Sparking Sara (The Men on Fire Series)

by Samantha Christy

  Her eyes close again. “Sara … Sara, open your eyes.”

  She opens them and wrinkles her nose in disgust.

  “I know it smells bad in here. That’s my fault. I guess I have a weak stomach. You want to hear a funny story? When I was growing up, I was really good at baseball. I played on my school team as well as a travel team. Every coach wanted Denver Andrews to play for them. But I threw up a lot. Like at every game. Sometimes more than once. I would get so nervous when I went up to bat that before I walked up to the plate, I would duck behind the dugout and vomit out of sheer stress. Then I would hit doubles, triples, and even home runs.

  “Sara, keep your eyes on me. That’s right. Look at me.

  “Anyway, maybe that’s why I got sick tonight,” I lie. “I was nervous. I’m still new at this. I just graduated from the fire academy two months ago. But don’t let that scare you. I’m good at what I do.” I look over my shoulder at Nolan, who is still working to get her friend out. “Not everyone believes that. But I’m hoping I can prove them wrong. Help me prove them wrong, Sara. Stay with me.”

  “She’s free,” Nolan says of the friend before crawling into the driver’s seat so he can get a better view of Sara. While assessing her, he gets a whiff of my accident-scene contribution. He looks over into the back seat and eyes the puddle of vomit. “Jesus, Andrews.”

  He cuts Sara free of her seatbelt and is able to jimmy her out of the seat and onto a backboard just as she starts to convulse again.

  I back myself out of the rear window and watch as the police put a blanket over the head of Sara’s friend. Then I run over to the ambulance where they’re loading Sara. “Is she going to be okay?”

  “Hard to say,” the paramedic says. “She hasn’t regained consciousness after the seizure. Looks like a brain injury for sure. Only time will tell.”

  I nod, wondering if anything I did even did any good. She looks dead, but unlike her friend, she’s not covered up yet, so I guess there’s still hope.

  God, I hope the last thing that woman ever hears is not my story of vomit. What was I thinking?

  I watch the ambulance drive away, weaving through traffic with its lights and sirens on.

  Lt. Franks comes up behind me and puts a hand on my shoulder. “We can’t save them all, Andrews.”

  My shoulders slump. “You don’t think she’ll make it?”

  “Miracles happen every day. Come on, let’s clean up and let NYPD do their job.”

  Miracle. He thinks it will take a miracle to save her? She was moving. And she was talking. But my EMS training has me understanding that with head injuries, they get worse before they get better. The blood. The swelling. The seizures.

  Then I remember that a miracle didn’t save my parents. Why should Sara be so lucky?

  On our way back to the station, Nolan decides to get into it with me.

  “You had one job to do, rookie,” he says. “Not to puke on the scene. You couldn’t even do that right, could you?”

  I feel a vein in my forehead throb. “My job?” I say forcefully. “My job was to assess the victim and keep her calm until she could be rescued. I did my fucking job.”

  “Yeah, whatever.”

  “Nolan,” the lieutenant warns from the front seat.

  “What? He’s a wuss, Lieutenant,” Geoff says. “He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t be anywhere in FDNY.”

  “Don’t be such a prick, Nolan,” Lt. Franks says. “The kid is right. He did his job. Give it a rest, why don’t you?”

  Nolan shakes his head, looking at me in disgust. I turn and gaze out the window, trying not to think that I just might have been the last person ever to talk to Sara Francis.

  Then I pull out my phone and text Bass, knowing he’s about to get off shift too.

  Me: Drinks at Donny’s Bar?

  Bass: Meet you there in an hour.

  ~ ~ ~

  The waitress puts a tray of shots in front of us as soon as I sit down across from Bass. I question him with my eyes.

  “Figured you’d need these,” he says.

  “Why is that?”

  “Because the only time you want to meet for drinks right after work is when you’ve had a bad shift.”

  I lower my head in realization. “Damn. I do that, don’t I? I was wondering why you agreed so quickly. Don’t you have a wife and kid to get home to?”

