by Dawson, Zoe
“I was chained with a metal cuff to the ground. I tried to get free more than once and it shredded my wrist.”
She closed her eyes. “Oh, God,” she said with anguish. “Oh, God.”
I curled my fingers over her hand and squeezed, her compassion closing some of those open and bleeding wounds inside, starting the mending process.
She looked at me, her eyes brimming with deep sympathy. We sat there in silence until she released me. She forced a smile and said, “So. What are we having for dinner?”
I stared into those warm, reassuring eyes of hers. My world had changed, tilted and shifted to some new alignment. Alissa must have had mysterious, unlimited cosmic power, to accomplish in two days what I had been unable to even begin in six months. It should have scared me more, her power, but it didn’t. I wanted far more than I could give at the moment, so I took a deep breath, and, miraculously, I was able to smile back at her. She grounded me. I got up and went to the fridge. “You’ll just have to see.”
“You’re such a tease.” She sat down at the table. “So, why are there no decorations?”
“Is the question and answer period open again?”
“It is, Mr. Smarty-pants. It’s going to be Christmas, like, in three days. Doesn’t your family have decorations? Oh, my God. Don’t tell me. You’re the Grinch. You don’t look very green.”
I knew what she was doing and the distraction really helped. “I’m not the Grinch. That’s my evil twin.”
“Would that make you the Grouch?”
“Humbug!”
“Scrooge? Is that you?”
I laughed. She was ridiculous. “No, I just didn’t have any Christmas spirit before you came.”
“But now you’ve changed your mind?”
“I have. There are decorations in the attic. I’ll get them down for you.”
She watched me with admiring eyes and it made me feel powerful. Like I could make a difference in not only my own life but in hers. With that thought, I suddenly yearned to be back at work again.
“Are you going to help me? I want to make it festive. I’ve never had the chance to do that.”
“I’ll help you.” Anything to make her happy, to see those expressive eyes lit with pleasure. I tried not to think about how she looked straddling me, her rapt expression, and the fact that Alissa was also an amazing kisser.
Chapter Six
Dakota
I made a mushroom, ham and pineapple pizza and Alissa loved it. That made me happy, too. Once our bellies were full, I went to the attic and started pulling down boxes, laughing as Alissa dived into them like they were her Christmas presents.
That made me think about Christmas and the fact that she had no gift and there was no way to get her a gift. I would have to think about what I could do for her that would be suitable to exchange on Christmas Day. Even though I hardly knew her, we had built something in the short time we had known each other. I wanted to do something that would have meaning for her.
“Everything’s in here, Dakota. It looks like your family did an awesome job of decorating every Christmas.” She rummaged around some more then started pulling stuff out of the box. “Would it be too much to ask you to go and cut me some evergreen boughs?”
I shook my head. After the mysterious magic she’d worked on me, it wasn’t an imposition at all. “I’ll be right back.”
I found a suitable tree and started cutting the branches, trying not to think about her constantly. But it was like trying to stop my breath or make the sky fall. Impossible. After I had what I thought should be enough, even from a woman’s perspective, I returned to the cabin.
She’d already transformed the living room with jolly Santa figures, some stuffed, some made out of porcelain, and the collection of snowmen that my sister, Eden, liked to assemble all grouped together in a snowman party. Pine cone trees and wall hangings depicting winter scenes were placed here and there. It was definitely looking like Christmas.
For me, the days seemed to roll into one another and the holidays just…passed without notice. Just another day, but as I watched her hobble around and make delighted decisions about where to place the festive pieces she took out of my family’s boxes, all of a sudden I cared about spending Christmas with this remarkable woman.
When she spied me and the boughs, she hurried over. “Those are beautiful.” She took them from my arms and started to place them around the room, the smell of evergreen pungent in the air. I breathed deep, and discovered then that I missed my family with a twisting pain to my heart. They hadn’t given up on me, but they had left me alone as I had requested. I knew it hurt them, and that barrier I had kept hard over my heart cracked a little.
I went over to a wooden box on one of the built-in bookcases and pulled it down. “Alissa, come here for a minute and sit down.”
“You’re pulling me away from…Oh, you have pictures,” she said, taking the open box out of my hands.
She sat down on the sofa and pulled out the stack of photos. “Your sisters are so beautiful. What are their names?”
“Eden, Reagan and Phoenix.”
“Pretty. I always wanted a sister. You look so happy.”
I looked at myself from last year and swallowed hard. “I was happy.”
“This is wonderful. You got a stethoscope from your mom?”
“I’m a nurse.” I blurted it like it was a big secret, like the label didn’t fit me anymore. I could tell that she was pleased that I opened up.
“What kind of nurse?” She set the box down on the coffee table.
“Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist, a CRNA.”
“What is that, exactly?”
She turned toward me, casually placing her hand on my forearm, her fingers brushing my skin. I wet my lips. This was getting into dangerous territory for me, but Alissa wanted to know. It was time for me to finally tell someone.
