To Love and Heal (The Power of Love Series)

by Rose, Tamra

  TWELVE

  Anna slowly opened her eyes, the hospital room gradually coming into focus as pain ran the gamut of her entire body. A nurse was injecting medication into an IV line, unaware that Anna was now conscious.

  "Tina …"

  Startled, the nurse turned back and then smiled warmly. "You're awake. How do you feel?"

  It took more effort than Anna expected to muster up the strength to speak, but she pushed through it. "Like I was in a car that rolled over about a hundred times."

  "Hang in there – this pain med should be kicking in soon."

  "Is my friend okay?"

  "The driver? Yes – she has a fractured wrist and some bruising, but everything else checked out okay."

  "Thank god …" Suddenly, Anna grabbed her stomach with her IV-free arm, oblivious to the resulting pain that shot up her shoulder. Dread took hold as she observed the nurse's smile fade. "Oh, no …"

  "Let me page the doctor on call and let him know you're awake."

  "The baby! Is the baby okay?"

  "I'll get the doctor−"

  "No – tell me now. Please!"

  The nurse squeezed Anna's hand. "I'm so sorry."

  Dazed, Anna slowly shook her head. "It can't be … there's a heartbeat …I saw the ultrasound…" She paused as her throat closed up and her heart rate surged on the monitor.

  "Do you want a sedative to help calm you?"

  "No – please just tell me what happened," Anna replied tearfully.

  "You had a miscarriage on the way here. This sort of thing is unfortunately not uncommon in an early pregnancy when there's major physical and emotional trauma like a car accident."

  Anna searched her mind for even the slightest memory of how she arrived at the hospital. She could clearly recall the moments leading up to the crash, but everything that came after was as murky as a dense swamp. And then suddenly …

  Caleb!

  Anna gasped as a floodgate of memories spilled forward, the shock of it all prompting her to jerk her body upward in the bed. She ignored the pain, her thoughts as twisted as the heap of metal that she had been pulled from on the highway. "He … I mean my … the father … he brought me here…"

  "I think a mild sedative might help you right now," the nurse said as she viewed the fluctuating vital signs on the monitor.

  "Is he still here?"

  "Who?"

  "The man who brought me here."

  The nurse viewed her with growing concern, no doubt wondering if a mild brain injury had gone undetected and was causing her obvious confusion. "You were flown in by a medical airlift."

  "That's him – that's who I'm talking about!"

  Now it was the nurse's turn to appear befuddled. "I'm sorry, I don't–"

  "The pilot – he's the father of my baby."

  The nurse balked with wide-eyed disbelief. "The pilot?!"

  Anna could almost palpably feel the nurse's doubt, and her anxiety spiked as she contemplated the possibility of being sedated against her will. As if on cue, the nurse began to rummage through several medicine bottles on the counter, pausing only when there was a knock at the door. After opening the door and conferring with another nurse in hushed voices for several minutes, she turned back to Anna.

  "Okay," she finally conceded. "You're right – he's here and he's asking to see you. But only for a few minutes – you really need to rest."

  Though Anna hardly expected Caleb to enter her room smiling, she was nonetheless taken aback by his red-tinged eyes and ashen face as he sat down in a chair by her bed.

  Reaching over and clasping her hand in his, he looked up at the ceiling to collect his troubled thoughts before finally looking her in the eye. "Were you ever going to tell me?" he asked quietly, a slight catch to his voice.

  Anna opened her mouth to answer, but nothing came out. "I'm sorry," she finally said hoarsely. "You were going through so much, and I didn't want to make things worse for you."

  Caleb took a deep breath, teetering on the brink between calmness and a total loss of control. "Anna …"

  "I didn't even know where to find you, Caleb. You left me – remember?"

  It wasn't her intention to make him feel worse than he already did, only to speak the truth. He said nothing, though she heard his breath quicken as his grip on her hand tightened.

