“She’s still unconscious,” Dr. Craddock replied. “I think you should prepare for the worst.”
“Do you mean she may die?”
Dr. Craddock nodded. “She’s in shock. That’s always very dangerous.” He motioned us into the building, then up the stairs to where we found Sarah in her bed, her eyes still closed, but now motionless behind the lids, her breathing short and erratic.
“Oh, Lord,” my mother whispered as she stepped over to the bed. “Poor Sarah.”
Looking at her, it was hard to imagine that she was in such peril. Her face was unmarked and lovely, like a sleeping beauty, her long black hair neatly combed, as I found out later, by Dr. Craddock himself. A gesture that has always struck me as infinitely kind.
My father moved to touch her cheek, then drew back his hand and turned toward Dr. Craddock. “When will you know if she’s … if she’s going to be all right?”
“I don’t know,” Craddock answered. “If there’s no brain injury, then it’s possible she could—” He stopped, clearly unwilling to offer unfounded hope. “I’ll know more in the next few hours.”
“Please let me know if there are any changes, or if there’s anything I can do,” my father said.
Dr. Craddock nodded. “How long has she been with you?”
“Nearly two years,” my father answered. He looked down at her tenderly. “Such a lovely child. Bright. Ambitious. She was learning to read.”
Watching her from where I stood directly beside the bed, it was hard to imagine that only a few hours before she’d been so fully alive, so proud of the progress she’d made in her lessons with Miss Channing, drawing the African bracelet onto her wrist as if it were an emblem of her newfound mastery. Nothing had ever made life seem so tentative to me, so purely physical, and therefore utterly powerless to secure itself against the terrible assaults of accident or illness or even the invisible deadliness of time. It was just a little point of light, this life we harbored, just a tiny beam of consciousness, frail beyond measure, brief and unsustainable, the greatest lives like the smallest ones, delicately held together by the merest thread of breath.
We returned home that afternoon in an icy silence, my mother in the front seat of the car, fuming darkly, my father with his eyes leveled on the road, no doubt trying to fix this latest catastrophe within his scheme of things, give it the meaning it deserved, perhaps even some imagined grace.
As for me, I found that I could not bear to think of what had happened on Black Pond, either to Sarah or to Mrs. Reed, could not bear to hold such devastation in my mind, envision Sarah’s shattered bones or the last hellish gasps of Mrs. Reed.
And so I concentrated only on Miss Channing, imagining her alone in her cottage or out wandering in the nearby woods. It seemed entirely unfitting that she should be left to herself under such circumstances. And so, as we neared Myrtle Street, I said, “What about Miss Channing? Do you think we should …”
“Miss Channing?” my mother blurted out, twisting around to face me.
“Yes.”
“What about her?”
“Well, she may be all alone. I was thinking that we might bring her …”
“Here?” my mother demanded sharply. “Bring her here? To our home?”
I glanced at my father, clearly hoping for some assistance, but he continued to keep his eyes on the road, his mouth closed, unwilling to confront the roaring flame of my mother’s rage.
“That woman will never set foot in our house again,” my mother declared. “Is that clear, Henry?”
I nodded weakly and said nothing else.
? ? ?
The atmosphere in the house on Myrtle Street had grown so sullen by nightfall that I was happy to leave it. My father dropped me off in front of Dr. Craddock’s clinic, saying only that someone would relieve me at midnight.
The doctor met me at the door. He said that Sarah’s condition hadn’t changed, that she appeared reasonably comfortable. “There’s a nurse at the end of the corridor,” he added. “Call her if you notice Sarah experiencing any distress.”
“I will,” I told him, then watched as he moved down the stairs, got into his car and drove away.
Sarah lay in the same position as before, on her back, a sheet drawn up to her waist, her shattered arm in a plaster cast. In the light from the lamp beside her bed, her face took on a bloodless sheen, all its ruby glow now drained into a ghostly pallor.
I watched her a moment longer, touched her temple with my fingertips, then settled into the chair beside the window to wait with her through the night. I’d brought a book with me, some thick seafaring tale culled from the limited collection available from the school library. I would concentrate on it exclusively, I’d told myself as I’d quickly pulled it from the shelf, let it fill my mind to the brim, allow no other thoughts inside it.
But I’d gotten through only twenty pages or so when I saw someone emerge out of the dimly lighted hallway, tall and slender, her dark hair hung like a wreath around her face.
“Hello, Henry,” Miss Channing said.
I got to my feet, unable to speak, her presence like a splash of icy water thrown into my face, waking me up to what I’d done.
“How is she?”
I let the book drop onto my chair. “She hasn’t changed much since the … since …”
She came forward slowly and stood by the bed, peering down. She was wearing a plain white dress, the shawl Sarah had knitted for her draped over her shoulders. She watched Sarah silently for a time, then let her eyes drift over to where I continued to stand beside my empty chair. “Tell your father that I’d like to sit with Sarah tomorrow,” she said.
