Rescue - By Anita Shreve Page 0,45

over here,” a policewoman called, and Webster saw a bundle on the ground. He sprinted.

“Fastened into the car seat,” the policewoman said, “but not belted into the car. The toddler went through an open window. She’s alive.”

Webster got on all fours, covering Rowan. Under the blanket, his daughter was still inside her car seat.

“Rowan, baby,” Webster said.

The part of him that still worked as a medic noted the contusions, the facial lacerations, a possible broken wrist from the way it lay. He thought his daughter was in shock. He didn’t like the glassy stare. Blood covered her face.

“I need help here!” Webster cried.

“Must have hit at an angle that protected her head,” the female cop said. “Like a helmet.”

“It’s my daughter!” Webster yelled again.

The cop, who’d been squatting, stood and whistled. Another cop ran toward them.

“A second rig coming?” she asked.

“Less than a minute out,” the male cop said.

“Where’s the other medic?”

“Treating the victim in the Buick.”

“Critical?”

“Doesn’t look like it.”

“Get him over here, then call for backup and more backup. This medic right here is out of service.”

Burrows pulled Webster up, his knees soaked from the wet mulch. “She’s my patient now,” Burrows said when he could see Webster’s eyes. “You let me do the care. You can hold her hand.”

Webster stepped back.

“Get the pediatric c-collar and splints,” he told a second medic, who ran as fast as he could to the rig and back. Webster saw a third rig pull in.

He watched as Burrows put a splint on Rowan’s arm. He heard his daughter wail, a beautiful sound, a beautiful sound. But the sight of his daughter on a shortboard made Webster want to vomit.

The what-ifs were punching the side of his head. What if the guy hadn’t swerved? What if Sheila had hit a tree? What if Rowan, flying, had hit a tree?

Burrows put a hand on his shoulder. “Your daughter’s going to be OK,” he said. “Broken wrist. Broken leg. She landed on her right side. I’ve got a firefighter to drive the rig. Sit in back with me. Once again, I’m treating.”

When Webster helped Burrows slide Rowan onto the stretcher in the rig, he thought that the earth had tilted on its axis.

“Your wife,” Burrows said when they were seated in the back.

“My wife.”

“She’s going to be OK.”

“Alcohol?”

“Two-six.”

Webster clenched his teeth and nodded. “She could have killed Rowan,” he said.

“But she didn’t. You want to know the injuries?”

Webster said nothing.

“Broken collarbone, lacerations on the forehead and chest. Multiple contusions. Maybe some damage to the spleen.”

In other words, thought Webster, she would be fine.

“She was sobbing,” Burrows said.

“Fuck her,” Webster said.

At the hospital, after being examined in the ER, Rowan was transferred to a double room in the pediatric wing. Webster stayed with his daughter every minute. He gently gave her a sponge bath to wipe the blood away. He fed her from the trays the nurses provided. He watched the monitors. He read to her when she was awake. During the forty-three hours Webster was in Rowan’s room, he slept for only six of them. He never went to visit Sheila.

On the morning of the third day, Webster’s mother came to collect Rowan and Webster. They would stay at her place for a few days. His mother never said a word about Sheila.

Webster’s mother had brought a newly purchased car seat and a blanket in which Webster wrapped his daughter. He sat in back and fastened them both in. Stuffed animals from the nurses filled the rest of the backseat, and Rowan giggled when Webster began to name them. Burrows followed in the cruiser. A probie would pick him up.

At the house, Webster gave Rowan to his mother. He knew there was a treat waiting for his daughter on the kitchen table. He waited on the porch.

“You’re out of service for a week,” Burrows said when he arrived.

“OK.”

“They’re going to release Sheila tomorrow morning. A cruiser will come to get her to take her to the station, where they’ll charge her.”

“The guy in the truck?”

“Fractured his hip and his knee. He might get out next week. But the knee is bad, and he’ll need surgery and months of rehab. Not a volunteer firefighter, by the way.”

“What are the charges?”

“Reckless endangerment, driving under the influence, vehicular assault, who knows.”

“She’ll do time?”

“For sure. Second accident. Now she’s hurt a guy.”

Webster looked away.

“The cops won’t show up for her until ten o’clock,” Burrows said carefully.

Webster nodded again.

“This is coming straight from Nye.”

Webster was surprised. “Who knew?”

“Who knew?” Burrows said.

The