Within Arm's Reach Read Online Free Page B

with the door shut, her face buried in my father’s overcoat, her rosary beads clutched to her chest. My mother’s prayers and violent claps of thunder swept me out of St. Louis.
    I planned to go back for a visit that Christmas, but by then I was too far along with the baby to travel. And then came Kelly and Patrick Jr. and life became so that I was rarely able to leave the house for a few hours, much less cross the country for a few days. Father came to visit when my first child died, but Mother didn’t make the trip. I never saw her again.

LOUIS

    I have just walked out of a pointless meeting with the mayor, Vince Carrelli, and the town council when the accident happens. I am standing on the steps of the Municipal Building, trying to decide if it’s worth going back in to have another word with Vince, who is acting like an idiot because I caught him drinking again last week, when I recognize Catharine’s gray Lincoln heading down the street.
    The license plate reads MAC 6. Every Lincoln Town Car Patrick McLaughlin bought had that same license plate, the only difference being which number car it was. When he died, MAC 5 had been parked in the garage. I prepare to wave to my mother-in-law as soon as she is close enough. I figure she’s on her way home from Ryan’s. Her youngest son lives just over the railroad tracks, in a run-down building across from Finch Park.
    As the car draws close enough for me to see Catharine’s gray curls and her silver-rimmed glasses, I think she has caught sight of me as well, because she’s slowing down. But almost immediately I realize she’s slowing down too rapidly. She’s driving down the center of a busy road where cars regularly exceed the speed limit. A minivan is gaining on her from behind; I can’t tell if the driver has noticed the Lincoln’s deceleration. And then, unbelievably, Catharine comes to a stop. She parks the car right where it is.
    It’s all over in a second. I watch Catharine take her hands off the wheel as if she has decided she is done driving, and then the minivan is on top of her. The driver tries to swerve at the last moment, but he isn’t able to clear her completely, he clips the fender of the Lincoln.
    I am running across the street before the minivan makes contact, afraid Catharine is going to step out of the car into the traffic that is now passing the Lincoln on either side. I put up my hands, palms out, to signal the other drivers to stop. I pull the car door open and lean in. Catharine is sitting neatly in front of the steering wheel, as tiny as a child, her purse gathered on her lap. There is blood trickling down her forehead.
    “Louis,” she says. “What in the world are you doing here?”
    I DRIVE FAST, but paying close attention to the road, while glancing over to make sure Catharine is still conscious, is not enough to distract me from where we’re headed. The last time I was at Valley Hospital was two months earlier, and on that occasion I arrived in an ambulance with a young man who was already dead. It is not a place or a memory I want to revisit, and unfortunately I am now speeding toward both.
    When we turn into the hospital’s parking lot, I pull over to let an ambulance wail past, red lights flashing. I help Catharine into the emergency room and immediately see the orderly, a chubby red-haired boy, who helped carry Eddie into the hospital. I notice the round scuffed clock above the reception desk that seemed to be stuck at three-thirty that afternoon.
    When Eddie was carried into the ER, doctors and nurses surrounded us. People shouted into my ear, across the body. His wife was there, too, in her white uniform, standing on the edge of the fray, although I didn’t know until later that it was his wife. That she was a nurse at the hospital who was on duty and had heard the call about the accident, and the name of the victim.
    Today I have to stand at the reception desk for ten minutes before I can get anyone to even speak to me.