Jumping out of bed and rushing to the window, I pull back the pale pink sheer curtain and peek through the slats of my blinds.
There’s an ambulance in my driveway. I catch the departure of a dark-haired guy, dressed in jeans and a white t-shirt (obviously the picker) leading two uniform-clad emergency workers through the gate and into the orchard. Something is obviously very wrong; they’re wasting no time as they disappear into the trees, carrying the supply-laden stretcher between them.
Again, Einstein barks at me, urging me toward the door. His persistence is making me more nervous than anything, so I hurry downstairs to the kitchen and grab the walkie talkie from the counter. It stays in the same spot at all times. Everyone knows never to move it.
I press the button and speak into it. “Daddy? Is everything okay?”
I hear a crackle of static followed by silence. I wait several seconds for a response. When I get none, I call again. “Cris Theopolis, what’s your twenty?”
Using truck driver speak always, always, always makes me laugh. It always has, since I was a little girl.
Always.
Except for today. Today it’s not funny. And the reason is because my father always, always, always answers right away.
Always.
Except for today.
Like I’ve swallowed a lump of lead, the pit of my stomach feels heavy with dread. Something is terribly wrong. I can feel it like cold breath on the nape of my neck. The skin on my arms pebbles with chills.
“Daddy?” I call again. I know there’s anxiety in my voice and that I probably don’t sound very much like myself. It’s hard to speak past the fingers of fear that are squeezing my throat.
Finally another crackle of static is followed by a voice, but it’s not my father’s. “Who this?” the man asks, his English broken.
Fear erupts into terror. “This is Jenna Theopolis. My father owns this property. I need to speak with him please.”
“The men just now get here. They take him to hospital. Can’t talk right now.”
The line goes dead again.
And panic sets in.
I’m alone. I have little information and a nearly unbearable weight on my chest. And my father is out in the orchard. Somewhere. Hurt.
My heart is hammering against my ribs, threatening to break them into tiny pieces if I don’t find out what’s going on. Taking the stairs two at a time, I race to my room and throw on some clothes. Less than five minutes later, I grab the walkie that never moves and I hit the front door, fully dressed and ready to scour every inch of the orchard for my father if need be.
Something tells me I should wait, that going out isn’t the best thing to do, but I ignore that voice. I’m not a “wait” kind of person; I’m an “act” kind of person. For better or worse, to make a move or to move on, I act. And now, I’m acting. I’m going in search of my father.
Einstein and I stop at the fence. I squat and grab his face in my hands, looking directly into his somber, intelligent brown eyes. “Take me to Daddy, Einstein. Take me to him.”
With a bark, Einie takes off running East. I’m hot on his heels, oblivious to the tears streaming down my face and the ache in my legs as I dodge trunks and branches to pursue the dog as he runs through the trees rather than up the lanes between them.
Another bark and Einstein abruptly cuts left down a row. I hurry to catch him. When I step out into the opening, I see a picker leading the two paramedics toward me, back in the direction of the house. Between the emergency workers is the stretcher. Atop it is my father.
“Daddy!” I yell, my voice cracking with emotion.
Three pairs of eyes are watching me as I race toward them. My father doesn’t move.
When I reach them, they don’t stop. They are walking briskly. They don’t even slow down long enough to let me talk to my father.
I walk alongside the stretcher. My dad is lying prone, covered in a white sheet and strapped in so that he can’t move or fall off. An oxygen mask is covering the lower part of his face, a face that’s unusually ashen. His eyes are closed and, when I reach out to touch the top of the arm closest to me, the lids don’t even flicker.
“Daddy?” He doesn’t respond. His eyelashes don’t flutter. He doesn’t turn his head. He doesn’t move a muscle.
Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!
“What happened?” I ask in general, speaking to anyone who will answer me.
One of the EMTs answers. I can tell by his kind expression that he’s trying to be gentle, which upsets me all the more. What is he hiding?
“We can’t be sure, ma’am, but considering what this man has said, it sounds like he fell off a ladder and hit his head. We won’t know anything for sure until we get him to the hospital. He’s been unresponsive up to this point.”
The picker falls back to walk closer to me. “He fall off ladder. Doesn’t wake up. We call emergency.”
In my head, I can picture it. The first pick of the season is done by my father. It’s something he and my mother apparently used to do together, every single year without fail. And they always used the same ladder, the ladder that had been used by my mother’s family for generations. That damn rickety, old, wooden ladder.
That ladder, that ritual meant the world to them. And it might have cost me mine.
Einstein leads us back to the gate. I don’t leave my father’s side as they carry him to the ambulance. With a flick, the paramedics lower the legs on the stretcher to let it rest on the pavement while they open the doors to the back.
No one looks at me. No one says a word. I’m terrified.
In shock, I wait while the paramedics collapse the stretcher legs and push my father into the empty rear compartment of the squad. One EMT climbs in behind him.
“You’re welcome to ride along, if you’re comfortable going now. If you’d rather drive, that’s fine, but we need to leave now. Right now,” he says emphatically.
I process very little of what he’s saying. “My keys,” I say, dazedly. I know I need to go get them.
The EMT nods. “Just meet us there.”
I turn on shaky legs to run into the house and get my purse. When I re-emerge, the ambulance is just pulling out. I climb into my car to follow.
My legs feel numb where they dangle below me. My foot feels leaden where it presses on the gas pedal. My hands feel frozen where they grip the steering wheel. Nothing seems to be working right. My thoughts are jumbled and dark, foreboding. Ominous.
In the back of my mind, I keep thinking there must be some mistake. Or that I’m still dreaming, that this can’t be happening. That my father can’t be hurt badly, that he must not have heard me calling his name. Surely he didn’t or he would’ve opened his eyes.