hospital is only about half an hour from here,” Jack explained as he drove out of the airport parking lot. Jack was silent as he wove his way through busy interstate traffic past an industrial area with tall sturdy buildings, smokestacks and train bridges. Gradually the landscaped shifted and factories were replaced with vast fields stretching majestically into the horizon. Farm buildings peppered the landscape: bullet-shaped silos that reached to the sky, barns painted a crisp white or deep crimson, some barely standing, weathered by years of rain, wind and snow. They passed half-harvested fields of alfalfa, striped gold and green, and acres of sun-bleached corn lying in wait for the following day’s harvest. Barbed wire pulled tautly across the wooden fence posts that lined the fields like jagged teeth.
It was nearing seven o’clock and the sun was setting behind the sharp line of the horizon, creating a golden halo across the distant fields. A light rain speckled the windshield and Sarah flipped on the car’s heater. Though the speed limit was fifty-five, Jack was barely going forty. She watched him covertly from the corner of her eye. His hands gripped the steering wheel, his eyes stared intently ahead. She wondered if he was trying to delay his arrival at the hospital, reluctant to see his aunt so badly injured, or if he simply dreaded returning to his hometown where he faced such painful loss.
The road followed the path of the Gray Fox River and curled through the countryside. Could this have been the highway his parents were driving on the night they died? Maybe one of the recently harvested cornfields was where their car had come to a final rest.
“You seem distracted,” she said. “Do you want me to drive?”
Jack glanced down at the speedometer and pressed down on the gas. “No, sorry, I’m fine. Thanks for coming with me. Are you going to get behind on your column?” he asked.
“Don’t worry,” Sarah said, patting his knee. “I let the paper know I’d be away for a few days. I’ve got a bunch of responses just in case,” Sarah said of the advice column she had been writing for the past seven years. Sarah nodded toward the landscape. “Has it changed much?”
The ditches were lined with rosy thistle and spiky purple prairie clover. In the distance stood dozens of wind turbines, rows of towering structures that seemed to have sprouted incongruously from fields of alfalfa. Their blades were eerily still at the moment, waiting to capture the prairie wind as it swept by.
“Not a bit,” Jack observed.
The Sawyer County Hospital was just on the outskirts of Penny Gate, and as they pulled into the parking lot Sarah could see it was a small building constructed of dark brown brick that looked nearly black beneath the ashen sky. Jack eased the car into a parking spot and pulled up on the hand brake. Sarah waited for him to open his door, but he just sat there, looking ahead.
“It’s going to be okay,” she said, hoping to calm his nerves. They sat quietly for a moment and Sarah wondered what was going through his mind. Was it fear? Sadness? Regret? Probably a combination, she decided, then broke the silence.
“You ready?” she asked.
Jack took a breath and held it awhile before letting it out with a deep sigh. “I think so,” he said as he popped open the door and stepped out from the car.
But Sarah wasn’t so sure she was ready herself.
SIDE BY SIDE, Sarah and Jack made their way across the hospital parking lot, sharp pellets of rain striking their skin. They stepped through the main entrance and were immediately assaulted with the uniquely antiseptic odor of health-care facilities. The hospital was clean but dated. Institutional-green walls were lined with faded Impressionist prints and the carpet was worn and thin. Jack inquired about Julia at the information desk and they were directed to the fifth floor.
Once upstairs Jack hesitated outside the room. “I don’t know if I can do this,” he said softly, rubbing his eyes. Sarah slid her hand into his and waited. She knew how difficult this was for him, that coming home would release a floodgate of memories and emotions that he had kept locked up inside himself for decades.
Finally, Jack knocked lightly, pushed open the door and stepped inside.
The room was dim. The lights were off; the shades were drawn. The redolence of death hung in the air, and it was stifling.
Sarah’s eyes locked on the tiny elderly woman lying in the hospital bed. Asleep or unconscious, it was difficult to know. Next to her, Sarah heard Jack inhale sharply. Beneath the oxygen mask, Julia’s skin was bruised and pale. What appeared to be bits of dried blood clung to her tightly curled white hair, a section shaved away and covered with a thick bandage. She was connected to an IV filled with clear liquid. Both of her arms and hands were casted and her right leg was held immobile in a brace from toe to pelvis. A sense of dread washed over Sarah and she rubbed her arms, trying to scrub away the chill.
“Jesus,” Jack murmured, tracing the tips of his fingers over his aunt’s right forearm. “All this from a fall?”
The room was drafty and the mechanical hum of the medical equipment filled the air. If it weren’t for the heart monitor that Julia was connected to, it would be difficult to know she was still breathing.
On the bedside table was a photograph of Julia and Hal from early in their marriage. Julia was young and hugely pregnant, wearing a smile of pure joy. Hal’s eyes were firmly fixed on Julia. They were obviously crazy about each other. Next to Julia’s bed was a set of rosary beads and a daily devotional. Someone had tucked a handmade pink-and-yellow postage-stamp quilt around her small, diminished frame. A powdery, rose-petal scent emanated from the old fabric but couldn’t quite mask the odor of iodine and illness that permeated the room. Sarah wondered who had placed these comforts from home so lovingly around the hospital room. Hal, she guessed.
“Jack?” came a voice from behind them. Startled, they both turned to find a small woman with dark, curly hair and large green eyes that shone with warmth. Sarah recognized her from Christmas photos exchanged each year and the photographs didn’t do her justice. Her heart-shaped face was unlined and pale, a stark contrast to her black curls. Her full lips curved into a disarming smile revealing a deep dimple in her left cheek. She was beautiful.
“Jack,” the woman said again, and Sarah sensed a tone of relief in her voice.
“Celia,” he said, and smiled, perhaps for the first time since they had arrived in Iowa. The woman stepped forward to wrap her arms around him and Sarah felt as if she had suddenly disappeared into the room’s white walls.
“It’s so good to see you. I can’t believe you’re really here,” she said into his ear.
Sarah had never met Celia, the woman married to Jack’s cousin, Dean. In fact, the last time Jack had gone home to Penny Gate was for Dean and Celia’s wedding. Sarah had stayed behind with the twins, who were under a year old at the time. It was a quick trip, just two nights and three days. Three days in Penny Gate is more than enough, Jack had said, but looking back, Sarah wondered if Jack was relieved that she opted to stay behind.
Sarah had looked forward to finally meeting Celia in person. They had talked briefly on the phone several times over the years, exchanged Christmas cards. But now she couldn’t help but feel intimidated by the woman.
Jack pulled away from their embrace and took a step backward, holding Celia by the forearms to get a better look. “Of course I came.”
For the first time Celia seemed to notice Sarah. “Sarah?” she asked, and Jack nodded in affirmation.
“It’s so wonderful to finally meet you in person,” Celia said, drawing her into a tight hug that felt a little too familiar. “All the nice things Jack has said about you, I feel like I’ve known you forever.” Celia looked around the room. “Where are the girls? Did you bring them?”
“No, no,” Sarah said. “They couldn’t make it.” She was about to explain how the girls were tied up with school when Jack’s cousin,