*****
Caitlyn stared in shocked silence, willing her father to get back up, but he just lay there as lots of other people swarmed around him. The wind was rocking the van and the rain pounded the windows, but Caitlyn hardly noticed. She just witnessed her father get smacked in the head with a concrete block, fall, and not get back up. She wanted to yell, scream, shout, cry, and run to him to wake him up, but all she could do was sit there, frozen, as if the world stood still.
Minutes that seemed like an eternity later, an ambulance raced to the scene, lights flashing and sirens wailing. Paramedics lifted Caitlyn’s father onto a stretcher and into the back of the ambulance. One of them came over to the van, picked her up, and carried her to the ambulance. The paramedic’s touch seemed to awaken Caitlyn, and the emotions that were frozen a moment ago now came flooding out. She screamed and cried, shouted and struggled against the strong arms that held her tight in the ambulance as it sped away. She stared at her father, who looked as if he was only sleeping and would wake at any moment, but he didn’t.
She was directed to a waiting room once they reached the hospital. She had wanted to stay with her father, but the doctors wouldn’t let her. She looked from the nurse who waited with her to the door, and back to the nurse again. She wanted to run away, but she knew that the nurse would catch her before she made it to the door. She was afraid of the nurse. She was afraid of the hospital and all its doctors. She was afraid that her father might not wake up. She was afraid because she was alone.
Caitlyn sat in a chair in a corner away from the nurse and looked at her hands. The horrible day ran over and over in her mind. Fresh tears spilled over her cheeks every time she saw her father get hit with that concrete block. It had only been a few seconds from the moment the wind lifted the tarp until her father lay unmoving, but her mind’s eye played tricks on her so that she witnessed her father losing control and getting hurt in slow motion. Every time it played in her head, it got worse. The first time the accident looked as it happened. The second time, she heard her father’s voice cry out as he got hit. The third time, he got hit with the block and some of the poles, which were broken and sharp. She shut her eyes and shook her head, hoping to shake these images away, but they kept coming back.
The door clicked open, making Caitlyn jump, and a woman walked in. Caitlyn didn’t recognize her since her tears were making everything blurry. She tried to quiet her crying, but a fresh wave hit her when the new woman wrapped shaking arms around her, and she realized that the new woman was her mother. She had come at last. Caitlyn squeezed her mother’s neck and cried into her shoulder. These new tears weren’t the same as before. These were tears of relief. Caitlyn knew, now that her mother was there, everything was going to be all right. Her mother would make her father wake up, and they could all go home together.