“Darling, if you think I’m letting my wife climb up the side of a snowy embankment, then you married the wrong man twenty-three years ago.” He nods to his leg. “It’s probably just a sprain, anyway. I’ll be fine.”
He leans over and kisses my mother. Then he tries to open the door, but it won’t budge. “Damn, looks like a tree is blocking the door. I’m not even sure I could get out the window. How about your side?”
Mom looks out her window in horror. “It’s a steep drop off this side. I’m afraid to open the door.”
“Try the window,” he says.
She fiddles with the controls. “The window won’t work.”
Dad looks more than a little concerned. “Francis, the next time I insist on renting a sporty two-door in the winter, have my head checked, will you?”
My mother starts crying. “We’re trapped, aren’t we?”
“We’ll figure it out. I’m sure we’ll be able to make a call soon. Maybe the nearest tower is temporarily down.”
Her cries turn to sobs and she starts to hyperventilate. “Oh, my God, Conrad. We’re stuck in here. We can’t get out. We’re a hundred feet from the roadway with no way to call for rescue. We’ll freeze to death. We’ll starve. What will they tell the kids?”
“Calm down, Fran. I won’t let it come to that. I’ve always taken care of you. This is no different.”
“But, Conrad, we’re trapped. You can’t save me this time.”
He hugs her. Then he turns to me. “Why didn’t you save us, Denver?”
I startle awake, drenched in sweat, my mother’s sobs still echoing in my ears.
I sit up on the side of the bed, my head in my hands. At least this wasn’t one of the bad ones. They’re all bad, but most of the time, I watch them die. My mind has pieced together the bits of information given to us by the police, and different scenarios play out in my dreams.
Then a horrible feeling washes over me.
I pick up my phone and call the nurses’ station at the ICU. I don’t even feel bad that it’s one-thirty in the morning. They get Tiffany, the night nurse, on the line.
“Tiffany, it’s Denver Andrews. I just wanted to check on Sara. Is she okay? Nothing happened after I left, did it?”
“Get a bad feeling, did you?”
“Uh …”
“It’s okay. We get calls like yours all the time. Sara is the same. They have some procedures to do tomorrow after they review the results of the MRI, but other than that, she’s still being weaned off the Propofol.”
I breathe a heavy sigh of relief. Then I ask, “Did her boyfriend happen to show up after I left?”
“No, sorry.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Okay. Thanks, Tiffany. Sorry to bother you.”
“No bother, Denver. Call anytime.”
I spend the rest of the night in a fitful sleep. What will the MRI show? I’ve done some research on brain injuries over the past few days, and from what I can tell, if the damage is extensive but her body is still strong enough to keep her alive, she could be hooked up to machines for the rest of her life, unable to walk, talk, or breathe.
And based on what I’ve read, even the best-case scenario would likely mean some kind of damage, whether it be to her cognitive ability or her physical ability. Suddenly, I get a sick feeling in my gut. What if she can never paint again?
I won’t be able to see Sara until after my shift. My twenty-four-hour shift.
And somehow, I have the feeling that the next day will be one of the longest of my life.
~ ~ ~
“Hey, convict,” Steve Hanson says when I walk into the firehouse.
I roll my eyes. It hasn’t gone unnoticed that, technically, I’m a felon. Well, I was until I was cleared of all charges and exonerated last year. But they’ll never let me live it down thanks to the one drunken night I spent out with Engine 319 a few months ago.
“Hi, Duck,” I say, calling him by his nickname that he earned by not being able to walk with his feet straight.
“I hear we’re stuck with you until Auggie gets off desk duty.”
“That’s the word,” I say, putting my turnout gear by the rear door of the truck.
“Well, you know your way around. Go drop your shit in the bunk room. We designated one for you since you’ll be here a while. The rest of the company should be in shortly.”
I pass by some other guys I know from a different shift. One of them lifts a chin at me. The other doesn’t even bother to acknowledge me.
“Well, hello to you, too,” I say sarcastically.
Lt. Brett Cash comes around the corner. “Don’t let them get to you,” he says. “We’re happy to have you fill in for Noah.”
“Thanks,” I say, walking up the stairs to the bunk room. Cash follows behind me and sits down on the bunk next to mine.
“I wasn’t so different from you, you know.”
“How do you mean?”
“I lost my mom on 9/11.”
“I know, man. Bass told me. I’m sorry.”
He nods his thanks. “She was a nurse working at a hospital less than a mile from the World Trade Center. She and several other nurses and doctors she worked with ran into the south tower. I wasn’t quite twelve years old and was still asleep when she left for her early shift. I barely remember my mom saying goodbye. She used to kiss me on the forehead every morning when she left for work, even if I was sleeping. I remember grumbling at her because she woke me up.” He shakes his head. “That’s the last interaction I ever had with my mom—my complaining about her wanting to kiss me before she left the house.”
“You were eleven,” I say. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
I don’t tell him that I don’t even remember the last interaction with my parents. Kendall and I had only been dating a short while and we were consumed with each other. Everything was about her. Us. I remember telling my parents to have a good time on their trip, but all I think about when I recall the last time I saw them is wanting them out of the house so Kendall could come over and have sex with me.
