by Gina Ardito
“Yes,” I said, finally finding my voice—and my nerve. “And the man with us is Sam Dillon, chief of police and my boss.”
Sam nodded. “Mrs. Handler. Nice to see you again.”
I half-expected to see her melt into the floor like the Wicked Witch of the West. Okay, not really. It was more like a wish than an expectation.
Too bad, she switched to Glenda the Good Witch instead. “Sam. How nice of you to help Emily right now. But then you always were a very polite young man.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Handler.” Sam nudged me with a gentle elbow jab to my side. “Em, why don’t you gather your stuff?”
“I’ll help,” Paige interjected on the next breath. “Come on, Em.” Grabbing my hand, she pulled me past my mother-in-law. “Upstairs?”
“Yes.” I let her lead me up the stairs before I took the front position and drew her into the master bedroom. Once there, I closed the door.
“God, how can you stand that woman?” Paige asked me in low tones. “I remember her making my mother cry. She’s always been so joyless and sanctimonious. If she were my mother-in-law, I’d have skedaddled a long time ago. Shoot, I probably would have changed my name so she couldn’t find me...”
Her voice faded as the memories punched me in the chest. My kids’ school pictures, in all varieties of smiles from straight and perfect, thanks to orthodontia, to gaps in baby teeth, surrounded a wedding photo of Roy and me. The words he spoke in the hospital room echoed inside my skull. I never cared what my mother said about you. In my eyes, you were always perfect. My knees wobbled, and I gripped the tall oak dresser for support. “I don’t think I can do this.”
Paige stepped closer and wrapped an arm around my shoulder. “Em?”
I sagged into her, leaning all of my weight on her slender frame. “What kind of mother leaves her kids? What kind of woman leaves her family?”
She didn’t answer my question. Instead, she chucked two fingers under my chin and lifted my face so that we were eye-to-stern-eye. “Do you still love Roy? Enough to stay with him? To fight for him? Even against his vile mother?”
My jaw dropped. “What?”
“Now you know how bushwhacked I felt when you asked me about Sam.” She laughed. “Do what I did. Take a minute. Close your eyes. Don’t look at this room or what emotions it evokes. Then answer me from the gut. Do you still love Roy?”
I closed my eyes, inhaled and exhaled a dozen times. I counted to ten. Did I still love Roy?
The first images that came to mind were my kids, of course, but I forced my brain to push them away. Roy, I insisted to myself. Think about Roy. I squeezed my eyes tighter, focusing my memory on the day we met—my first day at James Madison High School. I was an incoming naive freshman, searching for Room 312, and a sophomore told me that it was in the “new wing.”
“Just go through that exit door,” the pretty blond cheerleader said. “It’ll look like you’re outside, but it’s actually an atrium. On the other side will be another door. Go in through there, and you’ll find Room 312 about two doors down.”
So I listened and wound up locked outside near the maintenance area. I pulled on the door I’d just walked through, but it wouldn’t budge. I pounded with my fist, but no one heard, or if they did, they ignored the stupid freshman who’d fallen for their joke. Panic overwhelmed me. I had two minutes to get to class, and I was on the complete opposite side of the school’s main entrance, the only open doors on campus.
Just as I was about to walk around the building, tears nearly blinding me, a big handsome guy ran up to me from the track. “Fell for the atrium scam?”
“Uh-huh.” I probably looked totally pathetic, but Roy just smiled.
“Don’t feel bad. They got me with it last year, too. Come on.” He jerked his head toward the building’s garage. “I know how you can get back in and still get to class on time.”
“I don’t even know where I’m going,” I whined.
“What class are you looking for?”
“Mrs. Quinn. World Civilizations. Room 312.”
“You’re in luck,” he said. “You’re actually close.”
I sniffed. “Really?”
When his grin widened and he said, “Yeah, really,” I fell in love. Roy had rescued me that day. As dumb as that sounds, it was exactly what I believed. From that moment on, he became my champion, through all the days of tears and turnips. When had I stopped thinking of him that way?
“Em?” Paige’s voice shook me back to my present situation.
