| |
AS SHE FINISHED THE first of her Saturday morning errands, Jamie chatted amicably with the hardware store clerk. She heard her cell phone whistle, indicating a call from her fifteen-year-old nephew, Marco. He was in charge of watching Max, her four-year-old son, at the playground by the library just a few blocks away.
Jamie had barely lifted the phone to her ear when she heard the desperation in Marco’s voice, “I lost him!”
Abandoning her purchase, Jamie ran out the door into the street. From the direction of the playground, she heard a woman’s scream followed by tires screeching. More yelling punctuated the air. Jamie took off in a dead sprint toward the spot where she last saw Max.
***
THE MORNING HAD BEGUN as a typical early summer day. Jamie quietly entered her son’s room and lifted the window blind, allowing the morning sun to illuminate the room. Max stirred slightly, turning his face away from the light. Jamie still marveled at how this small person completely captured her heart. Some people went on and on about how brave she was, being a single parent. But most days, Jamie did not feel brave at all. She was more likely to feel a mixture of joy, intense responsibility, and gratitude. Also, she did not feel like a single parent as she had surrounded herself and Max with a family of kin and close friends.
Jamie sat on the edge of Max’s bed and leaned over to plant a gentle kiss on his cheek.
“Time to wake up, mijo,” Jamie spoke softly into his ear.
Max moaned as his eyes opened and he graced his mother with a morning grin.
“Come on, put these clothes on. We’re going into town this morning.” Jamie gently tousled Max’s soft brown hair as he climbed out of bed and changed from pajamas to the shorts and t-shirt she offered. He followed her to the kitchen where breakfast was already on the table.
After breakfast, Jamie buckled Max into his car seat and drove the half-mile lane to her sister’s house to pick up Marco. The road to Crestwood was quiet on this bright morning in late May. The sun was shining but the smell of fresh rain from the night before hung in the air.
Crestwood is a small, quaint town, at the crossroads of two state highways, far from any interstate freeway. There are no big factories nor is it a tourist destination. A few small wineries and farms specializing in artisan foods dot the landscape around town. There is the beauty of rolling hills and woodlands, but nothing extraordinary. Only the locals fish and boat on the nearby small lake. A much larger lake several miles south of town draws people from the region seeking recreation, but no one has to drive through Crestwood to get there. Crestwood is not exactly in the middle of nowhere, but a non-local did not arrive by accident.
As Jamie turned onto Main Street, heading toward downtown, she saw a tall, smartly handsome woman she did not recognize walking along the sidewalk. The woman carried a large camping backpack. That’s odd, Jamie thought to herself, Crestwood is not a typical hiking destination. Her thought was interrupted by Max, asking questions about where they were going.
Jamie parked by the city library. She walked toward the hardware store down the street while Max ran to the playground beside the library, opened the gate in the fence, and let himself in. Marco dutifully followed close behind.
“Go play,” Marco mindlessly ordered Max. Marco took a seat on a bench, absorbed in videos and text chatting with a few friends who were also involuntarily awake at this early hour of the day.
A dozen other children were already playing on swings and slides as their parents stood talking to each other on the side of the playground. Max, inconspicuous in his red shorts and white T-shirt, quietly observed his surroundings from his perch atop a bouncing green crocodile. His short, straight brown hair was a few shades darker than his smooth skin. No one paid any particular attention to him.
As Max took in his surroundings, a large, gray tabby cat lying just outside the playground fence caught his attention. Moving quietly in the direction of the cat, Max slipped unnoticed out of the playground gate. Instead of yelling kitty or gatito as most children his age would, Max stealthily made his way toward the cat. The first brush of a hand across her fur startled the cat, causing her to bolt across the street. Max followed.
Cars parked on both sides of the one-way street allowed for a single lane of traffic. Emerging from between two parked cars, Max stood in the middle of the street looking for the cat. He walked along, bending over to check under each car.
From the playground bench, Marco looked up from his phone, scanning for his cousin. Panic spread across his face when he realized Max was no longer in sight. Marco rushed over to the group of parents talking amongst themselves on the far side of the playground.
“Has anyone seen Max?” Marco’s voice was urgent as he continued scanning the playground.
The parents shook their heads no and began to look around as Marco dialed his aunt’s phone number.
“I lost him!”
***
IN THE STREET, MAX stood still for a moment. A scream distracted him. He looked around to see where the sound came from. Suddenly an arm around his waist lifted him off the ground and he felt himself flying through the air. A loud thud and crack was followed by more screaming.
Max felt his body encased, tightly held to someone’s chest by arms wrapped around him. A hot surge of pain in his hand caused him to wince. Max wiggled his head free to look at the person holding him. Glazed eyes framed by closely cropped waves of dark brown hair barely focused on him. The woman attempted to speak but no sound emerged. Blood matted her hair on one side and dripped slowly down the sharply defined face.
“Boo-boo.” Max freed one arm and pointed at the stranger’s face,
“Boo—,” the stranger’s eyes abruptly closed and her body went limp.
Hearing the screams, Marco had run to the street. He saw his cousin lying on top of a stranger on the hood of a car. He reached for Max but the child held onto the stranger repeating, boo-boo. Other people tried to calm the child and assess the injuries to both Max and his rescuer. One of the parents from the playground called 911.
“Max! MAX!” Jamie pushed her way through the gathered people.
