The Best of Me(31)
Author: Nicholas Sparks

She couldn’t bear to look at him. It was all she could do not to scream at him.

The clock on the wall seemed to be keeping time in slow motion.

Finally, after an eternity, she heard the door that led to the patients’ rooms swing open, and she turned to see a doctor emerge wearing surgical scrubs. She watched as he approached the duty nurse, who nodded and pointed in her direction. Amanda was paralyzed with trepidation as the doctor came toward her. She searched his face for a sign of what he might say. His expression gave nothing away.

She stood, Frank following her lead. “I’m Doctor Mills,” he said, and he signaled them to follow him through a set of double doors that led to another corridor. When the doors closed behind them, Dr. Mills turned to face them. Despite the gray in his hair, she could see that he was probably younger than her.

It would take more than one conversation for her to fully absorb what he told them, but this much she grasped: Jared, while appearing fine, had been injured by the blunt impact of the smashed car door. The attending physician had detected a trauma-induced heart murmur, and they’d taken him in for evaluation. While there, Jared’s condition had deteriorated markedly and rapidly. The doctor went on to mention words like cyanosis and told them that a transvenous pacemaker had been inserted, but that Jared’s heart capacity kept diminishing. The doctor suspected that the tricuspid valve had ruptured, that her son needed valve replacement surgery. Jared was already on bypass, he explained, but they now needed permission to perform heart surgery. Without surgery, he told them bluntly, their son was going to die.

Jared was going to die.

She reached for the wall to keep from falling down as the doctor glanced from her to Frank and back again.

“I need you to sign the consent form,” Dr. Mills said. In that instant, Amanda knew that he’d also smelled the booze on Frank’s breath. She began to hate her husband then, truly hate him. Moving as though in a dream, she deliberately and carefully signed her name on the form with a hand that barely seemed her own.

Dr. Mills led them to another part of the hospital and left them in an empty waiting room. Her mind was numb with shock.

Jared needed surgery, or he would die.

He couldn’t die. Jared was only nineteen years old. He had his whole life in front of him.

Closing her eyes, she sank into a chair, trying and failing to make sense of the world crumbling around her.

Candy didn’t need this. Not tonight.

The young guy at the end of the bar, Alan or Alvin or whatever his name was, was practically panting to ask her out. Even worse, business was so slow tonight, she probably wouldn’t make enough to fill her car with gas. Great. Just great.

“Hey, Candy?” It was the young guy again, leaning over the bar like a needy puppy. “Can I have another beer, please?”

She forced a smile as she popped the top off a bottle and walked it down to him. As she neared the end of the bar, he called out a question, but headlights suddenly flashed on the door, either from a passing car or someone pulling into the lot, and she found herself glancing toward the entrance. Waiting.

When no one came in, she heaved a sigh of relief.

“Candy?”

His voice brought him back to her. He pushed his shiny black hair off his forehead.

“I’m sorry. What?”

“I asked how your day’s been going so far.”

“Peachy,” she answered with a sigh. “Just peachy.”

Frank sat in a chair across from her, still slightly swaying, his gaze unfocused. Amanda did her best to pretend he wasn’t there.

Other than that, she couldn’t concentrate on anything except her fear and thoughts of Jared. In the silence of the room, entire years of her son’s life were magically compressed. She remembered how small he’d felt when she’d held him in her arms in his first weeks of life. She remembered combing his hair and packing a sandwich in a Jurassic Park lunch box on his first day of kindergarten. She recalled his nervousness before his first middle school dance; the way he drank milk from the carton, no matter how many times she’d asked him not to. Every now and then, she’d be startled from her memories by the sounds of the hospital and remember where she was and what was happening. And then the dread would take hold of her once again.

Before he’d left, the doctor had told them the surgery might take hours, might even last until midnight, but she wondered whether someone would give them an update before then. She wanted to know what was happening. She wanted someone to explain it to her in a way she’d understand, but what she really wanted was for someone to hold her and promise that her little boy—even if he was now almost a man—was going to be okay.

