave my face.
The horror of what has happened here is beyond anything I can imagine a child this age having to process.
I block her view of the wreckage with my body.
“You’re okay, Hannah. I’m a doctor, and you’ve been in a car accident, but the ambulance will be here soon, and they’ll get you to the hospital to be checked out. ”
Her lips part, a question in her eyes. But before she can form the words, they flutter closed again.
Jake is back. I look up, remembering the truck’s driver.
Jake shakes his head, somber. Grief again descends over me, and I pray the paramedics will be here soon.
Maybe it’s better that the child isn’t aware of her surroundings at this point.
What has happened is too terrible for words.
Jake puts a hand on my shoulder, squeezes hard. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah,” I say.
“You saved her life.”
I glance at the car behind us, my stomach lurching again at what has happened to this child’s grandmother.
We meet eyes, and I see that he is feeling everything I’m feeling. There aren’t any words to put to it to make it more real than it is. He takes my hand, links his fingers through mine, pressing hard, as if he knows I need this connection. “I know,” he says. “I know.”