James Smith - Hybrid

“Fran and I had plans on how we’d raise them.”

“I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Are you listening to yourself?” she asked.

“No, I can’t hear anything. My blood’s pumping too loudly.” All she was saying was crap. Why was she unloading on him?

“Fran’s gone, Dieter.”

“Excuse me?”

“Fran’s gone,” she repeated gently.

“You think I don’t know? That a day doesn’t go by without my seeing her face?”

“What I’m trying to say —”

“A day that I don’t see her smile, the scent of her hair after a shower? The trail of her powdered feet across the red carpet of the bedroom?”

“Okay, stop! Look, I’m sorry. I know how you’ve gotta feel.”

No, she didn’t. She was too young. She was too damned new to the game called life to understand the loss of someone whom you loved more than any treasure on earth. To feel the loss of someone you held and kissed every night before you slept and now you wake up every morning and forget for a second or two that she’s not there. Then the pain returns.

No more sharing of your dreams and knowing that no one else will ever love you as she had loved you. One night you ram your fist into a pillow, the next night you cry. Everyday you are torn among your worst emotions competing for your attention. Amy had pricked a sensitive nerve and he wasn’t about to forget it.

“I’m only asking,” she said, tearing, “if you’ve ever thought that… maybe it’s time to let go?”

“Let go ?”

“To let go of Fran. Let go of trying to guess what you believe she would want or do for Michael and Megan. It’s all up to you now, Dieter. You, alone.”

If there was anything or anyone he needed to let go, it was Amy. It was time to tell her straight to her face. A barbed hook yanking at his gut, the timing was perfect.

She grabbed for his arm before he could speak. “We shouldn’t be talking like this. We come from two different worlds. But the fact is we both love Megan and Michael and we want the best for them.” She clutched his arm and tugged. “Come on, let’s take off. You won’t believe what the Park looks like from ten thousand feet above!”

TheER staff at the one-story West Yellowstone Hospital had performed a host of x-rays and physical exams on Charlene while Molly sat in the waiting area flipping through magazines without reading a word. She prayed that she didn’t cause any more injury when she struggled with Charlene to help her onto the back of the ATV or in driving her over the rugged terrain.

Molly stood to greet the young doctor on duty when he approached. With a somber look he spoke in a cold, matter-of-fact manner, saying that Charlene had hit the ground on her right side, tearing her rotator cuff and sustaining a hairline fracture in her wrist.

“Is she going to be okay?” Molly asked.

He placed his hands into the pockets of his green garb. “Do you mind coming with me, Mrs. Schoonover? I’d like to ask you a few questions in private.”

Bewildered, she followed him into a small room off the ER, bare except for a table of sparse supplies against one wall and the two chairs where they sat.

Another wonderful example of the myriad of topics you weave into your story line, educating without preaching .

“How are you related to Miss Loudermilk?” he asked. He appeared detached as he spoke. Maybe that’s the way it had to be at an ER. Maybe he’d been without sleep for too long. Or maybe he was too damned young to have learned beside manners yet.

“Not at all,” Molly said.

“A neighbor?”

“No, just a friend of the family.”

The doctor listened while leaning back with his legs crossed, holding a notepad and intensely focused on her face. His words were slow in climbing out. “How long have you known her?”

“Less than a week.”

“But you said you’re a friend of the family.”

She looked away and back again. “I lied, Doc.” She confessed her interest in having draperies made by the Loudermilk women and what she’d learned about the family and their oddball ways in the one surprise meeting at her home. She avoided the incident at the shed because it was none of his business. His job was to treat Charlene’s injuries. The traumatized girl needed medical attention. As far as everything else about her despicable family, Molly and the Judge would deal with them down the road. That was a case for downhome justice, not for the medical profession.

“I’m sorry to probe so much,” the doctor said, “but I have to tell you that Miss Loudermilk has—” he interrupted himself and paused to contemplate his words. “She has serious issues. We’re quite concerned about her right now.”

Does she have some kind of fatal disease?

“There’s more than her injuries from her fall,” he added. “Have you noticed the older bruises on her arms and neck?”

“I’ve seen a small bruise or two.”

“I was shocked when I examined her, Mrs. Schoonover. She has old scars. Signs of welts and contusions all over her body. Even evidence of an instrument or object used forcefully in places I won’t mention.”

Molly could believe it, every word he was saying. In time she would see to it that Joseph Vincent Loudermilk would get everything that was coming to him. If there was any redeeming justice on earth, he would arrive in Hell with a pitchfork up his ass and signed by Molly Schoonover. She brushed her eyes with the back of her hand.

The doctor shoved a box of tissues toward her and continued. “She also appears anorexic. That condition is common among women who’ve been chronically abused.”

It was time to tell him everything, beginning with her unplanned visit to the Loudermilk farm. She described her creepy walk down the graveled road, the strange sounds coming from the shed and the horrible scene in the window.

“Are you certain Charlene was the victim?”

She wiped her nose and sniffled. “As sure as I sit here.”

He moved closer to her. “I’m required, Mrs. Schoonover, to report this incident to the police.”

“I know,” she said, relieved Charlene would finally get some protection. “My husband’s a former judge. You’re just beating us to the punch, Doc.”

Molly stayed by Charlene’s bed, holding her hand and keeping close watch on her pale swollen face covered with bruises and tincture of iodine. As she brushed Charlene’s hair back from the scrapes on her forehead Molly realized that her fondness for animals—from the horses and sheep on their ranch to those barking dachshunds—was nothing more than a substitute love for the child she never had. Her one regret in life was her inability to provide the Judge with a child they both always wanted. She promised herself that she and the Judge would confront the Loudermilk clan after the ordeal was over. He would take care of the legal work to regain Charlene’s children. She’d take care of the rest.

When Charlene awoke, Molly wet her chapped lips with the corner of a washcloth dipped in ice water. Charlene murmured and Molly lowered her head. “I can’t hear you, honey.”

“Don’t tell Joseph Vincent I’m here. Okay?”

Charlene spoke about her adventure as if still struggling to understand it. When the wolf came for her, it scraped at the base of the tree, growling and waiting below on its haunches for her to grow weak and fall.

“In your dreams, pooch!” she kept screaming at it.

She told how the wolf dashed away like a bolt of lightning when a humongous brown bear trudged out of the woods. Might have been a Grizzly; she was too frightened to tell if it had a hump. The bear crunched and chewed on her friend’s body before dragging him away like a sack of feed.