One of the officers—Sgt. Miller, was it?—met him halfway and relayed something in hushed tones. The doctor nodded and made a notation on his clipboard. Sgt. Miller turned back to Hannah and pulled something out of his shirt pocket: his business card.
“Call me if you need anything, if you have any questions at all.” His tone was filled with compassion. “I’ll be praying for you, Mrs. Ryan.”
“Thank you.” Hannah took the card, glanced at it, and slipped it into her purse.
Sgt. Miller disappeared down the corridor with the other officer at his side. The man with the doctor seemed to take a cue from that because he pulled up two chairs. He sat beside Hannah while the doctor sat directly in front of her, their knees nearly touching. The doctor cleared his throat and looked into Hannah’s eyes.
“Mrs. Ryan, I’m Dr. Cleary and this is Scott O’Haver, our hospital chaplain.”
Hannah looked from one man to the other and shook her head, her heart pounding. “This isn’t necessary. There’s been some kind of mistake. My family was in a big vehicle.… It was safe. I just need you to take me to them so I can—”
“Ma’am—” Dr. Cleary interrupted her—“please … let me continue.” He looked like a kind man. Something about him exuded authority and confidence. Reluctantly Hannah settled back in her chair.
“My husband’s a doctor, too.” Hannah watched Dr. Cleary’s reaction carefully.
“Yes, I know. I’ve checked his medical records. I don’t think he and I ever worked together.” Dr. Cleary seemed to struggle for a moment. Oh, no. He’s afraid to tell me. No, God … please, no. “How are you doing, Mrs. Ryan?”
“I’m fine. If you could just take me to them.…”
Dr. Cleary checked his notes and drew a single breath. He moved closer and set his hand on Hannah’s knee.
No. Don’t touch me … don’t comfort me. Hannah remained silent as she squirmed and slid her hands underneath her legs.
“Mrs. Ryan, I’ve been working on your husband and the girls for an hour now,” he said. “They were in a serious accident, Mrs. Ryan, hit by a speeding pickup truck. The impact was most severe.” He paused and his gaze dropped to the floor for an instant before connecting once again with Hannah’s. She looked desperately for some sense of reassurance. There was none. “Jenny sustained a broken arm and a concussion. We are checking her for internal injuries, but her vital signs are strong. She’s medicated and very sleepy, but I expect her to show significant improvement by tomorrow.”
Hannah sat frozen in place, waiting for the doctor to continue.
“I’m very sorry to have to tell you this, but Alicia didn’t fare as well.”
Hannah began to rock. No. No. Not Alicia.… Not Alicia.
He hesitated. “I’m afraid Alicia received more of the impact and suffered massive head injuries.” His words were deliberate and measured. “Paramedics arrived on the scene in minutes, but she was already gone. I’m sorry, Mrs. Ryan. She died quickly and without any pain or fear.”
“No.” Hannah stood up, shaking—and then she screamed. She tried to push past Dr. Cleary, but he held her gently in place until she eased back into the chair, rocking fiercely and wailing. “No! Not Alicia, no!”
The chaplain circled an arm around her shoulders and leaned toward her. Hannah felt herself losing consciousness, and she crumpled slightly in his embrace.
“Please …” She implored him with every fiber, begging him to be wrong. “She can’t be dead, Doctor. I want to see her.”
Dr. Cleary drew another breath. “I’m sorry, there’s more. About your husband, Mrs. Ryan …”
No … not Tom. It’s too much, God. Her heart was racing, banging about in her chest.
“Upon impact your husband hit the steering wheel and suffered blunt trauma to his chest. This caused him to bleed from the aorta, the main artery out of the heart. He was conscious at first while rescue workers tried to help him out of the vehicle. Paramedics were able to intubate him to keep his lungs open, but he was bleeding too badly. He died enroute to the hospital. I’m so sorry, Mrs. Ryan.… They did everything they could.”
The only thing that kept Hannah from falling on the floor was Rev. O’Haver. She sagged in his grip, struggling to breathe, to think, to move. But all she could do was say the same thing over and over.…
“No. No! Not my Tom.… Not my baby, Alicia. Please, God, no!”
