Page 64 of Lightning in a Mason Jar
“I called him a couple of weeks ago,” Keith confessed, each word growing more and more breathless. “It was my birthday. I gathered up all the change in the house and I went to a pay phone. I called directory assistance for his number and I dialed it.” His eyes were huge. Pained. He scrubbed his hand over his chest, as if there were an ache too big to soothe. “I did this to Mom. To Russell.”
Keith hung his head, gasping for air, panic and guilt coming off him in waves. To the receptionist checking in patients, he looked like a son worried about his mother.
And he was, of course. But there was so much more to it than that. The poor kid.
“Okay,” I said, rubbing my palm along his back, “take deep breaths. Slowly.”
I needed the reminder as much as he did. How had Libby and I grown so complacent that we hadn’t seen something like this coming?
Keith turned to look at me, the nightmare still fresh in his eyes. “I didn’t give him the address. I swear. But I forgot that the pay phone call might be traced through his telephone carrier when he got his bill. Or maybe I let something else slip. I don’t know anything other than it’s my fault.”
We’d been so careful to keep our location a secret. I’d worried about the new girl giving us away, but the leak had been closer to home. I couldn’t bring myself to blame Keith, though. The weight of our secretswas tough enough for an adult to carry. I should have thought more about the burden for a child. People said kids were resilient.
I wasn’t so sure about that.
For now, I needed to focus on talking this through with the teen who’d just seen his father die and now was worried about losing his mother. “You’re right that was a mistake, and it’s one you’ll carry with you.” Saying otherwise would discredit anything else I told him, and he needed to understand the importance of security in the future. “But it has to be a secret that remains between us. Forever. Because sharing it with the rest of the world out of some need for forgiveness will only put more people at risk. Including your mother.”
After tonight, with the body in the barn, there was no going back.
Keith scratched his jaw, scrubbing along the peach fuzz. “I didn’t think of that.”
Now came the reassuring, sympathetic part he deserved to hear. “Life hasn’t been fair to you, Keith.” I still remembered him from the first day so long ago, a small child losing himself in his shiny red View-Master. “You’ve had to grow up fast more than once, and today is the biggest of those times.”
“As long as my mom and Russell are okay, nothing else matters to me.”
I squeezed my eyes closed to will back tears before continuing, “I owe you an apology for something I said to you not too long after you arrived in Bent Oak. I’m sorry for telling you that dragons aren’t real.”
He nudged my foot with his toe, then patted my knee in one of those rare teenage shows of affection. “It’s okay. I like the world better your way, where there are people who fight back.”
I struggled for what to say. I wasn’t at my best. But my heart ached for the frightened boy he’d been and the troubled teen he’d become.
The double doors from the exam area swished open, pushing aside all other thoughts from my mind as a doctor walked out in his scrubs that matched ours. A random thought. But my mind was pinballing out of control.
“Family of Russell Davis?” the doctor called.
I didn’t hesitate. I stood. “That’s me.”
A flicker of confusion whispered through the physician’s eyes before his face shifted into professional neutrality, but I didn’t have time to educate him about interracial relationships, so I opted to cut straight to the chase. “I’m Mr. Davis’s fiancée.”
I rested my right hand over my left to hide the bare finger that should have been sporting Annette’s ring, a regret I would face later, provided Russell and I would have a later.
“Of course,” the doctor said, then nodded toward the nurse standing behind him with a clipboard. “We need a relative to sign the surgical consent forms.”
“Surgery?” My voice quavered. In my mind, I could hear false medical advice from my former husband, and I felt sick. “He doesn’t have any living relatives.”
“All right.” He exhaled, taking a seat and waiting for me to sit as well. “Mr. Davis is still unconscious, and we can’t wait for him to regain consciousness. We need to stop the internal bleeding and repair the damage to his lung before we can set the broken collarbone. I wish I had better news or more time to answer the questions I know you must have. But I need to scrub in while you fill out the paperwork.”
“Thank you,” I said, standing, trying not to assume this man who held Russell’s life in his hands might be like Phillip.
“I’m going to do my best for him, ma’am.” He patted me on the shoulder before he disappeared back through the double doors.
My legs folded, and I couldn’t breathe. I thought I might be having a heart attack, because my chest felt so tight. I leaned over to put my head between my knees.
I felt a hand on my back and saw the nurse’s shoes as she crouched beside me. “Breathe in, breathe out, slowly. Smell the flowers. Blow out the candle. Smell the flowers. Blow out the candle.”
She continued chanting until the dizziness eased and my breathing slowed. I hadn’t felt this out of control since I lost my child. I’d survivedthat, barely, but would I be able to withstand another blow? The fear of losing my world—losing Russell—leveled me when he needed me to be strong.
I squeezed my eyes closed and straightened with another deep inhale. “Okay, let’s fill out those papers.”
