by Kat Mayor
Bob pressed his fingers along the ridge of Charlie’s skull, and he crumpled into a heap on the road. Lilly, who was barely conscious, went limp after Bill pressed his fingers against her skull.
Louis picked up his son and put him in the backseat of the Blazer. Then he and Bob lifted up the rental car and slammed it into the telephone pole, shattering the windshield and leaving a huge dent in the driver-side door. Bill shoved Lilly into the driver’s seat and then ran over to the Blazer. Evelyn and Bill drove off with Charlie in the backseat.
Bob and Louis stayed behind to report the accident and wait for the emergency response vehicles. “You saved my son’s life,” Louis told Bob. “I don’t know why you did that, but thank you.”
“As an elder I have taken an oath to uphold the Sentrian code of law, and I will. Those who break the law must be punished. But Silas is mentally ill, not a hardened criminal. I don’t think he needs to pay for his transgressions with his life.”
***
After receiving a call from Louis, Michelle was on her way to the Texas Medical Center where Life Flight was taking Lilly. As it turned out, Louis didn’t have to stop the wedding. Before they had a chance to marry, Charlie and Lilly got into a terrible car accident that left him dead and her severely injured. Michelle prayed all the way to the hospital that Lilly would not die, too.
Michelle’s boss, Dr. Maxwell, made a few phone calls and was able to get Dr. Morris to examine Lilly when she arrived. He was the best trauma surgeon in Houston. When Michelle arrived she was escorted back to the examination area to wait for her daughter.
Lilly was unconscious but stable when she was rolled off the helicopter. The staff gave Michelle a moment with Lilly before they rolled her into a trauma room. She looked peaceful, but Michelle immediately saw her left leg was grotesquely swollen and discolored. The foot was hanging at an unnatural angle to the lower leg.
They rolled Lilly away, and Michelle sat down. She felt weak and had a sick feeling in her stomach. A nurse tried to get her a cup of coffee, but she refused and spent an anxious few hours waiting for all the tests to be done. Finally, Dr. Morris came out to speak to her. Michelle stood up, but Dr. Morris motioned for her to sit and pulled up a chair in front of her.
“First of all, the good news. The head CT is clear and shows no sign of intracranial trauma or hemorrhage. Lilly is still unconscious, but we can really find no reason for it. Her vitals are strong, and we are optimistic that she will come out of this without any lasting neurological problems. Now the bad news. I’m sure you saw Lilly’s left leg. The X-rays show that the bones aren’t just shattered, they’re pulverized. I’ve never seen such a severe crushing injury from a car accident. The limb is cold and we can’t get any pedal pulses. Mrs. Garcia, there’s no way I can save her leg.”
Michelle was upset but not surprised.
“With your permission, I’d like to proceed with the amputation. I will try to preserve as much of the leg as possible.”
Michelle nodded. “Thank you, Doctor.” Dr. Morris excused himself and went to scrub for surgery. A nurse led Michelle over to a desk to sign the papers. It didn’t seem real. Yesterday morning she was fixing Lilly pancakes before her graduation, and now her daughter was undergoing surgery to amputate her left leg. Her hands were shaking as she signed her name.
“Is there someone I can call to be with you?” the nurse asked.
Michelle shook her head no. The nurse escorted her to the surgical waiting room. She alternated between sitting in the uncomfortable chairs and pacing the floor with the other family members waiting for word about their loved ones. She was used to being the caregiver, not the waiting family. She didn’t much like being on this side of the hospital bed.
The waiting gave her time to think. It was still hard to take in. Yes, she had been upset with Lilly and Charlie for running off the way they did, and she believed they were making a terrible mistake. But she would have learned to accept their decision. When she was sitting at home, waiting to hear from Louis, she had already decided that she would be there for Lilly and Charlie and help them any way she could. She would give them the support she and Lalo never had from Abuela.
Now it didn’t matter. It was going to be difficult when Lilly learned she had lost her leg, but Michelle was really dreading telling her that Charlie was dead.
***
Charlie was caught in that dream state between sleep and wakefulness. Vivid, tortuous images filled his mind. And the screams—her screams. Maybe it was all a bad dream. He could hope so, right?
