William finally couldn’t stand it, he booked a seat on a flight to London and from there to Islamabad the next day. He was going over to comb the hospitals himself and see if he could find her. If she was alive and not too badly injured, she would have found a way to contact them by then, and she hadn’t. He called and told Penny what he was doing and packed a small bag. He was just leaving his house at six the next morning when his cellphone rang. A raspy voice he didn’t recognize said “hello” in a croak. He couldn’t understand who it was at first. And then he knew. It was Maddie. She was alive. He burst into tears.
“Oh my God…thank God…are you okay?”
“Yes…I’m okay. They airlifted me to Mumbai. I couldn’t call you. I’m fine. I’m at Lilavati Hospital. They’re very good. They’ve been wonderful. I have a bruised leg and a burned arm and a lot of plaster dust in my lungs and that’s it. The U.S. Army is flying me to a base in Germany tonight. They’ll take a look at me and then I’ll come home. Please tell my kids I’m okay. I called you first. I don’t want to scare them.” He was sure they were already scared by now. They all were.
“Oh God, Maddie…I love you so much. I was so afraid you were dead. I saw it on TV right after it happened. I haven’t moved for four days. I was flying over this morning to see if I could find you myself.” He was sobbing, and so was she.
“I love you too. When it happened I thought of my kids and then I thought of you. I didn’t want to do this to you. I’m so sorry.” They told her she had to get off then. The military medics had come for her to fly her out. “I’ll call you from Germany.”
“I love you,” he said again. He called Penny as soon as he hung up, and she burst into tears too.
“Shit, I thought we’d lost her this time. She loves doing this stuff. She’s gotten hurt before. But she’s never been MIA for this long. She always finds a way to call.”
“She wants me to tell her kids she’s okay. Do you think I should call them, or should you?”
“I don’t think they’d care if Donald Duck called them at this point. You should call. You talked to her.” She gave him Ben’s number and Deanna’s. “Don’t call Milagra, she probably doesn’t know about it. She never reads the papers, she has no TV, and she almost never leaves the house. Maybe Ben should call her if she’ll answer, or drive up to see her.”
“I’ll leave it up to him.”
He called Ben first, cut right through the awkwardness, and got straight to the point.
The minute Ben answered, he told him what he needed to know. “Ben, my name is William Smith, I’m a friend of your mother’s. She’s okay. I just talked to her. They airlifted her to Mumbai, and they’re flying her to an American base in Germany now, and after they check her out, they’ll send her home. She said she has a bruised leg, some burns on her arm, and a lot of plaster dust in her lungs. She couldn’t call until now, but she’s fine.” He didn’t even realize he was crying as he told her son the news, and Ben sobbed into the phone.
“Oh my God…thank you…oh, thank God. I thought she was dead when we didn’t hear from her. I called The New York Times and they hadn’t heard anything either. I don’t know who you are, but I’m so damn happy to hear from you.” He laughed through his tears.
“Do you want to call your sister Milagra?”
“I don’t think she knows, but I’ll drive up and tell her just in case. I didn’t want to scare her till we knew something.”
“I was going to call Deanna, would you rather do it?”
“No, that’s okay. If you talked to Mom, she’ll want to hear it from you. I can’t thank you enough. I hope I meet you one day. This is the best call of my life.” She was injured, but not severely, and she was alive. They had all thought she was dead.
“Take care, Ben,” William said, wishing he could hug him. And then he called Deanna. She knew who he was immediately, and she burst into tears