skin, Winnie stepped across the threshold, waving her arms at the help that was finally pulling up from every direction. Mr. Nevins stood at the edge of the lawn, arms hanging limply at his sides, his face washed of color. She broke eye contact with him to watch as the police ran across her lawn, their weapons drawn.
“Please, please help my son! Please!” she screamed, even as they yelled at her to get down. Winnie looked back at the house as police officers swarmed around and past her, through her open front door. Would they find her brother inside or had he run out before her?
Everything that followed was a blur of voices and faces until the medics tried to load her into an ambulance. She screamed Samuel’s name until one of the paramedics, a Black woman with close-cropped white hair, spoke so firmly to Winnie she stopped struggling.
“You can’t be anyone’s mother if you’re dead. Are you hearing me right now?”
Winnie stilled to watch the woman attach a blood pressure cuff to her arm. “Good, you’re listening. You have a concussion, and we’re taking you to the hospital so none of that slapping. You got me in the face and that made me angry because I’m trying to help you.”
“My son...”
“Yes, Samuel, I know, you’ve been screaming his name for the last ten minutes. The police are looking for him. Maybe he left. All we can do right now is take care of his mother. Lie back.”
Winnie did as she was told, thinking of the open door. Yes, maybe he’d gotten out, had run before Dakota could catch him. And that was the last thing she remembered.
* * *
When she woke up again she was in the hospital, attached to what seemed like a thousand wires. Right away, she knew. There was no moment of not remembering this time, though she would have preferred that. Her eyes looked for someone to tell her about her son, but the room was empty.
“He—ey,” she said. “Hey... I’m here.”
A nurse came in a moment later, and she smiled at Winnie before hitting a button on the wall. “Paging Dr. Willis, the patient is awake.”
The patient, Winnie thought. That was her; and the nurse didn’t even have to say her name or room number. The fear of what that meant made Winnie close her eyes.
The nurse carried over a plastic cup and inserted the straw between Winnie’s lips.
“Just a little, I know your throat must be a mess.”
Winnie drank a few sips and then opened her mouth to start her barrage of questions, but the nurse cut her off.
“Dr. Willis will be here in a moment. Save your throat and ask them when he gets here.” She didn’t say it unkindly, and Winnie thought she was probably right; even the attempt at speaking had left a burning in her throat. Dr. Willis came in a few minutes later; he was youngish, with ginger hair and an aww-shucks air about him.
“Mrs. Crouch,” he said, coming to stand by the bed. “We’re very happy to see you awake. You had a pretty serious concussion.”
Winnie gathered his words and sorted them in her mind, her eyes closed. Everything was taking too long to understand.
“How long...?”
“Eleven days.” He tilted his head to the side when he said it, and for some reason that made Winnie cry.
“Where is my son? Where is my son?” She started coughing after that, and it took several minutes for her body to calm down enough to hear Dr. Willis speak.
“He’s fine. He’s with your sister.”
The relief rode through her body with such force that she tried to sit up. The wires yanked, the machine beeped and the nurse was at her side, pushing her back down gently as the doctor watched.
“Police found him in Greenlake Park a few hours after you were taken to the hospital. He had no idea what was happening at home, and his intention had been to run away.” He paused, and the weight of that hit Winnie in the gut. He knew now, dear God, he knew his father had been murdered by his uncle. Dr. Willis, seeing the look on Winnie’s face, gave her a moment to process. “There is a detective here that would like to talk to you. You don’t need to if you don’t feel up to it, but they’ve been haunting the halls and annoying my nurses. Do you want to talk to them, Mrs. Crouch?” Winnie didn’t hesitate before nodding. She