The Sweetness of Salt(67)

“Hold on,” I said, looking up at Jimmy and Aiden. “They’re going to get you out, Sophie.”

“We need a flashlight,” Aiden said. “I can’t see anything.”

Jimmy nodded urgently. “And a blanket. In the trunk.”

Aiden disappeared into the blackness, his shoes making heavy scraping sounds as he crawled back up the side of the gorge.

I leaned over to get a better look at the rocks trapping Sophie’s foot. The one on the left was as large and wide as a mattress, but the other was only about half that size. Both of them, however, were half submerged in water. The space in between, where Sophie’s foot was caught, was frighteningly narrow. I moved directly into the water, gasping as the frigidness swirled around my knees. It could not have been over twenty degrees. My body had already started shivering. Sophie had been down here, her left leg submerged to the knee, for God knows how long. How was she still conscious? And talking?

I stared down at my sister. For a split second, I wondered how much more of her I didn’t—and might not ever—know. And in the next second, I realized it didn’t matter. What mattered was how much I loved her. Right now.

Wrapping my arms around her again, I leaned in and cradled her head in my arms. “Hold on, Sophie, okay? We’re going to get you out of here. I promise. Just hold on.”

She reached up and grabbed my elbow and she did not let go.





chapter


51


Once we had the flashlight, it took Jimmy less than ten seconds to assess the situation Sophie was in, grab Aiden’s cell phone, and call the fire department for help. They arrived minutes later, springing into action as Jimmy, Aiden, and I stood by. One of them added another blanket to the growing pile on top of Sophie, but her lips still trembled violently. A wide, glaring beam of light had been directed down from the top of the truck positioned at the edge of the bridge. Under this light, two firemen were busy tethering a rope to the smaller of the two boulders, while the other two attended to Sophie. An ambulance screamed its arrival, sidling in next to the fire truck with a screech of brakes. Two attendants jumped out and joined the firemen in the gorge. One of them began taking Sophie’s vital signs while the other covered her with heated blankets. Above us, the red siren lights flashed back and forth, in and out, in a dizzying display of urgency.

I listened with one ear as an attendant began barking out Sophie’s statistics. “Heart rate is forty! BP is eighty over sixty and we got a temp of ninety-one! Any chance you guys can hurry up with that rock? This girl is in serious hypothermic shock.”

I turned to Jimmy, my eyes wide with panic.

“Let them work,” he said steadily.

I turned back, straining to see Sophie behind the swirl of moving bodies. My whole body began to shiver again, weakened from the strain of the last few weeks, terrified at the thought of losing Sophie. Jimmy took off his jacket and draped it around my shoulders while Aiden patted me gently on the back. The three of us stood very close to one another for the next thirty-seven minutes, until at last, with a roar from the firemen, the earth released its hold and, with one enormous, groaning, sucking movement, set the rock free.



We followed the ambulance to the Rutland Regional Medical Center, which was the closest hospital. The twenty-minute drive seemed interminable. I sat close to the window on the passenger side of Jimmy’s pickup truck, an ancient, rumbling vehicle that rattled whenever we hit a bump, and prayed that we would make it to the hospital without breaking down. The inside of the truck smelled like pipe tobacco and home fries. A thin coating of dust covered the dashboard and the floor mats were worn through with holes. We probably would’ve been better off taking the quad.

We drove for a while in silence, following the deep glare of red ambulance lights as they cut through the fading night ahead of us. To the right, the sky was turning the faintest shade of pink, like morning glories wakening. Jimmy drove with just the inside of his right wrist resting on top of the steering wheel; next to him, Aiden sat quietly. He had taken his hat off and was rubbing the edge of his hairline with his fingers.

“She’ll be okay,” Jimmy said finally, as we passed a sign that said RUTLAND—2 MILES.

I turned to look at him. “You really think so? Even after everything that guy back there said about hypothermia?”

He nodded. “They got her in time. She’s a little broken up is all. They’ll fix her.”

Hot tears spilled down my cheeks suddenly, as if Jimmy had turned on a faucet with his words.

Next to me, Aiden reached his arm across my shoulders and squeezed.



The emergency waiting room was filled to capacity. I was surprised until I remembered that it was Saturday morning. I’d heard somewhere that Friday and Saturday nights were the busiest in every emergency room all over the country. Why should Vermont be any exception?

Blue-cushioned chairs, shoved together to make one long couch, were pressed up against one side of the room, while the middle was taken up by three separate rows of backless seats. Nearly every seat was occupied, mostly by sleeping people, their coats bunched up in makeshift pillows, heads bent at unnatural angles. Two girls, who looked to be my age, were curled up in fetal positions at the feet of an older couple. With their hair splayed out behind them and their faces slack with sleep, they could have been at a slumber party, not in an emergency waiting room. Another woman, dressed in a pale green suit, nude pantyhose, and black heels, was slouched in a chair at the very end of the wall. Her hand covered her face, but her shoulders shook with sobs. The cuffs of her suit sleeves were covered with blood.