All For Anna (24 page)

“Is something wrong,
Tori? You sound different tonight… did something happen?”

I thought for a second.
“Can you ask me again tomorrow?”

There was a long pause
on the other end. I wasn’t trying to push him away, but I couldn’t talk right
now. I was too raw.

“I promise you I will,
but I need to know you’re safe tonight before I can hang up.”

“I’m safe,” I said
softly.

Safe.

Such a simple word…such
a complex meaning.

Another pause

“Okay. I get off at
noon. I’ll call you. Goodnight,
Pele
. Sleep well.”

“Goodnight,” I said.

I looked at the dark
phone in my hand—thinking.

Why haven’t I ever
thought about the man who called 911 after hearing the collision? Or those who
were dispatched to the scene that night?

I knew I had
purposefully kept myself from thinking about the EMT who had carried Anna’s
body to the stretcher—knowing she wouldn’t wake up. I was glad I couldn’t
remember the faces from that night. It was easier that way. I didn’t want to
know if there were others who were tormented with memories from the night Anna
died.

Sorrow was not
something I wanted to share.

I could hardly deal
with it on my own.

I stood outside the
door to Mallory’s hospital room and took a deep breath. I had tossed and turned
all night thinking of this little girl, hoping she wasn’t in too much
post-surgery pain. I tightened my grip on the gift bag in my left hand, and
knocked. Instantly it was met with a greeting to enter.

Just. Keep. Breathing.

I walked into the room
and saw her sweet face. Her smile was bright and eager—welcoming. The full-length
cast and sling that now adorned her small frame caught my eye. From her left
shoulder to wrist, she was positively bombproof.

“You came!” Mallory
said.

“I promised, didn’t I?
I never break my promises…especially to cute little lady bugs about to have
surgery,” I said smiling.

Mr. Brown updated me on
Mallory’s prognosis and the care she’d received so far. It was extremely rare
for me to see a patient once they left the ER, but so far nearly everything
about my experience with Mallory was that way. I walked over to her bedside and
handed her the gift bag as I picked up the marker and signed my name on her
cast.

 She squealed in
delight at the sight of the present. With her free hand she carefully pulled
out the sparkle tissue paper. I held the bag steady as she reached inside to
take out the bug habitat and magnifying glass. She placed each on her lap,
looking at them with wonder.

“This is the best gift
ever,” she said smiling.

“I hope you can go on
many bug hunting adventures as soon as you’re feeling better. I’m sure you have
some friends who will hunt with you,” I said.

“Definitely, thank you,
Miss Tori,” she said reaching out her hand to me.

“You’re very welcome,”
I said.

As I gave her my hand
she tugged on it, bringing me closer. She leaned in as if to tell me a secret.
It was then I felt my body weaken.

“I want to be a nurse
just like you when I grow up,” she whispered, “I want to help people.”

And then it was all too
much: the touching, the nearness, the whisper, the smile. I had to get out. I
had to get out…
now
.

With each passing
second, my body relinquished control to the tidal wave of panic that was
threatening to consume it. It was all I could do to smile as I let her hand
drop from mine. I muttered a weak goodbye to them both, and then I was outside
of her room, floating down the hall in a sea of colorful blurs.

**********

I don’t remember
getting on the elevator, or pressing the button for the 6
^th
floor,
but soon I was there. As I walked toward her door, I fought to take in one full
breath. Everything felt so tight: my skin, my chest, my airway. There was
nothing in my body that seemed to function without a direct command.

I could see her just on
the other side of the couch room. Her door was ajar as she wrote in a file on
her desk. She looked up as if she sensed me and stood immediately.

“Victoria? Come in—come
sit,” Dr. Crane said, ushering me into her office and closing the door behind
me.

“I know we don’t have
an appointment, I just...I just-”

“Slow down, its fine. I
was just about to take a lunch break; I don’t have any appointments right now.
Please, sit. Tell me what’s going on?” The kindness in her eyes broke me. I
told her.

I told her
everything
. 

I told her about
Mallory.

I told her how she had
reached for me, how she had talked to me, how she had wanted me with her before
surgery. All the while Dr. Crane nodded, saying nothing in return. I went on. 

“She…reminded me so
much of
her
,” I said, refusing to say her name, though I didn’t know
why.

“And what about Mallory
reminded you of Anna?” Dr. Crane asked.

I stared at her, lost
in the depths of my memories.

“Her hair, her age, her
size…”

“And what do you feel?”
she asked me.

“What?”

“Connect this event
with Mallory to a feeling…what do you
feel
?”

What do I feel?

I took several deep
breaths as I searched for the answer to that.

“I feel…
sad
,” I
said. With that admission I bent forward at the waist and let my head fall into
my hands.

“And why does seeing
Mallory make you sad, Tori?”

If her voice hadn’t
been so soft when she asked it, I would have laughed at the obvious connotation
of her question. But…it wasn’t the obvious she was after. She expected
something different than the obvious, something more.

I pushed at my temples
with my fingertips.

“Because I can’t
pretend anymore that Anna wasn’t real.”

