Come Back To Me

by Julia Barrett

  She’d tried to reach James several times over the past few days, but she’d missed him. Of course she and her mother hadn’t been home much either. She knew this was a busy time for him, especially since he would be taking a few days off to help her move. But James didn’t know about her grandmother unless William had managed to reach him. She’d dropped by the hospital before driving home to tell him what had happened.

  As soon as she hit Iowa City, she headed back to the hospital to see if William had heard from James.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  William paced at the gate. The winds were so bad at O’Hare that James’ plane had been held up several hours in Atlanta. According to the arrival board, the plane had just landed.

  When James had called yesterday to find out why he hadn’t been able to reach Cara, William filled him in and made arrangements to pick him up a day early. James didn’t want Cara to be alone. William managed to get the day off, but the drive had been tough, and chances were they’d get back to Iowa City pretty late. He hoped Cara would already be off the road. William didn’t want her driving home in the dark in this kind of weather any more than James did.

  To his great relief, James was one of the first passengers off the plane.

  He shook William’s hand. “Thanks for doing this.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I know how you feel. I don’t like the thought of her driving alone in this weather either.”

  “Have you heard what time she expected to make it back to Iowa City?”

  “No but I imagine she left early. Cara’s no dummy.”

  The two men threaded their way through the holiday crowds.

  James cleared his throat. “I’ll be glad when the move is over. The separation has been hard on her, not to mention all the work she’s had to complete this semester. I imagine things at home haven’t made it any easier. I was sorry to hear about her grandmother. I wish she’d been able to reach me.”

  “She checked in with me at the hospital before she left. She seemed all right.”

  “That’s good,” said James. “Where Cara’s concerned, everything happens at once.”

  “Yeah, well, don’t worry. You’ll see her in a few hours.”

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Cara parked in front of the Med Center and headed up to Orthopedics. Will might be in the middle of afternoon rounds, but she could wait. The nurses’ station was crawling with staff, but no Will. Cara managed to attract the attention of one of the nurses, asking if she knew Dr. Donovan. The woman knew who he was, but she didn’t know where he was. For a time Cara stood by the desk, searching for a familiar face. When no one appeared, she gave up and returned to the elevators. As she hit the down button, she felt a presence close behind her and she whirled around. It was Dr. Payne. Startled, Cara gasped.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

  Cara wondered when Dr. Payne had learned to use the word sorry.

  “No.” She put some distance between them. “It’s okay. I was just looking for Dr. Donovan.”

  “He’s off this afternoon,” Payne said. “He took the entire day off.”

  “Crap,” mumbled Cara.

  “Anything I can do?”

  Cara looked at him, surprised. This was the first time Ezra Payne had ever spoken to her with any semblance of politeness. He’d been the only fly in her ointment all semester.

  For some reason he’d stuck around the cholesterol screening project as a volunteer. Cara was convinced he’d done it just to make her miserable. He spent his time grousing and complaining about her management of the screenings, criticizing and insulting her every chance he got. When William found the time to join them, Payne kept quiet, but William could rarely make it. There were occasions when Cara got the distinct impression Payne was coming on to her. The thought seemed ridiculous since the man so obviously disliked her. He’d loiter near the vans until she climbed inside, then he’d follow her, making his usual snide comments. Several times she’d tried waiting for him to get in first, but he never did. He’d just wait to see which van she was riding in, climb in after her and sit right next to her. It had gotten so bad that Cara pretended sleep the entire way home. She felt sorry for him. Everyone else who worked at the screenings went out of their way to avoid contact with him. Cara tried to cut Payne a little slack. She’d lived on the periphery most of her life too.

  Cara snapped back to reality. “No, thank you,” she said. Then she reconsidered. “If you see Dr. Donovan, you can let him know that I’m back and I’ll be in my apartment. I’d appreciate it.”

  “Sure. No problem,” replied Dr. Payne. He continued to stand beside her as she waited for the elevator.

  “Are you going down?”

  “Yes, I’m on my way to the cafeteria.”

  They rode the elevator together in an uncomfortable silence. When the doors opened on the first floor, Cara nodded in his direction and headed to the exit.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Ezra Payne followed Cara. He watched her get into her car and pull away from the visitor’s lot. He took his time walking to his car parked in the staff lot. He knew where Cara lived. He decided he’d give her some time to relax. There was no reason to rush. William Donovan had gone to pick up James Mackie in Chicago. He’d heard him tell the Chief of Staff early this morning that Mack was flying in and he needed the day off to meet his plane. Considering the weather, Payne doubted they’d make it back before late this evening.

  He climbed into his car, started the engine. Payne tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, thinking. Cara Franklin had never really given him the time of day. If he went to her apartment to talk to her, she would. She’d have to. Payne had been obsessed with her for months, following her, fantasizing about her. When she showed up at the nurses’ station asking for Will, he realized there was no one around to interfere. He’d have one last chance to be with her.

  He’d already driven by her place earlier. All the cars were gone. The other tenants had probably left for the holidays and she would be alone in the house. It was now or never. Payne put his car in gear and drove to his apartment to change out of his scrubs. He wanted to look good for her.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Cara unlocked the front door, leaving it unlocked in case Will came by. The first thing she wanted was a nice hot bath, and she was afraid she wouldn’t hear Will’s knock.

