“Honey? Is something wrong?”
He took a deep breath.
“We have to cancel the party.”
“Cancel it? But it’s Rose’s fourteenth!”
“I know,” and Taylor’s voice choked up. “She, Tobias, Artemis and Ashleigh were in a car accident.”
“Oh my gosh! Are they okay? How’d it happen? Where are they?”
“I don’t know how it happened. Artemis is dead. Rose, Tobias, Ashleigh and Artemis’s father are in hospital. Rose has a ton of head injuries.”
“Oh my gosh. No… no this can’t be… this can’t be happening…”
Taylor wrapped his arms around her.
“I’m going to give Isaac a call and make sure he knows. We’ll go down to the hospital together.”
And that’s exactly what happened. Two different doctors greeted them and filled them in on the state of their children.
“Rose has a severe concussion, but if she lasts the night I’d say she’ll be okay.”
“If she lasts the night?” Rita repeated, alarmed.
“And we’ll be making every effort to make sure she lasts the night,” the doctor assured her. “At this stage it’s a little early to tell if there are going to be any lasting effects - the damage is extensive enough to suggest there might be.”
“Oh no.”
“Can we see her?” asked Taylor.
The doctor hesitated.
“She’s sedated right now, but I’ll let you look in on her.”
Tobias was paralysed to the point where he couldn’t even use his arms. The doctors were of the opinion that it may be temporary, but even then it would take months before he was back to normal.
Their friend Ashleigh was in a coma, with fears that she may become brain dead due to the severity of her injuries. Artemis’s father had numerous broken bones, his right arm so badly twisted he may never regain the use of it again.
There had been three other cars involved in the accident. Only one person escaped relatively unscathed. Two had died when their car blew up in flames, and the rest had injuries, some critical, some stable.
Rita was sitting with Rose when she woke up the following day.
“Hi honey,” she said soothingly. “How you feeling?”
“A little groggy. What happened? Why are the lights out?”
“The lights are on, sweetie.”
“Then why can’t I see anything?”
Rita would remember that question, and the pain and power in it for the rest of her life. It seemed all a blur, but she somehow alerted the doctor and sometime later they determined that she was indeed blind, and may well be for the rest of her life.