Thinking about how Anna
had lived prior to that horrible night was just something I didn’t do—something
I couldn’t do. Sometime during this last year, she had become almost like a
fictional character to me. Though I knew she had been real, I had never
known
her alive. I may have seen her, touched her, held her in my arms…but there was
no
life
to recall from those memories.

But Mallory was alive,
and she was a living, breathing contrast of a girl I had remembered—the girl
who was gone forever.

The couch cushion
shifted next to me. I could feel new warmth at my side, though she didn’t touch
me.

 “In order to accept
Anna’s death, you must first accept her life—she
was
real, just like
Mallory is. Accepting that…is taking one giant step away from the land of
denial.”

I looked up at her
face.

“How will I know when
I’ve accepted it?” I asked.

A faint smile crossed
her lips, “When you stop looking for someone to blame—in this case, yourself.”

Dr. Crane stood up and
grabbed a water bottle out of the mini fridge next to her desk. She offered it
to me.

“You’ve shown
tremendous progress today, Victoria. Not only did you connect to a person, but
you connected to a
feeling
, one that is crucial to your recovery. Don’t
let that go unnoticed.”

I rolled the water
bottle in my hands back and forth. This didn’t feel like progress, it felt
awful.
Feeling
was awful, but I wanted to believe she was right. She
pulled her chair up and sat down across from me.

“I want you to think
about how you would have responded if you had met Mallory in Phoenix.”

I nodded slightly. She
knew I would have run. So did I.

“Today, you chose to come
here. You shared, you felt, you experienced, but I think there’s something else
you should process in regard to all this. You now know a little girl who thinks
the world of you—who wants to be like you because of how you cared for her. If
you’re going to let your mind play the comparison game between Anna and
Mallory, then I want you to imagine what Anna would have thought about
you
.
If she could have known you were trying to save her life, what would she have
thought? Be fair to yourself, you need to bring that comparison full circle.”

The tightening in my
chest was back. The air was pressed out of my lungs in one hard exhale as I
leaned against the stiff leather sofa. Though she had spoken the words so
gently, they had cut me deep.

Would Anna have felt
for me what Mallory claims to?

**********

On the way home I took
a detour. I passed the bridge on Elm where I had met Kai a few days ago, and
pulled into the parking lot by the playground. I zipped up my hoodie as the wind
blew against my face. I walked the path to the giant tree and sat against it,
bringing my knees to my chest. Leaning my head back to rest against the rough
bark, I closed my eyes.

 What if Anna could
have known I was trying to save her?

I thought again of
Mallory: her bright smile, her sweet laugh, her gentle spirit.

The truth was, there
was so much I would never know. Dwelling on the impossible seemed useless. I
stared out into the field as the strong breeze rustled the leaves and stung my
eyes with its force. I inhaled deeply.

The cool, crisp air filled
my lungs over and over.

I love you, Victoria.

The words floated
through my mind like a whisper on the wind.

I looked around…no one.
Goosebumps prickled my skin.

Then, unmistakably, I
heard it again.

This time the words
thundered in my chest. I looked up.

I love you, Victoria.

Why?

You are mine.

I was still—silent, too
scared to move. It was too much to believe that God could be speaking to me, or
moreover, that God would
want
to speak to me.

The crunching of leaves
snapped my head to the left. I was eye level with large black boots. I tilted
my head upward and found a familiar face staring down at me.

“Hey there,” Kai said
sweetly.

“Hi.” I raised my hand
to him as he pulled me up, steadying me on the uneven ground.

“Hope I’m not
interrupting anything,” he said.

“Nope, not at all. How
did you find me out here?” I asked.

“Easy, your car’s
pretty visible from the road. I was just on my way home from the station.”

I took in his uniform;
he was a sight to behold, no doubt about that. I had never understood why women
went gaga over men in uniform—until I met Kai. I was willing to bet he could
make anything look good, though.

“I’ve been worried
about you,
Pele
. What happened last night?”

Apparently, he didn’t
forget anything, either.

I leaned back against
the tree as he moved toward me. I didn’t know if I would be able to articulate much
of anything if he remained so close to me. I took a deep breath trying to focus.

“I took care of a
little girl last night and I went back to see her this morning…”

I looked away from his
eyes to stare off into the distance, letting my mind escape. It hurt too much
to say the words. Even if I convinced myself I could trust him with this—with
talking about Anna—that fact alone could only cushion the pain so much.

I felt his hand under
my chin as he gently turned my face back to him. He searched my eyes.

“Don’t go away, Tori.
Stay here with me, please.
Talk
to me.”

I stared into his eyes.
His look was not one of pity, instead it was…
empathy
?

“She reminded me…of
Anna—of what I thought she would have been like. She asked me to stay with her,
Kai. She held my hand and wouldn’t let it go. She made me…
feel
.”

My last word was so
full of emotion that it was hardly audible. Though I had no tears to cry, there
was an unrelenting burn behind my eyes.

Without further
comment, Kai pulled me into his arms and held me. I exhaled as I let my body
relax into him. When had this gesture become so comforting? I didn’t know, but
I did know that in his arms I had found my safe haven.

After a moment he
pulled away slightly, looking down at me. Slowly, he tilted my chin again and
lowered his lips to mine, claiming my mouth and my heart simultaneously. When our
kiss ended, he exhaled.