Snowed Under (Aspen Peaks #2)

32. Madeline

I came out of my test feeling pretty good. It wasn’t the worst final I’d had—that was probably my first chemistry class last semester—but it wasn’t the easiest either. Overall, I felt accomplished. I’d done something that even my parents had never thought I would, even if my grade was worse than I felt it would be. I wasn’t going to graduate. I knew that. But I felt this new level of relief now. This form of a new start. A renaissance.

I stood from my tiny cubicle and exited through the heavy door, walking to the woman behind a desk at the far end of the hallway by the lockers where my phone was.

I smiled down at the gray-haired woman who had a half-eaten strawberry-banana yogurt cup by her equally gray mouse. “Last name?” she asked, her voice a stale monotone.

“Sage.” I bounced on my toes. “Madeline Sage is the full name. It’s a microbiology set—”

“It’s printing,” she said, like I was personally tearing her apart from the yogurt cup, but I didn’t care.

I turned to face the printer, watching as three warm sheets with fresh ink came sliding out. I took a deep breath through my nose and out of my mouth. At the end of the day, the results didn’t matter. I wouldn’t tell anyone but Cooper. I certainly would never tell my parents.

Still, my hands shook as I pulled the papers out of their slot. My eyes scanned the first two pages, where each question was broken down, all the way to the third page, where, in big bold lettering, was Results: 82/100.

“Eighty-two?” I squealed, pulling the papers to my chest. “Eighty-two!” I shouted.

“Shh!” yogurt lady behind me hissed. But I ignored her, heading straight for my locker. Cooper was going to be so excited.

I pictured driving home to him in my living room, me waving papers excitedly back and forth and him lifting me off the ground and spinning me in circles. Maybe we could all go out to eat tonight. Or go get ice cream at Paradise Bakery. Heck, right now, all I needed was to hear his voice and to let him know I’d done it. I’d gone as far as the world would let me go. Graduation, no graduation. I was seriously proud of myself, for once. It felt like Will and Savannah were walking right beside me to the parking lot as I waited for my phone to turn back on.

This was the beginning of something new. Something unknown and beautiful, and we were going to find it together.

My phone turned on as I reached my car. I plugged it into the sound system and immediately searched for Cooper’s contact. Only I froze as notification after notification flew across the top of my screen.

I tapped the phone icon and saw sixteen missed calls from Cooper—the latest one from twelve minutes ago—five missed calls from Dr. Lora, and two from my mom.

My blood ran cold as I stared at the red numbers. Missed call after missed call. My hands were shaking, my fight-or-flight response kicking in like a shot to my chest. I chose fight and immediately put my car in reverse to back out.

Everything in me went back to that night.

I’m so sorry, Ms. Sage. There’s been an accident. We’re at Aspen Valley ER.

One last text popped through.

Cooper: call me as soon as you get done.

He’d used a period. Somehow that made everything worse. My hands shook feverishly as I tapped the button to call him five times, the delay in my device only growing my anxiety.

He answered on the first ring, and I spoke before he could even say hello.

“Coop.” My voice was as shaky as my hands on the wheel. “What’s going on?”

He sounded just as shaky back, causing my blood pressure to rise higher. “Okay, so everything is okay. Everyone is safe now.”

“Now?” I was shrieking, tears flowing from just the thought. “Where are you?” I was already pulling out of the parking lot.

“We’re at Aspen Valley.”

My chest started heaving. “Was there a—” God, this was not the time to get choked up. “Was there an accident?”

I couldn’t lose anyone else. Not my babies. No one could take them from me, not even death himself.

“No. God, no, Madeline. I’m so sorry. I didn’t even think of that. Baby, I’m so sorry. It’s Piper…she had appendicitis. She’s almost out of surgery now, though, and—”

“Appendicitis?” I cried out. “What, how? Toddlers don’t just get appendicitis? She was perfectly fine this morning.”

I thought back and realized she wasn’t fine. She was more reserved. She didn’t eat her breakfast. She wasn’t squealing with excitement like normal. She wasn’t herself last night either. Could barely eat any chicken nuggets, and when Charlie tried to play with her, she brushed him off. Maybe she wasn’t fussy, but she wasn’t herself either. And I was so focused on myself, on my tests and my giddy texts with Cooper, that I hadn’t even noticed that she was in pain.