I swallowed a sob and threw back my own version of her response. “Yes, I still love him. Enough to stay with him—here, or in purgatory, if that’s what it takes.” I drew in a deep, painful breath. “But...”
“But...?” she prompted.
“But I don’t know if he still loves me.”
“Then I guess it’s high time you find out,” she replied while squeezing my shoulders. “So you pack a bag and leave for a while. A little time apart, and you’ll either know you’ve reached the end, or figure out how to put it all back together. Take it from me. If I’d have stayed here, I doubt I ever would have known how much I love Sam. Of course, I don’t recommend you wait as long as I did to wake up, though.”
Sixteen years? God, no! I didn’t want to go sixteen days without Roy. Or even sixteen more hours.
“You have a suitcase?” Paige’s question blasted away my countdown before I reached the ridiculous.
I nodded. “Under the bed.”
When she released me to fetch the suitcase, my legs gave out, and I sank onto the edge of the unmade bed. Did I really want to leave him? Leave my family? Leave my home? Roy’s image, rumpled among the sheets and blankets, rose in my head. I ran a hand over the covers, almost as if I might caress my husband’s arm or chest.
At that moment, I knew. I fisted my hands, digging fingernails into my palms. “I’m not leaving.”
“Emmmmileeeee!”
At the sound of my husband’s shout, I shot up. “Roy.” My heart nearly burst with excitement, and I raced to the door to fling it wide.
“Jeez, Em,” Paige grumbled, her smile wide and knowing. “You could at least play hard to get.”
One hand on the door jamb, I turned to face her with a sly grin of my own. “Why? He’s had my heart since I was fourteen.” I gave her a wink and sped into the hall.
Indoor thunder rumbled as Roy scaled the staircase to where I stood. His eyes were still red-rimmed, and the circles I’d noted last week had deepened to purple canyons. He might as well have combed his hair with a garden rake. Yet, to me, he was still the handsome young guy who slipped me in through the maintenance garage entrance so many years ago. Still the same scared guy who’d said so simply, “Then we’ll get married.” Still the same man who’d held my hand through four active labors, who’d cuddled me close at night, who’d been my rock—my whole life—for the last eighteen years. But this man held a cellophane-wrapped bouquet—real red roses from a real florist, not from the supermarket or the hospital gift shop.
I did manage to slow down and count to ten before I hit the top of the stairs. Despite my efforts, my pounding heart threatened to fly out of my chest. One, two, three, breathe, four, five, six, breathe, seven, eight, nine, breathe, ten. “What are you doing here?” Thanks to the breathing exercises, I sounded a lot more placid than my nerves let on. “Why aren’t you at work?”
He stopped in front of me, eyes smoldering with some inscrutable emotion, and he shoved the roses at me. “I’m not letting you do this, Em. You can’t just walk out on me. Not after all we’ve been through.” He grabbed me, crackling the cellophane to hold me against his chest. The drumbeat of his heart melded with the staticky wrapping around the roses, creating a symphony for me alone—a symphony of love and devotion.
Or had the doctors slipped a Mickey Finn into my I.V.?
I pulled away, wanting to look him in the eye when I told him of my decision. “Roy, I—”
“Don’t say
anything, okay? Just hear me out. I’m willing to do whatever it takes to keep you here where you belong. If you want me to sleep on the couch, I’ll sleep on the couch. If you want me to take another job so you can stay home, I’ll take another job. Whatever it takes. I don’t want you to leave. Not now, not ever. I need you here with me, no matter what I have to do to make that happen.”
With each word he spoke, I glowed brighter. But I needed to hear those three little words he hadn’t yet said—and not, “You’ve lost weight.”
“Why?” I asked.
I clearly had interrupted a practiced speech. He blinked several times, his mouth agape. “Huh?”
“Why don’t you want me to leave?”
“Why?” He blinked again. “Because...because I nearly lost you last week, and I thought my heart would stop. Every night I’ve come home, and the only thing that gets me out the door again is knowing that soon you’ll be home. That I didn’t lose you. Except, maybe I have...” His voice roughened to a sandpaper whisper, and he pulled me into his arms again, this time tight enough to crush me and my poor roses. “Dammit, I love you so damn much, I can’t breathe if you’re not here with me. Please tell me I didn’t lose you.”