Then he heard voices in the distance. Voices discussing what should be done with him. Voices that destroyed any hope that this was all a nightmare. He opened his eyes and saw that he was in a small, stark room. The walls were a light gray. In fact, everything was gray. Charlie sat up and looked down at the small cot he was lying on and the plain pants and shirt he was wearing: prison attire. He felt around for his glasses. On a bedside table he found a pair. They were not the ones Lilly had picked out. These frames were solid black and rectangular with oversize lenses. Charlie could just imagine what Lilly would think of these, but he did need to see, so he put them on. Everything came into focus. He looked out the small window at the familiar violet horizon. It was early morning, and he could still make out two of the three moons.
Charlie got up slowly and took a look around at his surroundings. There was a sink on the side of the room and a small bathroom in the corner. In addition to the cot, there was one plain chair that was bolted to the floor. The room was lit with harsh overhead lighting similar to Earthan fluorescent lighting. The gray monochromatic tone of the room was only broken up by the small window and a portrait of a Sentrian landscape on the wall opposite his cot. Charlie supposed it was someone’s feeble attempt to cheer the place up.
He examined the door. It was very large and composed of thick metal, obviously designed to be soundproof. Charlie tilted his head and looked up at the ceiling. The door did make it more difficult to hear, but he could still make out some of the conversations of the staff outside of his room. He heard footfalls coming toward him and someone pressing a code on a keypad outside the door.
The door opened, and a man and a woman entered his room. They appeared to be in their early thirties. They were dressed in all black, definitely Sentrian medical personnel. The woman had a severe look about her. She placed a glass of warm liquid on his bedside table. It was still steaming. Charlie knew what it was immediately. Instant Smile. His mother drank it whenever she was upset, which was often.
“It seems patient 29379 is awake,” the man said. “How are you feeling?”
Charlie ignored the question and posed one of his own. “Where am I?”
“The Babylon Institute for the Criminally Insane: your new home,” the woman told him.
“I’m Dr. Lot and this is Nurse Rahab. We’ll be overseeing your psychological care during your incarceration.”
His incarceration? “How long have I been here?”
“One day since you got off the ship. You’ve been unconscious for the last three days. While you were in your sleep state, Eve Royal and the elders presented your case to the Great Council. You’ve been sentenced to ten years in this facility,” Nurse Rahab said with a smile.
Charlie wasn’t surprised. On Sentria, the accused need not be present for their own trial. He wouldn’t have been allowed to mount a defense anyway.
“We will let you rest today. Tomorrow we begin therapy,” Dr. Lot said. “Oh, and by the way, your father wants to see you. You are permitted a thirty-minute visit tonight, if you’d like. After that you will only be allowed visits once a month.”
Charlie considered it. On the one hand, he was still angry with his father. The last time they spoke, he was telling Eve to kill Liliana. On the other hand, a month was a long time to go without seeing anyone he knew, and he had one question he had to know the answer to. He thought his father would at least tell him the truth.
“Yes, I want to se
e him,” Charlie said, rubbing his neck. Although the chip was deactivated, and he could no longer hear its high pitched squeal, the memory of it was very strong.
“I thought you might. He’s in visitor processing right now. That will take about thirty minutes. Then he will be brought here, to your room.” Dr. Lot and Nurse Rahab left him alone.
The gravity of his situation hit him. He would be in here for ten long years, a full quarter of his life. That kind of sentence was reserved for only the worst of Sentrian criminals. You can’t thwart God’s will, Charlie thought. He had disobeyed, and as a consequence the Sentrian officials had carried him off to this place, the Babylon Institute. Liliana. He would never see her again. He lay down on the cot and stared at the cold gray wall.
***
The sound of his father’s footfalls roused him. He turned to face the door as he watched Louis/Lucien walk in.
“Hello, Silas,” Lucien said as he took a seat. Charlie thought his father looked older, frailer, and very, very tired.
“Father? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” he said. “When your only son is tried, convicted, and sent to prison for ten years, all in the span of three days, it takes a toll. Your mother…well, she’s not up to a visit yet.” The way his father said it, Charlie wondered if his mom would ever be up to seeing him in here.
“I have to ask you a question, and I need you to tell me the truth,” Charlie paused. “What did they do to Liliana?”
