Hannah Alexander - A Killing Frost

“And then just a few days before you asked me to marry you, I had read, ‘A wife of noble character is her husband’s crown, but a disgraceful wife is like decay in his bones.’ I would be a decay in your bones if I marry you with a lie hanging over our heads.”

“Jama, you’re stalling.”

“I know, but I’ve got to work my way up to this, okay? I just need you to understand…Oh, Tyrell, I need you to see.”

“You know I will.”

“Don’t say what you don’t know to be true.” She laid her head back against the seat and took a deep breath. “Amy and I both worked the day before Christmas, but I got off at two in the afternoon. She got called to assist in an intricate surgery and realized she was going to be there for several more hours. After working a twenty-four-hour shift already, she was dead tired, and asked me to drop the car off to get the brakes checked because she was worried about them. Then we both agreed that I’d go to our apartment and get some sleep, so I’d be fresh to drive to River Dance for the holiday.

“Amy knew better than to drive when she was sleep deprived. We were determined to get home-Fran had told us she would have our favorite dishes prepared and waiting.”

“I remember,” Tyrell said. “Mom decided on nontraditional Christmas fare that year. She prepared a favorite dish of every person coming to dinner. You would have had your favorite meat loaf, and Amy her crème brûlée. I still wanted turkey and pumpkin pie. I think Heather went with devil’s food cake, and Renee with angel food. Dad his chicken and dumplings.”

“Comfort food,” Jama said.

He heard the irony in her voice.

“We all knew you had a hard time at Christmas,” Tyrell said. Not only had her mother left on Christmas Eve, but a week before Jama’s fifteenth Christmas, her father was killed.

“You saved my father’s life today, Jama, and you risked your own life, and possibly risked jail time, to help look for Doriann.” Now he was stalling.

“Would you just listen to me? You’re not going to be able to excuse this away so easily. As I was walking out of the hospital that day, some of the other residents invited me to a Christmas Eve party at the chief surgical resident’s house. There was going to be great food and lots to drink. I declined. But as I was walking out to the parking lot, I will never forget what I saw.”

A pause. Tyrell waited.

“There was a little blond-haired girl, about eight, being wheeled to the entrance. She’d probably had her tonsils removed or something. She looked healthy and happy. She had balloons tied to her chair, and her mother walked beside the wheelchair, laughing and talking about what they were going to do when they got home.” Another silence. “When they reached the car outside, while others loaded the flowers and balloons, the mother knelt in front of her daughter, kissed her tenderly on the forehead and then gathered her into a tight hug.”

Jama looked out the window, then raised a finger to draw a circle on the film of fog that had formed there from her breath. “I couldn’t look away from the expression of love on that mother’s face for her little girl.” Her voice trembled. She turned back to Tyrell. “I decided I was hungry, and the party had already begun-we had to take our celebrations when we could get them.

“I couldn’t stand being alone right then, so I went to the party after all, thinking I could get some food, visit with friends for a few minutes, then get the brakes checked and still have time to sleep.

“Not only was there food, there was champagne punch, eggnog, mixed drinks of all kinds. So I had an eggnog.”

“You’ve always loved that stuff.”

“This brew was made with spiced rum, and it was delicious. But I should have known better.”

He waited.

“That one drink didn’t help me forget. It just made me depressed. So I had another cup to take the edge off, and then some champagne punch. Then I realized I hadn’t eaten.”

“You drank on an empty stomach.”

“I got snockered, but I still maintained my equilibrium. I visited with colleagues and other staff, people I seldom had a chance to talk with. It felt so good being surrounded by people who understood the pressure of the job, the stress of holding a life in my hands every time I picked up a scalpel.

“I was still at the party hours later, had just swallowed another eggnog, when Amy called me on my cell to come and get her. I was surprised by the time. I remember that. We had already packed for the trip. You were coming home that year, and you’d been gone for so long.

“I used mouthwash, brushed my teeth, stuck two sticks of gum into my mouth, pretty sure I’d covered any smell on my breath. And then I drove to the hospital and picked up Amy.”

Tyrell closed his eyes. “You weren’t driving when the car ran off the road.”

“No. As soon as Amy got into the car, she asked if I’d had the brakes checked. I told her they were fine. I didn’t tell her I hadn’t gotten them checked, and she didn’t push it. I kept telling myself I could do it, that I could drive, I wasn’t too inebriated, and the brakes were fine. She always did tend to worry too much.

“We were well past the suburbs of St. Louis, with Amy sleeping beside me, when she woke up suddenly and sniffed the air.”

Jama glanced toward him.

“And then what happened?” His voice didn’t sound right in his own ears.

“I’m sorry, Tyrell. You’ll never know how sorry.”

“What happened?” He hated the hard edge in his voice.

“She was so mad that night.” Jama’s voice trembled, grew softer. “She was going to turn us around and drive us straight back to the apartment, but I begged her to continue on to River Dance. I’d already gotten us that far, and it was only a little over an hour home, and I kept reminding her you would be there this year. Either way, she would have to drive. So she went on.”

“You could have slept in the car,” Tyrell said.

Jama was silent for a moment, obviously retreating from his anger.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “You have to understand I’m just living this for the first time.”

“We could have done a lot of things differently,” Jama said. “We could have stopped at a bed-and-breakfast we had just passed. But I was so eager to get to River Dance, and I’d handled the traffic in St. Louis just fine.” Jama bowed her head and rubbed her face with her fingertips. He knew she was exhausted physically and emotionally.

She looked at him again. “All I could think about was seeing you. We only had twenty-four hours off. She did it for me, Tyrell. She knew how I felt about you even then.”

“The brakes?”

“I’ve always wondered about that. The police report stated that there were no skid marks on the road where we went off. I never knew if that was because Amy fell asleep and never woke up, or if the brakes failed to work, because I was asleep, too.”

She fell silent except for the shivering. He could think of nothing to say to make it easier for her.

In spite of every promise he had given Jama, Tyrell couldn’t deny his anger. Then grief hit him afresh. His beloved sister had died a senseless death. And the woman he loved with all his heart had been the cause. He felt as if he’d been punched in the gut.

He started the engine and turned on the heater.

“I couldn’t bear to lose the only family I had,” she said quietly.

“But you distanced yourself from us. And by not telling us, you lost the support you could have had from family.”

Jama looked at him. “What would I have lost if I’d admitted what I did?”

He was silent. What could he say? He needed time to digest this.

“I couldn’t face it,” she said. “When I came back from Utah, I visited as often as I could, and told myself that brief connection was enough.”