Sparking Sara (The Men on Fire Series)

by Samantha Christy

“Well, I don’t really think that’s an option now, is it?”

  Steve yells at us from the road. “You ladies want to get your asses over here and help us clean this mess up?”

  An hour later, we’re heading back to the firehouse. I think about calling Reverend Feldworth. His words ring in my head. Talk to someone you trust. Someone who won’t judge you.

  He’s not the one I want to talk to, however. The only one I really want to talk to is the one person who can’t talk back to me. She may be the only one who can really understand. Because she was there. She was in the car with me. I was in the car with her. It was like my dreams where I’m in the back seat of my parents’ car after their accident. Only this time, I was really there. And those eyes, they don’t judge me. I trust them. I trust them even when I have no reason to. Just like she has no reason to trust me. Yet she does.

  Chapter Twelve

  Oliver is waiting for me in the hospital cafeteria when I arrive with two bags of food. I texted him on my way over to see if I could bring him lunch and save him from the cafeteria food. I also figured having a meal together might help us get past our argument the other day.

  “Smells good,” he says when I pull out a few Styrofoam containers.

  “It is good,” I tell him. “It’s from Mitchell’s. Have you eaten there before?”

  “No.”

  “Well, you need to start. The restaurant is run by some friends of friends, and it’s one of my favorite places.”

  We make some small talk about the weather and our jobs while we eat. I notice he uses idioms from both the US and the UK. And that, along with his moderate accent, has me wondering.

  “How long have you lived in the States?” I ask.

  “I suppose it’s been about eleven years now. I moved here after university.”

  My eyebrows shoot up in surprise. I knew he was older than me, but not by that much.

  “How old are you?”

  “Thirty-four.” He eyes me curiously. “You think I’m too old for her.”

  “No, it’s not that. It’s just that you don’t look that old.”

  He laughs. “Thanks for calling me ‘old,’ mate.”

  “I didn’t know you Brits were so touchy,” I tease.

  I close my food container, too full to finish my meal. I wish I could take it to Sara. Lydia told me burgers were her absolute favorite meal growing up. I wonder if Sara longs for solid food. I know she’s only been awake for a few days, but the thought of being fed by some kind of liquid smoothie being pumped into my stomach is so not satisfying.

  “Do you and Sara travel together often?” I ask.

  “Only sometimes. She travels for work and I travel for work, and occasionally we can plan it so we’re at the same place at the same time.”

  “Have you shown her any pictures of the two of you yet?”

  He nods. “This morning. We only got through some of them before she nodded off.”

  “Did she recognize any?” I ask hopefully.

  “No. But that shouldn’t come as a surprise. The doctor told us not to expect her to remember anything.”

  “I know. I guess I just want to believe they could be wrong. So did you tell her you live together?”

  He looks down at the table, shaking his head. “I didn’t want to overwhelm her,” he says. “I’m hoping she warms up to me.”

  “Give her time. It’s got to be difficult waking up and finding out three years of your life are gone.”

  “She’s taken to you,” he says.

  “Only because I sat with her every day. Once she gets used to you, the same thing will happen I’m sure.”

  Oliver looks at his watch. “I’ve got to take off. I was able to do some work in her room this morning, but I’ve got clients I need to meet with.”

  “You’re not going to be here when she moves to the rehab facility?”

  “Sorry, mate. Duty calls. Not all of us have the luxury of working two days a week.”

  “Two twenty-four-hour days,” I say.

  “Touché,” he says, gathering up our trash. “I told her I’d visit her at the new facility tomorrow.”

  I hold out my hand. “Thanks for meeting me. I feel like we got off on the wrong foot yesterday.”

  “I’m sorry about that,” he says, shaking my hand. He looks at our surroundings. “All this was a lot to take. I … I don’t want to lose her.”

  I nod in empathy. “I know you don’t. And I’ll do everything I can to help.”

  “I appreciate that. Can you give me a buzz if anything changes with her?”

