“Not good.” Tears clouded her voice. “He’s unconscious. Head injuries and . . . internal bleeding.”
Ryan felt the air leave his lungs. “Oh, Donna. I’m sorry.” He ran his hand along the back of his neck and tried to find his next breath. “Can I come see him?”
“Yes.” She sounded small and frail. “Come quickly, Ryan. Please.”
“I will.” He found his keys, threw on a baseball cap and a leather jacket, and hurried for the door. “I’m on my way.”
The hospital was only ten minutes from his house, and Ryan was thankful the roads were clear. Along the way, it occurred to him that Donna was probably alone. If he remembered right, the Bartons had no family in Franklin other than the customers. Maybe no family anywhere. What about his injuries? What if he never woke up or the brain trauma was so severe he was never the same again? How would Donna get by without him?
As he parked and jogged toward the hospital’s front entrance, he thought about calling Molly. She would want to know what happened, about the flood and Charlie’s struggles and the accident. Just as quickly, he let the thought pass. He’d thought about contacting her before, but a Facebook search for Molly Allen or Molly Millington hadn’t turned up anything. She must live in San Francisco with her husband, but someone in Molly’s position wouldn’t be found easily. Not in the past seven years and not now.
He stepped off the elevator at the sixth floor and checked in at the nursing station. “You can go in.” The nurse was in her thirties, kind with serious eyes. “He’s in room twelve. His wife is expecting you.”
“Thank you.” Ryan slowed his pace, trying to prepare for what he was about to see. When he reached Charlie’s room, he removed his baseball cap and gave a light knock on the door. “Donna?”
“Come in.” She sounded broken.
The entrance was blocked by a curtain. Ryan moved it aside and stepped tentatively into the room. Donna was on her feet and met him near the doorway. “Ryan.” She was small and frail-looking, thinner than he remembered, and her eyes were swollen from crying.
He took her in his arms, and they hugged for a long time. “I’m sorry.” Only then did he look at the figure in the hospital bed. Never would he have recognized the man as Charlie Barton. Charlie, whose smile never faded, the man who was larger than life. The one whose very presence made The Bridge what it was. His head was heavily bandaged, his face swollen beyond recognition. Half a dozen wires came from his arms and chest, and a tube had been inserted at the center of his throat. He was worse off than Ryan had imagined. Dear God . . . help him.
Ryan stroked Donna’s back. “I came as fast as I could.” He stepped back and helped her to the chair near Charlie’s bed. He took the one beside her. “How is he? Really?”
Donna hung her head and for a long time said nothing. When she finally looked up, her eyes were flat. As if she’d cried all the tears she had left to cry. “They say it’s a miracle he lived through the night.” She looked at him, and three decades of love shone in her eyes. Then the shadows returned to her face.
“They don’t know how serious his brain injury is. Even if he lives, he might never wake up.”
Ryan took a sharp breath and stared at the ceiling. He wanted to run from the room and find fresh air, a place where this new reality didn’t exist and he could pretend he’d never opened the newspaper this morning. But Donna needed him. He put his hand on her shoulder. “I didn’t know about the flood . . . your struggles with The Bridge.” He shook his head, frustrated with himself once more for not checking in on Charlie sooner.
“It’s been a while.” There was no accusation in her statement. She found the slightest smile. “Charlie talks about you still. He’s proud of you, Ryan. You play guitar for a country band, is that right?”
“I did. The band broke up.” Ryan didn’t want this to be about him. He looked at Charlie’s still figure beside them and then back at Donna. “The accident . . . what happened?” He hesitated. “Can you talk about it?”
Donna took a shaky breath and nodded. She folded her hands on her lap and, with her eyes on Charlie, she recalled the flood and the way it destroyed the contents of The Bridge. “The books, the furniture, the shelving. All of it.” She lifted her chin, probably finding the strength not to break down. “Charlie was devastated, of course. But he always knew he’d reopen.”
“Definitely. Franklin needs Charlie and the store.”
