Blackout (15 page)

Her head hurt. Too many questions to answer. She threw the sketches on the bed and got up, stretching. She paced the small room, head bent, unable to stop thinking. The need to know more had become intolerable.

A knock on the door made her grab the sketches and slide them under the bed.

“Who is it?” Alice asked. She looked at the clock. Five thirty already.

“It’s Hannah. Donald’s here to see you.”

“Oh. I’ll be right there.” She went to the mirror to check her appearance, automatically picking up the comb and running it through her hair. A little color came to her cheeks as she thought about Donald. She removed her name tag from her shirt and debated with herself whether or not to put on her earrings, but decided not to bother.

Donald sat talking with Hannah at the kitchen table, a cup of coffee in front of him.

Alice smiled at him, feeling suddenly shy. He was so handsome. He grinned back at her, and a melting feeling overcame her, surprising her. Something about how she felt about him had changed.

“Hi,” he said. “Are you feeling up to a walk?”

Before Alice could reply, Hannah said, “I don’t think a walk is such a good idea right now.”

“I’m all right,” Alice said, frowning at Hannah. “I’d love to go for a walk.” She felt better with Donald. She hadn’t felt like this since she’d come to Hannah’s. Didn’t know she could feel this way.

Donald finished his coffee and stood up. Hannah looked at Alice with a worried expression but voiced no more objections.

They walked toward the park, Alice taking deep breaths of the fresh air, enjoying the sunshine.

“You sure you’re all right?” Donald asked.

“I’m fine,” she reassured him.

They reached the park and, without discussing it, went to the bench by the pond. The ducks all left the water and came waddling up, searching for crumbs. Alice wished they’d brought some as she settled close to Donald on the bench.

Donald took her hand. “I guess it must be harder than any of us thought it would be for you at Merry Hills,” he said, sounding apologetic. “There’s been a lot more going on since you started working there than usual.”

Were the old people helping to trigger her memory? The old people and the things happening at the nursing home?
Which is probably a good thing,
she thought.
Maybe if I’d just sat at Hannah’s I never would have remembered anything at all
.

“It’s all right, Donald. I have to work, and it seems like Merry Hills is the only possible place for me right now. I’ll be okay.”

“You’re sure?” He released Alice’s hand and shifted slightly away from her on the bench. She clasped her fingers together and nodded.

“How do you like Hannah?” he asked.

“She’s really nice. I don’t know what I’d do without her. Or you.”

He glanced away, appearing embarrassed. “But you won’t tell me anything about yourself. Is it so awful?”

Angrily, she stood up. “Everyone’s pushing me all the time. Can’t you leave it alone? Leave me alone?”

Donald looked wounded. He stood up and faced her. “Alice, I kinda like you, you know? So I’m curious. Is that a sin?”

The anger left as quickly as it had arrived. Everyone was trying to be nice to her, she knew that. But she was scared. Maybe someone or something from her past could reach out, grab her, and take her away from here where she felt safe. A sudden urge to hug Donald overcame her, but she pushed it away. What would he think of her if he knew some of what she remembered? She turned away from him and said, “I think we’d better go back to Hannah’s now.”

They had walked two blocks when they heard the wailing of a siren. Their steps quickened. It took them over five minutes to get to Hannah’s street, and as they rounded the corner, they saw an ambulance pulling out of Hannah’s driveway. They broke into a run. They dashed inside, and when they couldn’t find Hannah they ran back out.

“Get in the car!” Donald yelled as he fumbled for his keys.

Alice had no sooner slammed her door shut than he took off, tires squealing.

The sound of the siren faded in the distance. Donald drove faster than Alice had ever seen him. “They must be taking her to Sacramento General,” he said, rounding a curve so Alice had to grab the door handle. “Everyone from Valleyview goes there. Something about all the doctors in town being affiliated.”

“What could have happened to her?” Alice asked, her voice high with tension.

“If they’re using the siren, she’s still alive. I’ll get us there as quick as I can.”

Alice nodded and stared at the road ahead, the sound of the siren echoing in her mind. And suddenly, as if watching a movie, she remembered some of what led up to the crash. The crash that happened just before Donald found her on the side of the road. She had been with her father. They’d been running away together. Running away from some horror.

