Page 16 of Keep

Because there had to be a reason why Cord Gentry was calling his daughter on her wedding night at two a.m. There had to be a bad reason for him to do that. My mind raced through all the faces of Cami’s large extended family, the people I’d long since started thinking of as my own family.

“There’s been an accident,” Cord said and I had the feeling they were the last words he wanted to say. There was a thickness in his voice, a profound sadness. He wasn’t crying though. Cord was the ultimate family man and surely if something terrible had befallen someone in his family he’d hardly be able to speak through his grief.

“An accident,” I repeated.

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“It’s your brother. It’s Hale. You need to come down to the hospital.”

Life took on a rather fuzzy quality for a little while. With composure that sounded robotic I asked Cord the name of the hospital. I thanked him for calling. I found a pair of sweats and a t-shirt in my overnight bag and gently shook Cami awake, explaining why we needed to go.

I was calm until we reached my truck, which was still adorned with streamers and signs, the windows lettered with liquid chalk reading ‘Just Married’. Then when I tried to stick my key in the ignition my hand trembled. Cami offered to drive but I shook my head. Holy Samaritan hospital was only a few miles away but I didn’t want to spend even a short amount of time in the passenger seat staring out the window and thinking the worst. A few minutes ago while Cami hurriedly threw some clothes on I’d called my brother’s cell phone. There was no answer. I didn’t think there would be.

Cami didn’t offer me false reassurances. Her mind was too fact-centered and honest. She knew the news had to be bad and she couldn’t bring herself to say things that weren’t true.

The hospital parking lot was full. What was it about the middle of the night that activated a range of tragedies? I was lucky to find a spot only a few dozen yards from the ER entrance. Cami held onto my arm as we walked toward the glass door beneath the crimson letters.

Her parents were in the lobby waiting for us. They looked younger than they were, standing there in the harsh light of the hospital’s emergency room with their hands intertwined. They’d married young and had been in their early twenties when Cami and Cassie were born. Saylor’s eyes filled when she saw me and she bit her lip like she was trying to keep it from quivering. Cami’s grip tightened on my arm and I knew she was thinking the same thing I was thinking. However bad we had assumed this situation was, it was destined to be worse.

“Where is he?” I asked.

Cord looked me in the eye. When I’d first gotten together with Cami he’d thought I was too old for his daughter, perhaps too worldly. But aside from a few early bumps we’d gotten along pretty well ever since. Maybe he and I weren’t as close as he was with Curtis but so what. After all, Curtis worked for him, was from the same bleak hometown, seemed to be cut from the same kind of tough guy cloth. But Cami’s father and I shared plenty of common ground. I always appreciated that he was the kind of man who wouldn’t hesitate to let you know where he stood. And right now he was looking at me with the deepest sympathy.

“He was brought in with severe head trauma,” Cord said. “I know he’s in surgery but we couldn’t get an update because we’re not immediate family. I’m sorry, Dalton. I would have called your mother too if I knew how to contact her.”

“She was staying with a friend while in town for the wedding,” I said. “I’ll call her now.”

I already had my phone out and was retreating to a corner to make the call when I noticed something weird. Cord and Saylor weren’t the only Gentrys here. Cadence was sitting in a plastic chair in the corner and appeared to be comforting her teenage cousin, Thomas, who leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, his head bowed in a pose that made him look like he was sick or in pain.

That fact barely had time to sink in before a set of double doors opened and Cord’s brother Chase walked out, accompanied by his wife, Stephanie. They both appeared oddly dazed and borderline distraught. Cord went right to his brother and enveloped him in a hug while Stephanie accepted Saylor’s embrace amid soothing murmurs and none of it made any fucking sense to me at all. Something else had happened, something else to bring them all here. Cami took in the scene open-mouthed and turned to me with bewildered eyes.

By a strange quirk of fate I’d met Chase Gentry long before I ever knew Cami. He was my teacher in high school. My all time favorite teacher. The kind of rare and special educator who takes the time to make a real difference to the kids he encounters. It didn’t make sense that he and his wife were here and it didn’t make sense that they were so upset. I tried to remember if Chase had taught Hale in high school as well but that detail escaped me. They must be here for another reason. On an ordinary night I would have approached him to find out if there was anything he needed. However, this wasn’t an ordinary night.

The phone remained in my hand, poised to connect to my mother, but I didn’t proceed with the call. I stood there staring at the spectacle of Chase embracing his brother and was struck again by the oddity of coincidence, that all these years after I walked into Mr. Gentry’s classroom we should find ourselves here in a hospital emergency room in the middle of the night. There was a reason, a link, though I hadn’t connected the dots yet.

A strange thing, coincidence. Chance. Fate. Whatever the fuck you want to call it. There’s no telling when or where it will resurface.

“Family of Hale Tremaine?” questioned a doctor. At least I assumed she was a doctor. She was dressed head to toe in mint colored scrubs like she’d just wandered out of brain surgery.

“Here.” I pushed my phone back into my pocket. I might as well get an update before calling my mother.

“I’m his brother,” I explained as I approached the doctor. “Dalton Tremaine.”

Cami quietly stood at my side and I slipped my arm around her, gaining strength from holding her. This would be okay. This had to be okay. Hale would come out of surgery with a headache and maybe a scar or two. If he needed a place to stay while he recovered he could stay with Cami and me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the glass entrance doors slide open. Cassie and Curtis were here. The place was getting more crowded by the second.

“I’m Dr. Shevchenko,” the woman said, her voice kind but unrevealing, a veneer of professionalism firmly in place. “Let’s go have a seat.”

She didn’t motion to the chairs in the waiting room but instead held open one of the double doors. Television shows tend to depict emergency rooms as these frenzied hives of activity with people shouting things like ‘Defibrillator, stat!’ but there was no chaos in sight. As we followed Dr. Shevchenko past a long counter surrounded by curtained stalls there weren’t many people wandering around. A nurse frowned at a computer screen. A doctor paused at the counter and scribbled his signature on a clipboard full of paperwork.

And then there was Kellan Gentry.

“Kellan?” Cami said in a tentative voice as if she wasn’t convinced the young man parked in a wheelchair and staring at the heavily bandaged hand in his lap was really her cousin.

Kellan’s head jerked up at the sound of his name. The left side of his face was swollen and mottled with new bruising.

“What happened to you?” Cami asked.

---