Chapter Ten - Part Two: Emergency

Tiffany had been missing for three years now.  Her class just graduated from Oregon City High School without her.  Matthew still hadn’t gotten over her disappearance.  He continued to do well in school and sports, but he had pulled back from being the social butterfly he’d been as a freshman.  His mother worried about him.

Both Matt and Nick still lived at home with Rosita.  She watched as they grew so distinctly in their own directions.  Nick was doing well with his music business.  At twenty-three, he had numerous clients in the Portland area.  Enough that he had a few deejays working for him, playing his music mixes.  His production company was getting plenty of airtime on local radio stations, and he was hoping to move to the national market.  In time, maybe even the international market.

Matt had decided that he wasn’t ready to go to college.  He wanted to concentrate on developing his skills as a furniture maker and carpenter.  He still spent time every week with Father Olson down at the rectory and church.  Since Tiffany’s vanishing, Matt began feeling more at home there than he did at the family compound.  As soon as he’d walk in the front door of the rectory, the black cat would run to him and rub up against his ankles.  He found it soothing to sit on the couch in the rectory petting the cat while he talked with Father Olson.  It drained the sadness and anxiety from him.

One afternoon while he was at the rectory, Matt received a call.  It was his mother.  “Mattie, please come home,” she said. 

“Is everything alright, Mom?” he asked.

“I’m not sure.  There are strange noises coming from the basement.  I keep hearing a voice saying my name.  Please come home,” she begged.

Matt flew out to the truck and raced home.  Father Olson followed in his own car.  Matt thought that his brother might be playing a prank on his mother, which would be typical of him.  Nick did everything he could to make Rosita miserable.

Matthew and Father Olson arrived at the house at the same time.  Both bounded through the front door.  Matt yelled for his mother.

“Mom!  Where are you?”  Silence.

The basement door was open.

Father Olson made it over to the door first and ran down the stairs.  There, at the bottom of the stairs, lay Rosita.  “Matthew, call 9-1-1,” he hollered.  Rosita was conscious but was clearly in a great deal of pain.  Her knee looked like it was twisted in a peculiar angle.

“What happened?” he asked. 

“I fell,” she said.  “I wanted to know what was making all of the noise, so I started to walk down the stairs.  As I got closer to the bottom of the stairs, it felt like someone pushed me.  I must be going crazy,” she moaned.

“No.  Just lay still,” said the priest.

By this time, Matt was down there with them. “Mom?  Can you hear me?  Are you OK?”

Father Olson answered.  “She’s alright, Matt.  It looks like she fell down the stairs and hurt her leg.”  Looking at her twisted knee, he said “Boy, that’s going to hurt in the morning,” trying to lighten the moment.  It worked.

Rosita said “Oh, don’t make me laugh.  I think I hurt a rib, too.  Can you men help me up?”

“No, Mom,” said Matt.  “We need to wait for the ambulance to get here.  We could make things worse by moving you.  They’ll be here before you know it.  I’ll go upstairs to wait for them.”

“No, Mattie, please don’t go,” she said.  “Father, would you mind letting the paramedics in?”

“Of course not,” he said.  “Try not to move, Rosie.”

It was the first time Matt had ever heard the priest refer to his mother as Rosie.  He liked hearing such a term of endearment, knowing that his parents truly did care about each other even if they couldn’t be together.

After the priest went upstairs, Rosita asked Matt to kneel down next to her.  “Mattie, there’s something down here.  I know I was pushed.  I don’t know what it is, but it tried to hurt me.”

“Mom,” he said.  “This is just a weird cold room.  I think that Dad’s dying here has made us superstitious.”

“No, Mattie,” she said.  “This is real.  There are things in this world that we don’t understand.  Your father didn’t just drown.  Something killed him.  I don’t know what, but I thought that whatever it was wanted to help us.  Now I’m not sure.”

“Well, let’s get you to the hospital and take care of this basement some other time.  I think I might just close it off, so we don’t need to come down here for anything.”

Finally, the paramedics arrived.  There was nothing quiet about them as they clamored down the stairs with their medical equipment and the gurney.  Six of them.  Four firefighters and two paramedics.

“Excuse me, son,” said the paramedic who made it down the stairs first.  Matthew moved out of his way and stood quietly.

“Mrs. Benson, can you tell me what day it is?”  Thursday.  Correct.

“And what’s your birthday?”  August 18th, 1962.  Correct.

“Well that’s good,” he said.  “There’s nothing wrong with your memory.  Now let’s check your heart rate.  Kneeling down beside her, the paramedic held a stethoscope to her chest.  The other medic put a blood pressure cuff on her arm.  They spent a short time checking her vitals, and then called the firefighters down.

The paramedic who seemed to be in charge said, “Alright, men, we’re going to immobilize this leg quickly, and then get this lovely lady out to the ambulance.  Stat.”

Clearly this group had worked together many times.  It didn’t take them more than five minutes to get Rosita placed on the gurney, carried up the stairs and loaded into the ambulance.

Matthew wanted to ride in the ambulance with her, but the paramedics wouldn’t allow it.  Before they left, the head medic told Matthew and Father Olson that they were going to take Rosita over to Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Clackamas.  They were surprised that she wasn’t being taken to Willamette Falls Hospital because it was closer, but figured that the paramedics knew what they were doing.

When they got to the hospital and rushed to the emergency room, they were told that Rosita had suffered a heart attack in the ambulance.  She was alive and seemed to be doing well, but needed to have tests done.  This was the best hospital in the area for heart surgeries, so the paramedics had thankfully taken it upon themselves to get her to where she could receive the best care.

The doctor came out to talk with them and made it very clear that it was a stroke of luck that the paramedics were with Rosita when she had her heart attack.  Had they not been there, she would have died.  The heart attack wasn’t caused by Rosita’s fall.  The fall, in fact, had probably saved her life.

“My God,” thought Matt.  “She’s right.  There IS something in the basement.  Something that’s watching out for us.  Thank you! Thank you, whoever you are!  I’m not going to close up that basement.  You’re welcome to stay there and be a part of our family.”