‘Oh no, what now?’ he groans, murmuring to himself. Then to Jillian, ‘How did he sound? Did he say who was hurt?’ We’re already halfway down the stairs.
‘I don’t want to alarm you, Jarrod, but he did sound terribly distraught.’
It takes about twenty minutes to reach the hospital. Jarrod sits in front with Jillian. There is nothing any of us can say. We don’t know enough to even speculate, except that Jarrod’s father is the one who called, so he must be all right. That leaves Ellen, Jarrod’s mother, or his nine year old brother, Casey.
Ashpeak Mountain Hospital looks more like a retirement village than a hospital, but it has an emergency section that remains open twenty-four hours a day. Up here we have our occasional tourist injury. A lot of backpackers do the trails in the forests; some get into difficulty not knowing the terrain well enough before starting out. And then there are the car accidents. It’s a twisting mountain road that leads up from the valley. Of course I can’t forget the locals, mostly farmers, a notorious occupation. Today there’s an obviously distressed baby with rosy cheeks being nursed by his mother while the father looks on. The man glances up as we hurry past, probably wondering why the rush on such a pleasant Saturday evening.
A nurse behind the counter leads us to a small room off to one side. Ellen is there, sitting half curled up in a ball, her fingers tightly clenching a white linen handkerchief in her lap. She looks incredibly small and when she glances up as we enter, I see she is an emotional mess. Her eyes are red-streaked and swollen from a lot of crying, her complexion colourless, if anything, a sullen grey. ‘My nightmares have come back,’ she murmurs.
I glance briefly at Jillian, whose eyebrows and shoulders lift just a little. She moves to sit beside her.
Jarrod is embraced by a man who has to be his father. The resemblance is striking, except this man has stooped shoulders and uses a pair of crutches to support himself. His hair is a pale replica of Jarrod’s, thinner and sprinkled with grey. His eyes are vivid green, yet weary-looking, and he wears a face hardened by too much sun or hard knocks, making him look far older than he should.
Jarrod introduces us. ‘Jillian, Kate, this is my father.’
He forgets to give us a name, but I remember it from this morning when Ellen mentioned it in Jillian’s shop – Ian.
Jillian and I are invited to stay. I’m glad, because I can’t leave yet. It’s obviously Casey that’s hurt. And even though I’ve never met him, I feel as if I know him already. Jarrod mentioned him a lot today, and always with affection. Which is odd for siblings. They move around heaps, and I think this is why Jarrod gets along well with his brother. I can tell he’s protective.
‘What happened?’ Jarrod asks his father, flicking his mother a brief glance.
‘We were fishing,’ Ian begins. ‘Goin’ at it all day. He was having so much fun. God knows there hasn’t been much of that lately.’ He stops as words choke up inside. He swallows and closes his eyes for a long moment, then continues, ‘Mum watched him for a bit while I had a nap in the car. Then she went home to prepare dinner, said she would come back in an hour to take us home. You know your brother, all boundless energy, can’t drag him away until the last minute.’ He pauses again and his eyes glaze over.
After a moment he finds the courage to continue. ‘He caught sight of a whopper trout, tried to cast his fly directly over the top of it, but his hook got caught on a drifting log. I waded in a bit to help tug it free. Damn leg,’ he curses. ‘But the log jerked forward with the current. That’s all it took.’
‘What happened then, Dad?’
‘Casey held on to that rod so hard, fearful of losing it and getting an earful from me.’ He almost cries as moisture floods his eyes, but he sniffs and keeps going. ‘He fell into that river, swollen a bit from recent rain. I couldn’t hold him. I yelled at him to let go. He did eventually, but by then he’d drifted into choppy water where the current claimed him. He went down over a small waterfall into much faster running water. I couldn’t do anything. Damn leg!’ He thumps it with the palm of his hand, then winces with the sudden pain. ‘I watched him go, sure that I would never see him again.’
Jarrod slides his arm around his father’s stooped shoulders and they embrace. ‘It’s OK, Dad. I know you would’ve done everything you could.’
‘Your mother, God bless her, was already on her way back by then to collect us. We got in the car and followed the river. But it was useless. We’d lost him, couldn’t see him anywhere. People from the other side heard us yelling and screaming, and came to see what all the ruckus was about. Thank goodness they had a mobile phone. They called an ambulance and helped us search.’