Ellis doubted that. Raven was one to hold fast to her beliefs. She’d gotten a double dose of that trait, one from nature, the other from nurture.
The doctor took them to a room down the hall. Ellis hadn’t expected her daughter to look so bad. She was curled in a ball on the floor, leaning against a wall in the corner. She was barefoot, her damp hair and dress streaked with mud. Drying wetland plants hung all over her. She looked like a pitiful aquatic creature that had been hauled up in a net and thrown ashore.
Raven removed her arms from her head when she heard them come in. She almost cried when she looked at Ellis, but her relief was overshadowed by her apparent mistrust of the doctor.
“We’d like privacy,” Ellis told the doctor.
The doctor nodded, closing the door as she left.
Ellis couldn’t help it. A profound ache of maternal love she hadn’t known was still there propelled her toward this girl who would never call her Mother. She took Raven in her arms and pressed her to her chest. Raven sobbed against her.
Jasper wrapped his arms around his sister from behind. “Thank you for saving River,” he said. “Thank you.”
Jasper’s crying prompted Ellis’s tears. What a strange weeping lump of a family they were. Abbey, Lind, Bauhammer. Not one name in common. Not one experience shared for sixteen years. Suddenly knotted together more by pain than blood.
“I want to see River!” Raven wept. “They won’t let me.”
Ellis held her out in her arms. “They have to do tests.”
“We have to watch what they do. They might kill him.”
“We have to trust them. I know you were raised to be afraid of hospitals, but River needs treatment right now. We’ll see him soon.”
“I’m so scared he’s going to die!” she said. “I tried to keep his head out of the water. I tried. But he went under. He wasn’t breathing when they took him out.”
“You saved him,” Jasper said. “The doctor said you did.”
“The people who breathed into him saved him,” she said.
“They couldn’t have done that if he’d gone down with the car,” Jasper said.
“I shouldn’t have let him drive,” she wept. “He was drinking. He used cocaine. I could tell he wasn’t right. But I thought if I watched him drive, nothing bad would happen.”
Ellis thought of those many times she’d driven while under the influence of drugs. What a terrible risk she’d taken, and not only with her own life.
She held Raven again. “None of this is your fault. Not one thing, do you understand?”
A nurse came in. She wanted to take Raven’s blood pressure and temperature, but she refused. Ellis saw no signs that Raven was in immediate need of medical treatment. She had some bruises and scrapes, but it was her emotional distress that was worrisome. Ellis didn’t try to bully her into complying. She asked the nurse for clothing.
Jasper left while Ellis helped Raven change into a pair of hospital scrubs. Ellis scanned her body for signs that she might need the X-rays and CAT scans the doctor had suggested. She didn’t see anything obvious, but when she mentioned the tests, Raven shook her head violently. She set a panicky gaze on the door, as if she were bracing to fly out.
“Okay, we’ll wait and see how you are,” Ellis said in the most soothing voice she could muster. “Everything is okay. No one will hurt you.”
Ellis wet paper towels and wiped the dirt off her face. “Keith drove us here,” she said. “Should I tell him to go home, or would you like to meet him?”
“He came back?”
“Yes, just before we found out about the accident.”
“He came back for good?”
“I think so.”
She studied Ellis’s eyes. “You must be happy.”
“I am. At least, I was.”
“Where is he?”
“In the waiting room. I need to let him know what’s going on.”
“You’ll come right back?”
“I will.”
“You won’t want him to leave,” Raven said. “You can bring him in here.”
Ellis found Keith and brought him into the examination room. Jasper and Raven were seated, Jasper’s arms enveloping his sister. It nearly made Ellis cry again.
Raven stood to meet Keith. She shook his hand and said, “Nice to meet you, Mr. Gephardt.” Audrey Lind must have been a stickler for manners.
They waited almost two hours before they were allowed to see River. He was still unconscious. His face was bruised and his head bandaged. He was attached to many machines—just what Raven feared—including a nasal cannula for supplemental oxygen. Jasper and Raven wept. Ellis was relieved he wasn’t on a respirator. She softly kissed River’s cheek, the first time since he was four years old.
Two hours later, River was moved to a patient room in the ICU.
An hour later, Jonah walked in.
Other than his present look of exhaustion and anxiety, he hadn’t changed much. He was still slim and fit. He had the expected age sags and lines in his face, white wisps in his dark hair. The most notable difference was something new about his eyes. At first, Ellis couldn’t grasp what it was. Then she understood. His gaze was layered. Beneath his usual bright, blue-eyed confidence was a depth of sadness she’d never seen before.
“Dad!” Jasper said, running into his father’s arms.
Jonah held him tight. Ellis still knew him well enough to see he was fighting tears.
Jasper didn’t hold his back. “I’m sorry. It was my idea to come here. River didn’t want to. This is my fault!”
“It’s not your fault,” Jonah said.
“Didn’t you know they were in Florida?” Ellis asked him.
“I thought they were at the Outer Banks,” he said.
“I told them to tell you. I insisted on it.”
“I’m sorry,” Jasper said. “We didn’t want to make you angry.”
Jonah walked to the bed, gently laid his hand on River’s cheek. “I last talked to the doctor when my plane landed in Orlando. Any changes?”
“No,” Ellis said.
