Wanting Rita (39 page)

The air filled with uncertainty. I could see that Rita was searching for the right words. She played with her pony tail. “That must have been difficult, Alan James. That must have hurt you a lot.”

I shrugged. “For awhile.” I wanted to lift the mood quickly. “It’s over and done with. Water under the bridge. So do you like it out here?”

“I love it. I’m so happy.”

“…I’m glad, Rita. You deserve it.”

I took a beat and then dropped my gaze to the espresso. “Are you seeing anyone?”

“I was…for awhile. Not now.”

I faced her; her eyes seemed to fill with contrary thoughts as they wandered the room. “You scare me, Alan James.”

“I don’t mean to. I don’t want to.”

Her tone struck an accusing note. “It just brings it all up again. You being here. Don’t you see? Don’t you understand that…” She stopped, lifting a weak hand. “… All the damned ghosts.”

“I’m not a ghost, Rita. I never was.”

“But they follow you.”

“I don’t accept that. It’s not fair.”

Her chin lifted; eyes flickered up. “What’s fair, Alan James?”

“I don’t know.”

She stiffened, putting all her attention on me. “I can’t forget her… I can’t forget Darla. I will never forget what happened, Alan James!”

“Of course not, Rita. And why should you forget Darla?”

I saw the struggle on her face, a dark radiance, straining, even now, for illumination.

“You honor her life by remembering her, Rita. You honor the love you still feel for her. Why should that be forgotten?”

She slackened, eyeing me attentively. “There is a place for lost children, isn’t there, Alan James? I mean, there’s got to be.”

“I’m sure of it, Rita. Yes.”

She looked beyond me, as we sat in a long dangling silence. “Well…are you just passing through then?”

I waited a long time. I stared at her. “Only if you want me to just pass through.”

When her eyes found me again, they had cleared. They regained their peaceful luminance. She reached for my hand. That’s when I saw the ring. She still wore the diamond ring I’d bought her over a year ago! I steadied myself and took her hand, weakly. She squeezed mine.

“I suppose I should at least offer to be a tour guide or something,” she said.

I grinned, relieved. “I accept.”

She retracted her hand and stood abruptly. I stood.

“I’ll meet you here at 5 o’clock.”

And then she was gone.

An ineffable glory filled the shining desert afternoon. It beat with the broad wings of soaring eagles and burnished the Red Rock monoliths that met the dome of a sharpening blue sky.

I walked aimlessly in an effort to shake off the ghosts, appealing to the ancient spirits of the place, and the vortexes, and Rachel of Rachel’s Knoll, to banish those old perfidious ghosts from Rita’s and my life, forever.

I returned to the café at 4:45 and waited for her.

Chapter Five

Joined at the elbow, Rita took me to a quaint little Bed and Bakery called The Red Garter. Rita announced, “It used to be an old brothel!”

It looked like it.

I registered for the night, dropped off my bags and showered, while Rita went home to shower and change.

We met again at 7 for dinner at the Heartline Café. She had herb-crusted trout and I the beef tenderloin. For dessert we shared an apple tort with vanilla ice cream. We talked about authors and movies and threw in some politics, and then moved on to the next day’s itinerary.

“I want to do the balloon thing,” I said.

“The hot air-balloon? You’re kidding?”

“Nope. With the champagne breakfast. I want to do it.”

“I never thought of you as being a balloon guy,” she said, finishing her coffee.

“Balloon me up, baby!” I joked.

“You are going to be scared out of your mind, Alan James.”

“I am not!” I said, feigning insult. “Have you ever done it?”

“No.”

“Well, then…”

“But I went up in one of those little airplanes and I wasn’t scared a bit. We flew all around the Grand Canyon. Not even butterflies.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Well, maybe some moths.”

“Do they hand out parachutes in those balloons?” I asked, nervously.