“That’s what we thought.” Donna’s eyes grew deeper, her gaze trained on her husband. “The insurance money wasn’t enough.” She turned to Ryan. “Without money, Charlie couldn’t buy books. And without books, there was no store to open.” She shrugged her slight shoulders. “No store meant no income.” Her smile was beyond sad. “Charlie never had a backup plan.”
Ryan hung his head and sighed. When he looked up, Donna’s attention was back on Charlie. “Did things get worse lately?”
“Much.” She steadied herself. “The house payment is behind, and the bank is talking foreclosure. Charlie used our savings to pay the lease on The Bridge, but that ran out over the summer. We applied for several loans, but with no working store and no income, we didn’t qualify.”
“And yesterday?”
“Yesterday was the worst.” Though her voice didn’t crack, tears filled her eyes and fell onto her cheeks. She turned to Ryan. “He had finally agreed it was time to walk away. Time to admit that there would be no more bookstore, no chance at reopening. It was over.” She wiped her tears with her fingertips and leaned closer to the hospital bed, giving a quick check of the wires and tubes and monitors. “He left the bookstore for home, but he must’ve decided to take a drive. The accident happened five miles out of the way on a winding back road.” She put her hand over Charlie’s. “He must’ve been so upset.”
Again Ryan felt like he’d been kicked. Charlie was the town’s eternal optimist, always sure he could help a neighboring store owner or a customer in need. “He didn’t hit another car?”
“No. He hit black ice and lost control.” She ran her fingers lightly over Charlie’s hand. “That’s all we know.”
For a while they sat in silence. Ryan stood and walked around the bed to the other side. “Can he hear us?”
“Probably not. His brain isn’t showing a lot of activity yet.”
Ryan picked up on the hope in Donna’s choice of words. Proof that a lifetime with Charlie Barton had rubbed off on her. “Charlie.” Ryan kept his voice low, bringing his head close to the older man’s. “It’s Ryan Kelly.” He swallowed, fighting his own tears. “Hey, man, we’re praying for you. It’s almost Christmas, Charlie. You need to get better so we can get that store of yours up and running.”
On the other side of the bed, Donna covered her face with one hand and turned away. Ryan heard her tears, anyway.
“Listen, Charlie, we’re going to pull together here, okay? You just get better. God’s not finished with you yet.” He paused, looking for any reaction, any sign, that somewhere inside his battered head, Charlie could understand.
There was none.
Ryan backed up slowly from the bed and returned to Donna’s side. Once more he hugged her and then asked her to sit back down. “I have an idea.”
Donna dabbed at her tears again. “Sorry . . . I thought I was done crying.”
“It’s okay.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “Does Charlie still have the scrapbook? He used to keep it in the top drawer near the register.”
“He does.” She sniffed. “Neither of us could believe it survived.”
A plan began to take shape, and as it did, Ryan’s heart was filled with hope. This was something he could do, something to help repay Charlie for the decades of kindness he’d given to the city of Franklin. “Is the building locked?”
She nodded. “The key’s in the potted plant beside the front door. Charlie left it there so the cleanup crew could come and go after the flood. There’s nothing inside for anyone to take.”
“If it’s
okay, I’d like to go through the scrapbook and contact Charlie’s customers. Let them know what happened.” He didn’t want to go into detail. No telling whether people would respond, and the last thing he wanted was to get Donna’s hopes up.
She agreed to his plan, and before he left, he took Donna’s hands in his and prayed for Charlie. For the miracle of healing and for Charlie to know the difference he’d made through his bookstore.
Half an hour later, Ryan was standing in front of The Bridge.
Traffic passed behind him and the occasional bundled-up pedestrian. Ryan barely noticed them. He stared at the sign over the door, the old lettering that might as well have been something from a Charles Dickens novel. THE BRIDGE—NEW AND USED BOOKS. Ryan stared at it, and for a moment it wasn’t the middle of December, and the store on the other side of the door wasn’t gutted. It was seven years ago and springtime and Molly was at his side.
