Danny Marsden had been paralyzed from the chest down in a car accident when their daughter Rita was six years old. For five long years, Sarah had done her best to take care of him and her young daughter, and for five long years she'd wondered each day how she could go on. Danny's neediness and his misery took a toll on them all, and when he passed away the day before Rita's eleventh birthday, it was hard to feel anything but relief. Relief for him and relief for herself, relief for her daughter who had only seen her father at his very worst, though if Sarah was being honest, Danny Marsden wasn't a nice man before his accident.
Yet Sarah still didn't sleep well. Not then, and not now, more than ten years later. Maybe it was worry over her daughter and young grandson, because Rita had chosen a man just like her father. The difference was, Becker was able to inflict physical pain as well as emotional pain. It was the bodily harm Sarah worried about most. So when the phone rang at midnight she was immediately alert and reaching for the phone.
“Hello,” she answered, hoping Rita just needed to talk.
“She won't wake up!” Becker's voice blared out, making her wince even as she pressed the phone more firmly to her ear.
“Becker?”
“She won't wake up! I went in to get a couple of beers at Jerry's and when I came back out to the truck she was just laying there like she had passed out. But she wasn't drunk!”
Fear slapped Sarah across the face and left her reeling from the blow. Staggering, she braced herself against her nightstand and kept her voice steady, “Becker? Where are you?”
“I'm at home! Ty's screaming, and I don't know what to do. She won't wake up!” Becker sounded like he'd had more than a beer at Jerry's, and Sarah's fear swung on her again, catching her in the stomach and doubling her over.
“Becker, I'm on my way!” Sarah was shoving her feet into flip flops and grabbing her purse as she ran for the door. “Call 911, okay? Hang up the phone and call 911!”
“She's tried to off herself! I know it! She wants to leave me!” Becker was howling into the phone. “I won't let her leave me! Rita–”
The phone went dead and Sarah trembled and prayed as she threw herself into her car and squealed out of her driveway. She punched at the keypad on her phone and tried to keep herself together as she gave the 911 operator Rita's address and repeated Becker's words: “Her husband says she won't wake up.”
Ambrose arrived a few minutes behind Fern's parents, and all three were ushered into the ER at the same time the gurney with Rita Garth was pushed through the emergency room doors, an EMT calling out her vitals and giving an update on what measures had been taken en route. A doctor shouted for an MRI, and medical personnel descended on their new patient as Pastor Taylor and his wife stood dumbfounded by the arrival of a second loved one, still unaware of the condition of the first. And then Sarah Marsden was rushing through the doors, little Tyler, wearing a pair of mud-streaked pajamas, in her arms. Becker lurked behind her, seeming distraught and ill-at-ease. When he saw Ambrose he fell back, fear and loathing curling his lip. He shoved his hands into his pockets and looked away disdainfully as Ambrose focused in on the conversation that was taking place.
“Sarah! What's happened?” Joshua and Rachel swarmed her, Rachel taking the filthy toddler from her arms, Joshua putting his arm around Sarah's shaking shoulders.
Sarah had very little to tell them, but Rachel sat with her and Becker in the waiting area, while Joshua and Ambrose went to check on Bailey's status. Pastor Joshua missed the fear that stole across Becker's face and the way his eyes slid to the exit upon the mention of Bailey's name. He also missed the two policemen that were positioned just inside the emergency room door and the cruiser that had just pulled up at the curb beyond the glass doors of the waiting room. But Ambrose didn't.
When Joshua and Ambrose were led to the little room where Bailey lay, they saw Bailey's parents gathered at his bedside, Fern huddled in the corner, and Bailey lying with his eyes closed on the hospital gurney. Someone had brought Angie Sheen a small plastic tub filled with soapy water, and with loving care, Bailey's mother was washing the mud and grime from his face and hair, gently administering to her son for the last time. It was obvious from the grieving of those gathered that Bailey was not simply resting.
Ambrose had never seen a dead body before. The man was just lying in a heap outside the south entrance to the compound. Ambrose's unit had patrol duty that morning and Paulie and Ambrose came upon him first. His face was a swollen mass of black and blue, blood was dried at the corners of his mouth and beneath his nostrils. He wouldn't have been recognizable if not for his hair. When they realized who it was, Paulie had walked away from the dead man they all knew and thrown up the breakfast he'd consumed only an hour before.