She closed her eyes and let herself remember. Her father starting up the old Chevy truck in the farmyard. Peeling out of the driveway, gravel spattering on the fenders. She’d clung to the door handle, as she did now, while they rocked from side to side on the dirt road out to the highway.

Alice had stared out the side window, holding her eyes wide so her tears would not fall. She’d learned that trick a long time ago. Finally, she couldn’t hold back any longer, and the crying started. Her father patted her arm. “It’s going to be all right,” he said. “It’ll be okay.”

They drove until dark, then her father stopped at a motel, telling her to hide under the dash. He checked in, then snuck her into the room. While he went out to get hamburgers, she took a shower. It helped to ease some the aches she hadn’t realized she had.

When her father came in with the burgers, her hunger surprised her. After they had finished eating, she asked, “What are we going to do?”

“Keep driving,” he told her. “Get as far away from here as we can. You need to stay hidden because they’ll be searching for a man with a young girl. I’ll have to get work soon. Don’t have much money left. And we’ll have to get rid of the pickup—get another one.”

Timidly, she asked, “What would happen if we called the police?”

“With my record, Lissy, they’d put me in jail for the rest of my life.” He shuddered.

“But I could tell them—”

“It wouldn’t work. They’d think you were covering for me.”

“But I’d tell the truth. They’d have to listen,” she pleaded.

“Lissy, you’re only seventeen, and you think the world should work that way, but it doesn’t. I’m sorry. We’ll have to do it my way. Now, you lie down and rest. Get some sleep. I need to watch the ten o’clock news.”

He turned on the television as she got into the kingsize bed. She wanted to watch the news with him, but she fell asleep during the first commercial.

It took most of the next day to find a used-car-lot owner who would buy the pickup without a title. He gave her father less than half what it was worth, but he didn’t argue with the man.

They went to the bus station and her father bought tickets to the next big city. They got on the bus separately and sat apart as if they didn’t know each other. When they arrived, her father bought another old, battered pickup with the seat belts torn out and the floorboards worn completely away in places. “Instant air conditioning,” he joked feebly. “At least the radio works.” Indeed it did—all six speakers, too. He drove all night.

The longer they traveled, the more her father seemed to relax. Alice began to feel less tense also. They were eating breakfast at an IHOP when the man came in to change the newspapers in the dispensers.

Her father’s picture stared out at them from the front page.

Before she had time to read any of the text, he slammed some money down on the table and grabbed Alice’s wrist, pulling her out of the booth.

They rushed to the truck and took off again.

Alice wondered if they’d ever stop running. Driving all night, they only stopped at rest areas to buy snacks from machines and to use the facilities.

They both saw the flashing lights in the mirrors at the same time. Her father glanced at the speedometer. “Not going over.” His hands tensed on the wheel, and he stomped on the gas. Alice’s head snapped back and she looked behind them. The police car’s lights blinded her. “Hold on,” her father yelled. They seemed to be flying. She had never gone so fast before in her life. Trees and poles rushed past them in a blur. A truck whined by going the other way. She gripped the door handle as hard as she could.

“Please, Lord, please,” she pleaded, not knowing for what, exactly.

The curve ahead didn’t appear to be too bad, but as they were driving into it, the truck skidded. Her father managed to keep going. “Damn,” he muttered as Alice’s hand tightened on the door handle.

Suddenly, the curve veered in the other direction. But the truck kept traveling straight ahead.

A tree loomed, its branches swaying, seeming to wave at them. Alice squeezed her eyes shut. The impact knocked her breath away and buckled the door. Holding tight to the handle, she went flying out when it opened, the handle torn from her grasp by the impact.

Then she was tumbling, tumbling down a hill. Instinctively, she kept her chin tucked as close as she could to her chest and tried to cover her head with her arms. She bounced between bushes and trees, and she tasted blood where she bit her tongue. The fall seemed to last forever.

Suddenly, she stopped. Silence surrounded her, and darkness. Her ears buzzed; her head hurt. Her eyes closed as she lost consciousness.

“We’re almost there,” Donald said.