He blinked away the images, found the key, and walked in. The sight made him catch his breath. The place was unrecognizable. Even the single piece of furniture—an old leather sofa—wasn’t the one that had been here. He closed the door and leaned hard against it. No wonder Charlie had been broken. No wonder he couldn’t focus when he left here yesterday.
A quick search, and he found the scrapbook, the treasured collection of notes and thank-you letters and signatures from hundreds of special customers over the years. The cover of the oversize book was water-damaged, but the inside looked intact. Ryan was about to leave when he caught a glimpse of the staircase. The one that led to what had been the upstairs living room, the place where he and Molly had spent two years of afternoons.
He set the book down on the counter and walked gingerly across the wood floor. It creaked more loudly than before, and some areas didn’t feel quite solid. How hard it must’ve been for Charlie, knowing he couldn’t repair the planks, couldn’t fix the walls and fill the building with the books he loved. Ryan walked up the stairs, and each one seemed to take him further back into the past. The upstairs looked as bad as the main floor, the furniture gone, the place painfully empty. Just like Donna had said.
Ryan couldn’t stay, couldn’t stand to breathe in the dank musty air where once life had shone so brightly. He took a final look and returned to the counter for the scrapbook. Then he drove home and sat at his desktop computer. It was time to get busy.
Time to tell Charlie Barton’s family what had happened.
The opening page of Charlie’s scrapbook doubled Ryan’s determination. The book was a gift from Edna Carlton, a woman Ryan didn’t know. But her words gave him a single-minded purpose. She wrote that The Bridge had given her a second chance at life.
It was exactly what Charlie needed. A second chance.
Ryan made a few phone calls and easily convinced the owner of Sally’s Mercantile to set up a donation center for anyone wanting to help Charlie. He worked through the scrapbook like a detective, and by three o’clock that afternoon he had written private Facebook messages to thirty-seven former customers of The Bridge. His message was the same to all:
You don’t know me, but we have something in common. At one point we found solace at Charlie Barton’s bookstore in downtown Franklin. The Bridge made a difference for me, and I know it made a difference for you because I found your name in Charlie’s scrapbook of customers.
People he considered family.
Now Charlie is in trouble. He was in a serious car accident yesterday afternoon and today he’s fighting for his life at Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville. That’s not all. The Bridge suffered devastating damage in the flood that hit eighteen months ago. Charlie tried to reopen, but he didn’t have the funds or the books and the place remains closed. The accident happened after Charlie had given up all hope of ever opening his doors again.
I’m not sure how you can help. But I’m asking you to join me in praying for a miracle for Charlie Barton. The miracle of a second chance. Beyond that, if you’re in the area, there’s a donation drop-off set up at Sally’s Mercantile. We’re looking for books, new, old, used, anything you can give. I’d like Charlie to wake up to more books than he knows what to do with.
Charlie loved all of us. Now it’s our turn to love him.
Sincerely, Ryan Kelly
Ryan felt his hope rising. Certainly, this many people could make a difference. But by late that evening he was deeply discouraged. Though he checked every hour, none of the former customers had responded. Then Donna called with an update. Charlie was clinging to life, but he’d made no improvements. Please, God . . . don’t let it end this way for Charlie. Ryan stayed by his laptop through the night, but by the time he turned in, he had heard from only two customers, both of whom promised to pray. But since they now lived out of the area, they couldn’t do much more.
What good could possibly come from such a weak response? The prayers were great, but where would the books come from? Ryan felt drained physically and emotionally. He would try again tomorrow, contact the Tennessean about the city getting behind a book drive for The Bridge, and maybe try to find the rest of the customers. He was surprised how many weren’t on Facebook, but maybe if he Googled their names, he’d get further. Even then he doubted he’d find the one person he was desperate to find. The person who would care about Charlie Barton’s tragedy as much as he did. The girl he had thought about every hour of that sad day.
Molly Allen.
