“Graham, I could call nine-one-one,” Eli said from the back seat.
He shook his head, trying to focus on one problem at a time. “Is she hurt?”
“I couldn’t see anywhere that she was,” Reeves said. “She’s not bleeding, and she didn’t appear to have broken bones.”
“Why would she pass out then?” Laney asked.
“I don’t know, ma’am. When I found her, it was pretty obvious she’d been lying there for….” He trailed off, and Graham almost didn’t want to hear what he had to say.
“Several minutes,” Reeves finished. “She’s groaned a few times and she’s breathing. I keep telling her who I am and that you’re on your way, so I’m glad that wasn’t a lie.”
Graham opened his mouth to say something, but then Reeves went, “Oh, and I called my friend at the electric company, and she got the electricity turned on, so the furnace is pumping.”
“I wonder if she slipped,” Graham said, and he wished he could reach across the console and hold his wife’s hand. They’d both worried so much over Bailey in the past fifteen years, and he’d held her for countless nights as she wept into his chest, and they’d both begged God to take care of their girl.
“We’re coming up to the northern highway right now,” Graham said, his voice a little wobblier than he’d like. “It’s probably another ten minutes from there.”
Laney looked out the side window, but Graham could only see her in his peripheral vision as he refused to look away from the rapidly disappearing black ribbon of highway in front of him.
“Well, now you know,” Reeves said. “I can call nine-one-one, if you think I should.”
“I’ve got my brother with me,” Graham said. “Let us talk about it.”
“You bet,” Reeves said, and Graham leaned forward for some reason.
“Thank you so much, Reeves,” he said, and he couldn’t wait to get to Bailey’s house so that he could hug the man who’d surely saved his daughter.
Silence blanketed them in the car, and then his wife sniffled. “She’s okay,” Graham said. “Reeves said she was okay.”
“Should I call nine-one-one?” Eli said. “Honestly, Graham, she should be checked out if she passed out.”
“She doesn’t have seizures or anything,” Laney said.
“There should be no reason she passed out unless she hit her head,” Stockton said, from where he rode on Laney’s side of the truck in the back seat.
“I suppose we could call them,” Graham said. “But they’re going to be piled up, and my gut is telling me to wait.”
“Then let’s wait,” Laney whispered.
Graham made the turn onto the northern highway, grateful for a good truck with powerful four-wheel drive. He wouldn’t drive anything else in Wyoming, especially because he and Laney lived up the canyon, about thirty minutes from town, and had to deal with snow and steep roads all the time.
None of their children lived at home anymore, but when they had, Graham had kept an extra vehicle filled with gas at all times, just to be sure they could get off the mountain if necessary.
“Maybe we should say a prayer,” Eli said.
Graham nodded. “Why don’t you do that, brother?” he asked. “And I’ll get us there as fast as I can.”
The mood in the truck shifted, and Graham couldn’t fold his arms and bow his head physically, but he did so emotionally, mentally, and spiritually as his younger brother began to pray.
“Dear Lord,” Eli said. “We know we have called on Thee regularly and asked for our fair share of blessings over the years, but we come before Thee again in humility and gratitude to do so one more time.”
Graham’s thoughts settled, and though his nerves continued to parade through him, they didn’t necessarily scream at him about Bailey. They warned him to be careful driving, to be alert, to check his mirrors, and to see everything possible.
He prayed for those things for himself silently, while Eli said, “Please bless Bailey. We don’t know how else to say it, and I don’t have anything specific, but Thou knows all things, Lord. Thou knows what happened to her and what she needs. We’re humbly asking Thee that she be granted those things for her long-term well-being and health.
“We just got her back, Lord.” Eli’s voice broke, and Graham swallowed hard in an attempt to keep his own emotions in check.
Eli cleared his throat once and then twice. “We just got her back,” he said again, more calmly now. “And we can’t lose her again. Amen.”
