Ciana felt a rush of guilt over not being in the ICU. “How did you find me?”
“The information desk in the main lobby sent me up to the ICU and the nurses there told me where you’d gone. Will you take me to my son?”
Her voice held no rebuke, only concern, and Ciana clearly saw that along with being exhausted, Angela looked frightened. “This way.” Ciana led the way out of the garden and to the elevators.
On the ride up, Angela said, “I heard on the news that Windemere took a direct hit. I’ve been calling and calling, but couldn’t get through. I—I hadn’t heard from Jon, knew he’d call when he could. I just figured—” Her voice broke. “I didn’t know …” She gathered herself. “I was coming up anyway, just to check on him, then got your mother’s call.”
Ciana’s heart went out to Jon’s mother, and she explained about Jon’s missing cell phone.
The ICU was as Ciana had left it, and Jon was as she had left him—unresponsive, on a vent, in a coma. Seeing him, Angela clamped her hand over her mouth. Tears filled her eyes. The sight was wrenching.
“Oh, my son,” Angela whispered. “My precious son.”
“Talk to him,” Ciana urged. “His doctor says talking’s a good thing.”
Angela leaned in, smoothed Jon’s hair on his brow tenderly. “Jon … it’s Mom. I’m here, honey. Look at me, Jon. Will you look at me?”
Jon never moved. To encourage Angela, Ciana said, “I know he hears us on some level.”
“You think?” Angela closed her eyes, rocked back on her heels, ran her hand along his arm, cupped his hand resting on the white sheet. “I always feared this day would come. That I’d be standing alongside his hospital bed.” She turned to Ciana. “I just thought it would be because he’d been thrown by some bronc. You know? He loves the rodeo and living on the edge. I was prepared to hear that kind of news. But not of him being smacked by a tornado.”
Guilt swept through Ciana. Jon had saved her, not himself.
Angela said, “Life never happens the way we think it will, does it?” She forced a teary smile. “I’m just glad you were with him. He—he loves you very much, Ciana. You were all he talked about when he was at home.”
Ciana’s own eyes filled. “I love him very much too.”
Not letting go of Jon’s hand, Angela sat in the straight-back chair beside Jon’s bed. “Do you … would you mind if I stayed with him by myself for a few minutes?”
“Stay as long as you want,” Ciana said quickly, emotion raw in her throat. “I’ll be in the waiting room. When you’re ready, I’ll tell you all I know about his condition.” She bent, kissed Jon’s mouth, and left the man she loved alone with the woman who had given him life and loved him first.
When Angela emerged, she looked pale and fragile. Ciana’s heart hurt for the woman. Except for Ciana—a girl she had only heard stories of, Angela Mercer knew no one. She was far from family and friends, alone with a terribly injured son. Ciana’s sense of pity for Angela morphed into feelings of responsibility. Jon would want Ciana to treat his mother as her own. “Let’s go down to the cafeteria. I’ll bet you haven’t had a meal since you left Texas.”
“Not hungry.”
“Doesn’t matter. Atmosphere is better down there.” She put on a smile, urged one out of Angela. “And the food here is pretty good. I’m not making that up.”
In the cafeteria, Angela chose soup and a small salad, and Ciana chose a table by a window that looked out on a sloping slice of lawn. The lunch hour was passed, so the room held just a smattering of employees working cell phones and laptops.
Wearily, Angela stirred her soup. “Tell me what you know.”
Ciana explained what Dr. Patel had shared with her. “You’ll like Jon’s doctor. He’s honest and truthful and very kind.” What Ciana didn’t say was that while Patel was forthright with the truth, he didn’t divulge it all at once. He released it in bits and pieces. Maybe it was easier on the listener to get the truth in small doses, but it was also nerve-racking. She explained what she’d been told about comas, where Jon was on the Glasgow Scale, and then told the best news from her morning consult with Patel. It didn’t appear as if surgery would be needed to relieve inner cranial pressure.
