My Sister's Keeper

Chapter 47

47

AS I PULLED UP TO MY PARENT'S HOUSE, I saw my mother flailing about the front yard flanked by two policemen and two neighbors attempting to console her. My first thoughts were that something had happened to Dad. I left the engine running and jumped out. "What happened?"

Mother surged toward me screaming and crying, but her cries concealed her words. I took hold of her hands. "What? Slow down."

She tried to say something, but instead collapsed against me, her weight sending both of us against the side of the car.

"What is it, Mama? Has something happened to Dad?"

Like a wounded animal, she thrashed about sliding down the side of the car to the ground.

"For Heaven's sake, can't someone tell me what's going on?"

The woman living next door stepped forward. "Your sister's been in an accident."

"An accident?"

Mom rolled to the ground, threw her head back, and let out a shriek that all of nature would recognize and I knew it was bad. "What? What happened?"

The woman pointed up the road. "We were standing here talking about your dad when somebody ran up and told her that Martha had been hit by a bus."

I saw a faint flashing in the distance. A vice clamped down on my chest. I couldn't breathe. My blood pressure soared. I could feel my heart pounding in my fingers. Muscles I never knew I had twisted into a knot. As I spun to turn, my right leg gave way. I caught myself on the car door, bumbled into it, dropped the shift into "reverse," and stomped the accelerator. The car wheeled backward squealing as it spun around and raced off to find the scene of the accident.

It wasn't hard to find.

When I got there, they had Martha on a gurney and were lifting her into an ambulance. I ran to her but was held back by Sam Jones as they closed the doors.

"They're taking her to the hospital," he said.

"What happened?" I gasped.

"I got here right after it happened. They say she just came out of nowhere. She just shot out into the street without even trying to stop. Like she meant to do it."

I felt the blood leave my head and my limbs began to tingle. "That's ridiculous! She wouldn't do that."

"Maybe not."

I bent forward and grasped my knees, my pulse suddenly weak. "Maybe, hell! She would never do that, Sam!"

The ambulance let go a yelp from its siren and pulled away exposing one of the metal arms broken off the wheelchair lying in the street. I turned away and grabbed hold of a sign post. My chest rattled and my legs shook. "Jesus! How could this have happened?"

"You don't look so good," Sam said. "Maybe you should sit down." He took my arm and walked me toward my car. "There's something else, too, Richard."

I panted. "What?"

"She called me about ten minutes before the accident and told me she'd seen a light in a window at that damned warehouse. She told me she'd wait for me. I was coming to meet her."

"So how'd she end up here? Three blocks away?"

"I was on the way when I came upon the accident and when I realized who she was, sent another car around to have a look at the warehouse. There was nothing there."

"Well, there must have been something there or she'd still be there waiting for you right now." I felt lightheaded. I leaned against the side of my car, bent low, and vomited in the gutter. "Damn it, Sam." I cleared my throat and spit. "Some goddamned body did this to her."