Vow to Cherish Read online

  As soon as he checked into the hotel where the conference was being held, he called home to see how things were going. Since everything seemed to be under control, he relaxed a little. He slept better that night than he had in a long while.

  He enjoyed the following morning’s meetings immensely and felt guilty when he realized that he had managed to put Ellen out of his mind.

  When he got out of his last meeting at five o’clock, the weather was beautiful, so he went for a run on the hotel’s jogging path that followed the curving course of a man-made lake. Surprisingly, the path was deserted this late in the early evening. As John breathed in the air that blew across the water, he breathed in a freedom that he had forgotten existed.

  How liberating to have a few days laid out before him—hour upon hour—with obligations to no one but himself and the job he loved. He felt physically lighter with each step he took, as though a great load were being lifted from his back. It came as a revelation—just how desperately he needed this hiatus from the grave burden of Ellen’s care.

  He went back to his room, showered, and walked down to the hotel restaurant for a late dinner. He read the newspaper over chicken cordon bleu, lingering at the table, relishing each precious second of time that was his alone.

  After an hour, he paid the tab and started back to his room. Before getting on the elevator, he stopped by the desk in the lobby to inquire about the next day’s schedule.

  But when John mentioned his name, the concierge turned to the large board behind him. “Oh, Mr. Brighton. I believe we have a message for you.” He handed John a folded slip of paper bearing his room number.

  John opened the paper and read the ominous words: “Call home immediately.”

  He’d turned off his cell phone in the meetings this morning and hadn’t once thought to turn it back on. Now he jabbed at the keys, checking for messages. He had six of them. He dialed Jana as he jogged toward the elevator. No answer. He pushed End and called home.

  The elevator seemed to take forever to arrive at the lobby and there were half a dozen other people waiting to get on. John rushed past them and stepped inside. He blindly pushed the button for his floor, not caring if he appeared rude.

  What could have happened? Was something wrong with Ellen? Had Mrs. Grady backed out on him? Knowing John’s circumstances, no one would leave him a message like this unless it was truly an emergency.

  “Oh, dear God. Let it be a mistake. Please let it all be a mistake.”

  The phone started to ring, then lost reception as the elevator crawled to the fourth floor and opened onto the long corridor. John flipped the phone shut and ran down the hall, fumbling in his pockets for his room key card. He unlocked the door and went to the phone on the bedside table. The message light was blinking red. He stabbed at the buttons on the phone, trying to get an outside line. Finally he heard the tone. With a deepening sense of foreboding, he punched in the number for home.

  Jana answered the phone.

  “Jana?” Why was she there? “It’s Dad. Is everything okay?”

  “Oh, Dad! Thank goodness you called!” Her voice wavered. “Mom’s…gone.”

  “What? What are you saying, Jana?”

  “The nurse was fixing Mom a snack in the kitchen this afternoon, and when she came back to the living room Mom wasn’t there. She looked everywhere in the house and outdoors, too, but Mom was just gone. We’ve been trying to reach you since about five.” Her words tumbled out in a rush. “Oh, Dad, I’m so worried. Everybody in the neighborhood is looking for her, but we don’t have a clue where she might be. Nobody has seen her.”

  “You mean she just walked out of the house by herself? She’s never done that, Jana. Are you sure she’s not hiding in the house there somewhere? Or out in the yard? I can’t imagine her going off on her own like that. She’s never done that before,” he repeated.

  “Mrs. Grady said the front door was open when she came to give Mom a snack. I don’t know what else could have happened.”

  “Have you called the police?”

  “Yes. They said they would put out an alert, but we haven’t heard anything from them yet. Oh, Dad, what are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know, Jana. Do the boys know?”

  “I just got hold of Brant, and he’s going to try to find Kyle and come home right away. Mark is out searching with the neighbors. She couldn’t have gotten very far, could she, Dad? She can’t even walk that well.”

  “I don’t know, honey. Hang on…” He checked his cell phone. “Let me call you back on my cell.” Without waiting for a response, he dropped the receiver into its cradle and dialed home on his cell. Jana picked up on the first ring.