“Silas, they are monitoring our conversations.”
“I don’t care,” Charlie said, getting up from his cot. He turned to face Lucien. “Please, I need to know.”
“All right.” Lucien looked over his shoulder, as if he expected someone would burst into the room at any second. “They didn’t kill her, if that’s what you’re wondering. They put her in a sleep state just like you. We staged an accident scene and called emergency services. I watched them load her into one of the air ambulances myself. Afterward, I called her mother and informed her of the girl’s condition. I also told her you were dead.”
The sleep state affected Earthans differently than Sentrians. Lilly wouldn’t remember much about what happened that day. Maybe she wouldn’t remember the car chase at all. His father said she was receiving medical care. Although Earthan medical treatment was crude in comparison to Sentrian standards, they would be able to treat her injured leg. He knew it was probably best that she believed he was dead, but the thought troubled him. Charlie sighed. At least Liliana was alive; that was the important thing. He would never see her again, so he might as well be dead to her.
“Silas, listen to me,” Lucien said. “Now is the time to think about your own situation. Please cooperate fully with the doctors and staff here. Do whatever they ask. If you complete your therapy successfully, you can spend the last years of your life a free man. If not, you’ll die in here.”
Charlie filtered out his father’s words. He turned his head and stared out the little window in his cell. It didn’t matter what they did to him, and he honestly didn’t care. Without Liliana, his life was already over.
***
Michelle had been by Lilly’s side day and night for a week. Every day she prayed this would be the day Lilly would wake up, and every day her hopes were dashed. She talked to her, read to her, even watched TV with her. At night, she pulled her chair up close to Lilly’s bed and slept with her hand wrapped around Lilly’s. The only time she left the hospital was to shower.
On the eighth day after the accident, Lilly opened her eyes. She was surrounded by monitors and bags of fluid connected to tubes that drained into her arm. Her throat was sore and she was groggy. It took her a moment to process her surroundings. She was in a hospital. What happened? How did she end up here?
Michelle looked up from her crossword puzzle. “Mi hija, thank God you’re awake. How do you feel? Are you in pain?”
“No, Mom. I’m fine.” Lilly swallowed; it hurt to talk. “Why am I here? And where’s Charlie?”
“I’ll tell you everything in a little while, but right now I need to let the nurses know you’re awake.” Michelle got up to go to the nurse’s station.
Lilly grabbed her hand and stopped her. “That can wait.” Michelle sat back down. “What happened?”
“You were in an accident, a very bad accident. Do you remember?”
Lilly shook her head. She couldn’t remember much of anything. “How bad was the accident, Mom?” Michelle lifted the sheet. Where her left leg should be was a rounded bandage, and there was no ankle or foot. Lilly looked at her mom. Then she looked down at the stump, horrified. She covered her mouth with her hand to keep from screaming.
“It’s not as bad as it looks. Dr. Morris was able to save part of your lower leg.”
Lilly was crying now. “Well, great. That makes me feel much better.” She searched her mind, trying to remember what happened. The trouble was, there were gaps in her memory—big ones. Perhaps Charlie could fill them in. “I want to see Charlie. I need to talk to Charlie,” she said through her tears.
Michelle took Lilly’s hand and shook her head. “I’m sorry, mi hija. Charlie did not survive.”
This time Lilly could not contain the screams. Michelle wrapped her arms around her daughter and held her tightly, rocking her back and forth.
***
Lilly was hoarse and exhausted from crying. The audible screams had subsided. It would be months before the screams inside her head did. Michelle brushed the hair out of her face and kissed her forehead. Then, she got up and went to get the nurses.
Lilly looked down at the bed. The sheet was still lifted up, exposing what remained of her left leg. Funny how a person’s perspective could change so suddenly. She no longer felt any sense of loss for her missing limb now. Her broken heart wouldn’t allow it.
End of Book One
Bibliography
Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Director, Larry Roemer. Rankin/Bass Productions, 1964.
Karate Kid. Director, John G. Avildsen. Columbia Pictures Corporation, 1984.
“Number 12 Looks Just Like You.” The Twilight Zone. Columbia Broadcasting System, January 24, 1964.