  “Sure. Uh, does that mean send you a text?”

  He laughs. “It means call me. But, yeah, a text would be okay, too.”

  “See you tomorrow, then.”

  “That you will, mate,” he says before walking out the door.

  When I approach Sara’s room, I see there’s someone new sitting with her. Krista comes up behind me. “That’s Jason, her speech therapist.”

  “I thought she wasn’t speaking yet.”

  “She’s not. He’s evaluating her ability to swallow. They want to get her eating solid food as soon as they can.”

  “I’ll bet she can’t wait to get that tube taken out of her stomach.”

  Krista shakes her head. “They won’t be able to do that for a while. The wound from the surgery needs six weeks to heal before the tube can be removed, or there’s a possibility the stomach could collapse.”

  “So, she’ll be stuck with it for a while.”

  “I’m afraid so,” she says. “In case you haven’t figured this out by now, waiting patiently is the name of the game in cases like Sara’s.”

  “Yeah. I guess it is.”

  “We’re going to miss you around here, you know,” she says.

  “We?”

  Krista rolls her eyes. “Tiffany, you know, one of the night nurses, she, uh—” She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a note— “she told me to give this to you. I know it’s unprofessional, but she reminded me that Sara’s not your girlfriend, so …” She holds out the note.

  “I’m assuming that’s her phone number?”

  She nods.

  I push the note back to her. “Please tell her I have a girlfriend.”

  Krista looks surprised. “You do? I mean, you spend so much time here, we all assumed you didn’t.”

  “I don’t. But it’s better than telling her I’m flat out not interested, isn’t it?”

  Krista laughs. “Yeah, I guess it is. Okay, I’ll let her down easy.”

  “Thank you.”

  I step into the room and wait off to the side to watch Jason with Sara. He’s got a tray of food with him and is spoon-feeding her what looks to be applesauce and diced fruit.

  She sees me walk in and her eyes brighten. I give her a wave. “Having lunch, are we?”

  She smiles.

  “We’re trying,” Jason says.

  I watch Sara take a few bites. She seems to chew and swallow without difficulty, so I’m surprised when Jason pulls me aside on his way out.

  “I’m concerned that Sara’s not swallowing properly, so before she leaves tonight, I’m going to order a swallow study. We’ll have her swallow a barium drink and then we’ll watch with a machine similar to that of an x-ray to see where it ends up. If all goes well, she’ll be cleared to start back on solid food.”

  “Thank you.” I turn to Sara. “I predict you’ll be knee-deep in cheeseburgers in no time.”

  She gives me a thumbs up and I can see that she raises her hand off the bed more than she did a few days ago.

  Progress.

  I sit in the chair Jason vacated. I know she must be tired after all her therapy sessions, but I see if I can push her anyway. I pull the card out of my back pocket and show it to her. “Are you ready to play?”

  She nods eagerly.

  I grab the cards from the side table and deal some face down onto her lap. She looks at me in confusion.

  “You know Go F
ish, don’t you?”

  Her lips twitch into a smile.

  “Here, I’ll help you get set up. Don’t worry, I won’t cheat and look at your cards. But you should know, I’m very competitive.”

  I pick up her left hand and fist it for her, then I fan out the cards as I place them into her hand. When I do, I notice something: a big sparkly something on her ring finger.

  I remove the cards and hold up her hand. “Wow, that’s some rock.”

  She looks sad as she shakes her head. It’s not the look of a woman who’s happy to be engaged.

  “I know this must be scary for you, Sara. But I’m glad you’re giving it a chance. Well, I think you are, otherwise you’d have taken it off. You don’t want to take it off, do you?”

  She looks at the ring and shrugs.

  “This is a good thing, Sara. Oliver is a nice guy. I just had lunch with him.”

  She looks at me, surprised.

  “What, you didn’t think two chaps from opposite sides of the pond could get along?” I look at her thoughtfully. “Do Brits say ‘chaps’?”