“I know that. But sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I’d just woken up to say goodbye. Maybe I could have stopped her from going to work. I know that seems silly, because nobody knew what was going to happen that day. But my mind goes crazy thinking of all the different scenarios. What if her train had been late that day? What if my little sister had one of her asthma attacks and my mom had to stay and help her before going to the hospital? There are so many things that could have happened that would have kept her with us.”
I think about the dream I had last night. Maybe it’s the same for everyone who has lost somebody.
“Anyway, I knew immediately after she died that I wanted to be a fireman. I was convinced that I could have helped her, or people like her, on 9/11 had I been there. And so that’s what I worked toward from that day forward. And I did it. I became one of the youngest candidates in FDNY history. But that didn’t mean I was any good at it.”
“You weren’t good at what? Being a firefighter?”
“I was a good guy to have around if you needed someone to do CPR for an hour until a rescue squad could get on site. And I was the man you wanted on the front line in a house or small structure fire. I would run in, guns-a-blazin’, and put out the fire before the second team arrived.” He shakes his head in disgust. “But if you put me in a building over ten stories tall, I would freeze. I got claustrophobic and felt it would collapse down onto me and everyone around me.”
My eyes go wide. “But half of our training was in a ten-story structure.”
“It was training, Andrews. In a controlled environment. I killed it at the academy. Graduated at the top of the class. And then I fell flat on my face the second week of the job when I walked into the real deal.”
I look at him in disbelief. “But last fall, I distinctly remember you dissing me at the bar when Aspen told everyone I was useless during car crashes.”
He shrugs a guil
ty shoulder. “Yeah, I’m sorry about that. After being on the job as long as I have, we tend to forget where we came from and what we had to go through to get here. But Bass has been talking a lot about you lately, and it just brought everything rushing back.”
“What’s that asshole saying about me?”
“It’s not important,” he says, getting up off the cot. “Or maybe it is. But listen, I’m not here to counsel you or blow smoke up your ass. I just wanted you to know you can come to me if you need someone to listen. I may understand more than a lot of guys around here.” He nods in the direction of the guys from last shift.
“Thanks, Lieutenant.”
“My door’s always open,” he says before walking away.
“Hey, Brett?”
He turns around. “Yeah?”
“What did you do to get over it?”
He laughs half-heartedly. “Went into a lot of tall fucking buildings.”
Bass and the captain walk up the stairs just as Brett is leaving. Whereas Brett is the officer in charge of Squad 13, Sebastian Briggs and Captain Jim Dickerson, better known as J.D., are on Engine 319 with Steve and me.
“Welcome back,” Captain Dickerson says.
I stand up and shake his hand. “Thanks, Captain. I’m glad to be here.”
“You settling in?”
“I am.”
“Last shift left some breakfast for us if you’re interested,” he says.
Then the alarm sounds and we all stop talking and listen. “Engine 319, Squad 13, EMS 64, respond to a residential structure fire at the corner of Seventh Avenue and Fifty-Third Street.”
J.D. heads for the stairs. “You know the rule, right, Andrews?”
“Fifty-two seconds,” I say, following right behind him.
The three of us fly down the stairs and pull on our turnout gear consisting of our boots, pants, and coats. Then we put on our helmets and hoist ourselves into the rig.
“About fucking time,” Steve says, already in the driver’s seat.
“Duck lives to show us all up,” Bass says from the seat next to mine.
“You better watch it,” J.D. tells Steve. “Or I’ll cut that time in half.”
I look out the window of the rig as we drive down the street. We fly past cars that have pulled over to the side of the road. J.D. pulls the cord to blare the horn as we barrel through intersections. We all wave back at kids who stop and stare longingly at the shiny big fire truck.
Damn, I love what I do.
I just wish I was better at it.
~ ~ ~
On the way back from our call, which turned out to be a small garage fire, we pass what’s left of a car accident that another company responded to. The smashed-up car is being hoisted up onto a wrecker. My hands are on the window and my eyes are glued to the car as we wait our turn to pass. The car looks like it got wrapped around a pole just behind the driver’s seat.
I feel my heart start to pound as all the possible outcomes flash through my mind. Then as we drive away, I finally begin breathing again. My head slumps over and I put my elbows on my knees as I take in some deep breaths.
When I look over at Bass, I find him staring at me. He doesn’t make some dick comment like Geoff Nolan and a lot of other guys would. He doesn’t even try to talk to me. He just looks … concerned.
As soon as we’re back at the station and I get cleaned up, I call Joelle.
“Hi, Denver,” she answers.
I can tell in her voice that something’s wrong.
“What is it? Is she okay?”
“It’s not that. It’s just that I can’t go to the hospital today, or for several days. The twins both woke up with bad colds and the nurse told me not to come. They can’t risk any germs in the ICU. Sara is already at risk for pneumonia.”
My head falls back against the wall and I look to the ceiling in disappointment. Sara will be alone today. All day.
“And Oliver?”
“He hasn’t shown up yet,” she says. “He didn’t get back to you?”