“I have my Master of Nursing and had to go through more schooling. I just got my license…” My breath hitched and her hand soothed along my arm. “…last year before I…”
“It’s okay, Dakota. I want to know everything about you. Don’t hold back.”
“I don’t know how much…”
“We’ll start with this, okay?”
I nodded. “I can practice in a lot of settings, either public or private. Large academic medical centers, small community hospitals, outpatient surgery centers, pain clinics, or physician's offices, either working with anesthesiologists or other CRNAs, or in independent practice. Some CRNAs work with the military, the VA, and public health.”
“You could go into independent practice?”
“Yes, if I chose to do that, but I prefer working in a hospital. I like the people and the urgency of the job.” But now it was like a half-remembered dream, and it hurt to think about it.
“It may seem like a stupid question, but what do you do, exactly?”
“I stick people with needles to dull their pain, and am certified in all the techniques including general, epidural, spinal, peripheral nerve block, sedation, or local.”
She grimaced. “I’m not a big fan of needles.”
“I use a numbing agent, so you barely feel it. And I’m good at it.”
“I bet you are,” she said. “Did you work with the military?”
I looked away, my heart rate increasing. “No.”
“When did you graduate?” My heart skipped a beat.
“Last May.”
“What did you do after that?”
I closed my eyes. “I had already applied to Doctors Without Borders. I wanted to do that before I actually started working.”
“And did you get in?”
“Yes,” My mouth went dry, the memory a good one. “I felt proud to be able to do something as courageous as my father and grandfather.”
“Right, your grandfather was in the Korean War.”
“Yes, and my father fought in the Gulf.”
“But you weren’t interested in the
military?”
“No, I wanted to heal, not do violence. It was the vow I took.” My vision started to go gray and my chest heaved. “They didn’t really understand. And when I came back they told me to buck up and be a man. As if what had happened to me was trivial and I shouldn’t have deep feelings about it. I might be a man, but what I was feeling was real, and bottling it up only hurt more.” I was starting to sweat.
Her hand on my arm tightened. “No, stay with me.”
My throat contracted. “I want to tell you everything, Alissa. I do. But the flashbacks, they’re unpredictable. I don’t know when…I’m afraid…I’ll hurt you.”
“You would never hurt me.”
I shuddered with the remembered rage, the remembered lust for murder that had taken over me and I wasn’t so sure…lost in that nightmare with the demons…I wasn’t so sure.
“So Doctors Without Borders? That’s pretty impressive.”
“It was only a six-week assignment. CRNAs are too much in demand for us to be away for more than that. I already had five job offers.”
“How long were you there?”
I closed my eyes. The grayness always made me feel woozy. I fought it, but the memory was so powerful.
“Don’t let it control you, Dakota. I know how powerful a memory can be.”
I groaned softly, the terror clutching at me. My breathing sped up. If I could just tell someone, it might help. “Two days. I was only there for two days before they came.”
Someone ran past the couch screaming and I lost my focus on her face. Then another ran past, but that man didn’t get far, shot in the back.
I took gasping breaths. “I was still in my scrubs,” I managed, and I felt the grip of her hand on mine, or was that the woman in front of me pleading in a language I didn’t understand? I looked back at Dr. Sanchez, but he was operating, Elsa standing beside him like nothing was happening.
“We were operating on a patient.” The woman simply fell away from me, her chest blossoming in an explosion of blood. “Armed men moved through the camp, indiscriminately killing anyone in their path. I backed up as they converged on the tent. I moved toward Elsa as she looked up and saw them. They knocked Dr. Sanchez aside. He was shouting something in French, and I was standing in front of Elsa. Then he walked in. The man with the scars. And he smirked.”
“Dakota, you’re hyperventilating.” Her hands were on my shoulders shaking me.
“I lashed out when they came for her, knowing what they wanted. ‘Run, Elsa!’ I screamed. They had me in a chokehold, making me watch as they caught her and dragged her back, kicking and screaming. Dr. Sanchez tried to stop them, but they beat him to the ground.” My throat closed up. “I can’t breathe,” I said. “I can’t breathe.”
My head was shoved down, but I fought. I didn’t know if it was a rebel or Alissa trying to help. I had to fight anyway, because they were after Elsa.
Then her arms were around me, holding me. Was it Elsa? Who was it?
I moaned with the agony of a memory so vivid it seemed as real as the day it happened. I stood and dropped to my knees.
Then her mouth was on mine and I turned into her kiss like a man drowning and needing the lifeline to reality. “Alissa,” I whispered against her mouth. She kissed me again, her mouth sliding along my lips, as if savoring the way my mouth felt against hers. It was the most sensual feeling I’ve ever experienced, and everything in me stilled. The demons faded away into the darkness, because the light inside of me was shining too bright for them.
My body was hot. A light feather-touch moved up and down my back and over my shoulder. There was something wet beneath my cheek.
The sensations crystallized into a thought. Alissa. I mumbled her name again like a plea. I pulled away. So beautiful. I put my hands on either side of her face and felt the wetness again.
“You’re crying,” I muttered.
