Take Us to Her

By midnight, the tavern had become a waiting room.

June kept the lights low and the kitchen open. Someone brought towels from the motel. Someone else found socks small enough for Emma. Mason sat near the window with his arms folded, watching the storm like it might come back wearing a man's face.

Lila had been taken to the county hospital. Her injuries were serious enough for care and not so grave that the paramedic had lied to Emma. That was the sentence Ronan kept repeating to the child when her questions came too fast.

'She's breathing. She's awake. She's asking for you. That's what matters right now.'

Emma sat in the booth beside him wrapped in June's old quilt. She looked smaller without the rain around her.

'Are you police?' she asked.

Ronan almost smiled. 'No.'

'Are you bad guys?'

Victor made a soft sound from the next table, half laugh and half pain.

Ronan answered carefully. 'Some people think so when they look fast.'

Emma considered that. 'You helped.'

'Tonight we did.'

June set cocoa in front of Emma in a mug with no writing. Emma wrapped both hands around it and stared into the steam.

'I was scared to come in here,' she admitted.

'Me too,' Mason said from the window.

Emma looked up, surprised.

Mason shrugged. 'You came through that door in a storm. Made all of us have to act right.'

The men at the bar nodded. No speeches. No hero poses. Just the quiet shame of adults realizing a child had done the bravest thing in the room.

A deputy came in to take a statement from Ronan. He did it respectfully, because June had already told him what happened and because the whole tavern was watching.

When the deputy thanked Emma for finding help, she did not smile.

She looked at Ronan.

'Can I see Mommy now?'