“No.”
“Maybe Lydia will go back,” she says.
I shake my head. “I doubt it. I got the feeling she showed up yesterday to get some kind of closure.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” she says. “Have you talked to the hospital today?”
“Not since one-thirty this morning.”
“You called them in the middle of the night?” she asks.
“I had a bad feeling. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. But nothing had really changed. Have you heard anything different?”
“They got the results of the MRI.”
“And?”
“Well, it’s hard to say. I don’t know if they aren’t telling me something or if they really just don’t know. They said one important finding was that the brainstem itself was not compromised as originally thought. This is good news as that’s the part of the brain that controls the bodily functions we don’t think about like our heartbeat, breathing, and digestion. However, there is damage in other areas of the brain, but they said the extent of that damage won’t be known until Sara wakes up.”
I close my eyes. “Shit, Joelle. I’m sorry.”
“The other news, which I guess is good, is that today they are going to remove the wire coming out of her head that measures the pressure.”
“Yeah, they told me they would probably do that soon.”
“And she’s having a few minor surgeries today to put in a feeding tube and trach.”
“Why does she need those if the brainstem wasn’t affected?”
“The way they explained it to me is that she’s starting to take a few breaths over the ventilator, but they expect she’ll need help breathing for a while and that the risk of bacteria is high with the tube in her mouth. They said it will be far more comfortable for Sara to have the tube in her neck and not her throat. And to eliminate all tubes going down her throat, they will attach a feeding tube directly to her stomach with a bag outside her body. They claim that will be just temporary until she can progress to eating on her own.”
“So, they expect her to be able to eat on her own?”
“Like I said, they aren’t guaranteeing anything. I swear they talk in code half the time.”
“And did she move again?” I ask. “Has she woken up?”
“They didn’t say anything about that, so I guess not.”
“I’m sorry I can’t be there today. I’ll go as soon as I get off shift tomorrow morning.”
“Denver, you’ve gone way above and beyond. I don’t expect you to go back at all. You don’t need to sit with her.”
“Until Oliver shows up, I’m going back. She shouldn’t have to be alone.”
“I know, but it’s not on you.”
“It’s okay, Joelle. I want to. I don’t mind.”
“Well, thank you for everything you’ve done.”
My eyes find the floor. “I haven’t done anything.”
“Oh, but you have. Listen, I have to go. One of the kids is crying. I’ll let you know if they call me with another update.”
“Thanks, Joelle. I hope your kids feel better.”
I put my phone on the table next to my cot. As I lie back and lace my hands behind my neck, I notice Bass leaning against the wall not far from my space. It’s obvious he was listening.
I sit up and put my forearms on my knees. “How much of that did you hear?”
“Pretty much all of it.”
“And you didn’t think to mind your own fucking business?” I bite at him.
He walks over and sits on the cot opposite me. “Listen, Denver. I get that you’re struggling with something here. But your obsession with the girl in the hospital isn’t normal.”
My eyes snap to his. “You think I’m obsessed with her?”
“Well, what would you call it when you spend every waking minute at the hospital with a stranger?” He nods to my phone. “And when you can’t be there, you’re asking her family about her.”
“Some family,” I say. “She’s got a cousin who can’t even show up most of the time, an old friend who she cut ties with years ago, and a boyfriend who’s MIA.”
“And how is that your problem, man?”
“Why do you even give a shit, Bass? I did my job this morning.”
“Because thoughts of this girl are consuming you. It’s not healthy.”
“Why don’t you let me be the judge of that,” I say, springing up off the cot.
“Because I’m not sure you can be.”
I flash him an uninviting stare. “Are you telling me I should see a goddamned shrink?”
“If that’s what it takes. The department has a lot of resources. And it doesn’t have to be a shrink, you know. FDNY has chaplains stationed around the city. But I think it’s time you talk to someone, Denver. Anyone.”
I do talk to someone, I want to tell him. I talk to Sara.
I walk out of the bunk room and into the bathroom where I splash some water on my face. Then I spend the rest of the day thinking about the girl lying in the hospital bed, wondering if anyone showed up to hold her hand today.
Chapter Seven
She looks so different without all the tubes, tape, and wires around her face. I’ve never seen her whole face before. When I was in the car with her, all I could see was her eyes and the top of her head. And after she was pulled out, she had an oxygen mask over her nose and mouth.
She looks almost peaceful now.
I walk to the head of the bed and study her skull. She has new stitches where the ICP monitor used to be, to go along with the twelve stitches on the right side of her head.
They did a good job preserving her hair, which looks like it’s been recently cleaned. It’s dirty-blonde with an edgy cut that falls just about to her shoulders. I imagine if her hair doesn’t fully grow back around the stitches, she’ll be able to cover them easily.
I notice a birthmark on her face by her left ear. It’s a darker patch of skin about the size of a fingernail but in the shape of a flower.
“Good morning,” I finally say to her, wondering if she can hear me. “It’s Denver again. Sorry I couldn’t visit yesterday. I was working all day.”
Sparking Sara (The Men on Fire Series) Page 6