  She shrugs again. Right, she probably doesn’t have any idea.

  “He loves you. This is hard on him, too, you know. Try to put yourself in his shoes. The woman he loves—the woman he loves so much that he asked her to marry him—that woman suddenly doesn’t even remember he exists. For a year, he’s loved you. We all understand you don’t remember, and that’s not your fault. But you obviously loved him, too. That’s got to count for something. If you are meant to be together, you’ll find a way. Even if you never remember.”

  She fiddles with the ring, swirling it around her finger.

  “Look at it this way. Most of us only get to fall in love once in a lifetime. You’ll get to do it twice.”

  She narrows her brows at me.

  “Okay, fine, so you’ll only remember it one of those times. But he will have those other memories. And he can remind you of them every day.”

  She nods to the cards, making me laugh. “Okay, okay. Let’s play.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Later in the afternoon, they take Sara to do the barium swallow test. I use the time to call my sister.

  “What time do you get to town tomorrow?” I ask.

  “Early, I think. Are you coming to the game?”

  “No, but I can meet up with you after.”

  “You’re not still sitting with that girl, Sara, are you? I asked Bass about it a few days ago and he said I should ask you.”

  I contemplate lying to her, but what good would that do? She’d probably know anyway. She can usually see right through me. “As a matter of fact, I’m sitting in her hospital room right now. She’s being moved to a rehab facility today.”

  “That’s good news, right? If she doesn’t have to stay in the hospital anymore.”

  “It’s progress, but she still has a long road ahead of her. She can’t eat, can’t walk. Can’t get out of bed and pee.”

  “The poor girl. So you never got in touch with her boyfriend?”

  “I did. He’s been here the past few days. And he’s her fiancé, not her boyfriend.”

  “Then why are you there?” she asks.

  It’s a fair question, and one I’ve asked myself for the past twelve days.

  “Because she wants me here, I guess.”

  I hear Aspen sigh into the phone. “Den, she’s engaged. And he’s there now. Don’t you think you’ve more than done your job?”

  “She’s scared and she doesn’t know him, Pen.”

  “She doesn’t know you.”

  “I know. But she thinks she does. In some strange way, I think I know her, too. Maybe it’s because we were in the car together and we shared some of the scariest moments of our lives.”

  “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, big brother. I think you should talk to someone.”

  “I have.”

  “You … really? You have?”

  “Someone from FDNY. And you know what he told me?”

  “What?”

  “That if I’m not hurting anyone and if I don’t have false expectations of how this will turn out, it’s perfectly fine.”

  I can hear the cogs in her head spinning to try and come up with a rebuttal.

  “Fine,” she says in her pouty voice. “But you better meet us after the game.”

  “I will.”

  “Sawyer wants to go out to some of his favorite places. I’ve cleared it with Bass and Ivy, and they’re lining up a sitter so they can come, too. Do you think you could find someone to bring along?”

  I think about the last date I had three weeks ago. It was the sister of a guy over at Engine 38 where I’d worked a few shifts the week before. She was fun enough, but I didn’t ask her out again. I normally don’t. I’m not trying to be an ass or anything, but I guess Kendall kind of left a bad taste in my mouth. She left me after two years, even though she knew I was innocent of the crime I’d been convicted of. She left me because of the way she was treated by her friends and acquaintances. Like the girlfriend of a criminal.

  Since then, I’ve just found it easier to go out on simple dates. Casual, fun, no-strings-attached dates.

  I think of Nurse Tiffany. Maybe I should go get that number from Krista after all. But something about that doesn’t seem right, her being Sara’s nurse and all. Then I remember the admit nurse in the ER.

  “I might be able to find someone,” I say, wondering if I have enough time to pop downstairs and ask Nora Goodwin to dinner before Sara comes back.

  “Good. We’ll meet you at home tomorrow night around nine.”

  “I’d prefer to meet you wherever we’re going if that’s okay.”

  She laughs. “Don’t want the girl to know where you live?”