C HA P T E R E I G H T
The week before Christmas was insanely busy at the animal rescue shelter. Parents needed gifts for their kids, and by that Friday, four days before Christmas, lots of people were practically desperate. A rescued pet was often the perfect solution. That and the fact that hearts were softer this time of year—more willing to help, more open to visiting the shelter and leaving with a cat or dog.
Molly hadn’t seen so many animals leave with homes since she’d opened the foundation. Even better, she had authorized fourteen music scholarships for kids from foster homes. A music scholarship came only after a child had been a part of the Allen Foundation’s music development program through high school. The years of work with her foundation were paying off. Lives were being changed.
The work had been arduous, since Molly liked to be in on researching each scholarship application and the extent of the need. Still, as she walked into her apartment late that afternoon, as she shook off her umbrella and flipped on the lights, she felt more satisfied than she had all month. She brewed a pot of coffee and opened a can of food for her cat.
“It’s going to be a good Christmas, Sam.” She liked to tell the cat things like that. Saying them out loud made them easier to believe.
Sam meowed in her direction and turned his attention to his food bowl.
Molly pulled out her phone and checked her schedule. She had a show tonight with the children’s theater, a performance of The Nutcracker. Call time was in two hours. She could hardly wait to be surrounded by the music, lost in the story. The play’s director had pulled her aside after the first rehearsal. “You have the talent to play first violin.” She’d raised her brow. “But you don’t have enough time. Or do you?”
“I don’t.” Molly had appreciated the compliment. She might not have made it to the New York Philharmonic, and she might never play Carnegie Hall, but she had never let her dream die. Tonight she would play second violin.
She smiled. Ryan would have been happy about that, at least.
Her coffee was ready. Molly poured herself a steaming mug, added an inch of organic half and half, and sat down at the kitchen counter. She picked up her phone and thumbed her way to the Twitter app. Time didn’t allow her to check in often, but it was one way to stay in touch with people in the music business, as well as contacts and friends she’d made in Portland. Facebook was too time-consuming, but Twitter was doable.
She scrolled down the timeline, smiling at the occasional reference to shopping frenzies at the mall and failed attempts at wrapping gifts. Then something caught her eye. May
be out of nostalgia for the past, Molly followed @VisitFranklin—a Twitter account that kept her posted on the happenings of the town she once loved. Somewhere in her heart, she probably hoped to see occasional updates on The Bridge or Ryan Kelly, but that never happened and she generally breezed over the town’s posts.
This one made her set her coffee down, made her breathing quicken. The tweet didn’t contain much information, but it was enough.
Charlie Barton, owner of The Bridge, still in ICU after car accident. Find out how you can help. At the end of the tweet was a link, and Molly clicked it, her heart skittering into a strange rhythm. Charlie Barton? In ICU? A website opened with a photo of Charlie and another of The Bridge. The headline read FRANKLIN RALLIES IN SUPPORT OF LOCAL BOOKSTORE OWNER. Molly stared at it and then at the pictures.
It wasn’t until she started reading the article that she gasped out loud. Once she got past the details of Charlie’s accident and the devastating effects of the Nashville flood on his store, she reached the part about the book drive.
The effort is spearheaded by Ryan Kelly, one of Barton’s longtime customers and a resident of Nashville. Kelly is a professional guitarist who spent the last five years touring with one of the nation’s top country bands.
Molly read the line two more times. She felt a smile start in her heart and work its way to her face. “You did it, Ryan . . . you chased your dream.” She spoke to the article as if he could hear her. He had done what he told her he’d do, and now he was the one leading the charge for Charlie Barton. Sadness came over her again. She would do whatever she could to help Charlie. At the bottom of the article was information on how to reach Ryan, a Facebook link, and the phone number of Sally’s Mercantile.
She checked the time. It was two hours later in Nashville, too late to do anything now. As she finished her coffee and dressed for the show, she couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened. The flood and Charlie Barton’s accident and Ryan’s determination to repay the man for his contribution to the people of Franklin. He had probably married his Mississippi girl and moved her to middle Tennessee. By now he might have a family, two or three children.