The world was spinning out of control, and her heart pounded hard and erratically. She closed her eyes, fighting against the vortex of emotions that threatened to consume her. She knew she was screaming, could hear it, but it was almost as though it were someone else … someone whose very soul had been ripped from her chest. With a shuddering sigh, she straightened, leaning back against her chair. She clenched her teeth to hold back the screams still clawing at her throat, and noted numbly that her eyes were dry. The greatest shock of her entire life and she hadn’t cried.
“I want to see them.”
Dr. Cleary nodded. “That’s fine. Perhaps you’d like to see Jenny first? I think she’d recognize your voice, and it might help her come around.”
Hannah nodded, mute. Rev. O’Haver helped her up, and she followed Dr. Cleary to a room sectioned off by curtains. There lay Jenny, oxygen tubes in her nose, an IV dripping into her left arm. Her right arm was in a cast from the shoulder to her hand.
Hannah ached inside as she studied her little girl. She longed to cradle her close and tell her everything was going to be okay.
But it won’t, will it? It will never be okay again.
She moved closer to Jenny and smoothed a wisp of blond bangs off her forehead. There were bruises on the right side of her face, and Hannah had to choke back a sob as she ran her fingers over them. Jenny stirred, moaned twice, and moved her head from side to side.
“Jenny, honey …” Hannah leaned closer to her. “It’s me, Mom.”
Jenny opened her eyes, and Hannah could see what effort it took for her daughter to focus. “Mom? What happened? Where’s Dad and Alicia?”
Dr. Cleary stepped forward and Hannah glanced up at him. He shook his head quickly and mouthed the word, “Later.”
Hannah nodded and took Jenny’s hand. “Honey, you need your rest now. Why don’t you try to sleep and I’ll be right here.”
Jenny had already closed her eyes, and when Hannah was sure she was asleep, she turned to Dr. Cleary.
“I want to see Tom and Alicia.” Her own voice sounded foreign to her, and she wondered again why she still hadn’t cried. Was this the denial people talked about after receiving terrible news? She closed her eyes briefly. Maybe … maybe something deep within her knew this was all some kind of terrible joke, that Tom and Alicia were fine, that there was nothing to cry over—
With an impatient shake of her head, she opened her eyes to find Dr. Cleary watching her carefully. “Please, Tom and Alicia …”
He sighed sadly. “This way.” He led her down a hallway into another room. And there she saw them, Tom and Alicia, side by side on stretchers. Hannah wouldn’t learn until later how Dr. Cleary had directed the nurses to prepare their bodies so they would appear less traumatized. The nurses had wrapped a towel around Alicia’s bloodied head and tilted her face so that Hannah would not have to see her battered left side. They had done the same for Tom, removed his blood-covered T-shirt, and wiped his face clean. They covered his head wounds and placed blankets over him so that only his face and arms could be seen. Later, Hannah would forget everything she’d heard after receiving news of the accident.
But she would remember forever the way Tom and Alicia looked as they laid lifeless on those stretchers.
“Dear God …” She clasped her hands, bringing them to her chin. The tears came then, torrents of them.
“It happened very quickly, Mrs. Ryan. They didn’t suffer.”
The doctor’s words rang in her head, but still she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She moved into the narrow space between the two gurneys an
d stood there, facing Tom and Alicia. Sobs catching in her throat, she stooped and circled an arm around each of them. Loud, wracking sobs seized her, and she was sure this was how it felt to die.
Hannah felt disconnected from her body, as if she were playing a role or watching some other woman deal with the fact that her life had been destroyed. But this was no stage drama, and she was the only woman in the room. There was no mistake.
Her life had been perfect … too perfect. Something had gone terribly wrong, and now Tom and Alicia were dead.
She knew she should pray, but for the first time in her life she couldn’t. Didn’t even want to. God had let this happen to Tom and Alicia. Why pray to him now? Why ask him to comfort her when he had allowed her very existence to be shattered? She looked from her husband to her child, studying them through her tears, willing them to move or speak or smile at her. When they didn’t, she bowed her head and wailed. In one violent instant her family had been destroyed—and there was nothing she could do to bring them back.
