Certainty by Eileen Sharp Page A

out of the dressing booth, I stared at her.
    The fear on my Mom’s face made my blood chill. I found a rack and threw the dresses on it as we walked out of the store. She began running and I felt tears well up in my eyes.
    I would always remember that run through the mall. The sun streamed from the skylights and sparkled on the shiny floors and the people stared at us as we ran. All the faces that looked back at me seemed strange, as if my mom and I were all alone in a place that was getting dark and no one could see it but us.
    We found our car in the parking lot and yanked the doors open. My mom’s hands fumbled at the ignition and then she turned the key.
    “Mom?” I asked.
    She turned her head, but not to look at me—to back out of the parking space, her eyes sharp and focused. “What?”
    “Is he going to be okay?”
    “I hope so. Dad isn’t sure.”
    We didn’t speak after that, my mom driving, her gaze straight ahead as if she could will us to get there faster. I saw her hand go up to her eyes and wipe away some tears, then she took a deep breath and didn’t cry the rest of the way.
    I watched cars go by, like the people in the mall who didn’t know what was happening to us.
    We arrived at the hospital and my mom drove around looking for a parking place. She found one in the back of the huge, crowded parking lot and we ran to the entrance with the big blue letters that spelled “Emergency”.
    The hospital doors slid open and we walked into the emergency waiting room. The white tiled floor was slick and there were wheelchairs sitting at odd angles against the walls. A gurney with a blue vinyl mattress and a sheet falling of it was next to the wheelchairs. I wondered if Derek had come in on a gurney.
    At a glass enclosed counter with a sign that read “Admissions”, there were two nurses in mauve and blue scrubs. One of them looked up as we passed by. They were both older, one of them with a short, perky haircut and hoop earrings, the other with long, dyed blond hair and too much eyeliner. The one with the blond hair smiled as I walked by and then bent back down to her desk.
    Dad and James were standing by the wall next to the admission counters. Dad had his hands in his pockets and a strange, lost look on his face. James was leaning against the wall, one foot tucked under his knee and propped against the wall.
    We reached them and Dad hugged Mom. James was pale and scared-looking, watching Mom and Dad. I went over and put my arm around him.
    Dad let go of Mom, but they stood close together as Dad explained, “He was riding home from Jason’s and went to cross the street. A car came down the street and hit him. Derek flipped over the hood of the car and hit the street. The driver thought he’d killed him at first and then the new neighbor boy got there and said he was still breathing. His mother called 911 and stayed with Derek and the driver until I got there. There was a lot of blood, but the paramedics said head injuries can bleed a lot.”
    They stared at each other, not moving for a moment, their hands on each other’s arms, making a circle.
    James looked up at me as if I could decode their behavior. I was sure he knew more than I did—he was there when it happened, wasn’t he? All I could tell from my own frightened instincts was that we could lose Derek. This was no nightmare—this was real.
    “Where is he now?” my Mom asked.
    “They want to do a CAT scan. After they get the bleeding under control.”
    Mom started crying then and so did James. I think he cried because we had never seen her cry like that. She was always tearing up at sad movies, but this was different. Dad pulled us all into his arms--Mom and James who were crying, and me. The lines around Dad’s mouth sank and deepened pulling his face down until I thought he would cry, but he didn’t. I felt my Mom take one more deep breath and then she straightened and Dad let us go.
    She put an arm around James and kissed the top of