Bedford, Indiana
Ever since Maggie Recino could remember, she hated being alone. For reasons she didn’t understand, her phobia became worse when she learned she was pregnant. Making matters even more difficult, a week after she found out she was expecting, her husband, Eric, a lance corporal in the Marine Corps was deployed to the Middle East. That was seven months ago and Maggie still had no reliable information when he’d be returning. Not long after his departure, she moved in with her mother in the two-story duplex where she’d been raised.
After a day filled with what seemed to be one long nap after another, Maggie pushed herself out of her mother’s lumpy recliner and strolled into the kitchen to get something to eat. Usually, they ate dinner together, but two days earlier her mother had left on a business trip. Maggie opened the refrigerator, scanned the shelves and then blew out a protracted breath. Hardly in the mood to create anything magical, she focused on yesterday’s leftovers. Finally, she removed a large plate containing three slices of pizza, the remains of her dinner from the night before.
Her Chesapeake Bay retriever, Burty, ran over, sat by her feet and whined as if he hadn’t been fed since Thanksgiving.
“C’mon, Boy. You ate your dinner. Let me eat mine.”
Just as Maggie was setting the microwave, she suddenly became unsteady on her feet. She had had the same woozy feeling twice in the past couple of days but it was worse this time. Leaving the pizza on the counter, she took a few cautious steps over to the table and sat down. Burty followed her and put his head on her lap. She folded her arms on the table and then rested her forehead on them. A few minutes passed but her light-headedness became worse. Her dizziness grew in intensity, leaving her nauseous. With food now being the last thing on her mind, she managed to push herself to her feet and find her way back to the living room.
Unsteady and breathless from the short walk, she flopped down on a denim couch. In front of the couch, two jar candles sat atop a wooden coffee table. The pumpkin-scented candles had become her only relief from the daily nausea her obstetrician promised her would subside four months earlier. She shoved one of the throw pillows under her head and closed her eyes. Hoping that the dizziness would pass, she held her head steady. She checked the time. It was five minutes past seven.
At quarter past seven, she was still no better. Her trepidation mounting, she decided to call her mother. She searched the coffee table for her cell phone but it wasn’t there. Overcome with fear, she plunged her hand between the pillows and then behind her, desperately searching for her phone. When she came up with nothing, she stopped, covered her head with her hands and flogged her memory. A few moments later, she remembered she had put the phone on the bookcase before going into the kitchen.
After steadying herself on the armrest for a few seconds, she gathered all of her strength and pushed herself to a sitting position. Looking up, Maggie could see her phone protruding over the edge of the shelf next to the television. She let out a long breath, stood up and then took the few steps over to the floor-to-ceiling bookcase. When she went to grab the phone, her coordination faltered and she knocked it to the back part of the shelf and beyond her grasp.
“Great,” she muttered.
In spite of feeling wobbly, she struggled to extend her reach. Finally, her fingertips touched the edge of the phone, but she was still unable to grab it. She looked down. By standing on the lowest shelf, she hoped to gain the extra couple of inches she needed. Cautiously stepping up, she grabbed onto the television shelf with her left hand to stabilize herself. Just as she reached back to snatch the phone, she was consumed with an intense wave of vertigo. The room spun like an out-of-control carousel. Pushing her face against the bookcase, she held on to the shelf with a death grip. Her equilibrium faltering, Maggie felt herself tipping backward. At the same moment the television skidded forward, grazing the side of her face before slamming to the tile floor below.
With the bookcase fully tipping and trailing her to the ground, Maggie somehow gathered the wherewithal to sharply twist her body to the side and push off. She cleared the path of the tumbling bookcase by a matter of inches. Her left shoulder struck the armrest of the couch at the same moment the bookcase smashed to the floor.
For the next few seconds all Maggie did was take one labored breath after another. She said a silent prayer that she was conscious. She also gave thanks that her sister had picked her son up earlier and was watching him for the evening. She opened her eyes but her vision was blurred and the normal sharp images of the living room were a latticework of melding grays and blacks. Burty had already jumped off the couch, barking incessantly while turning tight circles in front of her.
Bedford was a small town where neighbors knew each other well and embraced a common sense of responsibility for one another. Burty’s nonstop barking had not gone unnoticed by the next-door neighbor, Tim Oneida. He knew Connie was out of town and that Maggie was alone in the house. Being a naturally overprotective father and husband, Tim walked over to Connie’s house and rang the doorbell. When there was no response, he went to the other side of the porch and peered into the living room through a bay window.
Seeing the shambles of the room and Maggie motionless on the floor, he whirled around and grabbed a metal chair. Holding it by the back, he launched the legs through the window, instantly shattering the glass. It took him three more full power swipes before he could clear all the jagged fragments from the window frame and climb through the window. He was already dialing 911 when he arrived at Maggie’s side.