Night Road(50)

“There was a car crash,” Miles said.

“Am I blind?”

Of course not, Jude wanted to say. It couldn’t be true, not to her son who had been afraid of the dark. “Your eyes are bandaged, that’s all.”

“We don’t know the extent of your injuries yet,” Miles said evenly. “Just rest, Zach. The important thing is that you’re alive.”

“How’s Mia?” Zach asked quietly, still sitting up. He looked around, blind behind all that gauze. “And Lex?”

“Mia’s in surgery right now. We’re waiting to hear,” Jude answered. “I’m sure she’ll be fine. This is a wonderful hospital.”

“And Lexi?” Zach asked.

“The nurse thought she was going to be fine. We’ll know more soon,” Miles said.

“Just rest, baby,” Jude said, using her voice to soothe him as she had so often when he was little. “We’ll be right here.”

She sat by his bed, as she’d done so many times in his life. A few moments later, Miles left again to check on Mia’s status. Waiting for answers was terrible, but Jude had to bear it. What choice did she have? And she believed in the deepest part of her soul that Mia would be fine. She had to believe that.

Behind her, the door opened again. “No news yet,” Miles said.

Jude looked down at Zach again, trying to think of what to say to him. Words felt heavy and unwieldy and she couldn’t tame her fear enough to think, so she dug deep into the past, went back to the days when she’d had two babies who tangled up together like puppies in her lap, and she told him his favorite story. She didn’t remember it word for word, but she remembered enough to start. “The night Max wore his wolf suit to make mischief, his mother called him Wild Thing and sent him to bed without dinner…”

As she remembered the words—something about the gnashing of his terrible teeth—she tried to distance herself from the memories they evoked. But how could she? The story reminded her of a boy who’d cried when she turned the lights out in his room, a boy who’d been terrified of monsters in the closet and under the bed. Only his sister’s presence could really calm him. Jude had ignored all the good parenting manuals and let the twins climb into bed with her and Miles.

And now his eyes were wrapped; he was deep in the dark.

“Mom?”

She wiped her eyes. “What, baby?”

“Have you seen Lexi?”

“Not yet.”

“Go see her. Tell her … tell her I’m fine, okay?”

She squeezed his hand and let go. “Of course.” She stood up, shaky on her feet, and turned to Miles. “You’ll hold his hand while I’m gone?”

“Of course.”

She pretended not to notice that they couldn’t look at each other anymore. “Okay, then.”

She stayed a second longer, unable somehow to leave her son; then she left the room and went out into the brightly lit hallway. Pausing to get her bearings, she walked up to the busy nurses’ station.

“Can I get information on Alexa Baill?” she asked.

“Are you a relative?”

“No.”

“She is in Room 613 west. That’s all I can tell you.”

Jude nodded and left the nurse’s station.

At 613 west, she paused a moment, then opened the door.

The room held two beds. The one by the window was unoccupied. In the other lay Lexi. Although her bed was angled up, she was asleep. Her pretty, heart-shaped face was bruised, her left eye had a bandage above it, probably from a laceration, and her left arm was in a cast. Beside her, Eva Lange sat in a plastic chair. The woman looked older than Jude remembered, and smaller. She had her hands clasped tightly in her lap.

Jude had heard so many stories about this woman over the years, how she’d picked up Lexi sight unseen and offered her a home. Eva had had hardly any money, and only a rented trailer and a secondhand car to her name, but she’d welcomed Lexi in. “Hello, Eva,” Jude said. “May I come in?”

Eva looked up. Her dark eyes swam with tears and the wrinkles on her cheeks were accordion-deep. “Sure.”

“How is she?” Jude asked.

“How should I know? Getting a doctor to talk to you is like finding a winning lotto ticket.”

“I’ll have Miles get you some information. It’s hard, though. We’re waiting to hear about … Mia, too.” Jude looked at Eva, and though they had almost nothing in common, they had this moment, this mother’s worry strung between them.

“I don’t get it,” Eva said softly, her eyes moist. “She told me she was spending the night at your house. With Mia.”

“Yes. That was the plan.”

“But they weren’t home at 3:30?”

It occurred to Jude suddenly, sharply, that her children were responsible in this, that they’d driven … and that she had let them go. “They ignored their curfew.”

“Oh.”

Jude moved closer to the bed, stared down at this girl her son loved. It all seemed so unimportant now, the fight they’d had because of that love. The question of colleges. Jude would do things differently from now on. Honest, God. I’ll be better. Just make Mia and Zach and Lexi okay. “She’s like a part of our family.”