Savage Row - Britney King Page 0,44
peek my head out the door and yell at Blair to put her jacket back on. The temperature is dropping, and I ought to make them come in, but the small amount of quiet involved in having them just outside the door is more than I’m ready to give up. After checking the calendar to see what’s on the menu for dinner, I extract the ingredients from the pantry.
“It’s spaghetti night,” I call out, interrupting Blair’s shrill rendition of “Ring Around the Rosie.” I’m holding the jar of marinara, wresting with the lid, when I hear the blood-curdling scream. Next thing I know I am standing in the middle of pasta sauce and broken glass, shards ripping through my socks as I sprint toward my children.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Even though I push the thought away, I am positive she is dead. Underneath the swing set, wide-eyed and quiet, Naomi crouches over her sister’s twisted little body. She lies there motionless. It takes my mind a few seconds to put together what’s happened. “Go call 9-1-1,” I say to Naomi. My voice shakes, but there’s also an eerie calm, as though I’m outside of myself looking in. “My phone is on the table.”
Blair isn’t moving, but she is breathing.
Silently, I pray that she is going to be okay, and that Naomi remembers how to call for help. Instinct tells me to go and get the phone myself, that time is of the essence, but the mother in me will not allow me to leave my baby. It tells me to trust. Greg and I drilled it into the both of them, although you never know until you’re at the moment. I know my daughter. If she cannot figure it out, she will do one of two things. She will bring the phone to me or she will call Greg, possibly both.
Everything happens in slow motion. My mind empties like a fog rolling out. I hear Naomi speaking to someone on the phone. As she relays our address, I thank the heavens I’ve done at least one thing right as a parent. I lean over and stroke Blair’s matted hair. Tears stream down my face as I whisper her name and tell her everything is going to be okay. My feet have bled through my socks. Blood now stains the gravel, but I’m just glad it’s mine. Rain falls in fitful droplets, the gusting wind carrying them in wild vortices one moment and in diagonal sheets the next. It runs down my face in thin layers, soaking my clothes. It takes everything in me not to scoop my daughter up and carry her inside, where it’s dry and warm and safe. I know better than to move her. So I don’t. I just squeeze her hand, and as my body rocks back and forth, I pray the ambulance gets here soon.
When we arrive at the hospital, I watch helplessly as Blair is wheeled from the ambulance through the large double doors. They whisk her away, the gurney disappearing quickly down the hall. We stand there, Naomi and I huddled against the biting wind, before a paramedic returns with a nurse and ushers us to a tiny private room.
In the ambulance, Naomi explained to the paramedic how her sister had fallen, and with a little help from me, we were able to gauge about how high up she had been.
In the small room, Naomi takes a seat in one of four chairs. She pulls her knees up to her chest, but her eyes remain on the floor. Several times she opens her mouth to speak and then closes it.
“I’ve told you guys a thousand times not to be climbing,” I say as I pace from one wall to the other. Three steps one way, three steps back. “Why didn’t you call me? If you were going to be a tattle-tale, this would have been the time to do it.”
Tears spill down her face, falling in large droplets onto her favorite pink sweater. She hadn’t been wearing her jacket either. Guilt sweeps over me. This isn’t her fault. I have to be careful with my words. I shouldn’t have been so preoccupied. I should have paid more attention. Her eyes land on mine. “Is Blair going to die?”
I drop to my knees at her feet and take her hands in mine. “No, of course not,” I say. Although the truth is, I don’t know this for sure. She was unresponsive after the fall. She’d woken up