  “I do. But at the moment, this seemed more important.”

  I throw back a shot.

  “I hate being on detail,” I say.

  “What’s to hate?” he asks. “Unlike most rookies, you never have to cook or do scut work. As far as the firehouses are concerned, you’re a guest. Most guys would kill for that.”

  I laugh at his attempt to sugarcoat it. Then I take another shot. “That’s crap and you know it. I don’t give a shit about cooking and cleaning. Hell, I want to do that stuff. What I wouldn’t give to be treated like a regular probie and not some leper. Being on detail and floating from one company to the next isn’t what I want to do. I want to be part of the family. The brotherhood. But it just feels like I’m the unwanted step-child or something.”

  He nods his head in sympathy. He knows exactly why I haven’t been offered any permanent position yet. Everybody does. There isn’t much he can say that I don’t already know.

  He throws back a shot of his own and then pushes the rest of them over to me. “Want to tell me why we’re really here?”

  I stare at his empty shot glass for a minute.

  “Do you remember the car accident right after Aspen’s wedding?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, the one I just came from was far worse.”

  He lets out a long sigh. Being Aspen’s best friend, he knows the whole story of how our parents died.

  “I’m sorry, man.”

  In between shots, I tell him the whole story, right down to my puking in the back seat. “I just don’t want to believe that I was the last person she ever got to see or hear.”

  “So don’t believe it. Go to Med and check on her.”

  My eyes snap to his. “Go to Med? I thought we weren’t supposed to do that.”

  “Come on, you know as well as I do that it happens.” He gets out his phone and makes a call. “Debbe, can you do me a solid and check on the status of a patient brought to Med earlier today by …” He looks at me with raised eyebrows.

  “Forty-five,” I tell him.

  “Bus 45,” he says. “Name’s Sara Francis.” He nods, listening into the phone. “Okay, thanks, Debbe.” He puts his phone down. “She’s on it.”

  “Have you ever done that?” I ask. “Checked on a rescue?”

  “I think we all have at one time or another. Usually, I only do it when kids are involved. But a few months ago, there was a guy pinned under a piling down on the dock. His legs were broken and his chest was crushed. The water was rising and he thought he was going to die. I thought he was going to die. He told me all the things he didn’t get to do, like propose to his long-time girlfriend. They were childhood friends and high school sweethearts. He made me promise to find her and tell her about the ring he kept in his locker at the gym. For two hours, I had to talk the guy through his panic. He was unconscious when we finally got him free.”

  “So what happened? Did he live? Did he propose?”

  He nods. “Last I heard, he’s still in a wheelchair and going through physical therapy. I got a wedding invitation in the mail two weeks ago.”

  “So, you think I should check on her?”

  “If it will give you closure—yes.”

  “But what if she’s dead?”

  “I don’t know. Are you prepared to find that out?”

  “Maybe you should have asked me that before you called Debbe.”

  He laughs. “Yeah, maybe I should have.” He looks down at his vibrating phone. “Speak of the devil.”

  He answers the call. His face gives nothing away as he listens. He thanks her and puts down the phone.
“So, do you want to hear about her or not?”

  I close my eyes briefly and nod.

  “She’s not at Med. They had to transfer her to the level one trauma center in Midtown.”

  “So, she’s alive.”

  “Barely.”

  “Do you think they would let me see her?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “But HIPAA.”

  “You rescued her, Denver. They’ll let you see her.”

  I push the tray of drinks away from me and throw some money on the table.

  “Now?” He looks at me, surprised.

  “I—I have to.”

  He puts a hand on my arm before I walk away. “She’s not them.”

  “I know. I still have to.”

  Chapter Three

  I shove a stick of gum in my mouth to cover up the smell of alcohol on my breath as I walk through the emergency bay doors. I purposefully kept my FDNY shirt on so I would look more official. I walk up to the admit station.

  “Hi, I’m here to check on a patient.”

  The nurse looks up from her computer. “Are you family?”

