by Brett Cooper
Chapter Eleven
Sprawled out on a deceptively comfortable lounge sofa in the hospital waiting room, James Gold awoke from a dream he couldn’t remember, except that it had ended with Christine screaming. Then again, as he sat up, rubbed his eyes, remembered where he was and tried to recall the contents of the dream, he wasn’t certain that there hadn’t been a real scream which had awoken him.
Should he go check on her? His gut said yes, but he hesitated. It was late. She was probably totally fine. Feeling pulled in every direction by the stresses of work, the scholarship fiasco, Christine’s injury and the crushing news of Gloria’s affair (which made him want to curl up and die, but for which he also partially blamed himself), he didn’t trust his mental state. Most likely he was being paranoid.
But what if…?
The custodian, Peter, who had sat with them in the waiting room earlier, before visiting hours had begun, had said something to James that had made an impression.
“You keep her safe,” he’d said. “This number one job for you. Remember, okay?”
James hadn’t answered this because he’d been too busy thinking just how right the custodian was. He’d been so focused on getting a scholarship, saving money, flirting with Alexis, that he’d lost sight of the most important thing: his daughter’s well being. That was indeed his number one job.
So James decided to err on the side of caution. He would stroll by Christine’s room, just peek in and see her sleeping safe and sound, then return to the comfort of the sofa and sleep again till morning visiting hours, when he’d bring Christine a bagel and a paperback novel from the cafeteria. This plan would also help to keep his mind off of the fact that his wife was AWOL and the once-clear horizon of his future with her now seemed lost in a fog – a fog, he presumed, not unlike the fog of war.
As he neared the room, James felt a surge of adrenaline upon registering sounds no one should hear in a hospital room. Heavy breathing. Some kind of physical struggle. The sounds were faint, but they were definitely coming from his daughter’s room.
Though he wanted to rush in, something told him to approach slowly. Opening the door quickly, yet as quietly and as minimally as possible, he saw Rick Winger suffocating his little girl with a pillow.
Instinct took over. Now he rushed in.
He wrapped an arm around Winger’s neck in a vise grip choke hold, and yanked him backwards, away from his daughter. Immediately Winger pushed his weight backwards to try to topple James. Gold counteracted this by throwing his weight forward, and then he managed to control the momentum by shifting to his right, which sent them both careening toward the bathroom. With a torquing of Winger’s neck, James sent Winger headfirst into the bathroom mirror, shattering it.
They both fell to the floor, but Winger, whose head and face were bleeding, did not stir.
“Seven years bad luck. Hope it’s for him, not me,” James thought as he got to his feet and hurried to his daughter’s aid.
He found her unconscious and bound to the bed, both of her ankles and one of her wrists duct taped to the frame. What kind of monster does this? he thought. And he was ready to kill the man. But first he needed to take care of job number one, the care of his daughter.
“Christine, it’s Dad.”
He tried to unfasten the tape. It was too tightly wound.
He looked around for a pair of scissors, a knife, something sharp. On the floor were the shards of broken mirror. One of them might do the trick. Finding a triangular fragment about the size of a hunting knife, he wrapped its wider end in a facecloth to protect his hand when he gripped it, and then he sawed at the duct tape with the fragment’s sharp edge.
It was taking too long.
“Can you hear me, Christine?”
And suddenly a terrible thought occurred to James. Maybe Christine was not unconscious but was in fact not breathing. He leaned in close, listening for the sounds of exhalation.
Nothing.
“Oh no, please.”
He was overcome by dread. His daughter was too young to die. He could not allow it.
He saw the nurse’s call button. He pressed it. Then he began to administer mouth to mouth.
Time seemed to telescope for Rick. Silently he promised God he would do anything, he would give anything for his daughter to just breathe again.
“Just breathe!”
And then she did.
* * *
When Christine came back to life, it felt to her like being re-inflated with hot, rushing air. Her dad was hugging her. She wondered how he’d gotten here. And where was her mom? And, oh my gosh, what about Mr. Winger?