She looked at me and I wondered if there was another blue in the world like the blue of her eyes.
“I’m here. I’m here,” she whispered and she kissed me again. I thought I could die now with the sweetness of her taste on my tongue. Fresh tears welled up and made silver swim with the blue, like lapping waves.
I pulled away from her, taking a bit of distance. The ugliness of my flashback remained like a bad taste in my mouth. How could she even want to touch me? “I told you as much as I could. Was it awful? Was it too much?”
“No it wasn’t too much. I’m so sorry, Dakota. I’m so, so sorry.”
The flashback faded completely, and there she was, solid and real, and not an illusion. Alissa helped to leach some of the poison from that day, her mouth, her tears and the gentle feel of her arms. I had to move back away from her before I did anything stupid.
“You are so brave.”
I shook my head, my voice harsh. “I’m not a hero, Alissa. Far from it.”
“You keep saying that, but I want you to teach me.”
“Teach you what?”
“How to be brave.”
“Why do you need to be brave?”
“I need to be. I can’t say. I need you to trust me about that. Can you?”
I closed my eyes. “Yes, I can trust you. I find myself at a complete loss about how you came to be here right when I desperately needed you.”
“Sometimes things just happen and can’t be explained. Maybe we needed each other, and the universe recognized that, and arranged for us to crash into each other.”
She smiled. At me. And I thought of a way I could make her Christmas that much better. “How would you like a tree?”
The sheer elation on her face twisted me into a pretzel of painful pleasure.
“Oh, God, yes! That would be wonderful. Can you do it in a middle of a blizzard?”
“I can produce strawberries. I can surely get you a tree. There’s a place not far from here with evergreens that are totally suitable for a Christmas tree. And, look. There’s a break in the storm. We can go now, if you want. I have a sled in the shed, and a handy-dandy ax.”
She started to get up from the floor, and I surged forward to help her up.
“That sounds so wonderful. I haven’t ever helped chop down a real Christmas tree.”
“You didn’t have a real tree at home?”
“Oh, we did,” she said wryly, “but the house, the tree, and the grounds were always decorated by someone named Rodolfo or Edward.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Yes, God forbid we didn’t have all the latest trappings.”
“I have popcorn and cranberries. Want to make a garland for the tree?”
She looked at me. Her expression said that she thought that was the sweetest thing I had ever said.
“Yes. I can’t think of anything better. But, what are you doing with cranberries?”
“Cranberry sauce,” I said. “Don’t you like it?”
“I do. Were you going to make yourself a Christmas dinner?”
“I was.” I had thought about it when I picked up supplies, but only now realized that I hadn’t really decided if I would or not. “Something simple. I have a ham, and both sweet and white potatoes, rolls, the whole damn thing. I didn’t know I would be sharing it with you.”
“And you say you’re no hero.”
We bundled up and she gripped her walking stick as I first checked to be sure her ankle brace was firm, and then instructed her on how to maneuver in snow shoes. It was actually easy on her ankle, less movement. “It’s more of a shuffling gait than actually picking up your feet.”
“I’ll manage,” she said as we headed out. After walking for about fifteen minutes, we came upon a copse of evergreens. Alissa’s gasp of delight when she saw them traveled through me like a golden light.
“Beautiful. Almost too beautiful to cut down.”
“I can say an Indian prayer for the tree, if you want. Receiving something from the earth as a gift.”
“What kind of prayer?”
“A Lakota prayer.”
>
“You’re Lakota?”
“Part. I never belonged to a tribe. My mother married my father and left and never returned. She made her stand with him, she often said. I have to say, I like that about my parents standing together. It was something that grounded me in childhood.”
“What about now? Why are they not here? Why aren’t they helping you?”
“You have to be open to receiving help. I pushed them away and refused to hear anything but my own thoughts. It might have been wrong, but at the time it seemed to be the only way to handle my blood-soaked memories.”
“Don’t say that, Dakota.”
“It’s true. It’s what happened.” I turned to her. “But things have a way of changing, shifting beneath your feet, like sand. I feel like you’re the foundation and I’m just the shifting sand.”
“Let me be your foundation then, Dakota. Seek help. That would be what I would wish for you, and yes, I’d like you to say a prayer,” she said, giving me a warm smile. I smiled back.
“Kinship with all creatures of the earth, sky and water was a real and active principle. For the animal and bird world there existed a brotherly feeling that kept the Lakota safe among them, and so close did some of the Lakota come to their feathered and furred friends that, in true brotherhood, they spoke a common tongue. So it’s said.”
“And do you believe that?”
I shrugged. “Like I said, I wasn’t raised in a tribe. My family is my tribe and I know I hurt them. I know they’re worried about me, but they’ve honored me in giving me the solitude I asked for.”
“I think that’s a bunch of bullshit.”
“What?”
“You don’t need solitude. I don’t think that’s helped you at all. You need people, and the kind of people who know how to help you through this. I’m just a poor substitute.”
“No, you’re not. You’ve helped me more than you know.”
“I can only hope that’s true.”