  I shake my head. “No. I’m one of the firefighters who rescued her.”

  She eyes my t-shirt, obviously contemplating her next move. Then her eyes move to my arms and up to my face. She’s appraising me. Not like a nurse. More like a woman looking at a picture from a dating website. “Name?” she asks.

  “Denver Andrews.”

  She types on her keyboard. Then she bats her eyelashes at me. “There isn’t anyone here by that name.”

  I roll my eyes at my stupidity. “Sorry, it’s Sara Francis. My name is Denver Andrews.”

  “Well, Denver Andrews, I’m Nora Goodwin. Let’s have a look, shall we?” She keeps glancing at me as she tries to locate Sara in the system. “She’s been moved to the ICU. Let me see if I can get someone out here. Give me a second.”

  She gets up from her desk and walks away, looking over her shoulder at me to see if I’m watching her leave. I am. But not for the reasons she might think. Getting into someone’s pants right now is the last thing on my mind.

  A minute later, Nora returns with a doctor in tow. He offers me his hand. “Dr. Kyle Stone,” he says. “I was here when Ms. Francis was brought over from Med.”

  I shake his hand. “Denver Andrews. Nice to meet you.”

  “This way,” he says, inviting me into the back hallway.

  “Catch you later, Denver Andrews,” Nora says as we turn the corner.

  Dr. Stone studies me. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”

  I take a moment to give him a good look. He does look familiar. “Uh, I’m not sure.”

  “I’ll show you up to the ICU where Sara is now,” he says as we wait for the elevator. “But I’m afraid I don’t have much information. Obviously, she has a head injury. She never regained consciousness and I’m sure she’s heavily sedated now, so she won’t wake up until she’s weaned off the meds. With an injury like hers, it’s a wait-and-see game. And things will get worse before they get better.”

  “I figured. Her head injury looked pretty bad from what I could tell at the scene. What about her other injuries?”

  “She didn’t appear to have any,” he says.

  I stare at him. “What? That’s not possible. She was sardined in the passenger seat. The car buckled in around her.”

  He shrugs. “Well, I guess that’s the silver lining then.”

  I shake my head in amazement, thinking back to the way she was trapped between the door and the console. “That’s unbelievable.”

  “Here we are,” he says, motioning to a room encased with glass so she’s visible from the nurses’ station.

  I look into the room and my heart sinks into my stomach. There are a half-dozen machines around the head of the bed. There are tubes coming out of her mouth, wires attached to her chest, and an IV in her arm. She appears to be naked with only a sheet covering her from her pelvic area to her collarbones, and the side of her head and face are still stained with blood. But what gets me the most is that there is nobody else in the room with her. No doctors. No nurses. No family.

  It guts me to see her like this. It would gut me to see anyone like this. Alone and possibly dying.

  “Where is everyone? Why hasn’t she been cleaned up yet?”

  “Well, there isn’t much we can do until the swelling in her brain goes down,” Dr. Stone says. “And cleaning her up has the potential to cause further trauma, so it will be done carefully and meticulously by a neurosurgeon who just hasn’t been able to do it yet. He may be able to give you more information when the family gets here.”

  I step back in surprise. “They’re not here yet? It’s been hours.”

  “Maybe they have to come in from out of town,” he says.

  “Nobody’s been here to see her?” I ask.

  “No. I’ve been down in the ER all night. You’re the first person to ask about her.”

  “So she’s all alone,” I say in irritation. “Without even a nurse in there.”

  “We have lots of patients to attend to, Mr. Andrews. I assure you she’s getting the best care possible.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything. I just keep thinking about …” my parents, I almost say. I haven’t stopped thinking about them since I was at the scene of Sara’s accident. But I bite my tongue. “I keep thinking that Sara is someone’s daughter. Someone’s sister. I can’t imagine my sister lying in a hospital. Alone. If anything like this ever happened to Aspen …”

  Dr. Stone nods in realization. “That’s how I know you. You’re Aspen’s brother. I was at her wedding. My wife is Caden Kessler’s sister. From the Nighthawks?”

