Reading Online Novel

The Christmas Promise(35)



“You too.”

“Do you work the day after?” he asked. Chaz nodded. “Better have somebody pick you up. You don’t want to be out in this stuff.”

Chaz closed the car door and stood in the parking lot, looking at his apartment. He could go in and drink till he fell asleep like one of the mannequin people his father talked about, or he could walk to Carla’s to see if she was there. He ran up the stairs to his door and put the key in the lock. He’d never been good at interpreting that small voice inside; he never knew if it was just his mind thinking thoughts, or if there really was something in his soul nagging at him. The wind howled through the breezeway as he stood there, waiting, trying to figure it out. He reasoned that he could continue to call her apartment and rationalize later that he’d done all he could, or he could walk the three blocks to her place. “Damn it,” he said, yanking the key out of the lock.

Carla’s apartment was on the first floor; he saw a light in the window and hurried to get out of the cold. He knocked but she didn’t answer; he knocked again and waited. The blinds were drawn on the window beside the door, so he peered through the cracks, looking for her or Donovan. Lights were on in the living room, and from what he could see it was a mess. He walked around the apartment and tried to see through the fence that surrounded the back patio. Snow had collected in between the slats of the wood, blocking his view; he jiggled the handle on the gate till the latch gave way.

The patio had the same view of the living room, but the bedroom window was beside the patio doors. He leaned over, straining to see inside. In the half-light he saw Carla lying on her bed. He bent over the patio rail and tried to rap on the window. He couldn’t get his arm to reach that far, however, so he picked up a plastic baseball bat of Donovan’s and whacked on the window. She didn’t move and he thumped on the window again, harder this time. She still didn’t move and his heart rate jacked up. He rapped repeatedly on the window, yelling her name. She lay still and he felt his heart in his throat. He threw the small metal lawn chair into the patio window but it bounced back to him. The grill was small enough to handle so he heaved it into the glass as he screamed for help. His coat got in the way and he threw it off, then tried again. The glass gave way a little. He slammed the grill into the door two more times. He burst through the hole he’d created and ran into Carla’s room. A bottle of vodka sat beside an opened bottle of prescription pills on her bedside table. “What did you do?” he screamed, feeling for her pulse. “What did you do?”





Paramedics loaded Carla into the back of the ambulance and one of them looked at Chaz, waiting. Chaz jumped in and the paramedic slammed the door. Chaz sat where the EMT pointed and watched as they worked on Carla. It felt like the wind had been knocked out of him, and he bent over and hugged his knees. He needed to throw up, but couldn’t. “Does she use?” The voice was loud in his ears. “Hey! Does she use?”

Chaz looked up. “No. I don’t know.”

At the hospital a flurry of people met the ambulance and chattered words to each other that Chaz couldn’t follow. They rushed Carla into a room and a woman grabbed Chaz’s arm, making him stay outside the door. After a few minutes—or an hour, for all he knew—a nurse with short brown hair and glasses on a chain around her neck flew through the door to his side. “You found her?” He nodded. “Are you a family member?”

“No. We work together,” he said.

“Did she ever indicate that she was being harmed by anyone?”

“No. No, nothing like that.”

“Her arm is broken,” the nurse said. “She has cracked ribs and several bruises.” She waited for him to say something. “Do you have any idea how those injuries happened?”

“No, I don’t know anything about her personal life.”

She went back inside the room and Chaz felt his hand start to shake. A middle-aged doctor with a high, round forehead and thin hair eventually came out and Chaz crossed his arms to stop the shaking.

“Vicodin and vodka,” the doctor said. “Has she done that before?”

“I don’t know,” Chaz said.

The doctor nodded, looking him over. “Has she had any recent falls or been injured by anyone in a confrontation?”

“I told the nurse. I just work with her and she never told me anything about herself,” Chaz said. “She didn’t show up for work yesterday or today, and I live close by, so…”

“It’s a good thing for her that you do.”