Free Home Before Dark by Susan Wiggs Page A

in Luz’s mind as she drove at a rampantly illegal speed, exerting a cold and perfect control over the car. She felt nothing during the endless drive. The mysterious yellow eyes of nocturnal creatures flashed now and then, and she knew she’d neither slow down nor swerve for the occasional deer or armadillo. It was as though she had given her mind a shot of novocaine, numbing herself to the soul-shredding terror that would seize her as soon as the body’s natural anesthetic wore off.
    She parked crooked at the hospital in a space marked Visitor. What else would there be at a hospital—a permanent resident? Then she rushed toward the main entrance under a grand porte cochere that made the hospital look incongruously like a five-star hotel.
    Except for the ambulance bay on one side. Luz didn’t permit herself to look, because if she did, she would be forced to imagine her daughter there, mummified in a cervical collar, backboard and fireproof blanket. Helpless, needing her mother.
    The automatic doors swished open to a semicircular foyer swarming with people—highway patrolmen, EMS workers, hospital personnel in Easter-egg-colored scrubs. Women weeping in their husbands’ arms, older people patting the hands of younger women, bewildered kids milling around in pajamas, everyone half-dressed and unkempt. Bad news left no time for good grooming, even in Texas.
    As she jostled through the crowd toward a horseshoe-shaped reception counter, Luz recognized Kathy’s parents and Heath Walker’s mother and stepfather. She couldn’t recall their names. When had she stopped knowing the parents of Lila’s friends? They used to be the women she would sit with by the lake while their kids played in the shallows; the families they would invite over for barbecue and volleyball on Sunday afternoons. Parents used to stand on the sidelines during swim meets and soccer games, cheering each other’s kids on. But as the kids got older, the parents drifted apart, needing each other less. Now they were simply people she nodded to politely at PTA meetings or church.
    She leaned across the counter, which was littered with papers and charts, little containers of cheap plastic pens and paperclips. “Lila Jane Benning. I’m her mother.”
    â€œYes, ma’am.” A harried-looking receptionist clicked the keys of her computer. “Let’s see. She’s out of the Resuscitation Bay. They’ve moved her to exam room four. She’s stable. You can go see her. I’ll get an orderly to take you back, and—”
    Luz didn’t wait for the orderly but simply took off, passing a room labeled Trauma. With a swift glance, she saw doctors, nurses and technicians clustered around a draped gurney, their gowns spattered like butchers’ aprons, the floor littered with bloody gauze and crumpled blue-and-white packaging. A branch off the main hall bore the ominous designation of Resuscitation Area. Hurrying past that, she found her way to a large oblong room surrounded by walls of wire mesh glass. Four beds were set up, all occupied and surrounded by a forest of rolling trays laden with instruments, IV poles hung with bags of some mysterious elixir, monitors punctuating all the activity with electrical blips. She spied her daughter immediately, an unmoving, supine figure shrouded in sheets, a limp curtain obscuring the upper half of her body. Only one slender hand showed, two of its fingers connected to some sort of monitor with clear clothespins and white Velcro. Luz knew that hand. Small and neat, like her own. Lila’s eyes were closed, her face pale but unmarked, an alien-looking oxygen mask covering her nose and mouth.
    â€œLila,” she said, rushing to the bedside. All of a sudden shewas trembling, melting inside. The nurse said she’s stable, Luz reminded herself, then said, “Baby, I’m here.”
    For a minute, it was just like when Lila was born, a tiny