  "I didn't plan for this to happen, but when it did …" She paused, choking on tears that she desperately fought to hold back, only to lose the battle. "I wanted this child so badly, to have a part of you with me forever."

  Caleb loosened his grip on her hand, then released it altogether. It wasn't the reaction she expected, but what followed was even more heart-shattering. His face buried in his hands, Caleb began to cry. At first he was nearly silent, though his shoulders heaved almost violently. That he had been so adept at holding everything in for so long only made his intensely emotional display that much more gut-wrenching for Anna to witness.

  "Caleb, it's okay," she said as she tried to steady her shaky voice with only partial success. "Everything's going to be okay."

  Judging from his now audible sobs, her words did little to soothe him.

  "I don't deserve to be here," he choked, his body shaking as he tried to catch his breath. "Dwayne and Joel are dead and I'm still here. And now our baby …"

  As Caleb stood up, visually dazed and determined at the same time, Anna began to fear where his seeming breakdown might be headed.

  "Caleb, where are you going?"

  Like a stun-gunned bull only half down for the count, he stumbled into the IV holder and knocked it to the ground, oblivious to Anna's scream of pain as the stretched line pulled on the needle still taped to her arm.

  "I have to go back," he mumbled, his eyes fixated on a scene that clearly only he could see. "I forgot someone … have to go … have to get him … I can't let him die there …"

  The door flew open as a burly security guard ran into the room, followed closely by two nurses who no doubt heard the increasingly loud ruckus from the hallway.

  "Don't hurt him!" Anna cried, her world growing darker by the moment.

  "We need help in here!" one of the nurses screamed as she was inadvertently tossed aside while the trio tried to physically subdue him.

  Peering down at her arm, Anna closed her eyes and took a deep breath as she yanked out the IV needle to free herself.

  "Don't corner him," she yelled as Caleb walked into the counter and stumbled back, wide-eyed and visibly sweating. He appeared to be viewing something … just not the actual hospital room.

  "Just give me one chance," Anna pleaded as she thrust herself between Caleb and the guard and nurses.

  "It's too dangerous," the guard replied, though she had no intention of heeding his warning.

  "Caleb," she said quietly but firmly. "Listen to me. You need to steady yourself. We have to go back and rescue them. Everything will be okay – it's not too late."

  What the hell am I doing? Anna screamed the question inside herself, knowing well that her on-the-fly plan to calm Caleb down could grossly backfire at any moment. Still, she felt a flicker of hope as his hurried breathing seemed to catch itself and then start to even out. Slowly, she reached out and touched his arm, holding steady as he flinched. Blood trickled down her forearm from the unbandaged IV puncture wound, and she could only hope it wouldn't set off yet another flashback. Several more seconds and then she gently touched his other arm, pulling him closer as she felt his body start to let go, the fight inside of him evaporating. Silently weeping, he slowly slid to the ground, the weight of his body pulling Anna down with him. She cradled him protectively as the security guard and nurses viewed the scene with stunned expressions.

  One of the nurses reached for the wall phone. "I think we need to get someone from the psych department down here," she said quietly into the receiver.

  "Everything's going to be okay," Anna whispered as she held Caleb close. As uncertainty spilled into her thoughts, she hoped that he would believ
e her more than she could believe herself.

  THIRTEEN

  "Hello, I'm Doctor Margaret Blake," the curly haired and bespectacled woman said as she firmly shook Anna's hand. "I'm the resident clinical psychologist at the hospital. I'm glad you agreed to meet with me."

  Anna sat down on the comfortably plush chair across from her, eager to find out all that she could about Caleb's present state. "I'm just glad that you asked me to come by. I've been so worried about Caleb."

  Dr. Blake nodded, her expressive blue eyes emanating genuine compassion. "First, let me say how sorry I am for your loss."

  Almost instinctively, Anna's eyes dropped momentarily to her stomach. "Thank you," she replied quietly.

  "So I just want to make sure you understand that Caleb agreed to have me meet with you. Without his permission, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now since as his psychologist, it's my duty to protect his privacy and anything that he might reveal to me during the course of treatment."