  She dragged her suitcase up the stairs, tossed it onto the bed. With a sigh, Cara gazed around the room. She was only half-packed. There was a hell of a lot to do before tomorrow.

  Cara turned the two handles on the tub to let the water heat up while she pulled off her winter boots. She stripped off her jeans and the heavy sweater she’d worn for the drive home, reminding herself to give her mom a call when she got out of the bath. She’d promised to let her know she’d arrived safely.

  Inviting steam drifted up from the water in the porcelain tub. Cara adjusted the temperature and sat on the edge while it filled. She felt her stomach clench with anticipation. Tomorrow she would be with James.

  Cara wondered how he would feel when she told him she was pregnant. She couldn’t help but laugh when she thought about Thanksgiving and the broken condoms. She hoped James wouldn’t have misgivings. He was in the first year of his fellowship and she was reluctant to saddle him with a child so soon. It would mean an abrupt change in wedding plans and she’d have to put off her graduate studies, yet she couldn’t help but wonder what a child of theirs would look like, be like.

  Cara climbed into the tub, leaned her head against the back. She closed her eyes, allowing the hot water to soak away the chill she’d picked up on the drive back to Iowa City. James’ face flitted before her. Just one more night apart, one more night.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  It was late when they pulled up to the curb in front of Cara’s apartment house. James breathed a sigh of relief when he spotted her car in the drive. For some reason, he’d been anxious during this trip, his stomach churning all the
way from Chicago.

  “I’m going on up,” he said. “I’ll be back for the bag in a minute.”

  “I’ll get it. Go see Cara.”

  James nodded and strode to the front door, surprised to find it wide open. The front hallway was freezing. Maybe Cara was already moving a few things into her car. He called out to her, but there was no answer.

  “Cara,” he yelled again, taking the stairs two at a time. “I came in early.”

  She didn’t reply. As James reached the landing below her apartment, he could see that her door was ajar.

  “Cara?”

  James pushed open the door. His eyes fell on her where she lay on the floor beneath the ceiling light, naked and bloody and broken. For an instant the scene didn’t register, and he stood, frozen, wondering if he imagined the sight before him. Then, chest heaving, he knew it was horribly real and he felt like a wrecking ball had slammed into his gut. He shouted for Will, as he dropped to his knees at her side, checking her neck for a pulse.

  “Jesus Christ.” Will’s voice came from somewhere behind him.

  “Find a phone,” said James. “Find a phone now.”

  Will raced from room to room, searching for a phone. “Her phone’s been ripped from the wall,” he yelled.

  “Downstairs, there’s a phone in the kitchen.”

  “Is she breathing?” Will shouted.

  “Yeah, get me a blanket.” James voice shook. Cara was breathing, but just barely.

  “Hold on.”

  James could hear Will giving their location to the 9-1-1 dispatcher. Within a few moments he was back. He grabbed a blanket from the bed and covered Cara’s body, James pressed his shirt against the side of her head, attempting to stanch the bleeding from a large gash. There was blood on his hands, blood on her thighs, her face, matted in her hair. Her fingernails were torn and bloody.

  “What can I do? What do you . . . ? What do you want me to do? What can I do to help?”

  “Meet the ambulance out front. Just, oh god, just meet them out front. Get them up here as quick as you can.”

  James heard Will’s boots thudding down three flights of stairs. He stared down at Cara, his heart filled with fear. He couldn’t begin to imagine who would do such a thing, how such a thing could happen. He’d dealt with stuff like this before in the emergency room, but never with someone he knew; never with someone he loved.

  Dear God let her live. I’ll give up anything if you’ll just let her live.

  James knew he would remember the sight of Cara’s battered body until the day he died.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  “Cara. Cara, sweetheart, Cara, open your eyes. Please darling, open your eyes. Jesus, Cara, please. Cara, come back to me. Please. It’s James, honey, it’s James. I’m here. I’m right here. Please baby, open your eyes.” He rocked her as he spoke, his hand pressed to the side of her head. “Please honey, wake up.”

  Cara’s eyelids fluttered, the movement so delicate that at first James thought he’d imagined it. Her mouth moved, forming a word.

  “It’s okay, honey, the ambulance is on its way. You’ll be all right. You’re going to be okay.”

  She moved her mouth again. He could just barely read her lips. It looked like she said, “Pain”.

  “I know it hurts, honey. I know it hurts. It will be better soon. It will be better.”

  James heard her voice again. This time she tried to make her words clear.

  “No. Ezra Payne.”

  And he knew.

  James sucked in a harsh breath, his entire body trembling with suppressed violence. He ordered himself to stay under control for her sake. Now was not the time to think about what he would do to the man. Now was about Cara, about keeping her alive. He couldn’t let her slip away from him.

  “I heard you honey. I understand.” James tightened his hold on her. “Stay with me. Just stay with me and I’ll take care of everything. I’ll take care of it. All you have to do right now is stay with me.”

