Chapter 18
A Joyous Celebration
The hugs and kisses had gone on for several minutes as Jessie, Nancy, and Robert thanked God that Robert had awakened from his deep slumber. Janie, still standing in the corner, was grateful, too, though she was now unsure whether she had a place in Robert’s life anymore. After all, he had no idea who she was, and he might never remember her. Many minutes had passed since Robert’s awakening, but not enough that Janie’s parents had returned.
“We’ve got to call the guys and tell them the news,” Jessie said, snapping back to reality, a reality packed with the challenges recovery would bring with it. The image of Robert’s still very swollen, bruised and bandaged face, head, and body reiterated this reality.
“I’ll do it,” Nancy replied. She walked to a chair sitting by the room’s only window, grabbed her purse, and fished out her cell phone. She dialed Charles’s number. It rang four times before he finally answered.
“Hello?” a shaken and tearful voice replied.
Nancy was unsure how to respond. It sounded a little like Charles’s voice, but it sounded broken, shaken by something terrible. She had never heard him sound that way before. “Chuck?” she asked.
“Yeah, it’s me.”
“Are you okay?” she asked.
The three were still walking toward the parking lot a dozen or so feet away from Charles’ SUV when the call came. Charles was now under his own power with the cell phone held to his left cheek. The limp had diminished somewhat, though he still felt a tingle in his hip as he did his best to shake off the pain and hide the lingering effects of his old injury, which he’d managed to do for the past twenty years preceding up to his reading of the file. He couldn’t help recalling the shocked expression on Nolan’s face as the boy looked down on him as the older man cried like a baby; Nolan looked scared, afraid that whatever Charles saw would shake him even more than it did Grandpa. Max was disturbed, too, but he was a man, and Charles was less concerned for him than his youngest grandson, the most vulnerable of the two Baxter boys, and quite possibly the only person in the family who would ever talk to him again.
Considering Nancy’s question, his first thought was, No, but he thought he should tell the family what disturbed him in person, and all at the same time.
“Yeah,” is what he finally said, adding, “I’ll tell you about it later. What’s going on?” he asked as he reached into his right pant pocket to dig for his keys.
“Robert woke up,” she burst out in excitement.
In an instant, Charles forgot about his problem. “Thank God,” he said, letting joy replace the grief he felt about the role he played in the tragedy. “Is he—” he paused, afraid of what the answer would be, now recalling what led them to this moment “—okay?”
“Oh, yes,” she gushed. “He’s in pain, and he thought he had a game to go to, but he seems okay.”
Charles felt a little better, but not much. “We’re on our way back right now, after we grab a bite,” he said, smiling in Max and Nolan’s direction as he pulled out the keys and punched the keyless entry button. “See you in a couple of hours.”
“Be careful,” she said, thinking about the circumstances that had led to their predicament.
“Okay. Bye.”
Max and Nolan opened their doors and got in. Charles did the same after he said a silent prayer: Please let him be okay. Amen.
After he started up the Suburban and began backing out of the parking stall, Max said, “So what’s the news?”
Charles paused just long enough to slam the big SUV into drive and begin his exit out of the parking lot. He was anxious to put as much distance as he could between the Darkwell County Sheriff’s Department and himself. He then replied, smiling through a tear or two, “Robert woke up.”
“Thank God,” was all Max said. Nolan, sitting in the back seat just behind Charles, sat back in his seat and leaned his head against the headrest, eyes closed tightly. He wanted to cry but refused the urge to give in. All he did do, over and over again, was say, “Thank you Jesus; thank you Jesus,” quietly to himself, doing his best to keep his prayer of thanksgiving between him and the Lord.
Charles did the same, though his prayers remained in his head, locked away tightly so no one in the truck would suspect that his prayer was more out of the need to hide his secret until he had to reveal it than thanksgiving for sparing Robert. He also kept asking himself: What if he wouldn’t have awoken? What if he would’ve died? The thought of such an outcome made it difficult to concentrate on the road.
“Can you drive?” he asked Max as he pulled into a gas station near the highway entrance ramp.
“Sure.”