Abee stood in Candy’s bedroom, his lips forming a tight line as he took it all in.

Her closet was empty. Her drawers were empty. The damn bathroom vanity was empty.

No wonder she hadn’t answered the phone earlier. Candy had been busy packing her things. And when she had finally answered the phone? Why, she must have forgotten to mention anything about her little plans to leave town.

But no one left Abee Cole. No one.

And what if it was because of that new boyfriend of hers? What if they planned to run off together?

The idea was enough to make him bolt out the shattered back door. Rounding the house, he hurried to the truck, knowing he had to get to the Tidewater now.

Candy and her little boy were going to learn a lesson tonight. Both of them. The kind of lesson neither was likely to forget.

20

The night was as dark as any Dawson could remember. No moon, only endless black above, punctuated by the faint flicker of stars.

He was getting close to Oriental now and couldn’t escape the feeling that he was somehow making a mistake by returning. He’d have to pass through the town to reach Tuck’s, and he knew his cousins could be waiting for him anywhere.

Up ahead, beyond the curve where his life had changed forever, Dawson noticed the glow of Oriental’s lights, rising beyond the tree line. If he was going to change his mind, he needed to do it now.

Unconsciously, he eased his foot off the pedal, and it was then, as the car slowed down, that Dawson felt suddenly that he was being watched.

Abee squeezed the wheel tight as the truck roared through town, tires squealing. He took a hard left into the parking lot of the Tidewater, sending the truck skidding as he slammed on the brakes in a handicapped spot. For the first time since smashing up the Stingray, even Ted was showing signs of life, the anticipation of violence heavy in the truck.

The truck had barely come to a halt before Abee leapt out, Ted close behind. Abee couldn’t get his mind around the fact that Candy had been lying to him. She’d obviously been planning her little escape for some time and believed that he wouldn’t find out. It was time to teach her just who made the rules around here. Because you see, Candy, it sure as hell ain’t you.

As he stormed toward the entrance, Abee noticed that Candy’s Mustang convertible wasn’t in the lot, which meant she’d probably parked it somewhere else. At some guy’s house, both of them probably laughing behind Abee’s back. He could just hear Candy laughing at what a fool Abee was, and the thought made him want to blast through the door, aim the gun in the direction of the bar, and just start pulling the trigger.

But he wasn’t going to do that. Oh, no. Because first, she had to understand exactly what was going on. She had to understand that he made the rules.

Beside him Ted was remarkably steady on his feet, almost excited. Faint strains of music from the jukebox came from inside, the neon rope that spelled out the name of the bar painting their faces with a reddish glow.

Abee nodded at Ted before raising his leg to kick open the door.

Dawson slowed the car to a crawl, every nerve ending on high alert. In the distance, he could just make out the lights of Oriental. He was overcome by a sudden sense of déjà vu, as if he already knew what was coming but was powerless to stop it, even if he wanted to.

Dawson leaned over the wheel. If he squinted, he could make out the convenience store, the one he’d passed on his morning jog. The spire of the First Baptist Church, illuminated by floodlights, seemed to hover above the business district. The halogen streetlights cast an eerie glow on the macadam, highlighting the route that led to Tuck’s, taunting him with the possibility that he might never make it there. The stars he’d seen before had vanished, the sky above the town was almost unnaturally black. Up ahead on the right squatted the low-slung building that had replaced the original copse of trees, almost exactly central to the curve in the highway at the edge of town.

Dawson scanned the landscape closely, waiting for… something. Almost immediately, he was rewarded by a flash of movement beyond the driver’s side window.

He was there, standing just outside the edges of the headlights’ beams, in the meadow that bordered the highway. The dark-haired man.

The ghost.

It happened so fast, Alan couldn’t even comprehend it.

There he was, chatting up Candy—or trying to, anyway—as she was getting ready to drop off another beer, when all of a sudden the front door of the bar was shoved open with such force that the upper half was torn from its hinge.

Before Alan had time to flinch, Candy had already begun to react. Recognition flashed across her face, the beer bottle halting in mid-delivery. Candy mouthed the words Oh, shit before she suddenly let go of the bottle.