When she finally regained her composure, she straightened slowly. Drawing a fortifying breath, she looked at Dr. Cleary and saw him extend his hand. For a moment, standing there in his white coat, he looked just like Tom. Hannah took his hand and let him support her as she struggled to keep from passing out. But she stayed there between Tom and Alicia, unwilling to move from their sides.
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Ryan.” Dr. Cleary seemed to wait until he had her attention before continuing. “There’s something I need to tell you. Sgt. Miller was with your husband at the accident scene before he died. He wanted me to give you a message from Tom.”
Hannah felt her shoulders drop, and she reached for Tom’s hand as naturally as she had for the past twenty years. But now his touch was cool and unresponsive. She shuddered.
Dr. Cleary’s voice grew softer. “Before he died … Tom said to tell you and the girls that he loved you.”
A single sob caught in Hannah’s throat, and she looked down at her husband through a blur of tears. She struggled to speak, and the silence hung awkwardly in the air.
“I want some time with them,” she said finally.
“Take as long as you like.”
Forever. A lifetime. A chance to celebrate our twentieth anniversary, and our thirtieth and fortieth. Time to grow old together and watch our daughters become young women. Time to see Tom walk Alicia and Jenny down the aisle, time to share grandchildren and retirement and vacations on warm, sunny beaches—
Dr. Cleary interrupted her thoughts. “I need to get back to work, but Rev. O’Haver will be outside in the hallway if you need him.”
The men left, and Hannah was finally alone. She studied Tom and sobbed softly. She hadn’t had time to say good-bye. If only she had gone on the camping trip this year. Maybe she would have seen the truck … she could have warned Tom. It was all her fault. If she’d been with them, they would have come home earlier, and this never would have happened.
Tom still looked so alive, as if he were sleeping. She still held his hand, but now she turned to Alicia. Beautiful, self-assured Alicia. Her firstborn.
She took the girl’s lifeless hand in her free one. “Mommy’s here, Alicia.” She thought of proms and graduation, college, the wedding her daughter would never have … and she began to weep once more. Alicia’s hair stuck out in matted tufts from underneath the bandages. Hannah let go of Tom’s still hand and reached over to smooth the silky locks, making her daughter more presentable. Alicia looked so lost on the stretcher, almost as if she were a small child again. Where had the time gone? Hannah remembered being at this very hospital fifteen years earlier for Alicia Marie’s birth, celebrating life and the promises it held for their tiny daughter. She was such a sweet baby, such a happy little girl.…
Alicia’s hand was cold, and Hannah ran her thumb over it, trying to warm it as she’d done when her daughter was a toddler. Alicia always had cold hands. Hannah wanted so badly to pick her up and rock her, to take away the hurt as she’d always been able to do in the past. She sniffled loudly. “Alicia, Mommy loves you, honey.” She sobbed twice. “I’m here, baby. I’ll always be here. Wherever I am I’ll take you with me, sweetheart.”
She remembered a week earlier when Alicia had stayed up late talking to her about boys and how she’d know when she met the right one. Now there would be no boys—no future. Alicia was gone, and it grieved Hannah beyond anything she’d ever known.
She turned back to Tom. “Why didn’t you come home earlier, you big oaf? You never were on time.” She tried to laugh, but it became one more sob, and fresh tears filled her eyes. “If only you hadn’t been so late.…”
She let the thought hang in the still air, and she squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them, she struggled to speak. “I guess … if Alicia had to go, it’s better you go with her.” She gulped loudly, and when she spoke her voice was barely a whisper. “Stay with her, Tom. She’s so afraid of being alone.”
She stooped and kissed him tenderly on the cheek, his final message echoing in her mind, breaking her heart. “I love you, too, Tom. I’ve loved you since we were kids. I always have.” She sobbed hard. “I always will.”
