Chapter Two: The Road to Saint Mercy
The wheelbarrow was heavier than Noah expected.
At first, he could not even move it.
He dragged it across the shed floor, breathing hard, while Grace and Lily cried under the blanket. He had wrapped them beside his mother because he was afraid to separate them. He tucked the blankets around them the way he had seen his mother do, then tied the corners with strips of an old towel.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered every time the wheelbarrow bumped.
His mother did not wake.
Noah pushed.
The wheelbarrow rolled an inch.
Then another.
Then it stopped against the muddy doorway.
Outside, the ground had become thick and soft from the storm. The wheel sank almost immediately.
Noah planted both feet and shoved.
Nothing.
He tried again.
The handles slipped from his muddy hands, and he fell to his knees.
For a moment, he stayed there.
He wanted to cry.
He wanted someone older to appear. Someone taller. Someone with a car, a phone, a dry coat, a voice that adults listened to.
But the shed was behind him.
His family was inside the wheelbarrow.
And there was no one else.
So Noah stood up again.
He found a piece of rope near the wall and tied it around the front of the wheelbarrow. Then he wrapped the other end around his chest. He pushed with his hands and pulled with his whole body.
The wheel moved.
Slowly, painfully, the wheelbarrow came out of the shed.
Rain hit Noah’s face.
The sky was gray and low.
The road to Saint Mercy was nearly five miles away.
Noah only knew the way because his mother had once pointed to the hospital sign from a bus window.
“If anything ever happens,” she had said, “Saint Mercy is where people go.”
At the time, Noah had nodded and continued playing with his red truck.
Now he repeated the name in his head.
Saint Mercy.
Saint Mercy.
Saint Mercy.
He pushed past the old feed store, past the fence with missing boards, past the field where weeds grew taller than his shoulders. The wheelbarrow squeaked and groaned. Sometimes the wheel turned sideways and sent the whole thing lurching.
Every time, Noah’s heart jumped.
“Sorry,” he said again. “I’m sorry.”
Grace cried.
Lily went quiet, and that frightened him even more.
“Lily?” he whispered.
The baby made a tiny sound.
Noah kept moving.
By the time he reached the gravel road, his arms burned. His shirt clung to his back. His bare feet hurt from stones, but he barely noticed.
A truck passed.
Noah screamed.
“Help! Please!”
The truck did not stop.
Its tires sprayed water across the road and disappeared into the rain.
Noah stared after it.
Then he pushed again.
A mile later, he saw a farmhouse with smoke rising from the chimney. He dragged the wheelbarrow toward it and climbed the porch steps.
He knocked.
No answer.
He knocked harder.
A dog barked inside.
A curtain moved.
Noah saw the shape of someone standing behind it.
“Please!” he shouted. “My mother needs a doctor!”
The curtain fell closed.
The door did not open.
Noah waited.
Then he went back down the steps.
He did not have time to hate anyone.
He did not have time to wonder why some people could look through glass at suffering and still choose warmth.
He had only enough time to keep going.
At the edge of town, the rain softened into mist.
The sky began to brighten.
Noah’s legs trembled.
He passed a gas station that was not open yet. He thought about breaking the glass to call for help, but his mother had always told him not to steal, not to damage things, not to let desperation turn him into someone he was not.
Then Grace cried again.
Noah looked at the locked door.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” he whispered.
He picked up a small rock.
Before he could throw it, headlights swept across him.
A police cruiser rolled into the gas station lot.
Noah froze.
The officer stepped out.
He was a broad man with a tired face and a hand on his radio.
“Kid?” he called. “What are you doing out here?”
Noah dropped the rock.
“Please,” he said. “My mom.”
The officer walked closer, saw the wheelbarrow, and stopped.
For one second, he looked as shocked as everyone at the hospital later would.
Then his training returned.
He grabbed his radio.
“This is Officer Lane. I need medical assistance at Miller’s Gas on Route Nine. Mother unconscious, two newborns, one child present.”
Noah did not understand all the words.
He only understood “medical assistance.”
“Can you take us?” Noah begged. “Please, can you take us now?”
Officer Lane looked down the road, then back at the babies.
The hospital was closer than waiting for an ambulance from the far side of town.
“All right,” he said quickly. “We’re going.”
He opened the back door of the cruiser, but Noah shook his head violently.
“No. They can’t fit. The babies need to stay with Mom. The wheelbarrow—”
“Son—”
“No!”
The officer looked at Noah’s hands, white-knuckled around the handles.
Then he made a decision.
He got behind the wheelbarrow.
“You steer,” he said. “I’ll push.”
Together, the officer and the boy moved down the shoulder of Route Nine.
When the hospital came into view, Officer Lane’s radio was still calling for help.
But Noah did not hear it anymore.
He saw the red emergency sign.
He saw the glass doors.
He saw light.
For the first time in three days, Noah believed the world might not be entirely dark.
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He gathered the last of his strength.
And he pushed his family inside.
