Rise: How a House Built a Family(62)

“I’ll call you right back,” she said, but then cleared her throat and wasted several precious seconds to add, “Thank you, Cara.”

I hung up.

I couldn’t shake the image of him in that hospital, so doped up that he couldn’t lift his feet or his lower jaw. Maybe that was the real reason Sophie had taken me there. To make me pity him—and her—enough to cut him some slack. But a car chase was a lot to ask of anyone. Even someone who had once made big promises.

My phone rang. It was Sophie.

“Still there,” Hope said at the same time I said, “Hello?”

“He left his cell at the house. Mom answered it,” Sophie said.

Ivana was home but hadn’t answered when I called. So she was screening my calls. I didn’t mind much since I didn’t want to talk to her either, but this was an emergency. She should know I wouldn’t call for idle chatter. I never had.

“I’ll have to call the police. I won’t let him put the kids in danger, Sophie. This isn’t fair.” As soon as the words were out, I regretted them. Since when did fair have anything to do with life? This wasn’t fair to her either. She was in for a lifetime of unpleasant calls like this one.

Jada was crying. Hope was sitting backward in her seat to get a better view out the rear window. Drew was practically backward in the passenger seat.

“Everyone turn around and keep your seat belts fastened. I’m going to figure this out.”

“Wait, Cara. Let’s find another answer. He can’t go through another hospital stay!”

I jerked around another corner, happy to see a main road. The neighborhood had started to feel claustrophobic, and I didn’t know it well enough to be certain I was avoiding dead ends.

The closer we got to town, the safer I felt. There’s safety in numbers, I kept thinking. But the first red light we came to nearly had me barreling through stopped cars like a bulldozer. Only one car separated him from us. If he jumped out and ran up to the car, we were trapped. The doors were locked, but windows are easy to break. I had a crowbar under my seat that would do the trick. Adam would have one, too. And crowbars were the least of our worries. A bullet would cut through glass like butter.

The light turned green and I spotted a fire station just up the block. A big American flag flying overhead. Freedom, that flag said. Safety. So I pulled in and started opening my car door, thinking I would run out. But I knew from the time we’d come down to donate to the pancake-breakfast fund drive that fire-station doors were locked up tight. If I ran for the door, and he pulled in and got out of the car, the kids would be alone.

I imagined ramming the big overhead doors. And then laughed. It was a single “Ha!” I couldn’t believe how stupid I’d been. “Firefighters don’t even have guns!” I shouted.

The kids laughed, too, even though it wasn’t funny.

What the hell was I thinking a firefighter could do to save us? I had no idea why it had ever seemed like a good idea. He had pulled in behind us. I went around a handicapped parking sign and pulled around on the grass to get back on the road. I was headed for the police station, and wondering if arriving there would do me any more good than sitting in the small fire-station parking lot.

About the only thing that was clear to me was that I wasn’t thinking clearly. I wasn’t sure how to get to the police station. I wasn’t sure I could get back home. And Hamot, Arkansas, wasn’t exactly a bustling metropolis. The whole police force was around twenty-five cars and I was probably being generous.

I kept driving, and the fact that I was lost was most likely what saved us. Exactly what it saved us from was a mystery, but when I was making a three-point turn down a street I’d never seen before that was too far from town to be near a police or fire station, Hope said, “I’m pretty sure you lost him. I haven’t seen him for a while.”

“Me either,” Drew said. “I was just about to say the same. You lost him.”

“Who’s lost?” Jada asked.

From the rearview mirror, I could see the wheels spinning, her eyes wide with memories.

“Remember how Adam was having trouble thinking clearly?” I said. “I think today was a bad day for him. He got confused. We’ll all be okay though. Sophie is going to find him.” I had the urge to drive to Wisconsin, where my dad and grandparents lived. Home. We felt safe there. Nothing bad ever happened back home. Adam had never been there.

My phone rang. It was Ivana. I connected without saying anything. I didn’t trust it to not be Adam.

“Cara? Is that you? Can you hear me?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“You haven’t called the police, have you?”

“Not yet. I was on my way there. To the police station,” and as I said this I wondered why in the world I hadn’t called them. I should have. Of course I should have. I had even said I was going to. I had meant to after hanging up with Sophie. I really had. The worst part was that I hadn’t avoided the call to save him, I had simply been so wrapped up in my fear and the idea of getting to the station that I had lost the train of thought that would have made me call. I had panicked.

“He’s home now. Adam’s here with me. I’m having a talk with him. We’ve got it all under control.”

I nodded, but I had started crying and couldn’t stop. Couldn’t speak. I had failed again. Failed to do exactly the right thing to save my kids.