MONDAY NIGHT
Doreen leads the way down the dark hill and through the field, relying on her memory of the map. I am right on her heels, though keeping up with my assistant’s not easy even with a rush of adrenaline. This is a woman who runs up Mount Washington, the highest mountain in New England, for shits and giggles.
The news crews hop in their cars and go around to a logging road, which is where the ambulances, initially called to respond to Robert, are headed, too.
A chainsaw starts in the distance. Lights are shining through the trees. When we reach the others, my heart flies into my throat. Firefighters with headlamps are tossing aside rocks and removing thick layers of plywood over a small entrance. Holly wasn’t wrong when she said it was a hole.
Having done her part, Doreen joins my side for support. “The hole leads to a passageway to the larger cellar to get it under the frost line. That’s good. She won’t have frozen.”
My daughter is in a hole, a literal hole. I can’t even. I don’t care if Gretchen and Zeke spent a winter in that cellar. That was their choice. This was not Erika’s. Alone for three days in the dark. She must have been scared out of her wits. That is, if they put her in their alive.
I think of what happened to Zeke and clutch Doreen.
There’s a loud crack followed by a splintering sound. It’s then that I realize the chainsaw has been brought to clear a path for the EMTs who are arriving with a stretcher. Because she’ll need it if she’s alive—or dead.
“Erika!” I cry.
“A stretcher is standard protocol.” Doreen rubs my arm. “Remember, Elliot used to be a volunteer on the Snowden Fire Department so I know all about it.” Though she tells me that every time she mentions the SFVD, I find it strangely comforting.
A ladder is lowered and a firefighter climbs down and then an EMT carrying a bag of gear follows. You could have heard a pin drop as we wait, all of us not daring to utter a peep. I close my eyes and pray hard to a god I haven’t spoken to in a while. Doreen does, too, her lips moving silently.
I desperately wish we were alone without the camera crews crowding us, their intrusive lenses and blinding LEDs fixed on my face, which I know will be plastered all over the news, no matter the outcome. Here I am, the anxious mother facing a parent’s worst nightmare. What will be my reaction when they find my daughter? Will they zoom in for a close-up when I burst into tears of joy—or when I rend my clothes in grief? Nothing is sacred in this brutal business.
The silence, the moments that pass, are interminable. My devious mind torments me with a string of what-ifs.
And then, from the hole, a single, beautiful universal gesture of success.
A white-gloved thumbs-up.
Whoops of joy ring out from all of us. Doreen and I hug. The director and the producer hug. The cameramen slap high fives. We give wide berth to the first responders who are working their magic. An EMT reaches down to lift her from the capable arms of a colleague. They lay my beloved child on the stretcher and apply oxygen, her body so limp, I burst into a spasm of sobs.
“They’ve got her. She’s fine,” Doreen says, holding me tight. “It’s over, Kim. It’s over.”
No. I have to see for myself, I think, worming my way to the front.
“Ma’am, please move back,” says an EMT, holding up a hand.
“I’m her mother!” That’s when I catch sight of my baby’s pale face under the plastic mask, the IV drips in her hand. The only part of her I can reach is her foot and suddenly I have a vision of her as a tiny baby, her precious feet kicking in the air with joy. “Is she okay?”
“She tells us she didn’t take the pills they gave her,” the EMT says. “She’s probably just dehydrated.”
“What kind of pills?” I demand.
But the responder only shrugs.
I’m so proud of her for staying strong, for trusting that we’d find her despite sinister moments when she likely wanted to end the fear and pain. I have never been prouder of my daughter, ever. “You’re okay, honey. You’re safe now. I love you!”
Erika raises her head slightly and nods. I take her fingers in mine before the medics make me step aside so they can carry her to the ambulance.
“I’ll drive you to Burlington,” Doreen says. “That’s where she’s going.”
We climb the hill to the TMB house, the flashing blue police lights reflecting on the steep rubber roof’s solar panels, the latest in cutting-edge technology.