One Breath Away. Heather Gudenkauf
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Meg,” she begs. “I’ll just take a few minutes of your time. It’s important.” I invite her to join me in the cruiser. She walks around to the other side of the car, opens the door and climbs in.
Dorothy is fiftyish with midnight-black hair that is cut into a severe, chin-length bob and is attractive in an eclectic, trendy way. She normally wears bright red lipstick and artfully ripped jeans and Chuck Taylor tennis shoes, but now her face is bare of any makeup and she has on sweatpants and a thin spring coat. She has resided in Broken Branch for just over two years, but has accomplished much in the short time she has lived here. A single mother of two teens who attend the school, Dorothy opened Knitting and Notions, renovated an old farmhouse south of town and managed to be elected to the local school board, ousting Clement Heitzman, who had been president for the past twelve years. Dorothy has also been instrumental in the coordination of the consolidation of several area schools, which will now lead to the closing of Broken Branch’s school, sending all the high school kids to the nearby town of Conway, the middle school students to Bohr and the elementary students to Dalsing or Broken Branch, depending on where they live. The construction of Broken Branch’s new elementary school is scheduled to be completed this July, ready to open at the end of August. Many folks around town are miffed with Dorothy for closing their beloved school, as most townspeople spent the entirety of their education within the walls of that building. As somewhat of an outsider, I can understand the reasoning for closing the school. It’s a monstrosity, impossible to heat in the winter and sweltering in the warm months. Its water heater and furnace are ancient and I’m certain the ceilings are full of asbestos. Dorothy, along with the superintendent of schools, somehow convinced the rest of the board that by consolidating four area towns’ schools, the children would be well-educated and safe.
Dorothy gathers her spring jacket more tightly around herself. “I should have never put away my winter coat. That little taste of spring we had last week fooled me.” Dorothy gives me a pained smile. I try not to appear impatient, but I certainly don’t have time to talk weather with the school board president. I smile back but do not respond to her small talk. Dorothy takes a deep breath and looks at me levelly. “I can’t be sure about this, but I wanted to make sure you knew about a few things that had been going on in the school. Things that could possibly have some relevance to what’s happening.”
“What kinds of things?” I ask.
“Technically, I’m not supposed to say anything about this. The discussions we had were in a closed session of a board meeting.”
Now I am beginning to become impatient. “Dorothy,” I say, “if you have any information that will help us resolve what’s going on in there, you need to tell me.”
“I could get in big trouble for this. There are legal issues, lawyers involved.”
“Dorothy,” I say warningly.
“I know, I know.” Dorothy bites her lip. “There was a personnel issue with a teacher last year. He was charged with assaulting a student last year.”
“Yes, Rick Wilbreicht,” I recall. “I remember that. I thought he moved to Sioux City, but we’ll definitely have someone check it out. Thank you.” I pat her on the shoulder and wait for her to exit the car. She stays put.
“Dorothy, I really need to get moving here.”
“Okay.” Dorothy exhales loudly. “I’ve become aware of a situation with one of the students here. Severe bullying. Name calling, pushing, hitting.”
“Really?” I ask in surprise. Not that I’m not naive that bullying is going on in the school, but I would have thought the school administration would have reported any physical abuse to us. But still, I don’t have time for this unless it directly relates to this case. “Dorothy, is this going somewhere?”
“The student did report it to his teachers, many times. But nothing changed.”
“So you think this student is so angry, he would have gone into the school with a gun to get revenge? Was the bullying that bad?”
“He said it was constant. Things were posted online about his sexuality. A video making fun of him and showing kids pushing and shoving him is online also.” Tears begin to pool in her blue eyes and she starts to shiver, though the interior of the car is warm, hot air blasting through the vents. An electric current runs through me. We finally might be getting a break in the case.
“Dorothy, who is this boy? Does he have access to a gun?”
She shakes her head miserably. “I can’t imagine it would be too hard to get hold of one, though. Every home in the area has at least one gun safe.”
“Dorothy, tell me his name,” I say sharply.
She looks desperately at me, tears flowing down her cheeks. “I think it might be my son. I got a call from the school this morning. Blake didn’t show up. I can’t find him anywhere.”
Holly
I know when it’s eleven o’clock because that’s when my mother shows up at the door of my hospital room for the second time each day. She comes right away in the morning at eight, and then at ten she goes for coffee in the hospital cafeteria. She always returns at eleven, and knocks on the doorjamb, pokes her head through a crack in the door and calls out in a cheerful voice, “Is this a good time to visit?” For the first week I didn’t bother answering. Every movement, even forming words, was excruciating. My mother would come in, anyway, pull a chair more closely to my bedside. She brought magazines and her knitting and for the next three hours she would just sit. She didn’t utter a word unless I opened my one good eye, and when I did, the familiar voice of my childhood would settle over me like a crisp, sun-warmed sheet fresh from the clothesline.
“Remember,” my mother begins today, “the time when you were home alone and something spooked the cattle and they somehow got through the gate?” I try not to smile; the muscles in my face screamed with any twitch. I can feel the infection bubbling beneath my skin and wonder what new antibiotic they will try to fight this current setback.
Until just that moment I had forgotten that humid August day the cattle escaped. My parents, along with my brothers Wayne, Pete, Jeff and Todd, decided to make a day trip over to Linden Falls where there was a farm auction. I had no desire to spend my day looking at crappy old farm equipment so I pretended to be sick and stayed behind.
I had lain luxuriously in bed, long after they had left, when I heard the bellow right below my window. I was well accustomed to the mooing and lowing of cattle, but this sound was much too close. I scrambled from my bed, untangling myself from the sheets, and pushed aside my white linen curtains that hung heavily in the humid air. Below me two dozen or more white-faced black baldies wandered lazily in the front yard. I pulled on my barn boots and spent the next four hours trying to corral the cattle. I hollered and pushed and prodded and begged the beasts to return to the pen. Our six-month-old blue-mottled Australian cattle dog, Roo, tried to help me, but after thirty minutes she collapsed in exhaustion beneath the lone crab apple tree in our front yard.
“Oh.” My mother laughs as she also remembers that day. “When we came in the house you were sunburned, bruised and sore from your cattle wrangling, but all of the animals were back where they belonged.” My mother pauses in her knitting. “I remember your father telling everyone he knew about how responsible you were that day. ‘Regular cowgirl,’ he said. He was so proud of you.”
I remember each achy muscle, the way the heat rose from my sunburned skin, the way the ice cream that my father made a special trip into Broken Branch to get just for me felt as it slid, cold and smooth, down my throat. I feel my mother’s hand against my uninjured cheek. “What would you like to order for lunch today, Holly?” she asks me. “Ice cream sounds good, doesn’t it?”
I nod, my cheek absorbing the coolness of her skin against mine. I think of Augie and P.J. so far away, and even though I know it will slow the healing process, I begin to cry. I miss them terribly. Me, the person who could walk away from anyone without so much as a backward glance.