Find Your Oasis

Chapter 1

FIVE YEARS AGO

AUGUST 7th

"Son, you'd better get down to the emergency room right away.  There's been an accident."

My eyes grew wide as the phone dropped from my hand.  Everything seemed to move in slow motion.  I stood there in shock, trying to comprehend what I just heard.  My mom?  It couldn't be.  The phone clattered on the ground.  The plate I was carrying shattered to pieces on the tile below me.  I must have dropped that, too.  My mom?  I still couldn't believe it.  My grandfather came into the kitchen.  He was trying to say something, but I couldn't understand him, the world was moving too slow.  He picked up my phone, and spoke into it.  He turned, yelled my grandmother's name and grabbed his coat off the hook near the door.  I slowly turned around as he draped a coat over my shoulders.  Everything suddenly returned to normal speed.

"Come on, Noah, let's go get in the car. Hurry now."  He said hastily.

I was rushed out the door, both him and my grandmother simultaneously pushed me into the back seat of their tan-colored '98 Buick, and quickly jumped in the front themselves.  I'd never seen them move this fast before, people their age aren't supposed to be able to move this fast.  Soon we were rushing down the road, swerving in and out of traffic, flying towards the hospital.  My grandparents sat up front, tense with worry but trying not to show their emotions.

"Did they tell you what happened?"  I asked, barely able to keep my voice from cracking.

My grandfather shook his head.  "No, they didn't.  Just that she's been in an accident."

I never answer the phone, and I'm not sure why I did today. Maybe it's because I was bored, just like any other 14 year old who's stuck at their grandparents house would be. It didn't help that they lived in the super small town of Fort Bragg, CA.  Maybe it's because I wondered who would be calling at ten o'clock in the evening.  I'm not sure what exactly made me do it, but I never expected to hear what I heard on the other end of the line.

I bit my lip, and ran my hand through my hair, trying to keep from tearing up, worrying about how bad it actually was.   It must be pretty rough to get a call from the emergency room...and if she couldn't call me and tell me herself.   We pulled straight up to the emergency door, and before we even stopped I was out of the car, my grandmother hurrying behind me to catch up.

"Katharine Harper?"  I blurted out as I walked up to the desk.  "Where is she?"

The nurse nodded knowingly and told me to wait a minute, then turned and paged someone.   Almost immediately a man in an official-looking uniform - much too official for this small-town hospital - came around the corner, took one glance at me and his face dropped.

"Noah Harper?"  He asked, and I immediately knew that his voice was the one I'd heard on the phone.

I nodded my head.  "Yes.  What happened?  Where's my mother?"

"God, I was hoping you'd be older." The man sighed under his breath as he sat down in a waiting room chair, then motioned for me to do the same. "My name is Lieutenant John Stamford, and I'm with the Coast Guard."

I nodded, silently urging him on.

"A couple hours ago, we received a message over the radio that someone had witnessed a collision."

My breath caught in my throat.

"My boat was nearest, and we got there as fast as we could."  He paused for a second, and swallowed. He continued, trying to keep his voice as level as possible. "We found your mother on board, in extremely rough shape.  We rushed her here and they took her back immediately.  She's in surgery right now."

My head started to spin.  In surgery?  Why?  What happened?  Was she going to be okay?

"I'm sure she's going to be alright, though." He added quickly, but his demeanor said differently.

The way he sighed, the way he almost choked up as he was talking, it all added up to an answer different than the one he was giving me.  An answer I didn't like in the least.

My grandparents sat on either side of me, talking to the man from the Coast Guard for a while, until eventually he left.  They tried to talk to me, but I'm not sure what they said.  I couldn't really focus on anything except the ticking of the clock on the wall and the pounding in my chest.  After what seemed like an eternity, a doctor approached us and spoke. 

"Harper family?"   He said, his eyes searching our faces.

"Yes, do you have any news?"  My grandfather asked anxiously.

The doctor nodded.   "She's out of surgery."

I could feel my spirits already starting to rise.

"We're going to keep watching her closely, to try and keep her stable.  She's about to wake up from anesthesia, though, if you would like to be there when she does."

And just like that, I felt things crashing back down.  That didn't sound as promising as my fourteen-year-old brain thought it should.

"Of course."   My grandfather said quietly.

The doctor nodded and motioned for us to follow him.  We followed him down a few bright white hallways before arriving at a room, when he opened the door and let us in.

"Mom!" I yelled as I ran over to the hospital bed.

To be honest, she looked terrible.  Her face was all bruised up and her head was wrapped in bloody bandages.  I felt tears well up on my eyes, and she looked up at me and reached for my hand.  I reached out, and she gripped my hand tighter than I ever remember. 

"Noah." She said as she painfully forced a smile.   "My sweet Noah.  I love you so much."

"I love you too, mom. So much more than you know."

Her smile got bigger. "I know you do, honey."

We stood there for an hour, me on one side, my grandparents on the other, leaning over my mother's hospital bed, holding her hands tightly.  If she was in pain, she didn't show it.  I kept running my eyes over her, looking for any sort of clue as to how she's feeling, looking for any kind of answer.  All I could see is that she was smiling and talking to us.  Suddenly she turned to me, looked me straight in the eyes, and tightened her grip on my hand.

"Noah, whatever happens, stay positive, okay? Do everything you want to do in life."

I shake my head back and forth.  "Stop, mom.  You're going to be okay.  You're going to be fine."

She smiled faintly, like she knew something I didn't, and squeezed my hand tighter.  "Well, whatever happens, do something for me, will you?"

My stomach suddenly tightened for a reason I couldn't pinpoint, as I nodded my head anxiously and looked her in the eyes as a couple tears threatened to stream down my face.

"Go find your oasis, sweetie."  She said as she pulled me close.   "Find your oasis."