By the time the bottle burst into splinters on the concrete floor, Candy had already turned and was sprinting away from him, a scream rising in her throat.

Behind him, a roar echoed off the wall.

“WHO IN THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?!”

Alan shrank into himself as Candy raced for the far end of the bar, toward the manager’s office. Alan had been coming to the Tidewater long enough to know that the manager’s office had a reinforced steel door with dead bolts, because that was where the safe was kept.

Cringing, Alan watched Abee zero in on her as he rushed past him, chasing Candy’s blond ponytail to the end of the bar. Abee, too, knew where she was going.

“OH, NO, YOU DON’T, YOU BITCH!”

Candy threw a terrified look over her shoulder before grabbing the doorjamb of the office. With a cry, she catapulted herself through the opening.

She swung the door closed just as Abee planted a hand and lunged over the bar. Empty bottles and glasses went flying. The register crashed to the floor, but he got his legs out in front of him.

Almost.

He hit the floor, stumbling, knocking liquor bottles off the shelf below the mirror as though they were bowling pins.

They barely slowed him down. In a flash, he was solidly on his feet and at the manager’s door. Alan saw everything, each scene unfolding individually with surreal, violent precision. But when his thoughts caught up with what was actually happening, panic flooded every inch of his body.

This isn’t a movie.

Abee began to pound on the door, hurling himself against it, his voice a hurricane. “OPEN THE DAMN DOOR!”

This is real.

He could hear Candy screaming hysterically from the locked office.

Oh, my God…

In the rear of the bar, the guys who’d been playing pool suddenly bolted toward the emergency exit, dropping their pool cues as they ran. It was the slapping sound the cues made as they hit the concrete floor that caused Alan’s heart to hiccup in his chest, kicking into gear a primitive instinct for survival.

He had to get out of here.

He had to get out of here now!

Alan shot off the stool like he’d been jabbed with an ice pick, sending it toppling backward and grabbing at the bar to keep from falling down. Turning toward the cockeyed front door, he could see the parking lot beyond. The main road out front beckoned, and he surged toward it.

He was only vaguely aware that Abee was pounding and shouting that he was going to kill Candy if she didn’t open the door. He barely noted the overturned tables and chairs. The only thing that mattered was reaching that opening and getting the hell out of the Tidewater as fast as he possibly could.

He heard his sneakers hitting the concrete floor, but the cockeyed door seemed to be getting no closer. Like one of those doors at a carnival funhouse…

From far away, he heard Candy scream, “Leave me alone!”

He didn’t see Ted at all, nor did he see the chair that Ted heaved in his direction until it smashed into his legs, sending him sprawling. Alan instinctively tried to break his fall, but he couldn’t stop the momentum. His forehead hit the floor hard, the impact stunning him. He saw bursts of white light before everything went black.

Only slowly did the world come into focus again.

He could taste blood as he struggled to untangle his legs from the chair and turn over. He felt a boot step down hard on the side of his face, the heel cutting sharply into his jaw as his head was pressed to the floor.

Above him, Crazy Ted Cole stood pointing a gun right at him, looking faintly amused.

“Just where do you think you’re going?”

Dawson pulled the car to the side of the road. He half-expected the figure to vanish in the shadows as he stepped out of the car, but the dark-haired man stood in place, surrounded by knee-high grass. He was perhaps fifty yards away, close enough for Dawson to notice the windbreaker rippling in the evening breeze. At a sprint, even fully clothed and running through high grass, Dawson could reach the man in less than ten seconds.

Dawson knew he wasn’t imagining the stranger. He could feel him, could sense him as plainly as the beating of his heart. Without taking his eyes from the man, Dawson stretched his arm into the car and turned off the engine, killing the headlights. Even in the darkness, Dawson could see the splash of the man’s white shirt, framed by the open windbreaker. His face, however, was too vague to make out, as always.

Dawson stepped from the road, onto the narrow gravel median beside it.

The stranger didn’t move.

Dawson ventured farther into the meadow grass, and still the figure remained, unmoving.