  Anna nodded. "I understand."

  "Having said that, it's clear to me that Caleb felt it was very important to let you know what has happened since his breakdown. He cares very much about you and knows you tried to help him move past his time in Afghanistan."

  "I guess my first question is how he was able to hold it together for so long and then suddenly have it fall apart so completely."

  "I think the best way to explain it is that it took a lot of energy and determination for Caleb to keep his emotional trauma at bay. The only way he could function on a day-to-day basis was to more or less deny to himself on some level that any of it actually happened. And that's a whole lot of denial. But finding out that you were pregnant and then losing the baby …" Dr. Blake paused, silently gauging Anna's emotional state about a still very painful subject before continuing. "Losing the baby was like the final straw that broke down all his defenses. He just couldn't keep up the façade of 'I'm okay' to others anymore – never mind to himself."

  Anna closed her eyes, Caleb's anguished sobs reverberating within her mind. "Is he ever going to be the same person that he was before all this happened?" she asked quietly.

  "No," Dr. Blake replied, the bluntness of her answer sending a jolt through Anna's entire being.

  "No?!"

  "What Caleb has been through – there's no way he's going to look at life the same way that he did before the war. He's seen things that have shaken him to the core, things that have made him question his very existence and his reason for still being alive. So if you're asking me if he will ever be the same Caleb who saw the world through innocent eyes, my professional opinion is that he can't go back to being that exact person again. But that doesn't mean that the core of who he is as a person has changed, or that he can't get to a place where he's made peace with the past and can find happiness in the present. I guess what I'm trying to say is that Caleb underwent a life-altering experience, and there's no quick fix that will erase all this from his psyche."

  "So where does that leave things? How long will he be here?"

  "After assessing the situation and discussing the options with Caleb, we decided that the best course of action would be to have him receive outpatient counseling here. I have a lot of experience dealing with patients who have post-traumatic stress disorder, but I also think that Caleb would benefit from talking to other soldiers who are dealing with the same issues firsthand, and he's agreed to participate in a local veterans' group that was started for this very reason. It will be an informal support group where returning soldiers can feel safe talking about their experiences both on the battlefield and in trying to adjust to being back home."

  "And his job?"

  Dr. Blake sighed before forcing an optimistic smile. "In my professional opinion, Caleb should have some intense counseling behind him before operating the very aircraft that could potentially trigger a flashback. But he's being pretty bull-headed on this one."

  Anna managed a slight smile. "Somehow I'm not surprised."

  "Ultimately, I've come to the conclusion that he is so passionate about pursuing this that it might help him to get to a better place if he can stay in the present and keep his wartime and post-war flying experiences separate."

  "Does his new employer know what's going on?"

  "Yes – and to their credit, they are willing to give Caleb a chance to show that he is in fact ready for this role, but only if he stays with counseling for as long as needed."

  "Wow – that's pretty understanding on their part, considering the stakes."

  "Well, it doesn't hurt that the CEO was a helicopter pilot in Iraq during Operation Desert Storm, so you might say he understands firsthand where Caleb is coming from. But they've also been very impressed with both his flying skills and determination, so both of these things will no doubt work in his favor."

  Anna looked down at her hand as it grasped the chair arm, summoning up the courage to ask the next question. "So do I fit into any of this? I mean, has Caleb indicated that he wants me in his life?"

  "Anna, I know how difficult this is for you. And I don't want to speak for Caleb on a matter that is understandably so personal to you, but part of the reason why he wanted me to meet with you was to let you know how much he cares about you, and that he doesn't know what the future holds but he does know he needs to heal before he can be the man that you deserve–"

  "But I can help him get there," Anna interjected, her heart quickening as she read between the lines. He didn't want to see her. Not now … and maybe not ever.

  "No." Dr. Blake's forceful pushback was quickly followed by a softened stance. "You know, Caleb described you as being a very compassionate and nurturing person, and I can see that for myself in just this initial meeting alone. You've already done more to help him than you'll probably ever know."

