One Mountain Away (21 page)

“What do you think I should say? ‘Hey, Mom, I’m pregnant, and I’m not married. Can I come home?’”

Harmony hadn’t said this with anger, she’d said it as if she really wondered.

“From everything you’ve told me, I don’t think going home’s an option,” Charlotte said carefully. “But I also suspect you miss her.”

“I hate that she’s there with
him
. I hate that she doesn’t know she’s going to be a grandmother.”

“You’ll know what’s best for you and your baby. And you know best how the news will be greeted. I just didn’t want money to stop you.”

“Having money’s important, isn’t it?”

Charlotte knew everything in the house showed how important she had believed it to be. “Having enough so you don’t have to worry about every penny’s important. I remember what it felt like when I didn’t. I remember all those years when a long-distance phone call was as elusive as a mink coat.”

“It’s going to be more important with a baby. I see that.”

“So much to balance, right?”

“Right.” Harmony smiled, but as if she’d been forced to excavate it from someplace deep inside her. “I’m working on it.”

“And you’re going to figure it all out.”

Harmony looked down at her plate as if the secrets of the universe could be found there. “What do you have planned for your day?”

Charlotte knew a change of subject when she heard one. “I thought I’d hit the pet store for kibble and those rawhide treats Velvet’s so fond of.”

“You really love that store.”

Charlotte also loved the fact that the store wasn’t far from the park where Maddie went to play. If Maddie were there today, Charlotte wasn’t going to stay and watch, but she did hope her granddaughter’s condition had improved enough that she was able to go again. She just needed to know.

“I’ll be back in an hour or two,” she told Harmony. “You don’t have to stay if you have things to do. Nell will be in for a little while this morning, and she’ll call me if Velvet starts acting like her litter’s on the way.” Nell was her part-time housekeeper, who thankfully loved dogs.

“Glenda’s car is toast, and she’s riding her bike everywhere until she can pay for the repairs. I told her I’d pick up her things and bring them here while she’s at work. She’s moving in tonight, and she’ll stay with us until the pups are born, just in case.”

Harmony had brought Glenda by earlier in the week to meet Velvet. The girl had buzz-cut hair dyed an incongruous blue, and tattoos of snakes winding up both arms, but she was politely soft-spoken, and her eyes, behind octagonal ruby-rimmed glasses, sparkled with humor. Best of all, Velvet had adored her from first sniff.

As Charlotte rose to clear her place, she told Harmony how great the meal had been.

Harmony looked skeptical. “You don’t have much of an appetite. You’re not trying to lose weight, are you? You’re already kind of thin.”

Charlotte was afraid to weigh herself and see. She’d been ordered to gain weight, but she’d lost her appetite during chemo, and it had never returned.

“I’m not on a diet,” Charlotte assured her. “And I’m sure you’re going to fatten me up. I just don’t eat a lot at one sitting.”

“These’ll heat up great, only you shouldn’t use the microwave. Use the stove. You don’t want deadly radiation pinging all over the house.”

Charlotte tried hard to sound concerned. “I certainly don’t.”

“No, I’m serious. I read an article about it, or somebody told me, I can’t remember which. But I never use your microwave. I don’t take any chances.”

“You’re doing a wonderful job of cooking without one.” Charlotte was moving a little slower than usual. She hadn’t slept well last night, and for the past two days she’d been achy right down to her bones, as well as chilled. She hoped the warmer weather on its way would help. She would lie out by the pool and soak up the sunshine until she felt more like herself.

“I’m making a stir-fry with organic vegetables tonight. If I’m not here when you get hungry, all you have to do is warm up the rice in one pan and the veggies in another.”

“Only not in the microwave,” Charlotte said.

“You got it.”

Fifteen minutes later as she drove toward the park, Charlotte thought about all the poisons that had drained through her system during her month of intensive chemo. Harmony would be horrified to know that Charlotte saw lethal chemicals and radiation as ways to prolong her life, even though the experience had nearly killed her. There was more chemo ahead, but by then Harmony would have to know.

She parked next to a curb on a side street with no other cars nearby and no maneuvering. The park was only two blocks away, but she walked slowly, the way she’d once imagined she might at eighty. She had rushed through her life, and she told herself slowing down and paying attention were gifts that had been forced on her by the leukemia.