We strolled the streets in the cashmere night, relaxed and a little high from the bottle of California Merlot we’d consumed. I stopped to look at cowboy boots. Rita said I had to have a pair or she wouldn’t be seen with me. I don’t remember when she left my side. It was out of the corner of my eye that I saw her break from the sidewalk and dash out into the street.

I pivoted. I saw her reach for the child; a sudden stretching of her rescuing arms to scoop her up to safety. But the SUV slid sharply into my view, moving too fast! I opened my mouth to scream out a warning. A man made a move—a frantic search, whirling. His lost child had vanished. He saw Rita. He saw her goal. He saw his child in the street! We saw the charging SUV. The father lurched, made a frightful cry.

The sounds were ugly and harsh. The screeching brakes. A dull thud. Screaming. The sound of my own frantic voice.

Rita and the child were hit—tossed like a bundle.

The world shattered into bits of slow motion chaos.

Chapter Six

My self-command took over. That trained emergency room self-possession that shows no alarm and allows no panic. I darted off toward them, pulling my cell phone from my pocket to call 911.

I ignored the sights, the blood, the horrific sight of Rita and the unconscious child, still vice-gripped in Rita’s arms. I went to work, shouting out commands, hearing shrieks, scattering footsteps and weeping. I worked with the steadiest hands and the calmest mind of my life.

Rita and the child were taken to the Verde Valley Medical Center. The paramedics would not let me ride in the ambulance, so I sprinted to my car, shot away from the curb and asked for directions when I wasn’t sure.

At the hospital, I flashed my credentials and was asked, in spite of them, to wait in the waiting area. I did. I still had Rita’s mother’s number on my speed dial. I called her and calmed her. Told her to come. Told her everything would be alright.

“Rita’s strong,” I said, using a positive cliché that was part of my repertoire of phrases. I shook it away, irritated at myself for using it. I yanked something else out of the air, just as inane. “Rita has goals, Mrs. Fitzgerald. That will pull her through.”

Mrs. Fitzgerald’s weary voice wanted to believe me. “I hope so, Alan… She’s all I have left in this world. I can’t lose her. God... I can’t lose her!”

It was 10:25 in the morning the next day, when Mrs. Fitzgerald found me in the waiting lounge. It was an impulse. I hugged her. When she drew back, gently startled, I ignored my own surprise and updated her on Rita’s condition.

Then, in a quiet, procedural voice, I told her that Rita was unconscious and critical. She’d lost a lot of blood, had a ruptured spleen, perforated lung, broken ribs, a shattered left leg, some head trauma and internal bleeding.

Mrs. Fitzgerald’s lined, haggard face sank.

“The doctors have been working all night. I’ve talked to them several times. She’s going to get through this, Mrs. Fitzgerald. She is!”

“How is the little girl she saved?” she asked, twisting her wizened hands.

“A broken arm and some scrapes. But she’s fine. Her parents want to pay for everything. They’re insisting. Her father claimed he’d just turned away for a minute and then…she was out in the street. The girl driving was talking on her cell phone and didn’t see them. She was driving too fast.”

Mrs. Fitzgerald wept a little and then recovered.

“Rita saved the little girl’s life, Mrs. Fitzgerald. There’s no doubt. The child would have been killed. She’s only three and a half years old.”

We both fell into a nervous silence.

“Have you talked to Rita?” she asked.

“No…she’s been unconscious since it happened.”

At eight o’clock that night, Dr. Lowry approached us. He was a small, slight man in his 50’s, with kind blue eyes, thin graying hair and a round ruddy face. In a confidential conversation, after an update with Mrs. Fitzgerald, he confided to me that he didn’t think Rita would survive another night.

“There’s too much hemorrhaging. Too much internal damage,” he said.

I wanted to grab his broad shoulders and shake the hell out of him—slap him, kick him in the ass. A malicious anger pummeled me. I said, “Don’t ever give up, doctor! Don’t! Don’t tell me or anyone else that you’ve given up! Never! Rita is strong! You don’t know how strong she is! How determined! She’s strong as hell!”