Afterward Angela’s spirits looked buoyed, so Ciana shared the most difficult pieces of information. People in comas were often left impaired to some degree, especially if the coma lasted several weeks. “But some are perfectly fine,” Ciana added hastily, recalling how deflated she’d felt when Patel had told her as much.
Angela pushed away the half-eaten salad and bowl of soup. “Thank you for telling it like it is, Ciana.”
Ciana chewed her bottom lip. “I know it’s hard to hear, but I hang on to knowing that Jon’s in there somewhere under all that trauma. And I believe with all my heart that if there’s any way out, he’ll find it.”
Angela bobbed her head and smiled, but Ciana noted that the smile didn’t make it into her sad blue eyes.
Ciana drove Angela’s rental car to the motel, where Eden and Garret met them. After a round of introductions and hugs—Garret was a natural-born hugger—Angela said, “Good to put faces with the people Jon’s told me so much about.”
“He’s a good bloke.”
Eden said to Ciana, “We’ve heard that the roads are clear enough for us to return to Bellmeade. We’re going tomorrow.”
“What’s left of Bellmeade,” Ciana said.
“Guess you’ll be staying here,” Garret said. “Motel’s cleared out a bit, too, so I know you can corner an extra room.”
He said this to Angela. She said, “I’m not leaving until Jon’s out of the woods.”
“We’ll bring his truck over soon as we can,” Eden promised Ciana.
A feeling of homesickness rolled over Ciana. She pushed it down, reminding herself that there was no home, just rubble and ruin. “We should go out and get some supper.”
“Great idea,” Garret said.
“Not me,” Angela said. “I just want to get a room and get some rest.”
“Come with us,” Ciana begged, not wanting to leave her alone. They were all in this life drama together now.
“Next time,” Angela said. “You kids go enjoy yourself. You deserve it.” To Ciana she said, “Let’s meet in the motel lobby early and go to the hospital together. I want to be sure and be there when his doctor comes through.” She went to the lobby desk to secure a room.
Garret trailed after her, telling Eden and Ciana, “I’ll get her bags up to her room for her.”
Eden wrapped her arm around Ciana’s waist, and they leaned against a nearby wall to wait.
By the end of Jon’s first week in a coma, his vent had been pulled, he was breathing on his own, and he was out of the ICU and into a private room. His vitals had improved. His Glasgow score had risen a point. Patel was encouraged. Everything looked positive—with one exception. He wasn’t waking up. Jon moved, even thrashed, “normal and expected” Patel told Ciana and Angela. He moaned. But he never opened his eyes and seemed totally unaware of all that went on around him. Still Ciana and Angela talked to him, stroked him, willed him to come back to them.
Jon was assigned a physical therapist, who arrived daily and performed various exercises to keep Jon’s joints limber and his muscles active. Soon Ciana and Angela helped with the exercises. Something, anything, to keep up their spirits because the longer Jon was under, the harder it was to believe he’d awaken fully recovered. “About eighteen percent have no lasting effects,” Patel told them. The number seemed infinitesimal to Ciana. He could suffer memory loss. What if he didn’t remember her? Or them? She’d cried herself to sleep the night she heard the statistic.
The days and nights blurred together. Alice Faye came to visit, bringing news of Arie’s family showing up at Bellmeade, of Eric and Swede and various aunts and uncles bringing food for meals and chain saws for clearing. “Swede is saving the best of the old trees for cabinetry when we rebuild,” Alice Faye said. Ci
ana was grateful, but the idea of rebuilding was too much to think about just now.
Eden and Garret brought Jon’s truck as promised, and stayed the day. It broke the monotony, but made Ciana feel lonelier than ever once they left. Still, she and Angela kept their vigil, talking, watching, waiting for a change that didn’t come.
A few days later Alice Faye marched into Jon’s hospital room and took Ciana by the elbow. “What are you doing?”
“I’m taking you home for the day.”
“Not happening.”
“I’m your mother and I can see you’re at your breaking point, Ciana Beauchamp. Don’t argue with me.”
Angela came quickly to Alice Faye’s side. “Your mother’s right. You need a break. I’m here and if anything changes, I’ll call.”
