by Dani Wyatt
“Four.” He loses the smile.
I’m thankful for the break. It forces his son to glance away from me, and I feel myself shift and breathe. His eyes are quickly back, regarding me up and down, then back to his father. I can’t help but wonder what he’s thinking.
I’m used to men staring.
Regarding me.
But, usually not here. Here, I’m just that spooky white-haired girl who doesn’t talk. Here, men do not usually look at me like Mr. Fitzgerald’s son is looking at me now.
“Sorry.” His head jerks back and to the side, quickly. I take note that he’s twitched his neck like that twice already. “I didn’t mean to stare. Honestly, I—” He smiles and the left side of his lip curls up, and there is a clutch in my throat.
“It’s okay.” I move to the side, trying to get him to lean in the other direction. I only need a few more inches between him and the hospital bed and I can squeeze out the door.
He’s massive. The gray t-shirt he’s wearing with the block letters “SEAL” across the front looks like it’s been ironed.
Under his gaze, I feel some odd comfort. I still want to be anywhere else, but he’s not looking at me like I’m an anomaly. He’s soft and hard, and for some reason, I want to ask his name.
“Thank you for helping my father.” He flashes that crooked smile. Sensing my impatience he finally takes one step toward the bed, giving me just enough room to slide by.
The softness in his voice is startling. He is a monster in his size, and his presence feels like a Secret Service Agent on high alert, but there are still soft edges about him like we know each other. It makes me both drawn to him and ready to shoot out the door like a bolt of lightening.
My heart is reminding me of just how uncomfortable I am right now, and besides the thumping sound in my ears, Mr. Fitzgerald is raising the roof from behind me.
“You come halfway around the world to see me, and you aren’t three feet into my room still. Do you want to talk to her or to me? Promise, you want to get out of here?” Mr. Fitzgerald doesn’t bother me, he’s right I do want to get out of here. “Girl barely knows how to scratch two words together.”
“Dad, come on.” His son’s voice is scolding.
I nod and give him one more glance. His hair is black like his father’s but shining and cropped with precision around his ears. The last thing I notice as I cower toward the door is the rippled, pulled texture of his skin above his left ear and the silver length of the scar that runs from his forehead all the way down until it crosses his lips.
The shiver that starts in my neck travels down all the way to my toes.
His eyes narrow as I slip by. I can’t help but brush the sleeve of his jacket, and I try not to forget to breathe.
What is wrong with me? I see men like him all the time. Not here, but at my other job. Jarheads, military for sure. But, he’s different, very different, and I don’t know if I like him or not.
In the hallway, I finally let out a breath that apparently I’ve been holding the entire time I stood there. What the heck was that? I don’t like feeling like that feeling at all. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror of the open lavatory door in the hall and see my toppled bun hanging next to my ear.
Besides the unruly hair, I see what other people see. How shocking I am. How surreal and otherworldly. I’m sure he was just having the normal reaction. I mean, how many times in your life do you get to see a living ghost?
One of the reasons I like this job is I feel normal around these people. I feel as close to fitting in as I ever have. Everyone here has something wrong. Some ailment, something about them that is broken either inside or outside. It’s only when the outside world comes in, like now, like him, that I remember who I really am.
That girl.
From that family.
With those eyes.
The radio on my hip crackles again, and I jump like a shot went off.
“Promise, you there?” It’s Bruce, the head nurse.
I walk a few steps down the hall and think about how a complete stranger could make me feel strangely comforted and connected in a matter of a couple minutes.
“Yes, here,” I whisper back into the radio.
“Come see me. I’ve got snacks.”
I smile and roll my eyes. Bruce hired me two years ago. Then, a month after I started working, he also gave me a place to live.
Against my will, he’s also become my friend.
“On my way.”
I flop down into the chair next to his desk. It’s not so much an office as a closet. In fact, it was a shower at one time. Then, they converted it so he could have some privacy.
