Circle in the Sand Chapter 17 -Final

The paramedics and police arrived shortly, along with three-quarters of the neighborhood. I stood with Mrs Pratt, who tearfully looked to Hank, once again in handcuff. Mr Pratt was once agin spitting in anger with his rage directed at his son. My dad stepped out of the house along with another officer. He scanned the crowd, saw me, and made a beeline to my position.

“Are you okay, Jeff?”

“What about Mom…Colleen, the Joels?”
Dad looked back to the house and then turned back to me. “I don’t know,” he whispered as he took me into a hug.

I tried to imagine everyone walking out of the house, waving to us, and brushing off the events like it was nothing but instead several paramedics pushed gurneys through the grass to bypass the first few steps leading to the porch. They disappeared into the house. I took a step to the house, but Dad blocked me.

“Jeff, I need you to stay here with Mrs. Pratt.”

Mrs. Pratt nodded and placed a hand on my shoulder.

“No, I—”

“Jeffrey. Please,” he pleaded as and then ran back to the house.

Two bodies were rolled out of the house, but I could not tell who they were as the mob of locals moved closer to the house, blocking my view.
Mrs. Pratt’s grip on my shoulder tightened and she cried harder at the sight of the paramedics taking off. I broke me of her and ran to the house.

Dad came out and his eyes were as round as saucers.

“Let’s go. Your mom and Colleen are going to the hospital!” Dad turned to the crowd and shouted to the Prats. “Sylvia! Ben, meet us at Methodist!”

I followed dad to his truck, and w took off.

I looked out the window and then turned to Dad. “Dad?”

“Yes?”

“What about—”

“The Joels?”

“Are they…are they okay?”

“I don’t know, Jeff.”

“Are they going being taken to the same hospital as Mom and Colleen?”

“No,” Dad replied as he shook his head.

“Then where? Another hospital.”

Dad didn’t respond to my question; his eyes fixated on the road as we sped through town and into Omaha. I closed my eyes.

We parked the truck, ran across the parking lot, and bolted through the automatic doors to the emergency department.

The waiting room was flooded with people, including Mr. Prat. I recoiled away from him as Dad led us to one of the nurse’s stations.

I looked back at Mr Prat and wanted to yell at him. If he only had allowed Hank to rot in jail for a few days this wouldn’t have happened.
Dad stepped away from the desk and went over to Mr. Prat. I hoped he would deck him or body slam him to the ground.

“How is Patty,”Greg?”

“I’m going in to see her. Jeff, stay here with Mr. Prat.”

“No, Dad, I want to-” I began in protest, but Dad shook his head and pointed behind me. I could see a crack in his armor as his eyes sunk. He turned around and walked down the hall.

A few moments, a nurse approached from the other side of the waiting room.

“Mr. Prat, you can come back now.”

“I can’t, I—”

“—Go on, Mr. Prat. I’ll stay here and wait for my dad.”

Mr. Prat’s expression was torn between going through the double doors or staying with me. I nodded to him, and he followed the nurse, leaving me along in the waiting room. I sat back down and tried to remember what had happened, but everything happened quickly, and it left me frustrated I couldn’t recall anything.

“Jeff,” a voice I didn’t except to hear spoke from behind me.

I turned around to see Wendy. She was wearing a white shirt that had no marks and no blood, which brought me a burst of happiness in my moment of despair.

“Wendy? Are you okay? What about your family?”

“We’ll be okay, are you?”

“I don’t know. Dad left me here to see my mom and the Prats went in to see Colleen and I’m here. I’m-”

Wendy reached in and pulled me into a hug, The thought of holding tight to my emotions like a twelve-year version of Spock collapsed and I kind of slumped onto Wendy in a fountain of tears.

“It will be okay in time,” Wendy whispered.

The double doors opened once again and my Dad stepped out, his eyes were just as red as mine were. I ran to him, in hopes that he would calm my apprehension and ease the dark thoughts I had.

I looked up to him, my eyes broadcasting the question my lips could not speak.

He shook his head.

“No!” I screamed and then ran down the hall, opposite of the waiting room, and out the front door.

“Young Jeffrey,” Mr. Joel said as he stood next to Miss Joel

“Your…your all all right?”

“We are saddened for your loss, Jeff,” Miss Joel said as I ran into her arms.

“My mom…He killed my mom,” I sobbed in her arms.

Mr. Joel kneeled to my level. “Man is cruel and capable of so much pain. But he is also caring and capable of so much kindness. Can you make a promise to me, Jeffrey Robison?”

I nodded my head.

“Be there for your Dad and Colleen. Be a rock for them.”

I didn’t really understand but nodded again.

“Wendy, please take Jeffrey to his father and find your sister.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Wendy replied as I took her hand, and we went back inside.

I glanced back to wave to them, but they had vanished from sight.

“They’re not going to let us in.”

“They won’t have,” Wendy replied as we walked back to the waiting room.

I looked at the double doors, still closed but they suddenly opened and we walked into the ER department. I looked back to the nurse stations that flanked the doors, and no one raised an alarm or shouted for us to come back. We weaved around beds, medical equipment, and ER staff until we reached a curtain.

We pushed though the curtains connected and I saw my mother on the table. Her eyes were closed. There were no lights pinging up and down, so beeping, no mechanical hissing…nothing.

I looked to the corner of the room and saw dad hugging a teenager in a white sweater. The teen looked like a guy, and I wondered who he was.

The boy took a step away from dad.

“Mom and Dad sent me to get you.”

The boy nodded and I looked back and forth between the boy and Wendy.

“Pleas don’t leave again, Anna. We…I need you. Now more than ever.”

“What did we say to each other, on that night?”

I had to squint and blink a few times as I tried to picture the guy with long hair.

“Anna?” I asked.

“Sure am, Jeff,” she replied. “What did we tell each other that night, Greg?”

“Hoping you'll see, what your love means to me.”

“Keep that memory for me, Gregory.”

Anna reached in and gave my dad a kiss on the lips.

“Kind of a long story” Wendy whispered as I turned to her.

Dad lightly touched Anna on the arm. “You don’t have to leave.”

“I do,” Anna replied as she walked through the curtain. Wendy followed with a wave to me.

The curtain parted again, and a few doctors and nurses poured in.

I darted past them and looked all around. Wendy and Anna were gone.

My mother passed away that afternoon. Colleen came home about the same time we did. She went with us across the creek and beyond the wooded area. We walked a few feet away from the path and found several large stones where the Joel’s house once stood. Dad stepped further in, to about where the kitchen would have been and he took a deep breath. I hurried to stand next to him and took a breath and I could smell the richest aroma of foods, some of them I have still never had the fortune to compare to anything else.

“Will we ever see them again, Dad?” I asked as Colleen walked up to us.

“One day,” Dad replied as he went down on one knee and hugged us. “We just won’t know when.”

Coleen nodded as she looked around.

A slight breeze rustled the trees.

“I’ll tell them,” Colleen said and then turned back to us with a smile.