  “Oh, of course,” I say, vaguely remembering him from the reception. “Your daughters were the flower girls, right?”

  “One of them tried to steal the show,” he says, laughing.

  “I remember.”

  “How are Aspen and Sawyer liking Kansas City?”

  “A little too much,” I say. “I was hoping they’d end up back here, but I doubt that will happen.” I look back into Sara’s room. “So, do you think it would be okay if I sit with her? You know, just until her family arrives.”

  “I think that would be fine. Don’t be afraid to talk to her. Just because she’s under sedation doesn’t mean she can’t hear you. There is no guarantee she can, but it’s possible.”

  “What do I say?”

  “Just tell her everything will be okay.”

  “Even though it might not be?”

  He nods. “Yeah, even though it might not be.”

  His pager goes off. “I’ve got to get back downstairs. It’s nice to see you again. If I get a minute, I’ll check back on her later.”

  I look at Sara’s room, still empty of people. “I’d appreciate that.”

  He nods to a hand sanitizer dispenser on the wall. “Use that if you’re going to touch her. Stay clear of her head, but if you want to hold her hand, that would be okay.”

  “I don’t even know her,” I say.

  “Human touch can do miraculous things,” he says, walking away.

  I pump the antiseptic into my hands before I approach the bed, remembering that I’ve already held her hand. I’ve held her hand through the scariest time in her life. And one of the scariest in mine.

  I pick up the chair in the corner and put it next to her bed. I appraise her before sitting down. My eyes glance over her from head to toe. She has stitches on the right side of her head. A lot of them. And her hair is bloody and matted. She has a wire coming out of the other side of her skull that looks to be held in by surgical tape. There is a machine that’s breathing for her, and I watch her chest rise and fall with every sound of the machine. I glance over the thin sheet that’s barely covering her, wanting to put a blanket on her and tuck her in, but there’s not one in sight.

  A machine beeps and a nurse walks into the room, smiles at me, and pushes a button on it. “Someone will be
in to clean her up shortly.”

  “Good,” I say, finally taking a seat next to Sara. “Can I get a blanket for her?”

  “Sorry,” the nurse says, nodding to one of the machines. “She’s running a high temperature. We need to keep her cool.”

  Once the nurse leaves the room, I take Sara’s hand. It’s limp and not at all like it felt the last time I held it. And it’s warm. Much warmer than I thought it would feel since she’s unconscious and close to death. I guess that’s because she’s got a fever.

  I look at her face, and for a moment, I see my mother’s. If only I could have been there for her. Held her hand. Sat by her side. It’s not that I don’t think about my dad. But Dad was big and strong, like me. Mom was petite like Aspen. Like Sara.

  I couldn’t help her. I couldn’t save her. I couldn’t even be with her when she died. I look around the empty room. But I can be here. I can be with Sara. Especially since nobody else is.

  I remember what Kyle said about talking to her, so I clear my throat. “Um … so you were in an accident, Sara. You’re in the hospital now. They gave you some drugs to help you sleep so you can heal. I’m Denver. Remember me? I’m the one who got sick all over the back seat. I’m sorry about that.”

  I decide not to talk about her friend. If she can hear me, she’d be devastated to know that her friend died.

  “The doctor said your family has been contacted. I’m sure they’ll be here soon. I’ll stay with you until they get here. Remember how you didn’t want to be alone in the car? I get that. Being alone sucks. I was alone for a long time when I lived in Kansas City. But I guess that’s a story for another day. My point is, it sucks, so I’ll stay here with you. They said someone will be in to clean you up soon. Uh, you look fine. I mean you look pretty even just lying here. I’m sure you’re cold. The nurse said you have a fever. I wanted to give you a blanket, but she said I couldn’t. You know, I’m not really sure what to talk about. I just wanted you to know that someone was here. I don’t know if you can hear me, but if you can, I’m sure you’re scared. But there are people who need you to fight to get better. People who are depending on you.”