TRAIN [FIRST DRAFT]

Chapter 2: That Night

There was a silence in the elevator. A kind of unnerving, empty silence that led Aimee to recall the night Abba's life supposedly slipped away. Twelve years ago. Aimee remembered. It seemed like forever since she last thought about it in such detail.

She was never involved in the car accident, fortunately. At the time, she was cleaning up Scrabble pieces on the living room rug in Aunt Suzanne's house. She lived in Lille; a place northeast of Lorient, where AIM is located. Little Aimee, Suzanne, Benjamin and Abba had been playing Scrabble upon that rug, before Abba and Ben went out for groceries. Half an hour later, the house phone rang. Suzanne answered the telephone with knitting needles in her right hand. She did not know how to knit; they were used for when she played rock band with Aimee. Suzanne was rushing her to pack away the Scrabble pieces so that they could start the game. She would be the pretend drummer on the arms of the couches, or any solid objects that she could find in their living room, and Aimee would sing. She had a lot of talent for a five-year old.

Over the phone, the police informed Suzanne that her sister and brother-in-law were being rushed to the hospital nearby. All they knew was that the car had swerved off-road and tumbled until it landed on its bonnet.

Suzanne dropped her knitting needles and hung the phone back on the wall at once. She looked at Aimee and picked her up, and she let the Scrabble pieces fall to the carpet.

Aimee thought that her aunt was being playful and she did not resist, only laughed, "Where are we going?"

Suzanne buckled her into her car, and then got in at the front seat, turning the key frantically before even closing her door. The smile on Aimee's face quickly faded when she heard Suzanne's panicky voice. Aimee was amateur in speaking French, so everyone spoke English with her, but she understood that time.

"Ils vont bien se passer, ils vont bien se passer!" her aunt repeated to herself.

'They are going to be okay, they are going to be okay.'

The car engine roared. Suzanne finally shut her door and buckled her seatbelt. She glimpsed back at Aimee with eyes red and wet.

"Who, Aunt Suzanne?" whispered Aimee.

Suzanne rapidly turned forward and reversed the car. Then she spoke solely again.

"Ils vont bien se passer..."

Aimee sat pouting in the backseat. But she looked innocent, with big, chocolate eyes, and her long hair framing her face. She was subjected to her aunt's mumbling until they reached the hospital. She observed the building that the car window separated her from as the car itself came to a halt.

"The hospital?" she asked, puzzled. "Aunt Suzanne, what happened? Is anyone hurt?"

Suzanne paused for a second, she was distraught. In reply, she nodded, crazily, and then removed herself from the car. She pulled her niece's door open.

Aimee was already unbuckled. She jumped out of the car and ran towards the hospital, unwilling to wait for her aunt. She pushed through the double doors, she knew.

"Mommy," she said, and then looked at the lady at the counter. "Where's my mommy?!" she cried desperately, with tears running down her cheeks.

"You need to be more specif-"

"Abba and Benjamin Whitaker," Suzanne interrupted, slightly out of breath from trying to catch up to Aimee.

The lady scanned through her files on the computer screen for their names. Aimee glanced to her left and spotted them being rolled into separate rooms on separate stretchers. She ran up the hallway and heard one of the surgeons say something about Benjamin Whitaker.