  He heard approaching sirens. Please god, let them hurry.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  James stood in a daze, listening to the surgeon’s words - internal bleeding, ruptured spleen, three units of blood, broken ribs, fractured skull, concussion, multiple fractures both hands, abrasions, contusions, lacerations, rape, miscarriage. His brain knew exactly what the man was saying. As a physician he knew it by heart. But despite the fact that he heard every word, his heart couldn’t make sense of a single one.

  Will stayed with him the entire time, doing his best to interpret. James managed to pull himself together long enough to hear Dr. Peterson say, “Cara is in the Recovery Room. You can see her as soon as we’re sure she’s stable enough to be moved to Intensive Care.”

  How could something like this happen? How could this happen?

  “I should have known,” muttered Will. “I should have seen it coming.”

  James stopped pacing long enough to glance at his friend. “It’s not your fault.”

  Will stared down at the floor. “One of the nurses told me weeks ago that Payne had a serious thing for Cara. That he’d stayed with the research project so he could be near her. I thought she was exaggerating and even if she wasn’t, I didn’t think it mattered. Cara was done with her job. She was moving away. I figured him for your run-of-the-mill asshole, not some fucking depraved freak.”

  “How could you have known? Shit, I worked with him for two years. I hated his guts, but it never occurred to me that he was capable of, of something like this.” James ran a hand through his hair, distraught. “What am I going to do, Will? What am I going to do? What if she doesn’t survive? I don’t think . . .” James’ voice failed him for a moment. “I don’t think I can live without her.”

  Will was silent.

  “He killed my kid. The goddamn son of a bitch killed my kid.”

  “I know.”

  “She didn’t even get a chance to tell me.”

  The double doors to the Recovery Room swung open and a nurse appeared.

  “Dr. Mackie? You can come back now. Miss Franklin’s condition seems to be stabilizing. We’ll be moving her to Intensive Care in a few minutes.”

  James looked at Will. “Let me know when they find him.”

  Will nodded.

  James followed the nurse to Cara’s bedside. Despite the fact that he’d already seen her injuries at the apartment, the sight of her pale battered face felt like a knife in his heart. Both her eyes were purple and swollen shut. The left side of her head had been shaved and the superficial damage repaired, but he knew beneath the repair was a fractured temporal bone and she was suffering from closed head trauma.

  Her left cheek was bruised, her neck and shoulders battered. Both hands were wrapped with thick dressings. A hand surgeon had been called in to place pins in the delicate bones of her hands and fingers. James wondered briefly if Cara would ever paint again, but he dismissed the thought. That was the least of his worries.

  The nurses had laid a gown over Cara’s beaten torso. James moved it aside. He swallowed hard, forcing himself to look at the damage done. There was a six-inch incision on the left side of her abdomen where the surgeons had removed her spleen. The wound was bloody, red, raw. Her fractured ribs were taped. Fortunately there had been no jagged edges to puncture a lung.

  James replaced the gown. He didn’t want to see any more. He covered her with another warming blanket. He dreaded the next few months. He feared what this would do to her. Not just physically. If his beloved Cara survived the next few days, her body would heal. What about her other injuries? There would be a heavy emotional price to pay, and he was afraid for both of them. He loved her. Nothing could change that, but he didn’t see how either of them would manage to get through this unscathed.

  His very first encounter with Cara was crystal clear in his mind. He’d witnessed firsthand what happened when she’d been traumatized. He’d seen how Cara withdrew from everyone and everything. It could happen all over again, and he w
asn’t sure there would be a damn thing he could do to stop it.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  For ten days, Cara drifted in and out of consciousness. James sat by her side, relieved only by Cara’s mother and Will. Despite the fact that he didn’t need to hear the words uttered aloud, her doctors warned them she could wake up with some gaps in her memory, possible visual deficits, personality changes, all of which had already occurred to him. On those nights when he managed to get a little sleep, the awful possibilities gave him nightmares.

  Until ten days ago, what James Mackie wanted, James Mackie got. A lot of his friends believed he’d led a charmed life. That wasn’t entirely true. Christ, his father had died when he was just ten years old, but his mother and his older sisters had managed to cushion the blow. Keeping him safe from harm, protected and loved, he’d emerged unscathed, growing into a confident, strong, determined man.

  Cara had never had anyone to cushion the blows for her, not even him, not even now. He hadn’t been here. He hadn’t been here when she’d needed him most. God, if his fucking plane had left on time this never would have happened. He would have gotten to her apartment before she did. He would have been waiting for her. The thought ate him alive.

  Ezra Payne sat in jail. He’d been arrested in his own apartment, in the bathroom, trying to shower away the evidence. It was hard to shower away a broken nose and the deep red scratches Cara had left on his face and chest. James was sickened beyond words, horrified to the depths of his soul, when he’d learned that Cara’s blood and hair were found on the toe of Payne’s right boot. His response was savage. James had been at the police station giving his statement when they brought Payne in. He tackled him, determined to beat him to death. It took four police officers to stop him, but not before he’d turned the man’s face into a bloody pulp. Every fiber of his being wanted the man dead. James was damn lucky Payne’s family didn’t insist the police file assault charges against him.