Max refused to release his hold on the stranger, shaking his head no to his mother’s tug. He pointed at the trickle of blood on the stranger’s face, “Boo-boo.”
“Does it hurt anywhere?” Jamie deliberately calmed her voice.
“My arm hurts.” Max’s eyes brimmed with tears.
Wanting more than anything to hold her child close, but uncertain of the extent of Max’s injuries, Jamie allowed him to remain on top of the stranger. She laid her head against his back gently, tears filling her eyes.
Within a couple of minutes, two city police cars, a sheriff’s deputy’s vehicle, a fire truck, and an ambulance filled the street. It took two paramedics and a calm, deep-voiced firefighter to convince Max to release his grip on the stranger. As they lifted Max away from the limp body of his rescuer, they discovered two of his fingers brightly swollen and possibly broken. Two paramedics loaded Max into the ambulance for further examination as the others turned their attention to the unconscious stranger.
The driver of the truck that almost hit Max concentrated as he answered the questions of one of the police officers. He spoke slowly, as if reconstructing every detail in his mind.
“I came around the corner and flipped my visor down. The sun was in my eyes and the glare off the wet street blinded me. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, I saw something flying in front of me. There was a loud sound, thud. I stopped as quick as I could and got out to look. This woman was screaming and running toward me. I swear I didn’t see anyone. I would never hurt a kid. I was being careful.” The driver shook uncontrollably, slumping against his truck as the officer scribbled notes.
A second officer queried the group of people standing nearby to find out if anyone had witnessed the incident. Two people raised their hands. The others had only seen the aftermath, not the actual event. The officer took statements from the witnesses first, then the others. The woman who had screamed offered her account.
“I was putting a bag in my car, the blue one,” she explained, pointing twenty yards down the street. “I looked up to check for traffic and saw the kid in the middle of the street and a big truck coming right at him. The truck wasn’t slowing down, so I screamed. I was sure the poor child was about to get hit when this person comes out of nowhere. She grabbed the kid and jumped. You could tell she was trying to protect the kid. Somehow twisted herself and landed on her back, not on him. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
The second witness provided a similar story.
“I saw someone swoop in and grab the kid. The truck hit her leg and kind of knocked her around. I heard a loud bang when she landed on the car. I ran over, trying to not get hit myself. I don’t think the truck driver could see a thing.”
The officer asked the gathered group if anyone knew the identity of the rescuer the paramedics were attending to. Each person shook their head no. Someone offered, a freakin’ hero, that’s who. They all nodded, murmuring their agreement.
Someone who had not witnessed the accident itself, came forward claiming to have passed the hero on the sidewalk just before the incident.
“She had a big backpack,” the witness told the police officer, “I think it was black. When I heard a woman yelling, I came around the corner over there and ran over to see if I could help. I don’t see the backpack anywhere.”
The officers continued taking statements and initiated a search of the area for the backpack.
In the nearby ambulance, Jamie sat next to Max. She held him cautiously. Max was quiet, his alert brown eyes studiously watching as his mother answered questions from a police officer and a paramedic simultaneously.
“No, he doesn’t have any drug allergies that we know of.”
“I was down the street at the hardware store.”
“Marco was watching him.”
“That’s his cousin standing right there.”
Jamie turned her attention to Marco, who was shifting uncomfortably from foot-to-foot at the end of the ambulance, looking unsure of what to do next. Speaking in a measured tone to conceal her anger and fear, Jamie issued a clear order.
“Call your mom and dad to pick you up at the library and meet us at the hospital.”
Marco nodded, the shame of losing his cousin pulling his shoulders down into a hunch.
The doors of the ambulance were closed and the driver navigated the narrow space to leave for the hospital.
Meanwhile, two paramedics talked over each other as they assessed the condition of the hero.
“Pulse, slow but steady.”
“Pupils, responsive but sluggish.”
“Looks like a nasty gash on the side of the head.” The blood was traced back to its source and pressure applied.
A neck brace was slipped on to stabilize the patient’s head and neck. Two firefighters helped straighten out the rest of the woman’s body, carefully checking for any obvious broken bones. A large bruise was forming on her elbow and arm, most likely from hitting the car hood. The eyes of the patient flew open when her ankle was moved.
“Pain recoil. That’s a good sign,” one paramedic noted.
A spinal board was slipped under the patient’s body to stabilize her for transport. The first ambulance transporting Max and his mother had rolled away as soon as the second ambulance appeared. Paramedics and firefighters loaded the morning’s hero in the back and raced off to the nearby ER.
“Marco,” Marco’s father, Bryan, called out as he arrived at the scene, “what happened?” Bryan could see the regretful tears in Marco’s eyes, so he held back his anger. There would be time later to decide on the consequences for this act of negligence.
Seeing that Marco’s father had arrived, a police officer approached to take Marco’s statement.
“I was sitting on the bench over there,” Marco explained, “I was on my phone. I thought Max would just play with the other kids. I didn’t see him leave. I heard some woman scream and ran out here.”
“You’re lucky someone was paying attention and saved him.” The police officer frowned deeply, shaking his head.
By the end of the preliminary investigation, a story had emerged. A child, alone in the street, was saved from certain death by an unnamed hero. The hero cracked her head on the windshield of a car and was still unconscious. No one recognized her, and the backpack that most likely held her identity was nowhere to be found.