Faith Hope & Fiction

By Patricia Crisafulli

            Round dots of rain landed on the windshield and ran down the glass like tears. As he drove, Rand reminded himself that wet leaves could be as hazardous as ice, but followed the road with surprising familiarity, as if its wanderings had been etched deeply into his consciousness. More than two decades had passed since he’d lived there, and he rarely visited. The last two times had been his parents’ funerals, eight months apart and eleven years ago.

            Rand saw the yellow caution sign announcing a curve up ahead and smiled at the memory of what they’d called it. Outlaws’ Curve. Why outlaws he couldn’t say now, though perhaps that had been the most threatening thing they could think of then. Sitting in the back of his uncle’s Plymouth, they’d whoop and holler—he the oldest, his cousin Judi a year behind, and his brother Ricky three years younger—all of them begging to go faster.

            In the rental car, Rand accelerated into the turn, hands gripping the steering wheel, then eased off the gas. Now that he was here, he needed to arrive in one piece. Judi had invited him—beseeched him, besieged him. Come for Thanksgiving. Come for Christmas. He’d declined for the holidays, citing plans with his girlfriend, but said he’d try to come for a weekend in between. Promise—promise me! Judi’s beg had been a command, and he’d finally obeyed.

            As much as he wanted to stay away from this place, Rand knew it wouldn’t make a difference where he was. For twenty-six years—from a teenager of 14 to a man of 40 today—the guilt had followed him everywhere.

            The raft had been Judi’s idea, but he’d been the one to build it. Ricky watched, eyes darting everywhere with excitement. “Can we take it out? When are we going out?” But when the three of them hauled the raft made from an old pallet, covered with extra boards, to the edge of the river swollen by summer rain, Ricky changed his chant. “We should ask Dad, right? Shouldn’t we ask Dad?”

            That question echoed in his memory, of his little brother at eleven saying the only wise thing amid all their childish bravado. Judi had fallen silent, her widened eyes revealing her second thoughts, while Rand hadn’t wanted to admit his fear of the high water and fast current.

            Ricky had asked again, the repetition a sure signal that he wanted someone to tell them they shouldn’t go. “We’ll ask Dad. Okay, Randy?”

            He still could hear it now, as if spoken in his ear: his little brother calling him by his real name, Randy. In college, he’d shortened it to Rand for sophistication and to gain distance from this place. Dropped the “y”—he used to tell close friends, though Rand always thought of it as dropping the “why.”

            Why had they gone ahead with their stupid stunt?

            The blur outside the car windows, of barren trees and evergreens with waterlogged branches, became the banks of that river. Rand could picture himself, pushing off with a pole that was soon torn away by the swift current; the raft spinning down the river and slamming into a submerged log. Swept off, he’d come up sputtering. He’d found Judi snagged on a tree, trembling with shock and unable to speak. But when he screamed for Ricky, only wild water roared back at him.

            The minister, the school counselor, his parents—all of them had tried to lift the pall of guilt that weighed him down. It wasn’t your fault. You loved your brother. You’d never intentionally hurt him. Every time the pain eased he’d replay what Ricky had said. His little brother had known they shouldn’t go down the river on a jumble of boards, but Rand hadn’t listened.

            Only Judi understood his feelings and it strengthened their bond forged in trauma and shared blame. Then one day it seemed she had moved beyond what happened at the river. By then, he’d turned inward, sullen and angry. College had been the perfect escape, but not in the way his parents and every other well-meaning adult had viewed his departure. This wasn’t his chance to let go, forgive himself, and live his life the way Ricky would want him to—and all the other things they said.

            It had been exile.

            Up ahead, a clump of branches hung low over the road, obscuring Rand’s view. He slowed as the car scraped under the limbs and leftover leaves. That’s when he saw the deer and hit the brakes.

            Rand fluttered his eyes open but could see nothing except the interior of the rental car—airbag deployed, engine off, seatbelt cutting into the side of his neck. The car, he realized, was lying on its side.

            Move. He startled at the word, whether spoken or thought. Releasing the seatbelt, he let gravity push his body out of the driver’s seat to the passenger side. Head down and feet up, Rand scrambled to right himself but couldn’t do more than slam the soles of his shoes against the driver’s side window that pointed skyward.

            Being tall had always been a source of pride, admission to the alpha male circle in business and socially. Now it was a detriment, his long legs unable to pretzel into a smaller shape to get his feet under him.

            Cannonball. The word shot through his brain and his body obeyed: spine rounding, chin tucked, arms wrapped around his knees—just like when they jumped off the diving board at the town pool. Rand tightened his body and wiggled in the passenger seat until his torso was upright and his legs pointed downward. Then straightening to almost standing, he reached upward to unlatch the door and tried to push it open.