Oh, thank God. He’d said the words. The roses became insignificant. I snuggled even closer to his chest, reveling in the way he held me, like a precious treasure. “You mean it? You’re willing to do anything I want? Like tell me you love me every day? Like talk to me and listen—really listen—to me? Like take my side and stand up for me, even when I might be wrong?”
“Do you promise you’ll do the same for me?”
“Always. Every day from now until eternity. I love you, Roy. I was about to tell you I couldn’t leave you. You’re my home, my heart, my everything.”
“You’re not leaving me?”
I shook my head.
“Ahem!” Paige stood in the doorway to my bedroom, that sly grin still shining on her face. “You guys might want to take your discussion someplace a little more private than the hall. Why don’t I take these roses downstairs? Sam and I can put them in water and entertain Mrs. Handler while you two...umm...” She rolled her eyes. “...get reacquainted.”
I took hold of Roy’s hand to lead him toward the bedroom, but he held back, a worried frown creasing his face. “Are you...” He placed a hand at the center of his chest, and patted rhythmically, imitating a heartbeat. “...okay?”
“Let’s find out,” I whispered in his ear.
Both grinning like lovesick fools, we couldn’t run past Paige fast enough.
****
Francesca
Several hours later, I was working the graveyard shift when an ambulance brought in an injured motor vehicle accident victim. “Fractured right femur, shattered knee, possible TBI,” the nurse recited from the EMT report as we raced to the ambulance bay. “Head-on collision.”
TBI: traumatic brain injury. Which meant we’d need a trauma surgeon. Adrenaline coursed through my veins. My nerves jumped from synapse to synapse, and I mentally prepared myself for what I’d find. “Who’s on call tonight?”
“Dr. Humphrey. He’s on his way.”
“Any other victims enroute?”
“Second driver. Drunk. Cut his forehead, but otherwise stable.”
Naturally. For some reason, drunk drivers tended to survive unscathed while severely injuring their sober victims. Theorists claimed the alcohol tended to make the intoxicated driver more...for lack of a better word...fluid. Whereas sober drivers about to collide tended to tense up for impact, increasing the severity of their injuries. The screeching siren ushered in our injured victim, and we went into overdrive to get the poor man into the E.R. so we could begin treatment. While the nurse took down the vitals and other details the attendant provided, I went straight to work on assessment of the patient’s physical condition. I moved to the head of the gurney to examine the man’s face and stopped short.
Even behind the oxygen mask strapped to his nose and mouth, I recognized my former fiancé. “Michael? Oh, my God. Michael! Can you hear me?” He didn’t respond. I reached for his hand and squeezed his fingers inside my palm. “You’re going to be okay, you hear me? Dr. Humphrey’s on his way. He’s the best trauma surgeon in the county, Michael. You’re in the best hands.”
As if my words had conjured him up, Dr. Humphrey suddenly appeared at the end of the hall. “Dr. Florentino?”
“It’s Michael,” I said, my hand still attached to his while the gurney rolled toward triage. “My...” I scrambled for the right phrase. My what? How could I explain our complicated relationship in the simplest way? “We used to be engaged.”
Behind me, the triage nurse gasped.
Dr. Humphrey nodded. “Okay. Let him go, Doctor. I’ve got him.”
I couldn’t. Fear kept me tethered to him, and I gripped his fingers tighter.
Someone’s hands clamped my shoulders. “Doctor. Let him go.” Helena, the R.N. in charge, spoke in a tone unaccustomed to disobedience.
I nodded, but still didn’t release my hold on my former future husband.
“Doctor! Release the patient. Now.” Gerald finally had to pry my hand from Michael’s.
I stopped running alongside the gurney and allowed the team to roll him away. “Come on,” the P.A. said. “Let’s get you some tea, huh?”
He walked me into the break room and pushed me into a chair. I couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t see straight. My mind remained fused to Michael and what he was currently going through. Shivers shook me from scalp to toes. A traumatic brain injury could cause major damage to the human body. What if he were severely injured? Concussion, hemiplegia, paraplegia, coma: the list of possible outcomes raced through my mind, along with images of Michael suffering in the grips of each condition.