  “Dad? What happened.” Her voice reflected the panic and helplessness he felt.

  “I switched over to my cell phone.” He clamped the phone between his shoulder and his ear, lofted his suitcase onto the bed and started tossing his clothes and a raft of papers from the conference into it. “Just try to stay calm, Jana…okay? I’m packing right now. I’ll be home as soon as I can. It took me about three hours to get up here so it might be late, but I’ll be there as soon as I possibly can.” Then almost to himself he said, “I knew I shouldn’t have left her. I can’t believe this is happening.”

  Still balancing the phone on one shoulder, he went into the bathroom and swept his toiletries off the counter into his shaving kit. “Where is Mrs. Grady now?”

  “We sent her home. She was really upset, Dad. She feels terrible. Do you think maybe she wasn’t watching her very well?”

  “I don’t know, Jana. I can’t imagine how this could have happened!” A cloud of guilt descended, nearly overwhelming him. How could he have left her? What was he thinking?

  With difficulty, he composed himself. “Okay. I’m going to hang up and get on the road. You’re doing great, honey. The cell service is lousy around here, but I’ll try to keep checking in. Just stay by the phone…and pray. She’ll have to show up soon.”

  “I know, Dad, but it’s getting dark.”

  Macabre thoughts filled John’s mind as he flew through the night toward home. He saw Ellen’s twisted body lying in a ditch, or worse, floating on a black river. With each vision, he pressed his foot harder to the accelerator.

  “How could I have let this happen? I never should have left her. Oh, Ellen…poor Ellen. Please, God. Wherever she is…be with her…help her. Please.”

  John drove for miles berating himself. He remembered the day he had found her in the car in the garage, and he chastised himself for not taking the incident more seriously. Surely that had been a clue that she was prone to wander. How could he have been so stupid? Would his children ever forgive him if anything happened to their mother? Could he ever forgive himself? He alone was to blame. This was all his fault. He had no business running off so far away, lounging in a hotel when Ellen was so ill. What kind of husband was he anyway?

  He was breaking the speed limit, and still the landscape seemed to crawl by. Every few minutes, he tried to call home to see if they had found her yet, but he couldn’t get through. And he didn’t dare to waste precious minutes stopping at a pay phone.

  And so he drove on. “Oh, dear God. Is this how it’s all going to end? No! Please…not yet! I’m not ready to lose her. Not like this.”

  Chapter Twenty

  The clock on the car radio read ten thirty-five when John finally turned onto Oaklawn. Even before he was in sight of their house, he saw the line of cars parked on the street in front. He recognized Brant’s car and Mark and Jana’s. Even Howard and MaryEllen had driven in. Sandra’s car was there and several other vehicles he didn’t recognize.

  All the lights inside and out were burning, giving the old house a festive look, as though a happy party were raging inside. He’d finally gotten through on his cell phone ninety miles from home, but there’d been no news to report.

  He parked on the driveway behind Brant’s car and ran up the front walk. Jana met him at the door.


  “Oh, Dad. Thank God you’re home.”

  “Did you find her yet?”

  “No! Not a clue. The boys and Mark are still out looking, and some of the neighbors—the Grants and Bob Markham.” She lowered her voice to a whisper and motioned toward the living room. “We finally made Grandpa come inside—we were worried about him. He walked the neighborhood for two hours. Dad, I don’t know what else to do.” She broke down and sobbed in John’s arms.

  “Jana, you’ve all done exactly what you should. I couldn’t ask for more. I’m going to make a couple of phone calls, and I want you to go up and try to get some sleep. We’re going to have a long day ahead of us and—”

  “Dad! You’ve got to be kidding. How could you think I could sleep at a time like this?”

  He shushed her, waving his idea away. She was right, of course. He wasn’t thinking straight. “I’m sorry. Forget it…Now, has anyone called the hospital to see if she’s shown up there?”

  “Yes. But that was a couple of hours ago. Do you think we should try again?”

