The Pandora Box

by Lilly Maytree

  “Marion!” Dee helped Starr carry her down below, where they laid her out on the floor. “Marion!”

  “Get a flashlight,” he said, “and the first aid kit from under the steps there. I think I saw a pretty bad gash in her forehead when I pulled her aboard.”

  Dee reached for the flashlight that was always at the navigation table and used it to peer into the step-locker for the first aid kit. By the time she brought it back,

  Starr already had Marion’s knit hat off and jacket unbuttoned.

  Dee pointed the light beam at her.

  “Holy fright!” he stared at the gaping wound that shown back from the middle of Marion’s forehead like an extra eye.

  “I can’t put a bandage on that! That’s a hole the size of a blasted —”

  “Apply pressure!” Dee rummaged through the box for a gauze pad with her free hand. “Here, hold this on there!”

  “You hold it on there.” He got to his feet. “I’m gonna go take the wheel so Hawk can come down here. He’s the medic.”

  The words chilled Dee to the bone.

  A few minutes later, Hawk grabbed the hatch cover and swung himself down through the companionway, finding it easier to drop the seven feet than try to keep his foothold on the slippery ladder. “Let’s see what we’ve got here.” He took the flashlight from Dee and knelt down beside her. He lifted her hand away along with the gauze to look.

  “It won’t stop bleeding!” The rising dread she could feel in the pit of her stomach nearly made her ill. “And she’s out cold!”

  “Well… it can’t wait.” He replaced her hand even though the gauze was already soaked in blood. “It’s going to be a bear of a job under these conditions. Think you can help? Or are you going to be like Starr and crap out on me?”

  “Of course I’ll help. She’s my dearest friend! I’ll do whatever I can.”

  “OK. You just hold on there until I get some things.”

  Hawk closed the main hatch so no light would spill out onto the decks to mar Starr’s vision when he turned them on. It was imperative that his capable friend be able to adjust their course to accommodate the dangerous swells, and to do so, he had to be able to see them before they were on top of Pandora. Then, a few moments after he disappeared down the aft companionway, the engine roared to life and the cabin lights came on to their full brightness. For weeks now, they had been letting the charge dwindle in an effort to conserve fuel they would need more along the coast and rarely used anything but the red navigation lights at night anymore.

  “Marion…” Dee tried to coax a response from the ashen face, noticed that blood was beginning to trickle through her fingers and felt a sudden dismay. “Marion, please wake up!”

  “Don’t try to bring her around.” Hawk returned with a green metal box with a red cross on it. He had taken off his jacket and pushed back the sleeves of his brown fisherman’s sweater. “Better if she isn’t awake for a while. She’s going to have one huge headache when she comes to.”

  “Oh, Hawk, she needs a doctor! Can’t we radio for help or something?”

  “We’re in the middle of nowhere in a howling gale, Dee. She’d bleed to death before we could get help out here. Don’t worry, I can handle it.” He filled a pan half with water at the sink.

  Hawk had hardly picked it up when he felt the familiar surge of a giant roller beneath them and lost it as they crashed down. He swore under his breath and started over.

  “Get her jacket off,” he said when he returned. He wedged the pan with a lid on it into the space between the table leg and the settee.

  “But the bleeding! I don’t dare—”

  “Don’t worry about the blood, it’s slowing down. Head wounds always look worse than they really are.” He opened the metal box, took out several wrapped packages of gauze and two small bottles―one of which he poured into the pan. Next came a thin rubber tube that he draped over his shoulder for a moment while he used both hands to roll up the sleeve of Marion’s sweatshirt. Every movement was smooth, practiced, and made with no hesitation. As if he had done it a hundred times.

  At that moment, Dee could easily picture him in the gray scrubs of Wyngate, and the thought frightened her. She watched wide-eyed as he deftly tied off the rubber tube above Marion’s elbow and tore open a package to reveal the silvery, thread-like flash of a hypodermic needle.

  “What are you going to do!” she cried.

  He paused and looked up at her, surprised at the traces of sudden panic. “I’m going to make her as comfortable as possible before I start poking holes in her. You think you can relax a little?”

  “What is that?”

  “Morphine.” He turned the bottle upside down and eased the needle through the cap.

  “That’s illegal!”

  “Dee, it’s a common ingredient to any cruising medicine chest.” He flicked the side of the syringe with his finger and pushed up the stopper until a few drops of liquid appeared on the needle. He swabbed the inside of Marion’s arm with an alcohol pad and concentrated for a moment until he was sure he had found the vein. “So…either calm down and be a little more help…or back off.”

  Dee looked away. There was a shuddering lurch as Pandora plowed her way through another wave.

  Hawk withdrew the needle and blood spurted. “I didn’t even feel that one coming.”