I can’t stop wondering how Mr. Fitzgerald’s son chipped his left, front tooth. You would think I would be fascinated with the more frightening elements of his face, but no. I desperately need to know what happened to his tooth.
“Did you see that hunk ‘o burnin’ love that came in to see twenty-six?” Bruce snorts and runs his hands over his shiny, bald head, then lets out a long, enamored sigh.
“Yep.” He hands me a pretzel rod.
“What do you think? Does Mr. Fitzgerald need a visit from the head nurse?” Bruce snorts again. “Think I’m his type?”
“Dunno. Do you think you’re Mr. Fitzgerald’s type?” I smirk, and he sticks his tongue out. I know he’s not asking about our patient. He’s glaring at me with wide eyes. “We didn’t discuss his sexual orientation. Imagine that.”
“Yeah, I know how chatty you can be. Probably got his life story.” He waves another pretzel rod in my face, then taps it on my nose as I crinkle it at him.
But, if I had to make a wild-ass guess, I would be more his type than Bruce would, but I’ll give him his fantasy for now. He is a fine specimen, the cartwheeling butterflies in my stomach don’t lie.
When was the last time I had any reaction to a man? Gosh, I can’t even remember. It is a part of me that has been turned off and shut down for so long.
Ever since I saw what I saw and realized just how deep cruelty can go.
“He’s a SEAL, or was,” Bruce says as his chair squeaks when he leans back. “Or is. I don’t know for sure if he is or isn’t. From what I hear, he’s back. Done. Not sure the details, he got hurt or something, lost some of his team members. His father is quite a peach.”
I’m thinking about the scars. Those are old, so they can’t be from anything recent. If he has another injury that sent him home, it’s not visible.
“Hey, I need to come in a half-hour late tomorrow. Is that okay?”
“Sure. I’ll get Sonya to cover until you get here.” He snaps off a bite of pretzel. Since he quit smoking two weeks ago, everything he eats is a poor impression of a cigarette.
I want to ask more about Mr. Fitzgerald’s son, but I can’t believe I have any interest in knowing more about another human. Bruce is probably my only friend, and he forced it on me.
There is a soft knock on his office door. “What?” he answers with an annoyed shout. He never gets any peace. Two hundred and fifty-three beds and he is here almost twelve hours a day.
“See ya.” I pop the salty end of my pretzel into my mouth and raise my eyebrows at him as the door opens.
There’s always someone wanting him. A question, a complaint, some staff drama.
“Bye,” he sighs at me. “Go see if he’s still here. I’m walking down that way if he is. My celibacy is not by choice, you know. At least I can get a look . . .”
He switches gears when I open the door, and he turns professional again.
I am not going back down that hall right now.
My usual stoic indifference is my battle shield, and I need to get my armor back in place.
Five minutes later, I’m helping Mr. Timmons up from his chair into the bed when my radio chirps on my hip
“I mean it. Twenty-six, now, and report back.” Bruce’s voice quips through the static.
Uggg, He’s going to keep after me until I go. He c
an be a pain in the ass, but it’s nearly impossible to say no to him.
I check my watch as I work my way back toward twenty-six. It’s fourteen minutes until shift change. My heart is already bouncing triple time. I resolve I will get close to Mr. Fitzgerald’s door, take one quick listen, see if I hear his voice and report to Bruce. I’ll be safely gone and shake off whatever this is that Mr. Testosterone has me feeling.
Listen at the door, do not go in.
Definitely do not look at his eyes.
Those eyes that should be hanging in a museum somewhere.
Those eyes that made me feel like he saw me.
Really saw me.
The invisible girl. The ghost.
Beckett
What. The. Fuck. Just. Happened.
It’s taking all my will power not to run out of my dad’s room and down the fucking hall after her. Everything about her is familiar. She’s just older. And more beautiful.
When the door shut, and she disappeared, it felt like someone hit me with a hammer.
Go get her.
She wouldn’t meet my eye and ran out of here like a demon was chasing her.
