Chris Bohjalian - Before You Know Kindness

“I see the difference.”

“I’m glad.”

“But that doesn’t make things any easier for anyone. Not for my dad, not for my mom. I really did it this time.”

She heard the lawn mower as Nan pushed the old machine back and forth in the side yard, the noise growing closer and then receding. It was actually louder than the ride-on mowers that most people used in the rural corners of Vermont in which she always had lived.

“But you’re still his daughter. And Catherine’s daughter. And my niece. No one loves you any less-”

“I love me less!”

“You shouldn’t feel that way. I understand why you would. Really, I do. But I wish you wouldn’t even think such a thing. Your father and mother will need you a lot in the coming months, and one of the best things you could do for them is to get on with your own life. You’re going to need someone to talk to-”

“I figured,” she said, a tiny twinge of disgust coloring her voice.

“You make seeing a therapist sound like, I don’t know, having to wear a burlap sack to a prom.”

“That would be kind of cool, actually.”

“I’m going to give your mom the name of someone I know in Manhattan. Her practice is on the East Side, not far from your school. She’s wonderful. And you can always call me, too. You know that, right?”

She offered a small, almost imperceptible nod.

“Make no mistake: It’s okay to be sad. I’d be worried about you if you weren’t. But don’t let it become incapacitating. You were going to audition for some show in September, right?”

“The Secret Garden,” she murmured. “It’s a musical. Our school’s doing it at the end of November.”

“Your mother told me something about that. Well, you should still audition. Moping does no one any good.”

“God…”

“What?”

“You just sounded exactly like Grandmother.”

Abruptly she jerked upright. In her head she could indeed hear her mother-in-law saying precisely those words. Moping does no one any good. She saw her niece was looking at her and she wondered if it had something to do with the air or this house. Maybe vigorousness was contagious.

“I did, didn’t I?”

“Yeah. You did,” the girl said, and she raised her eyebrows. Sara had the distinct sense that on another day in another place-if they weren’t on this porch, perhaps, if Spencer weren’t in a hospital to the south-the two of them right now would be howling with laughter. She thought of what Willow had accomplished yesterday with the painted flies. Though her own imitation of Nan Seton had been completely unintentional, she was absolutely delighted with the gentle ripple of pleasure it had given her niece.

WHEN, YEARS LATER, people spoke of the accident at Nan Seton’s house in Sugar Hill, Melissa Fearon-a.k.a. Missy Fearless-knew she would be a part of the story. A nameless footnote, perhaps, but she had been an EMT long enough to realize that her and Evan Seaver’s rescue of Spencer McCullough was a very impressive save.

That was not, however, why she went to the hospital to see him Wednesday afternoon. She felt no need to pat herself on the back. She drove to Hanover because she didn’t want her last memory of the man to be his glazed eyes and clammy skin and the way his shoulder the other night had been transformed into stew. She wanted instead to see him flipping the channels on the TV from his hospital bed with the remote. She wanted to watch him savoring the simple fact he was alive.

She had done this three times before in the past, each time after a scoop-and-run had been particularly gruesome (and the prospects for survival discouraging) but had learned in the following days that the patient was actually getting better.

Like Catherine, Missy was the sort of schoolteacher who didn’t trouble herself with her classroom and lesson plans until the second week in August, and so she spent most of the day gardening. She left for the hospital a little after four, confident that her husband, the manager of the Agway in Haverhill, wouldn’t mind if their dinner was a little late tonight. Roger Fearon was nothing if not flexible from his years of living with a part-time EMT. By the time she’d parked her car, gotten her visitor’s pass and wound her way through the labyrinthine corridors to Spencer’s room, it was close to five thirty. Nevertheless, she was surprised to find the room empty but for Spencer. She had expected the whole Seton clan would be present, that multigenerational throng she had seen Saturday night from the corners of her eyes while she was trying to prevent Spencer McCullough’s blood from spurting into the lupine like water from a garden hose.

It looked like Spencer was asleep, and so she reached into her purse for a pen and a piece of paper. She thought she would write him a note. From the doorway he appeared better than the other night, but that didn’t take much. The mere fact that the massive hole in his shoulder had been patched and he wasn’t hemorrhaging whole pints of blood was a sizable improvement.

“You looking for Paige?”

She glanced up and saw he had opened his eyes.

“I woke you. I’m so sorry.”

“I wasn’t sleeping.”

“I was going to leave you a note.”

“Me?”

“Uh-huh.” She took a step farther into the room, but without his wife or his mother-in-law present, she felt as if she were intruding. She dropped the pen back into her purse and pulled the strap over her shoulder. “I was just going to write that I was glad to see you’re getting better.”

“You can come closer. I don’t bite. Lord, I don’t move. I don’t dare.” Though his voice was subdued-almost muted-she could sense right away a distinct scrappiness in every syllable. This guy was a fighter. It was probably a big reason why he was still alive in the first place.

“Honest: I don’t bite,” he murmured again, and so she strolled all the way into the room and stood at the foot of his bed.

“You’re looking for Paige?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know any Paige. I was coming to see you.”

“I thought you were looking for my lawyer.”

She didn’t like the sound of that: a lawyer. That couldn’t be good for the family. She understood that the gun belonged to John Seton, and she wondered if he was actually planning to sue his brother-in-law.

“Nope,” she said. “Just you.”

“Forgive me, please, but… do I know you?”

“I didn’t expect you’d remember me. I’m Melissa Fearon. I’m with Franconia Rescue. I’m an EMT.”

“God, you saved my life, didn’t you?” His voice was slightly more animated now, and she was pleased.

“I had help.”

“Well. Thank you. God. Thank you so much.”

She saw a line of flowers along the window and atop the dresser. Some had been sent by a florist, but others had been picked by whoever had brought them-especially the twin vases of pink and white phlox. The last thing she had been focused on at the Seton house Saturday night were the flowers in the garden, but she decided those probably came from Sugar Hill. Maybe the guy’s gun-toting daughter had cut them herself. Or that niece.

“You can sit on that other bed,” he said to her. “People use it like a couch.”

She agreed and pulled herself up onto the mattress. “How are you feeling today? You look pretty good.”

“I look better than”-he paused for a wince and then continued-“the last time you saw me. But I don’t look good.”

“I’ve seen much worse four days after an accident. Trust me. Have they told you when you go home?”

“Won’t be this week. Maybe early next week.”

She nodded. “How is everyone doing?”

“You mean my family?”

“Uh-huh.”