Page 107 of Old Acquaintances

“Well, then, the cat’s out of the bag anyway. I might as well tell you. Hal –” She pulls the phone away to say something to my dad about the dog needing to go out.

I demand, “Mom!”

“Yes?”

“Mom - tell me what the big secret is!”

“Oh! Well, honey…the truth is that Elijah is the one who found you on the side of the road. He’s the one who called 911.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

Today

I spin around, holding my phone with such a light grip that it could fall into the ocean, and I look for him through the sliding glass doors. My brain processed one single thought from what she said: hewasthere. He found me. He called 911.

He didn’t ignore me.

He didn’tnotshow up.

All I wanted to know for seven years was that he cared one ounce for me.

I find Tucker in the light of the window, laughing and drinking a glass of water. His eyes dart around the living room as if looking for someone.

My mother continues, “He came over to the house that night. I’m not sure why, but he knew you were coming home for the weekend. He wanted to see you, I guess, so he stayed for dinner and waited. He kept waiting. He called you, but there was no answer. I figured maybe you got stuck in traffic or you left Birmingham later than planned. Hal and I weren’t worried at all, but Eli was beside himself. He left to find you. I said to your father, ‘How does he think he’s going to find her?’ thinking, of course, that you were on the freeway in Georgia or something. But bless him, you two share some kind ofconnection.”

Her voice cracks. “Ella, you would have died if he hadn’t found you, that’s the truth. I still don’t know how he did. Ikept looking at him in the hospital you were both born in and thinking,thisis why you were brought together. This is why Lori and I met that day. So that he could save your life.”

A tear drips down my cheek. “I’m confused, Mom,” I say quietly. “I thought a stranger found me?”

“No. It was Elijah.”

“But someone performed CPR.”

“It wasElijah.” She sniffles. “He pulled you from the car and called an ambulance. You didn’t have a pulse. He performed CPR. When the ambulance showed up, the EMTs said he was hysterical and refused to leave you, so they let him ride to the hospital. He called us and when we showed up, the first thing I saw was that boy covered in your blood. You were in surgery before we had a chance to see you. Seeing him like that – pale, shaking, absolutelycoveredin blood – God, I can’t imagine what you must have looked like when he found you in that car.”

I can’t imagine it either. I’d always been told the story of a stranger finding me, some Good Samaritan driving through the outskirts of town. I even wanted to know who that person was, but my parents claimed they didn’t know.

“An angel,” my grandmother had said when she brushed my forehead in the hospital. “It was an angel that saved you.”

I close my eyes, fighting to recall anything. Tucker’s palms pressing into my chest cavity. Him screaming about leaving my side.

I put a hand over my mouth to stifle the sound of my sobbing.

My mother explains, “Elijah was a wreck. I had to call Lori just to come to calm him down. He was screaming at the doctors, demanding to see you, it was such a scene. The hospital staff wanted him to leave. Christian finally got a hold of him long enough to talk sense into him. Elijah just held on to him and cried and cried.

“We told the hospital staff he was your fiancé, otherwise they wouldn’t let him in the ICU while you were in a coma. After that first day, Lori had to drag him home to shower and change out of those bloody clothes, and I’ve never seen anyone have such a panic attack. Well, except for maybe you. He kept saying, ‘I have to be here. Something’s going to happen if I’m not here.’ When he came back the next day, he only left to sleep. He stayed for the entirety of visiting hours every single day.”

I wipe my eyes. “Why? I was in a coma. What did he do the whole time?”

My mom actually laughs, which I think is a little irreverent. “He sat right next to you and talked to you. He’d hold your hand. He’d kiss your fingers. He’d stroke your face and brush your hair. He kept such a hold on you that Lori had to remind him he didn’townyou, that we had just as much of a right to be by your side as he did.”

“He wasn’t, though,” I say. “When I woke up, he wasn’t there.”

“He was in the hallway.”

“Why didn’t he come into the room?”

“He threw up!” She laughs. “I forgot about that. Poor thing. Your dad came out to tell him you were awake, and he vomited, right there, all over the hospital floor.”

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