I shot to my feet, colliding with the cup Gerald brought me, and splashing hot tea across my neck and shoulders.
“Aw, Jeez,” he exclaimed. “You okay, Doc?”
I couldn’t care less about the stain on my lab coat or the stickiness in my hair. “I can’t sit here. I need to do something.”
“The best thing you can do is stay here. Dr. Humphrey will take excellent care of him. You know that.”
Well, of course, I knew that. “When the hell did you become my mommy, Gerald?” At my razor sarcasm, he took a tentative step back, and I sighed, contrite. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s cool.” He shook off my anger and apology with one smooth shrug. “You’re scared. That’s understandable. It’s not easy being on the other side of the E.R.”
I said nothing for a long time, too shaken to form niceties and too afraid the next thing I blurted would draw blood. Guilt sopped me, drowning me in shoulda-woulda-couldas. Michael had come back to Snug Harbor for me. If he’d stayed in Portland, this never would have happened. Why hadn’t he gone home last week? I told him to go back. Why had he stayed? It wasn’t like he had any other reason to remain here. His parents had died two years before our scheduled wedding in a private plane crash. He had no other family. I was the only person in Snug Harbor he would have stayed for. But why? Did he really think if he stuck around, I might change my mind and go with him? Oh, God. That had to be the reason. He’d stayed here for me and now, he might die.
The loudspeaker squealed to life, breaking the silence and cutting off my self-analysis. “Dr. Florentino to E.R. Three. Dr. Florentino, E.R. Three.”
Thank God. Something to occupy my thoughts. I hoped it was something delicate and time-consuming, but not serious. The patient with poison ivy around his crotch popped up from my memory. Yes, a case like that would be perfect right now. I started to rise again, but Gerald placed a hand on my shoulder. “I’ll take this call.”
“No, you won’t.” Despite his attempt to stop me, I got to my feet. “You’re right. Michael’s in the best of hands right now. The smartest thing I can do for myself is my job.”
“Well, then, I’ll just tag along with you,” he offered.
For a split second, ire resurrected, but I realized, if our situations were reversed, I’d react the same way. We were a united team. If one of us hurt, the others swooped in for comfort and support. I suppose only those in the trenches—armed services, doctors, cops, firefighters—could understand. “Okay,” I said at last. I swept a hand with a flourish. “Shall we?”
“After you, oh, great healer.”
“Naturally,” I replied, and with the barest smile twitching my lips, I left the break room for E.R. Three. Another nurse, Yvonne, met us outside the exam room and handed me a manila folder. “What have we got?”
“Driver two from the auto accident,” she replied. “Twenty-two year old Garrett D’Amico, forehead laceration.”
Every scintilla of good humor disappeared at cheetah-on-the-hunt speed. I thrust the folder into Gerald’s arms. “He’s all yours.”
Shaking with rage, I fled back to the break room.
Chapter 20
Francesca
The critical care unit is the harbinger of hope, a place where strength rises from within to confront the harshest adversities. After my shift, I sat at Michael’s bedside, waiting for answers. In this part of the hospital, no one could wrest control from fate’s hands. Not even me. Dr. Humphrey and a crack surgical team, which included a neurosurgeon and an orthopedic surgeon, had taken excellent care of Michael’s injuries. His fractured leg was reset and immobilized in a cast. Brain scans showed a concussion, but no intracranial bleeding or swelling. Unconscious throughout the medical procedures, he remained suspended in time and blissful ignorance. He’d been sedated to avoid the possibility of seizures that might cause additional injury. The staff here would continue to monitor his vitals and brain activity for at least the next several hours.
Thus, I could have gone home. He didn’t even know he was here, much less that I sat beside him. Yet, I stayed. My limbs numbed from remaining in the same position, hunched over the bedrail, my hand holding his. Still, I stayed. Around me, nurses’ conversations hummed, along with the noise of machines intended to keep patients holding on to life’s fragile threads. I barely heard them over the pleas echoing in my brain. Please, let him be all right. Please. Let him wake up soon. Please. It’s my fault he’s here. Let him be all right. And there I stayed.