“It’s almost two hours there and back,” Ciana cried, hoping they’d see the lunacy of the plan.
“Not the way I drive,” Alice Faye snapped. “Now, don’t argue with me. I’ll bring you straight back after your visit. Come on, honey.… Have a nice long ride on your horse. Animal’s miserable for you.”
That got inside Ciana as nothing else could. How she longed to ride! “That’s a low blow.”
Alice Faye gave a self-satisfied smile. “All’s fair in love and arguing with a stubborn child.”
Angela touched Ciana’s cheek. “Go on, girl. Hug Jon’s horse for him, hear?”
Weary to the bone, Ciana knew she couldn’t fend off both these women. Home. She wanted to go home to Bellmeade, and to touch the land that rooted her. She kissed Jon’s mouth, and followed her mother out the door of Jon’s hospital room.
Once out of the unit, Ciana balked because it was late in the afternoon. She promised she’d come first thing the next morning, and her mother agreed, but threatened severe consequences if she didn’t. The next day Angela put Ciana in the truck and saw her off. Ciana never let up on the gas pedal on the drive, chose to bypass her town, and take a country side road to her property.
Ciana set foot on Bellmeade thirteen days after the tornado, remembering how she’d left it, hardly believing what she saw now. The devastation and destruction had been put mostly right by days of hard work by friends and neighbors. And yet the scars remained. The grounds looked as if a giant animal had left claw marks on defenseless trees and earth. Along the driveway were empty spaces or stumps where the great oaks had once proudly stood. In place of the house she again saw the lone standing chimney, deemed still usable, according to her mother. She saw orderly stacks of bricks salvaged from the old house. Otherwise the earth where the house had stood was barren. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men could never put things back as they had been. She drove to the barn, sadness blanketing her homecoming.
She parked, and Eden and Alice Faye hurried out to meet her. “We’re just getting ready to replant some of the garden,” Eden announced, brandishing her gardening gloves. “Garret’s down working on the stables.”
Ciana heard the whine of a far-off saw. “The place looks good,” she said, her voice quavering.
“Better,” her mother corrected. “We still have a long way to go. How’s Jon?”
“The same. But Angela is with him, so if he wakes up …” She let the sentence trail.
“Come see how we’ve fixed up the barn,” Eden said after a brief, awkward silence.
Ciana went in with them, let out a low whistle. “Nice job. Looks comfy.” The stalls were empty as the horses were out to pasture, but parts of the barn had been turned into make-do housing. A dining table had been created from several long planks of wood laid across two sawhorses, with folding chairs set on either side. A full-sized refrigerator and a mini camp stove were sitting just outside the tack room door. A battered, salvaged piece of furniture served as a surface to stack paper plates and plastic utensils, alongside a pile of candles, for although the gas generator was running, it was only used for essentials such as the fridge and fans. Ciana recognized two candelabra of ornate silver from Bellmeade’s storied collection, given to various brides as wedding gifts through the years. There was even an old sofa and two cushiony easy chairs donated by someone.
“If we need extra seating we just move the sawhorses,” Eden explained, looking proud of their accomplishments.
“Not ideal,” Alice Faye said, “but I can shackle a meal together. We’ve heard that electricity’s supposed to be back by tomorrow.”
Ciana had heard in news reports that utility trucks had been dispatched from all over the south and east to help with the overwhelming task of resupplying electricity. The rural south would be last in line. “Where does everyone sleep?” Ciana asked.
“Garret and I are up in the loft.” Eden raised her eyes upward.
Ciana surmised that the cohabitation ban had been lifted. “And Cecil?”
“At his place,” Alice Faye said curtly, then added, “You going for a ride or just going to stand there and jabber?”
Ciana threw up her hands in mock surrender. “A ride, of course. Where did you park the saddles?”
Outside, she whistled to the horses. Their heads came up, but while Firecracker gazed at Ciana, she stood chewing a mouthful of grass and refusing to move. “She’s mad at me for disappearing for so long,” Ciana told Eden.
“You mean she’s pouting? I didn’t know horses could act like children.”