She carefully arranged Tom’s hands on his chest, then did the same for Alicia. But she couldn’t bear to leave. She bent over and wrapped her arms around them, holding them close and giving in again to the wrenching sobs.…
This couldn’t be happening.…
Finally, when it seemed as if days had passed, she rose and kissed Alicia on the cheek. She smoothed her hair, knowing it was the last time she’d ever do so. “Good-bye …” She turned to Tom and traced his lips with her finger. Then she kissed him tenderly and studied his face one last time.
Finally she turned and, against every instinct in her body, she left.
Rev. O’Haver waited in the hallway outside and cleared his throat as she approached. “Mrs. Ryan, may I speak with you a moment?”
Hannah stopped and waited. She was struggling to find the strength to move, even to breathe, and all she wanted was to be with Jenny. She didn’t need some stranger offering pat answers.
“Mrs. Ryan … I understand you and your family are Christians?”
A single huff escaped Hannah’s throat, and she wiped her eyes with the tips of her fingers. “Yes, we are.” She paused, trying to make sense of her feelings. “A lot of good it did us.”
The reverend hesitated. “I can’t imagine what you’re going through, Mrs. Ryan, but please know it’s normal to be angry at God.” He paused again. “I’d like to pray with you, if I can.”
Hannah nodded reluctantly and sat down beside the man. He took her hands in his and prayed quietly.
Hannah thanked him when he finished. She hadn’t paid attention to the prayer, but it was over and she wanted to be polite. She allowed herself to be hugged, and then she stood without saying another word and headed for Jenny’s room. Hannah didn’t want to be angry with God, but she didn’t want to talk to him, either. There were more pressing things to think about. She had to contact family members, make plans for a funeral, and tend to Jenny.…
Jenny was all she had left now, a small fragment of a family that only hours earlier had been perfect … complete.
But though Hannah knew she should be thinking about her surviving daughter and the consolation she would need in the days to come, that wasn’t what consumed her as she walked down the hall. Rather she found herself focusing on the other driver … the one who ran the red light and killed her family. And as she thought of him, one emotion reigned supreme.
Hatred.
Six
After affliction … she finds no resting place.
All who pursue her have overtaken her in the midst of her distress.
LAMENTATIONS 1:3
There was solace in keeping busy.
In her new role as victim, widow, and grieving mother, Hannah learned to keep her grief at bay by burying herself in busyness. And there was a mountain of details to h
andle.
First she made dozens of phone calls in which she told key people about the accident and asked them to contact others. She notified the girls’ schools, Tom’s partner, and the insurance company. And she organized the funeral.
There was precious little time to weep, to even think about her loss. And that was fine with Hannah. As long as she was busy, she could avoid thinking about a lifetime without Tom and Alicia.
Now Hannah sat in an oversized vinyl chair next to Jenny’s hospital bed and glanced at the clock. Eleven in the morning. Nearly twenty-four hours after the collision. In that time Jenny had only awakened once or twice for a few minutes. They’d moved her to the critical care unit, and at the moment she was sleeping again.
Dr. Cleary had been right—Jenny was no longer in danger. Her blood tests and CAT scan were almost normal, but she was sleepy, coming out of the semiconscious haze caused by the injury. The doctor expected her to wake up soon, and then Hannah would need to tell her the truth.
She studied her notes and tugged absently at a lock of hair. She had notified Tom’s parents, his sister in Ohio … her parents in Washington state. She had no siblings, so there were few people to contact. She had called her pastor, Joel Conner, and he had started a prayer chain at New Hope Christian Church in Agoura Hills, where they had been members for as long as she could remember. Several of the women from her Bible study had come by last night to pray with her and offer assistance. Two had brought meals for Hannah to take home.
Hannah refused them all. She’d considered those women friends once, but that was before the collision … back when she had something in common with them. Now she was in a category all by herself, someone to be pitied. The idea of them sitting around talking about her tragedy in quiet voices made her skin crawl. She neither wanted—nor needed—their charity.
But they wouldn’t go away. So rather than appear ungrateful, Hannah allowed one of the women to make plans for a brief reception after the funeral, which was scheduled for Wednesday.