There had been others. Her roommate in the ICU had been the most important. Charlotte had been angry at having to share her room, the unfairness of being forced to give up her privacy warring with the humiliation of having a stranger witness her struggle to hold on to life. But Gwen had saved her. Gwen, with her calm, resolute manner, her soothing words, her questions—always questions, never answers.

Gwen, whose bed had been rolled away one night as Charlotte slept, not to return again. Gwen, whose fate Charlotte had never learned, because she had been too cowardly to pursue it.

Once she reached the park she crossed the path leading to the tennis courts and started downhill, slowing her steps even more. She didn’t want to get too close, just close enough to see.

She paused under a clump of trees. At first she couldn’t find Maddie among the other children, then the little girl burst out from behind the concession stand, running toward the climbing dome with Edna right beside her.

Maddie felt well enough to be here, and that was another gift, one that brought tears to Charlotte’s eyes. Maddie kept up with Edna, although her legs weren’t nearly as long. She swung her arms with abandon, as if every swing would propel her faster and farther. Edna could have outdistanced her easily, but didn’t. Charlotte wondered if Samantha had ever considered writing a parenting manual.

They reached the dome at the same moment and began to climb. Samantha was sitting just beyond, at an angle, but Charlotte saw her glance up and check the situation before she went back to her book.

She told herself she could leave now. She’d learned exactly what she needed. Maddie was doing well enough to be here with her friend, running like any other child, climbing the dome and racing Edna to the top.

As she allowed herself just another moment of her granddaughter’s company, Maddie stood hands-free near the top, pumping her fists in the air in victory.

“You tell them,” Charlotte said softly. “No matter what, sweetheart, you’re a winner.”

For a moment, it almost seemed as if Maddie had heard her, because the child stiffened and her head swiveled in her grandmother’s direction. Then, as Charlotte watched in horror, Maddie arched backward, and with her feet catching between bars, toppled in an arc and fell headfirst, snapping her head against the bars as she went, until she was a boneless heap on the ground, thrashing uncontrollably.

Before she realized it, Charlotte was racing toward her granddaughter. She reached her well after Samantha, who was trying unsuccessfully to cushion the child’s head with a folded sweatshirt. With horror Charlotte saw that the sweatshirt was already red with Maddie’s blood, which was seeping from somewhere at the back of her head.

“Call 9-1-1,” somebody shouted from the sidelines, and somebody else said she already had.

Charlotte knelt beside Samantha in the mulch at the bottom of the dome. “What can I do?”

Samantha didn’t look at her. “Make them stand back.”

Charlotte got to her feet. Most of the onlookers were children, as she would have expected if she’d had even a moment to think. She started at one end, gently shooing them away. “There’s nothing you can do,” she said. “We need privacy.”

Edna was at the end closest to her mother, and she looked stricken. Without thinking, Charlotte put her arm around the girl. “It’s not your fault,” she said. “She was having a wonderful time with you.”

“But we were running!”

“Honey, these things are unpredictable. It’s really, really not something you did, I promise. Now, can you get the other children away?” She ended by glancing back to Samantha and Maddie, sure that Edna would do as asked, or at least try.

One of the adults joined Edna and helped her herd the children toward another area of the park. Another woman moved to stand beside Charlotte.

“Who lets a child with that kind of a problem run loose on a playground like this one?” She looked to be in her mid-thirties, hair neatly held back by a thin gold band, pink and white clothing perfect for a charity picnic.

Charlotte felt fury building inside her. “A mother who knows how important a normal day is to her little girl.”

“Well, it backfired, and now all the other little girls and boys have had their day ruined.” She stalked off, as if Maddie had done this solely to annoy her.

Charlotte was already back at Maddie’s side. The seizure seemed to be winding down. It wasn’t the first she’d seen. Hearty had experienced seizures when he couldn’t get enough to drink. Once he’d been so down on his luck he’d tried to drink rubbing alcohol, with disastrous results.

Up close, it was clear this seizure was a bad one, but most frightening was the darkening stain on Samantha’s sweatshirt. “Where’s the blood coming from?”

