But my visit to Father O had changed things.
I’d still had Henry with me when I’d entered the church and found Father O replacing candles. He’d been relieved to see me, though I hadn’t understood why until he’d mentioned that Phoenix had stopped by looking for me. I’d made up some excuse about Phoenix probably wanting to talk to me about our shift that afternoon and had prepared myself to tell Father O that I wouldn’t be able to volunteer anymore. I hadn’t planned on telling him why, since I’d known he’d find out soon enough when he saw the news about me admitting to the Nichols family home invasion.
But before I could say anything, Father O had mentioned how worried he was about Phoenix because of the phone call Phoenix had gotten while they were talking.
The phone call about his daughter.
I’d been surprised to learn that Phoenix had told Father O about Amani, but all of that had disappeared as soon as Father O had explained that the call Phoenix had received had been about some kind of emergency with the little girl. Phoenix had left right after that, but not before asking Father O to give me a message.
Tell him to trust me just one more time.
One more time. I didn’t know what that meant, but it was a request that was hard to ignore. If I hadn’t heard about Amani, I might have managed it. But concern for Phoenix had overshadowed my judgment.
What if something had happened with Amani’s condition? What if she’d taken a turn for the worse? Phoenix was alone. He had no family to lean on if the worst did happen.
It was that thought that’d had me saying my goodbyes to Father O and hurrying back to Dina’s place to drop Henry off. As much as I hated taking Henry back to Dina, I needed to be able to focus on Phoenix while I was at the rehab center. I had to hope that Henry would be okay for one more day.
Once I’d dropped Henry off, I’d gone to my own apartment to get my father’s car keys. I’d seen his car out front and had knownwhat it’d meant. He’d called in sick to work…that, or he’d gotten fired. I didn’t care either way because starting tomorrow, he was on his own. And I found that I didn’t care.
He’d been passed out on the couch when I’d walked in the door. In the past, I’d always looked at him through the fearful eyes of a child, but all I’d seen this afternoon was a pathetic old man who’d never been my father.
Because my father would have protected me.
The walk to the rehab center took longer than it had last time I’d been here with Phoenix, because I had to park in the lot on the farthest side of the building due to construction that was happening near the entrance. A large pond separated the parking lot from the building, so I cut through the grass and walked alongside the pond rather than on the walkway. As I got closer to the entrance, I could see a little girl standing several feet back from the water. She was feeding the ducks from a bag of bread. A young man and little boy were several hundred feet away playing on a small playset that was part of a little playground. I guessed the girl to be maybe eight or nine and the boy only three or so. I could see the little boy smiling as he and the young man played, but I couldn’t hear them over the sound of the construction work happening just up the hill from the pond.
As I got closer to the girl, I heard someone yelling and glanced up to see a construction worker waving his hands frantically at something. I couldn’t hear what he was saying over the sound of the machinery, but suddenly he jumped out of the way and there was more yelling. I quickened my pace to see what was happening. A large bulldozer came speeding out of nowhere. It had two huge cement culvert pipes attached with chains to the front of it. From the way the driver was jerking the steering wheel and the levers that I assumed controlled the machine’s speed, there was clearly some kind of problem.
Someone screamed as the bulldozer veered to the left to avoid a huge dump truck. It hit the curb hard and I watched in stunned disbelief as the chains holding the cement pipes broke and the pipes tumbled to the ground.
But they didn’t stop there.
No, they began rolling down the hill towards the pond.
And straight for the little girl feeding the ducks.
I yelled at her to run, but she didn’t even look up. I saw the young man with the little boy realize what was happening. He too yelled and waved his arms for a split second before he began running towards the girl, leaving the boy behind in the swing, since he was in no immediate danger.
I began running towards the girl because I was closer and I knew the other guy wouldn’t make it in time. My lungs burned as I saw the pipes pick up speed. Panic curdled in my belly because I knew they had to weigh at least a thousand pounds. They would crush the girl to death.
“Move!” I screamed, but the little girl still didn’t look up.
Terror ripped through me as I got within feet of her and looked up to see the first pipe less than a dozen feet away. I wrapped my arm around the little girl’s waist just as the ducks took flight. I heard her let out a little cry and prayed I’d hadn’t hurt her. I flung myself forward as I saw the first pipe in my periphery and knew I wouldn’t outrun it. I hit the ground hard, but managed not to crush the child beneath me. I felt a searing pain across the back of my shoulder as I curled myself around the little girl in the hopes I could protect her body from the impact. Seconds passed as I waited for darkness to claim me, but it never came. I could hear yelling and the splashing of water. I looked up to see both pipes had missed us and had landed in the water.
“Nicole!”
The young man’s frantic voice had me shifting off the little girl who was crying beneath me. I quickly sat up, ignoring the pain in my shoulder and skimmed my hands over her, searching for any signs of blood. Thankfully, she looked okay.
“Oh my God, Nicole!” the man shouted as he reached us. He dragged her into his arms and held onto her as she cried. “It’s okay, honey,” he said as he gently pushed her back and began moving his fingers in front of her. It hit me then why she hadn’t heard me telling her to run and hadn’t reacted to the crash at all.
Because she was deaf.
“Are you okay? Are you hurt?” the man said out loud as his fingers flew.
The girl watched his fingers and then shook her head as she signed something back to him. He dragged her back into his arms.
“Thank you!” he said to me and then he reached out to touch my arm. “Thank you so much!”
“You’re welcome,” I said with a nod.