Alice opened her eyes, surprised to find herself in Donald’s VW, stopped at a stoplight on a busy street in Sacramento.

What had happened to her father in the crash? A wrenching pain raced through her body, doubling her over. She didn’t know if he was dead or alive. And if alive, he didn’t know what had happened to her.

“What’s wrong?” Donald’s voice sounded alarmed.

Alice held tightly to her stomach, gasping for breath. She couldn’t speak.

Donald wrenched the wheel to the right and pulled into a No Parking zone. “Alice, what’s wrong with you? Are you sick?”

She shook her head at him. The pain eased up a moment but racked her again when she realized she still didn’t know her name. Or her father’s. How would she ever find him? She felt the blood rushing away from her head. I won’t pass out, she told herself.
I’ve got to face this, and we need to get to Hannah
.

Finally, she could speak. “Please, Donald. Get us to the hospital. We have to find out about Hannah. I’m okay. I remembered something, that’s all. I’ll be all right.” She gulped in as much air as she could, willing herself to calm down.

By the time they arrived at the hospital emergency entrance, she had control of herself. Donald parked and they rushed inside. Chaos greeted them. People lay on gurneys in the hallway, some of them moaning. Nurses hurried about, charts, stethoscopes, and thermometers in hand. Two policemen stood at the admitting desk, sipping coffee and talking to a nurse. Donald tried to get her attention, but she turned away before he could. He finally got the notice of an admitting clerk to ask about Hannah.

“Sorry,” she said. “They brought in most of these people from a five-car pileup. We haven’t gotten everyone sorted out yet. What did you say the patient’s name is?”

“No, you don’t understand. She wasn’t in a wreck. They brought her from home. We got to her house as the ambulance left, and we don’t even know what’s wrong with her. Her name’s Hannah Winston.”

“I’ll see what I can find out.” The clerk pushed a stray strand of hair away from her eyes and went toward the back.

Donald sighed and jiggled his keys. Alice took his arm, and they sat down in some molded plastic chairs, the most uncomfortable thing Alice had ever sat in.

Good
, she told herself.
Think about how bad the chairs are, watch the people—lots of strange people—do anything so you don’t have to think about Dad or Hannah.

Finally the clerk came back and motioned to them.

“Looks like she broke her hip. They’re going to take some x-rays in a little while. You can come sit with her until they do.”

Alice sagged against Donald with relief. A broken bone wasn’t so bad.

The clerk led them past rooms with patients in various degrees of distress. Alice looked quickly away when she saw a young girl moaning, her face covered with dried blood. In the next room a man vomited, the stench floating out into the hallway. The clerk quickened her pace and finally they arrived where Hannah lay quietly on a treatment table. The room smelled of adhesive tape and starched linen. Hannah’s face looked gray against the white pillowcase. They stared at each other a moment. Someone down the hall coughed, and the clerk said, “I’ve got to go back to my desk.”

Alice rushed to Hannah. Afraid to touch her, she just stood there.

Donald went around to the other side of the table. “You doing okay?” He took her hand.

Alice quickly grabbed the other one. “What happened?” Her voice trembled.

“How’d you find me?” Hannah asked. She smiled a little smile, as if at a small miracle.

Donald said, “We saw the ambulance leave the driveway. Checked inside the house, found you gone, and took off after it. What happened?”

Hannah shifted slightly on the table, then winced as Alice squeezed her hand. “I must have slipped on something and went down on my hip. The doctor’s says it’s probably broken. He said if it is, they’ll have to admit me. Gave me something for the pain, but I can still feel it.” She closed her eyes a moment as if the speech had been too much for her.

A commotion at the door made them all turn. A technician wheeled in a large x-ray machine, saying, “Sorry, folks. You’ll have to go to the waiting area now. Need to take this lovely lady’s picture.”

Donald and Alice left the room. While they waited, Alice found her thoughts returning to her father. She knew what he looked like. Tall, lean, gray eyes, salt-and-pepper hair. Almost handsome, but the skin had a funny pallor, and the eyes, haunted.

He’d called her Lissy. But the name didn’t seem right. Alice was closer, but she knew that wasn’t quite it, either.