“I can’t tell yet.”

Maddie had stopped moving, and Samantha gently turned her to one side, sliding the sweatshirt under her cheek to cushion her. “Do you have anything I can use to stop the bleeding?” she asked.

Charlotte had already slipped off the cardigan she was wearing over a sleeveless shell. She folded it and handed it to Samantha, who pressed it against the back of Maddie’s head.

“Try emergency again,” Samantha said. “Find out how long they’ll be.”

With shaking hands Charlotte pulled out her cell phone and punched in the numbers. She explained where she was and what had happened. “It’s my granddaughter. Please, we need somebody right now.”

She answered the dispatcher’s questions, then put the phone in her lap. “She says we should hear the sirens in a moment, they’re that close.”

“She’s not coming around,” Samantha said. “It was a bad fall.”

“She’s been doing better?”

“She’s been champing at the bit to get back to the park. Taylor finally gave in. Usually Maddie can sense a seizure coming on at least a few seconds before it arrives and protect herself a little. But this time…”

“She was having such a wonderful time.” Charlotte realized she was crying. She stretched out her hand to stroke Maddie’s bangs off her forehead, the first time she’d ever been close enough to touch her granddaughter.

“Taylor’s teaching a class.”

“Does she have a cell phone?”

Samantha gave her a number, and Charlotte punched it in. She planned to hand the phone to Samantha, but no one answered, not even voice mail.

“No answer,” she said.

“She’s probably out on the floor with a student. Do you have Ethan’s number?”

Charlotte didn’t, but she called directory assistance and got his home number, then she waited as she was connected.

There was no answer at Ethan’s, either, but this time she got voice mail. She left a brief message, telling him what had happened and that an ambulance was on the way. Before she hung up, she left him her number.

Sirens were audible now. “Thank God,” Samantha said.

Charlotte hoped there was an even better reason to offer thanks. She prayed her granddaughter wasn’t badly injured.

In minutes the ambulance had pulled in as close as possible, and the EMS team was doing an initial assessment while they tried to stabilize the bleeding. A woman took Samantha’s brief statement, as a man finished examining Maddie.

“We’re going to take her to Mission,” the woman said, after she and the man conferred for a moment and she had called in to the hospital. “You can meet us there.”

“I want to come, along with my daughter,” Samantha said. “I’m in charge of her.”

“I’m sorry, but not unless you’re a relative,” the young woman said, not without empathy.

“I’m her
grandmother,
” Charlotte said.

“Then you can ride along.”

Charlotte looked at Samantha, who nodded. “I’ll get Edna. We’ll meet you there.”

“I’m sorry,” Charlotte said. “I’m not trying to take over, but I don’t want her—”

“You go. It’s a good thing.”

Charlotte stepped back as the two paramedics quickly and professionally readied Maddie for transport. She knew how misleading, how wrong, this was, but at the moment she didn’t care. She didn’t want her granddaughter to wake up in the ambulance surrounded by strangers. Because even though she was a stranger herself, she was a stranger who loved her.

* * *

Ethan’s workshop was his little slice of heaven. It also made a significant contribution to his livelihood. After divorcing Charlotte and severing ties with Falconview, he had purchased a small house with a large outbuilding, which he had converted into the office and workplace where he was now finishing kitchen cupboards built from recycled hickory flooring.

The cupboards were one of the finishing touches on six loft condos designed to fill a space that had once housed a bottle factory. Martin Architectural Design consisted of Ethan, a part-time project manager and an architectural designer, who was full-time when needed. They were a small firm, specializing in sustainability and adaptive reuse, and they hired other professionals when needed. He could afford to stay small and work on projects that interested him, because the lump sum he had taken as severance from Falconview, along with a decidedly unlavish lifestyle, made both possible.

As a boy he had enjoyed working with his hands, but only after the divorce had he taken up carpentry again, finding that in bringing old, tired materials back to life, he found new life himself. Now he made a point of handling whatever finishing touches he could himself, a plus during an economic downturn, when time was the one thing he had plenty of. The bottle factory was his to convert any way he chose, but real estate sales were slow, and he was hoping one of the units would sell soon, so he could begin work on the final one, where he planned to live himself.