She’s still hiding. Trying to stay safe.
I get it. I understand. She wants nothing to do with me. I don’t blame her.
“So, you’re here.” My dad hisses. “Now get me the hell out!”
He looks better, but he’s not better.
“Where are you going to go, Dad?” I give reasonable discourse a try.
“What the fuck do you care where I go? Just get me out of here.”
Okay, reasonable is historically not the way to go with Dad, at least not since our world turned to ashes. And, it would seem not much has changed.
I look down at his rolled up pant leg. Silver safety pins hold it folded near his knee. My neck twitches three times. It’s gotten worse since I got back. You would think being in a hot combat area in Afghanistan would be more stressful than the Windfield Skilled Nursing Facility in downtown Cleveland.
Nope. This is worse.
“You can’t stay with me, Dad. We’ve been down that dark alley before.” I scratch my forehead and close my eyes before taking a deep breath and counting to ten.
“I don’t want to stay with you, you jackass. I don’t need your help. I can take care of myself.”
The way you took care of me?
“I see.” I let out a tense chuckle, and Dad sniffs back at me.
“Uh huh. I bet you do.” His voice is gravelly, harder and more distant than the last time I saw him close to two years ago. Coming here today was the right thing to do, I need to keep reminding myself. But, I can’t stay. There’s nothing new to say. Only shadows and disappointment between us. Ghosts.
He hates me, and I love him. Or, I did love him. I don’t know what this is I feel right now. We’ll never be the same. We haven’t been the same for a long time. The fire destroyed more than just my face.
I think back to the weeks I’d spent in the hospital. The pain of the treatments, then the skin grafts. Seeing the monster I’d become when they finally let me look in a mirror. I was just a kid, and he let me go through it all alone.
And, I’m still hoping he will forgive me.
Dad clears his throat, his eyes like cannons shooting across the bow. I shift my weight, leaning back against the wall. There’s no point in sitting down; this won’t take much longer.
“So, you’re some sort of big hero now? I got your letters.” He won’t keep his eyes on my face. Even he can’t stand the reminder.
I’d been sending letters without fail every month. I’d sent them to the last address I’d known for him, never knowing if he got them or not—my gut telling me not.
From what the social worker shared with me over the phone, Dad’s so called “friends” dropped him at the door of the emergency room, comatose from alcohol poisoning and on his way to liver failure with an infection in his amputated leg that nearly killed him. The social worker managed to figure out our connection from past hospital records and get a message to me. Dad’s been here since and, with me finally making it back home, I can see just how much he’s changed.
The last time we’d talked was between tours. I rented a big three bedroom apartment and moved him in. I tried to get him sober and keep him sober but failed completely. It had been hard to believe, but we were on even worse terms after that. He was so done with me that he up and disappeared one night without a word. For the remainder of the two months I was home, I had no idea where he was or even if he was alive.
Flash forward eighteen months, I’m counting kills and trying not to be killed in the Mountains of Afghanistan. I get called to Ops to take an emergency call from home, and it’s the social worker.
Two weeks after that call, I’m on a cargo jet headed home.
Happy homecoming for me.
“Did you just get all those?” There are at least twenty envelopes sitting on his bedside table.
"Yeah. One of your military buddies dropped them off last night. Said they got returned to your base. Don’t have any idea how they figured out I was here. Damn military, got eyes and ears everywhere.” He’s glaring at me, and my mind is out that door and down the hall, imagining where she went and how I can find her again.
“I’m no hero, Dad. Just doing my job. I’m home for a couple months, then I have to decide if I’m going back. It’s time to re-enlist or call it.”
“Yeah, well, if you want to do something for me, get me out of here. Save me for a change. You’re always tryin’ to save people. Save me from this shit hole.” There is the slightest bit of desperation in his voice, and I glimpse a moment of the once proud man that must still be inside him somewhere.
But, I’m relying on history to guide me. I know it’s not him wanting to get out. It’s the demon. The one that possessed him the night of the fire. The one that needs a drink.