  “Yes. I’ll do that. And I’m going to call the police department myself. You should at least lie down for a few minutes, honey.”

  “I’ll try. But first I’ll go make up the bed for Grandma and Grandpa.”

  John went into the living room and spoke with Howard and MaryEllen, Sandra and the others who had gathered to help. Without prompting, they gathered and circled the room, joining hands.

  “God,” John prayed aloud, “You know where Ellen is right now. Oh, Lord, we put her in Your hands. Please watch over her, and keep her warm, Lord. It’s so cold out there tonight…” John’s voice faltered, and he felt Jana and Sandra squeeze his hands on either side. Their touch strengthened him to go on. “And give us wisdom to know where to look for her. Please, God. We need You. We need You now.”

  They stood that way for a long time, heads bowed, bound together. Finally John cleared his throat and broke from the circle. There were no words to express his thanks, but he tried. He sent home the neighbors and friends who had gathered to help with the search. He told Ellen’s parents that Jana had their bed ready, and they wearily climbed the stairs.

  Sandra stayed, tidying up the kitchen and offering moral support while John went to the telephone and dialed the hospital. They had nothing to report. He was still making phone calls when the boys came in just before two in the morning.

  Sandra gathered her things and left with a promise to return at daylight. The searchers had gone home for some rest and something to eat, and they had arranged to start again at daybreak.

  The police came to the house and talked to John, asking him for a photograph of Ellen to fax to the surrounding towns.

  John had called everyone he could think of who might have seen Ellen, but it seemed no one knew anything. Where could she be? Why wasn’t anyone finding her. She surely hadn’t been kidnapped. But maybe she’d been picked up by someone with evil intentions? He shuddered at the thought.

  At 3:00 a.m. a light rain began to fall. John sat half propped up on the couch in the living room, hope deflating in him like a pierced balloon. He watched a silent television screen display the time and temperature. It was fifty-two degrees. John willed the thermometer not to drop any lower. And he prayed as he had never prayed in all his life. Finally his words dissolved into a four-word litany. Be with her, God. Be with her, God.

  An hour later, he finally dozed off. And when the first gray light of morning filtered through the curtains, he woke with a start. He got up and took a quick shower to steel himself for the day ahead.

  He tiptoed into the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee. Within minutes the boys joined him, and by the time they finished toast and coffee, the whole household was stirring and cars were pulling into the drive.

  John called the hospital again. Still no luck. Then he called the police. They had no new information, but assured John they were doing everything possible to locate Ellen.

  When the searchers showed up at sunrise, he left Jana and MaryEllen to manage the phone, and sent the rest of them in different directions throughout the neighborhood. They could cover the most territory that way. He asked Howard to search the large yard and surrounding woods once again.

  When everyone had dispersed, John stepped out the back door. The morning chill filled him with new terror. It was barely fifty degrees. According to Anne Grady, Ellen had been wearing sweatpants and a light sweatshirt. Could she possibly have survived a night in this weather?

  John began walking the route he and Ellen usually took on their strolls through the neighborhood each evening. Never had he felt so solitary walking that path. He tried not to think that he may never walk this way with Ellen again. He longed for the warmth of her hand in his, the familiar weight of her body against his as he wended his way alone down this street they loved.

  John walked to the point where he and Ellen usually turned back and started retracing his steps, straining to see what he might have missed on the first pass. In an odd trick of light, the gardens and yards where he and Ellen had always found such beauty now took on an ominous, foreboding aura. His imagination turned bent tree limbs into human limbs. He felt as though he were walking through the gates of hell.

  When he walked through the front door of their house forty-five minutes later, the house was in bedlam. Jana was on the phone, tears of joy and exhaustion mixing on her cheeks. MaryEllen was trying to hush the cheers and excited questions of the others so that Jana could hear to write down a phone number. MaryEllen waved her hands futilely, her wrist still encased in a cast.

  When Jana saw John, she shouted, her voice breaking, “They found her, Dad! They found her!”

  “Where? Is she okay?”