“They can and do.” Ciana grabbed the oats bucket and banged it on the side of the fence rail. The promise of oats brought Firecracker forward at a trot and drew a laugh from Eden. In no time, Ciana had the horse saddled and mounted. “Want to come?” she asked Eden.
“No thanks. A girl could fall off one of those things. And I think I hear tomato plants calling to me.”
Ciana rode at a leisurely pace toward the sound of a power saw humming, and came up on Garret bent over raw lumber, and covered with sawdust. He was shirtless for the sun was warm, and his head of blond bushy hair was wrapped in a bandanna. The sight of him made her miss Jon all the more as she thought back to the times she’d come up on him in work mode, his muscles bunched, sweat rolling down his broad chest and flat abs, his Stetson shielding his face from the sun.
“Hey!” Garret called when she rode up. “Eden said you were coming for a day.”
She reined in Firecracker, smiled at Garret, nodded toward the stack of new lumber he was cutting to replace the stable rook torn away by the storm. “You’re going to be busy for a while.”
He gave a grin and a wink. “Can’t let a bit of wind spoil my handiwork.”
“I—I can’t thank you enough, Garret. I know this isn’t the trip to the U.S. you planned.”
“Aw, no worries. Been writin’ my articles and sending them off, and my editor keeps asking for more. Lot of people in my country are keen on things American, and giving a firsthand account of the tornado and its aftermath has quite a followin’.” He wiped his brow. “Miss my mate, Jon, though.” He gave her a salute and went back to work.
Ciana continued on her mission. Much as she dreaded it, she had to check out the fields of hay and corn and soybeans, her crops. The storm had left damage everyplace, and it remained to be seen if she had any crop left, if she’d be able to feed her horses this summer and fall, or if she’d have to turn out her boarders and plow under the fields and replant. Alfalfa seed wasn’t too expensive, but the harvest would be very late, meaning more feed would have to be bought, and that was expensive. Ciana heeled her horse and Firecracker went forward.
The rolling pace of the horse, the blue sky and sun, the scent of the earth—these elements soaked into Ciana’s mind and body. How did people make it day after day cooped up inside office buildings and malls without touching the outside world? Even when she’d been stuck in school for twelve years, she had sneaked outside during lunch or between classes just to grab lungfuls of bright clean air. The outdoors always beckoned and beguiled her, even from the time she’d been a small child and Olivia had walked her around and pointed to and named different pl
ants and flowers.
She saw the planted fields from afar and her heartbeat took an uptick. She saw green cornstalks standing ankle high. Hardly able to believe her eyes, she clicked her tongue to hurry the horse, stopped at the side of the fenced field. Her corn crop was undamaged and growing! She rode to another field and saw it green with alfalfa hay. Every planted field was not only green, but unscathed. The tornadoes had passed by, dumping rain, but skipping over the fields—at least her fields—and leaving them intact.
She dismounted, stood gazing out over the beautiful vision of growth. Her throat tightened as her heart swelled with gratitude. Family, friends, the blessing of escaping nature’s fury, humbled her. Nothing could change what had happened, but people were strong and resilient, and hope propelled life through destruction and chaos.
After grooming Firecracker and visiting with her mother and Eden, Ciana made one more stop before turning toward Nashville. She parked at the head of Main Street in downtown Windemere and walked the length between traffic lights, staring from side to side at the damage left behind by the category four tornado. Buildings had been leveled or crushed. Many of the storefronts had been there since before the turn of the twentieth century, surviving a major flood, a few fires, and one earthquake. Now there was rubble and disaster everywhere she looked. The sight of the devastation was gut-wrenching. Still, there were people on the street cleaning up, sorting through the debris, attempting to salvage what they could. Some looked shell-shocked, others resigned.
Several called out to her. “Sorry about your property.”
She went from person to person, received their sympathy, offered her condolences. A few asked, “How’s Jon?” There were few secrets in a small Southern town, and people knew how gravely he’d been hurt. No one seemed to have any animosity toward her refusal to sell out any longer either. The tornado had blown that away too. They were all in this together, and grateful to have survived.