  “Maybe I don’t want her to know where you live. Where Sawyer lives—part of the time, anyway.”

  “Right. Of course, thank you.”

  “Text me with the place and I’ll see you then. I’ve got to run.”

  “Bye, Den. Love you.”

  “Love you too, Pen.”

  I head downstairs to ask Nora out. I find her sitting at the ER admissions desk.

  “Hi,” I say, after she finishes up with the woman she’s helping. “I’m not sure if you remember me—”

  “Denver Andrews. You’re a firefighter,” she says with a sultry smile. “I never forget a face. Especially one as handsome as yours.”

  I try not to roll my eyes. Get in. Get it done. Get back to Sara.

  “Yeah, well, I know this is short notice, but I was wondering if you’re free tomorrow night for a late dinner, say around nine o’clock?”

  She shrugs a shoulder, trying to look like she’s not all that interested when I can clearly see that she is. “I suppose I could squeeze it in.”

  I look at the clock behind her desk, wanting to get upstairs before they bring Sara back into her room. I grab a piece of paper and scribble down my cell number. “Text me with your address and I’ll pick you up. I have to run.”

  “Okay,” she says as I walk away. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

  I turn around and lift my chin at her before I race back upstairs just in time to see Sara get wheeled into her room. They put her in a wheelchair today. She had to be strapped in and supported, and it’s one of those reclining wheelchairs. But again, progress.

  When she’s situated in her bed, the doctor comes in carrying a small package. “I have a going-away present for you, Sara.”

  Sara raises her eyebrows.

  He shows her a device. “This is called a Passy Muir value. When you are off the vent, we can connect it to the trach, which will allow you to speak. It functions by blocking the tube during exhalation to allow air flow across the vocal chords, which produces sound.”

  Her hand comes up to cover her mouth. I can see emotions all over her face. She wants this. She wants this badly.

  “You want to try it out?” he asks.

  She nods emphaticall
y.

  Since she’s still off the vent, something she’s getting quite good at for longer stretches of time, the doctor attaches the value. “You’ll still sound like you,” he says. “Your voice will just be a little weaker. It’s not like the voice box you see on those smoking commercials.”

  Sara takes in a deep breath like she’s not sure she can remember how to speak. Or she’s scared of what will or won’t come out if she does. What if the brain injury affected her speech? The doctor said some patients can have aphasia, a condition where you can’t recall the names of objects or people even though you know what you want to say.

  She looks at me, and I give her an encouraging nod. I can’t wait to hear her voice. Mostly because I need a new memory of her voice to replace the old one. The one where her voice is trembling with terror in the front seat of a car hanging off the side of a bridge.

  “You can do it, Sara,” the doctor says. “It’s like riding a bike.”

  She nods at him. Then she clears her throat—I can actually hear her do that now—and balls up her fists as if to give herself strength. She looks right at me and says the sweetest words I think I’ve ever heard.

  “Thank you,” she says.

  Tears flood her eyes at hearing her own voice. I have to swallow the lump in my throat to keep my own tears at bay.

  Jason, the speech therapist, walks into the room. “How’s my star pupil?” he asks. “Sara, you passed with flying colors. You can start slow tonight and tomorrow morning with Jell-O and soft foods, but I see no reason why you can’t go back to a regular diet after two or three meals.”

  “You passed!” I say with an overly dramatic fist pump.

  She smiles then clears her throat again. “Studied hard,” she says quietly. “Wanted A-plus.”

  We all laugh.

  I can tell the doctor is more than pleased with her ability to speak properly.

  The nurse comes in and gives some paperwork to Dr. Miller. “Looks like your ride is here, Sara,” he says after signing it. “You’re going by ambulance to your new temporary home. We’ll miss you around here, but we’re not sorry to see you go.” He puts a hand on her shoulder. “I don’t mind telling you now that you gave us quite a scare. The progress you’ve made so far, it’s nothing short of miraculous. Somebody up there must be looking out for you, young lady.”