  "I've done nothing – other than suggest that he get help, which I'm glad to know that he finally has."

  "You did more than that, Anna. You threw him a lifejacket of unconditional love. Even if it wasn't said in words, it was conveyed in actions. Caleb didn't think much of himself after his tours of duty. He felt others died because of him."

  "That's crazy – he saved numerous lives! Not only that, but he put himself in situations where he knew he might be killed so that someone else would live."

  "Ever hear the phrase 'you're your own worst critic'? It's because Caleb has such a strong sense of right and wrong, of loyalty and selflessness, that he feels this way. Part of his treatment will be helping him to see the shades of gray in areas where he always only saw only black and white. He needs to forgive himself, to realize he's human and he that he did the absolute best that he could. Unfortunately, that's not always enough, and it's the fallout from this that he's having a hard time accepting."

  "So what you're saying is … Caleb may never want to see me again."

  Dr. Blake peered over her dark-framed glasses, equal parts serious and empathetic. "My, how we jump to conclusions."

  "But it's true, isn't it? If he doesn't plan to have me in his life while he goes through this healing process, then it's very possible that I'll never see him again."

  "Yes, it's possible, but I don't think you should go there just yet. That's certainly not a scenario that he indicated to me, and right now I think he is just laser focused on getting a grip on his post-traumatic stress disorder."

  Anna nodded, too worn down emotionally to add a verbal response.

  "I hope you realize how much of a difference you've already made in his life," Dr. Blake added. "Finding a way to bring Haley back and reuniting them was an incredible gift and I have no doubt that having her by his side has helped him tremendously."

  Still too bogged down in her conflicted thoughts to speak, Anna again nodded, although this time with the hint of a smile.

  "You know, as a psychologist, I approach diagnosis and treatment in a logical manner based on solid research and guidelines. But the non-scientist in me has seen some pretty miraculous things happen
– both in my own life and in that of my patients. I think the best thing you can do right now is to go on living your life and finding happiness wherever you can. If it's meant to be for you and Caleb, then I truly believe you will one day be together again." Witnessing Anna's nearly shocked expression, she grinned and added, "Once in a while my inner New Age guru has some very non-Western medicine advice to share. This is one of those times."

  Anna's voice returned as she thanked the doctor before rising from her seat. As she was about to head for the door, she paused and turned back. "Can you tell Caleb something for me?"

  "Of course."

  "Just … please just tell him I wish him the best, and to give Haley a scratch behind the ears for me."

  Dr. Blake smiled warmly. "I'll be sure to do."

  Anna forced a smile before exiting the office, wondering if ultimately she was also exiting Caleb's life for good.

  FOURTEEN

  Anna curled up on the living room couch with a mug of hot chocolate, raising the mug in mid-air as Merlin circled around on her lap before plopping down in a contented heap. Almost three months had passed since she last saw Caleb on that anguished day in the hospital, and she was grateful that a busy holiday season and her thriving web design business had kept her focused and preoccupied enough for the time to quickly sail by. Though she hadn't expected to hear from Caleb immediately, she had still held out hope that he would eventually reach out to her, but that hope was fading fast as weeks turned into months.

  And now, sitting in the very living room that he had helped bring to life, it sometimes felt like his presence had never fully departed. And while it was a comforting thought in the early days of Caleb's path to healing, now it was a bittersweet reminder of man she had fallen in love with … and might never see again. She had read everything that she could get her hands on about soldiers with PSTD, so she hadn't fooled herself into thinking there was a quick fix for Caleb's condition. The more traumatizing experiences that one had been exposed to, the longer it would take to heal, and with three tours of duty behind him, Caleb no doubt had witnessed more than his share of horrific scenes. He had indicated to Dr. Blake that he needed to be whole again before he could be a part of Anna's life. But as time trickled away, she could only wonder if that day would ever come.