  With her hand over the receiver, Jana explained. “She was at the school. This is Mrs. Linmeyer. When she got to school this morning, she found Mom sitting on the front steps waiting for the doors to open.” Jana broke down and handed the phone to her dad. “Here, you talk to her.”

  “Carolyn?”

  As he listened to Carolyn’s story, relief flowed through him and he felt the knots in his shoulders loosen a hitch. Ellen had wandered the twelve blocks to the school—a route she had walked many days when she was teaching—and apparently had spent the night on the steps. She was cold and wet, hungry and confused, but she was unharmed.

  John and Jana drove to the hospital where Carolyn had taken Ellen. She was on an examination table in the emergency ward. Someone had called Dr. Morton, and he met John in the hallway.

  “Hi, John.” There was sympathy in his voice. “Pretty tough night, huh?”

  John nodded wearily. “Pretty tough. Is she okay?”

  “She’s going to be fine. I’m having them start an IV right now—just as a precaution. She’s really in pretty good shape considering what she’s been through. She keeps saying she has to get to class—she was such a dedicated teacher.”

  John knew it was Jerry’s way of giving dignity to the humiliation of the situation, and he silently blessed the man for remembering Ellen as she had been before.

  He went to her then. He heard her voice before he saw her, and was amazed at the clarity of her words, however irrelevant they were.

  Over and over she pleaded in a singsong voice, “Somebody, please, I’ve got to get to school. I’ve got to get to class. Please, somebody.”

  When she noticed John her eyebrows arched and she reached for his hand.

  He went to her, took her hand in his. And then he fell apart.

  John spent the days that followed in turmoil. He arranged to take yet another week’s vacation from work. He could ill afford the time off, but there were decisions with far-reaching consequences that had to be made. Now he had seven short days to make them.

  Ellen could no longer be left alone for even a minute. He would never forgive himself if this happened again. Or, God forbid, something worse.

  While Jana or MaryEllen sat with Ellen, he slumped at his desk writing out
lists of options and alternatives, considering the advantages and disadvantages of each choice. He spent hours on the telephone. He searched his heart, trying to discern his motives. And after three days, he was no closer to an answer than he had been at the beginning.

  In desperation, he dug through his desk drawer and found the sheet from Dr. Gallia’s prescription pad that was given to him those few years back, which now seemed like an eternity ago. “The Alzheimer’s Association” was scribbled on the note with a toll-free number to call. What could it hurt? John picked up the phone and dialed the number. When he finally worked his way through the maze of recordings and heard a human voice, John felt he had been thrown a lifeline.

  Here were answers to some of his questions. Here were people who understood exactly what he was going through. Here were people who amazingly seemed to know Ellen. Through the referrals they gave him, John discovered there was a nursing care center right in Calypso that specialized in the care of Alzheimer’s patients. He had driven past the sprawling complex of buildings a hundred times. The modern sign in front declared Parkside Manor—The Place That Cares. But never had John thought this place had any relevance to him. If he gave it any thought at all, he had pictured rows of rocking chairs, a wrinkled face and gray head nodding in each one.

  Reluctantly, John made an appointment to speak with the administrator the following Monday. He learned that while there was a waiting list for private rooms, a semiprivate room was available within the month. But he would have to decide quickly.

  On Monday, John took the tour. Parkside had a special unit for Alzheimer’s patients, and John was impressed with the services that were available. The rooms were beautiful, the hallways clean and uncluttered. The nurses and aides were friendly and attentive. Only one thing tainted the professional environment—the residents.

  If he had walked through these halls four years earlier, before need colored his view, he would have been sickened…appalled by this distorted segment of humanity that he had never before given a thought to. He saw a dozen Ellens—staring blankly at the television, walking down the hallways with that characteristic shuffle, mumbling to themselves as they paced the solarium. Through an open door he heard a belligerent voice screaming obscenities, and the calm, patient reply of an attendant. He saw men and women in their seventies and eighties, and a few, like Ellen, who looked barely fifty.