“If you leave here, you’ll die, Dad. They say you’re not a candidate for a transplant, and your diabetes is off the charts. You start drinking again, you’re done.”
Dad’s hair is cropped close to his head, more gray than black than the last time I saw him. There is no life in his deep brown eyes. All the parts of him look familiar, but he’s a stranger.
“Who said I’ll start drinking again?” He narrows his eyes.
No one needs to say it, Dad. It just is.
“No one, Dad. I’m sure you’d be fine. I’ll see what I can do.” My voice is even, flat. There’s no sense arguing. I’m not getting him out of here just so he can go kill himself with a bottle of Jack.
I’m fucking tired. Too tired for any more of this conversation. I’ve been traveling for thirty-six hours, and I’m not even sure where I’ll be sleeping tonight. All I can do is turn and take a step toward the door and hope tomorrow is better. I’ve been doing that for a long time.
“Go talk to that bald guy. He’s in charge.” Dad grunts and rolls a few feet forward as I turn to leave.
“Okay, Dad. I’ll go find him.” It’s hard to hide the fatigue in my voice. After all these years, somehow I held hope it would be different this time.
Some things can’t change.
Giving the chrome handle on the door a yank, I’m surprised at the weight as it opens with a soft swish. I have no intention of finding “the bald guy,” whoever that is. But, I do intend to find her because this cannot be a coincidence. It has to be something more.
Maybe God just showed up . . . or he’s a hell of an asshole.
History has taught me that either is possible.
I’ve got my first step in the hallway, and I catch a glimpse of her back, hair still flopped off to the side, striding away and around a corner.
“Hey!” I start to jog, but I lose her as she jets down another corridor just as a smiling Betty White look-alike rolls her wheelchair over the toes in my left boot.
“Hi.” Betty’s eying me like her Tinder date just showed up.
“Hi.” I glance down and blow
out a quick breath, shoving my hands in my pockets.
I’m so fucking tired; maybe I should get a bed here.
“You looking for a good time?” She reaches out, and I have to jerk my hips backward damn fast before she takes a big ole’ handful of crotch.
“Hey . . .” I can’t help but laugh through my exhaustion.
What the fuck do you say to a little white-haired cock-grabber with fire in her eyes?
I’m assessing the likelihood that she’s going to take another stab at me when I catch a glimpse of a guy about my height but half my weight with a shining, bald head marching toward us from behind the nurses station with a huge smile on his face. He puts himself between Betty White and me just as she takes her second shot at me.
“Ella. . . .” He is clearly trying to hold back his laughter as he gives her a scolding glare. “We talked about this. You can’t touch.” He leans right down, sticking a clipboard under his left arm, and speaks to her eye to eye. His voice is firm but compassionate. I’m struck by his gentle, matter-of-fact manner, considering the absurdity of the scene.
Betty rolls her eyes then looks me up and down, and I have to admit it makes me uncomfortable.
“But look at him—” She tips her white hair in my direction and points at me.
I can’t believe my fucking face is getting warm. This woman, old enough to be my grandma, has me blushing. She sets her eyes on me like I’m Magic Mike, and she’s got some dollar bills to stuff. “My husband was a Marine.” She bats her lashes at me with a knowing smile.
My white t-shirt is pulled tight over my chest, my dog tags clearly silhouetted beneath the gray fabric.
“Yes, I see him.” Bruce nods and snaps his eyes to me then back to Ella. “It’s not every day you have this kind of opportunity, huh?” Bruce’s smile broadens as he stands straight, holding a pretzel rod between his teeth like a cigarette.
“It’s okay.” I give Ella a friendly but uninviting smile.
“Go on.” Bruce gives her the universal hand flap signal for “go away.” “Go bother Dominic. He’s more your speed.”
Bruce turns her chair around, aiming her away from us. With a well-practiced spin of the wheels, Ella is rolling away with a string of profanity trailing behind.