“I know, Madeline. It’s okay now. Just come up here when you can. Drive safe, please. I know you’re upset, but we caught it in time. Mom’s back there ordering everyone around. She’s in the best hands. I have Mini Coop sitting with me, and he’s okay too. We’re okay. Your parents are here too. Everything is going to be okay.”

It sounded more like he was trying to console himself than console me, which only made me speed up.

My thirty-minute drive crunched into a fifteen minute one. When I walked into the ER, I practically screamed at the petite blond receptionist, who stared up at me with fear in her eyes.

“Piper Sage. Two years old. Tiny. Blond. Appendicitis.”

As the poor woman opened her mouth, a hand rested on my shoulder, and the familiar scent of clove hit my nose. “Madeline.” I turned to Cooper and sucked in a breath. “She’s in here. She’s okay. They just brought her back from surgery. She’s still passed out, but she’s okay.”

With our hands intertwined, Cooper led me down a bright, sterile hallway. We passed room after room, each one with sick or injured people laid up in hospital beds on top of white sheets. It smelled just like the ICU had two years ago. It made me nauseous.

He led me to a room on the far right, opening the door softly. Six chairs lined the wall. Everyone stared at me. My parents, Lora, my Charlie. But my eyes landed on my girl.

My tiny toddler, all signs of wild and crazy drained from her body, lying on a sterile bed in the smallest hospital gown I’d ever seen. My stomach lurched. Her tiny frame was so pale it almost looked purple. The skin under her eyes sagged despite the deep sleep she had been forced into. Her face was scrunched, like even in rest, she couldn’t truly relax.

Guilt coursed through me. I should’ve been there. But then again, would I have even known what to do? Would I have gotten her here in time?

Horror stories over my time in nursing school came flooding back. Stories of kids who had appendicitis, and their parents had brushed it off as a bad tummy ache, the results lethal.

Lora was the first to break the silence beyond the steady beeping of the machine showing her vitals. “She did perfectly.” She rounded the bed and raised a hand to my shoulder, rubbing up and down in the most comforting manner. “Cooper caught it at just the right time. The doctors said everything went just right, really.” She rubbed slow circles on my back, the way I imagined most moms would in this scenario. Though my mom was in a far corner of the room, staring at me with guilt in her eyes. Lora patted me twice on the back. “It’s okay, Madeline. She’ll be up as soon as the medicine wears off.”

I reached behind me and pulled a seat to the bed, stroking her blond hair and waiting for her eyes to flutter open. Everyone in the room stayed quiet, watching and waiting with me.

After a while, both of my parents stood and walked closer to me. Mom touched my shoulder, tried to recreate the comfort that Lora had given me, but it was counterfeit and unwanted. I shrugged it off.

“Madeline,” she started. “We are so sorry about—”

“Not now,” I snapped. “Not here.”

From the corner of my eye, I saw them look at each other and nod, taking their seats in the corner.

On the other side of me, Cooper sat, playing with the ends of my hair, whispering comforting affirmations in my ear, talking to Charlie too. I felt at fault for not giving him much of my attention, but I thought he understood the severity of it all too well. We’d have our time to talk soon. A time when I could give him my undivided focus. For now, Cooper let him watch movies or play games on his phone.

I expected some kind of peaceful awakening when the anesthesia wore off. Like in the movies, when someone is coming back to their senses and they start piecing things together one by one. Not my Piper. Piper woke up crying, screaming, wailing. In the driest little crack of a voice, she cried out again and again. The same word over and over. Hafpa. Hafpa. Hafpa. She said it like she was breathing, like it was the first thing to come to her. Only when she didn’t get hafpa, she cried harder and said the word I’d only heard her ask for on the rarest of occasions.

“Dada,” she cried out. “Da, da, da, da, da.” The same syllable over and over as her eyes squinted in the bright room. “Dada, Dada!”

My heart broke in two. I reached for her hand and softly rubbed my thumb over the back. “Dada’s not here, baby. May’s here. May’s got you.” Her eyes attempted to flutter open, but the lids looked so heavy for her tiny body. “Charlie’s here. Your Charlie, all yours. He’s right here, baby.” Charlie reached over and grabbed her other hand, whispering softly to his sister. We only pissed her off more. She pulled her hands away from both of us, looked right past me to the six-five brown-haired man behind me and said it one more time with her arms stretched wide for him.

“Dada.”