He stepped back, his eyes blinking fast. “Yes…of course. Obviously, she’s strong.”

He turned from me and walked down the hallway, with rapid foot falls.

We lived in a long, awful silence through the night, while Rita remained in intensive care, closed to visitors. I questioned doctors and nurses, making myself a nuisance while I loafed the corridors, restless and distracted. Mrs. Fitzgerald would not go to her motel room and she could not sleep.

The next afternoon, we learned that Rita had stabilized.

Dr. Lowry said. “Frankly, I’m surprised she’s pulled through, although we’re not out of the woods yet.”

Chapter Seven

The next day, in the evening, Mrs. Fitzgerald was allowed to sit with Rita. I waited in a desolate anxiety, too exhausted to pace.

It was the next morning before I finally got to see Rita. Mrs. Fitzgerald called me in, her countenance hopeful.

I entered the room eagerly. Silently. Mrs. Fitzgerald smiled at me—a warm, encouraging smile.

“She was awake a few minutes ago. She just fell back to sleep.”

“Can I just sit for a while?”

She nodded.

I sat next to Rita, across from her mother, a pale, near-lifeless being herself, hunched in solitude, praying for her daughter; pleading for her life.

Rita was asleep, the sheet pulled close to her chin. Her face was in peace. There were no marks or cuts. Her head was bandaged. She looked remarkably young again, almost as if being close to death had somehow brought back her youth. I thought of how close she had been to death. I remembered the many deaths I’d witnessed in hospitals: mothers, children, old men, teenagers. Their deaths were never easy to watch, but I’d developed some detachment. It’s life, after all, this business of death. All the tubes, million dollar equipment and miracle drugs were worthless when death was imminent. All of our medical technology, our education, seminars, drugs, alternative therapies, positive thinking—all of our ancient and future skills, hopes and experiences were useless in the face of death. Death, that subtle soft-stepping specter, would always, eventually, win the battle against life.

I crossed my legs, unable to feel any detachment from Rita. On the contrary, I felt as though I were breathing along with her, her shallow breaths.

Sunlight filled the room, wonderfully for a time, yellow and golden, and I used all of it to fine-tune my vision on her and to send her my love. I silently sent all my love and gratitude to her. I bowed and thanked her for her love of me.

An hour or so later, her eyes opened, not fully, but with a kind of startled wonder.

I stood. “Rita…?”

She didn’t seem to hear me. Her eyes didn’t move.

Mrs. Fitzgerald rose, suspended over her. “Rita, baby” she said, realizing new hope. “Rita, honey, it’s your Mama. Rita…?”

I struggled to read Rita’s face for anything. I longed to pierce that blue fog in her eyes and reach sunlight, for any message, for any hint of recognition. Rita’s face softened and yielded itself silent. Then gently, her eyes slid toward me and struggled to focus.

I quivered with joy. “Rita…?”

She blinked, slowly.

“How are you?” I asked, clumsily.

She blinked again, and with effort, slid her eyes toward her mother. Mrs. Fitzgerald beamed. “Hi, baby. You’re going to be fine. Just fine.”

She looked at me again, with some surprise, and a tornado of emotions swept through me, leaving me silent and wanting. And then, involuntarily it seemed, Rita’s eyes closed and she returned to sleep.

Two days later, Dr. Lowery said that Rita was improving, though they were still concerned about potential internal bleeding.

Mrs. Fitzgerald left me alone with Rita several times throughout the day. The three dozen roses I’d sent, and the dozen her mother had sent, were glorious, but the scent was nearly overwhelming. And more flowers had arrived from Hartsfield—from Jack’s Diner, from the churches, from the families, from old classmates and teachers. Cards arrived and were opened. Mrs. Fitzgerald had placed many of them on the window sill and on the table beside Rita’s bed.