            Someone on the other side pulled it the rest of the way. Fighting for traction, Rand stepped on the steering column and gave himself a final push. The man hooked his hands under Rand’s arms and they both tumbled into the scratchy softness of a felled evergreen. The sideways car rested against the bulk of it.

            “Good thing a storm took that down a couple of weeks ago,” the man said. “Otherwise, you would have rolled for sure. Gets really steep, really fast.”

            Rand stumbled on shaky legs. His mind muddled, he couldn’t make out the man’s face. Thoughts spun into panic, and he tried to focus on what he could remember: the curve, wet leaves, something standing in the road.

            “Did I hit a deer?” he asked.

            “No sign of that,” the man said. “Musta run off.”

            A tree stump flecked with lichens jutted out of the muddy ground, and Rand made his way toward it. Sitting down, he rested elbows on knees and panted through his mouth. “My phone,” he said. “Must be inside the car.”

            “I’ll look,” the man said.

            Rand raised his head, but a wave of nausea made him snap his eyes shut. Something smooth and cold was pressed into his hand. Rand opened one eye and tried to activate the phone. The screen had shattered. He let it drop to the ground, a soft thud against wet leaves and spongey loam.

            The man wavered in and out of focus: dark jacket, jeans, blue baseball cap pulled low on his brow. Rand squinted at him. “I have to call someone. I think I hit my head.”

            “Help will be coming soon,” the man said. “I promise.”

            The rain started again, a slow drizzle that ran from Rand’s hair to the back of his neck. He shivered but felt no pain. Am I dead? He tried to register the thought, but his brain refused to engage.

            “You didn’t die, Rand,” the man said. “You’re very much alive.”

            Rand opened both eyes slowly. Had he told this man his name? He didn’t remember doing so but couldn’t be sure of much. He looked up into the man’s face. This time, the bill of the cap was pushed back, revealing a straight nose, heavy brows, lines around brown eyes that matched his own.

            “You didn’t die,” the man repeated. “And you didn’t kill me either.”

            Rand reared back, nearly losing his balance on the stump.

            The man reached forward and gripped Rand by the shoulders. At his touch, everything cleared—the patch of woods, the wet pavement, the rental car on its side, the enormous pine uprooted by a storm, and the unmistakable image of what his brother Ricky would have looked like had he lived past childhood, through teen years and all the way to age thirty-seven.

            A couple driving down the road found Rand, sitting dazed on a tree stump beside the twisted metal of the wrecked car. They called 9-1-1, then retrieved the blanket they always carried in the trunk for emergencies to wrap around Rand. When they asked his name, he told them Rand, though his family called him Randy. Details dripped out: how he’d grown up around there, but rarely came back. He had a cousin named Judi and a little brother named Ricky who drowned in the river. “He rescued me,” Rand said. “My little brother.”

            The couple exchanged glances. “Nobody was here,” the man said. “You were by yourself.”

            Rand pressed on. “He told me help was coming. Must have known you were headed this way.”

            The woman patted his arm, making soft noises of comfort. “That’s good,” she said.

            The ambulance came with lights flashing. A paramedic checked his blood pressure and took his pulse, while another shined the beam of a penlight into his eyes.

            Rand heard the engine before he saw the car, approaching too fast, then hitting its brakes in a skid. He raised his head to look up from the gurney, but a paramedic touched his shoulder and urged him to lie still.

            “Randy!” Judi’s voice was a strangle of fear and relief. Then she was leaning over him, the sandy hair he’d remember now a tangle of auburn.

            “How did—” he began, then remembered telling the man and the woman about his cousin. He must have given them her name and number. “My cousin,” Rand said to the paramedics. “More like a sister.”

            They conferred, the paramedics suggesting he be taken to the hospital for observation, and Judi interjecting that she could care for Rand. She had experience with concussions, her husband having fallen at his construction job a couple of years ago. The paramedics gave her instructions, words Rand heard but couldn’t absorb. He didn’t have to; Judi was there.

            Her grip firm on his arm, Judi led Rand toward her car, pausing on the way for him to thank the man and the woman who had found him. Rand eased into the passenger’s seat as Judi slipped behind the wheel, her car still running.

            Rand touched her forearm, just as she put the car in gear. “I saw him. He came for me.”

            Judi sat back, and Rand watched the emotions flit across her expression—confusion and concern giving way to relief and wonder. They sat in mutual silence, as if each waited for the other to say the name.

            “Ricky,” Rand said at last. “I saw him—plain as you. A man, not a little boy. Must have been a hallucination or something.”

            Judi shook her head. “No,” she said. “I think it was real—he was real.”

            Tears welled and spilled, wetting his face like a gentle rain. “When I saw the car, I know I should have been really hurt. I think he saved me, Judi. Somehow.”

            Judi chewed her lip then gave him a teary smile as she put the car in gear. “Let’s go home.”