Free The Mistletoe Promise by Richard Paul Evans

the car. “See you,” I said to Dan.
    “Bye,” he said, waving behind his back.
    I threw Hannah’s bag into the backseat of my Toyota. I looked back. She was asleep. “Sorry, sweetie,” I said softly.
    I had just pulled out of our subdivision when my cell phone rang. I checked the number. It was work.
    “Hello.”
    “Elise, it’s Shirlee,” my boss said. “We’ve got a problem.”
    “With who?”
    “The Tremonton group. Did you book the Smithsonian for today?”
    “No, they’re tomorrow.”
    “No, we changed it, remember?”
    I groaned. “That’s right.”
    “They’re standing outside the Smithsonian. They’re telling them that our vouchers aren’t good.”
    “Just call the office of direct sales. Natalie will let them in.”
    “Where’s the number?”
    “It’s in my Rolodex on my desk. Look under Smithsonian.”
    “Just a minute.” There was a long pause. “You don’t have Smithsonian here.”
    “Of course I do.”
    “I looked through all the S’ s, Elise. It’s not here.”
    I was puzzled. “I don’t know where it would be. It’s got to be there.”
    “Do you have it in your phone?”
    “No.”
    Shirlee groaned. “There’s the driver on the other line. He’s got to go. He’s got another pickup.”
    “Just tell him to wait a second, I’ll be right there.”
    I sped into the office. I pulled into a parking place and ran inside. I had accidentally filed the Smithsonian card under N for Natalie. But that’s not the only mistake I made. I left my three-year-old Hannah in the car on the hottest day of the year.

    I’ve heard it said that there’s no greater pain than losing a child. But there is. It’s being responsible for your child’s death. The day it happened to me is indelibly etched into my mind. People have questioned the existence of hell, but I can tell you it’s real. I’ve been there. Seeing my beautiful little girl’s lifeless body in the backseat of my car was hell.
    I don’t know how long it took for the switch to connect, but after work when I got to my car I just looked at her, the sight incomprehensible. Why was Hannah in the car? Why wasn’t she moving? Then reality poured in like a river of fire. I pulled her out, screaming at the top of my lungs. A crowd gathered around me. I tried CPR, I tried mouth-to-mouth, I prayed with everything I had for a miracle, for a heartbeat, for a single breath, but she had been gone for hours. The world swirled around me like a tide pool, spinning me out of control. The paramedics arrived. The police arrived. Therewas talk of heatstroke and core temperatures and hyperthermia. I fell to the ground unable to walk, unable to do anything but scream and babble, to plead for my baby’s life.
    A police officer tried to get information from me, but it was like I wasn’t there. My little girl’s body was taken. I screamed as they took her away even though she was already gone. My Hannah. My reason for living, was gone.
    A woman came and put her arm around me. I don’t know who she was. I never saw her again. I wouldn’t recognize her if I did. She said little, but she was there. Like an angel. Somehow I could talk to her. “I want to die,” I said.
    “I know, honey,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
    Then she was gone. Had I imagined her?
    The press arrived with cameras and video cameras. Dan arrived after them. “What have you done?” he shouted at me. “What have you done?” I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t even speak. I was catatonic.
    There were discussions on whether I should be tried for murder or manslaughter. There would be an investigation. It had already begun. People were talking to Dan. To Shirlee. To my co-workers. To people who didn’t know me well enough to speak about me. What kind of person was I? What kind of mother was I? No one asked me. I could have answered the latter. I was the worst kind. The kind who killed her own child.
    They put me in a police car and drove me downtown to the station.