  Marion whimpered and began to stir.

  “One more time, Mare,” he soothed. “Hold her head still, sugar. She starts thrashing around before this takes effect, and she’s going to come right up off the floor.”

  There was another steep, unannounced roll and this time it was all they could do to keep Marion and themselves from sliding across the floor.

  “If I don’t do it fast, she’s not going to get any at all. This keeps up, she’ll hate me for making a mess of her arm.”

  Marion’s eyes fluttered open and she looked with frightened panic into Dee’s.

  “Everything’s fine, Mare,” Dee assured, though her voice was shaking. “It’s all right now, everything’s…”

  “Hawk!” Marion whispered. “I told you…I…” A visible wave of pain swept over her “Oh, I feel like I…”

  “Try not to move,” Dee pleaded.

  “Dee, I…feel like I’m dying! My kids…my…”

  “Just the morphine,” Hawk replied to Dee’s sudden gasp. “It’s hitting her hard and all at once. Trade places with me now, so I can get busy.”

  He knelt down with Marion’s head between his knees and motioned Dee closer. “Come on, get in here.” He put one of her hands on Marion’s chin and the other on top of her head. She had to rest her forearms against his knee to do it. “Don’t let her head move. If you start to feel sick, lay your head down, but don’t let go of hers. Got it?”

  She nodded.

  “It’ll be a messy enough job as it is.” He opened another package. The contents were a curved suturing needle complete with thread. He wrung a washcloth out of the pan of antiseptic water and removed the bloody gauze from Marion’s head. “If it bothers you…don’t look.”

  Dee couldn’t look. She leaned her head down against his knee and felt cold chills every time Marion’s face tried to move in her hands.

  Hawk swore at Pandora’s every jolt, but he continued the steady tying and snipping, pausing only to wipe away fresh blood when it became too difficult to see what he was doing.

  Dee only looked once before turning her head away.

  “Still with me, sweets?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Number eight and we’re done. She’ll have a concussion but I don’t think there’s any fracture. Starting to bruise, though…Talk to me, Dee.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Take a few deep breaths.”

  “Hawk, where did you learn all this?”

  “I started out in the Boy Scouts.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously, you wouldn’t want to know. But if it makes you feel any better, injuries li
ke this…” He snipped off the last of the thread and set the scissors aside to reach for a bandage. “Are my specialty. All done now, you can relax.”

  Dee straightened up slowly, her back stiff and tired from leaning over for so long. She looked up at Hawk.

  For the first time in weeks he did not glance away, but let his gaze soften and linger, causing a rush of conflicting emotions to course through her.

  “What’s wrong, baby?” he asked with a gentleness that reached out and enveloped her. “She’s going to be all right. I promise.”

  “Oh, Hawk, why didn’t you pull her in?” she suddenly blurted out. “Why did you just stand there and wait until Starr came out? Why?”

  “I told you, a stay broke loose. If I let go of the wheel just then we could have rolled. Maybe even lost the foremast. She was on a safety line and Starr came as soon as I called.”

  “But she could have drowned and you just stood there! You didn’t even try to…”

  “You’re too tired, Dee.” The tone sounded as if he could sense every suspicion she had. “Don’t say anything you might regret later.” While Hawk cleaned up and put the medical kit away, Dee dressed Marion in a dry flannel gown.

  Afterward, he carried her back to her cabin and set her down gently. He clipped the mesh hammock up into place so that she would be as stable as possible in Pandora’s constant pitch and roll.

  Dee tucked the wool blanket close all around her friend and—when the Wyngate lettering shown for a moment, looked up quickly, to see if she could read some trace of sinister knowledge or recognition in Hawk.

  If there was, she couldn’t tell.

  “She’s going to sleep for at least six hours. Guaranteed.” He switched off the light as they left and closed the door behind them. “So should you.”

  “I have to take my watch.”

  “Starr and I can handle the deck. I want you to go to bed.”

  “I can do it,” she argued. “I’d rather…”

  He reached out and stopped her as she passed her own cabin, opened the door and steered her gently but firmly inside before closing it again. The effect of him shutting her away in the dark room suddenly felt too overwhelming. The long weeks of inner turmoil, the accident, lack of sleep, and the constant rolling and pounding of Pandora all whirled together to magnify the impression.

  “Hawkins!” she called out to him in a tone that was edged with despair.

  The door swung open again, and he looked in.

  “Don’t shut me out anymore. Please don’t!” He stepped inside and she reached up for him, her words tumbling out in a rush. “I can’t stand it! I never said I was perfect, I’m only trying to be. And I can’t stand that you would turn away from the things God wants to give you, just because of the way I’ve acted. I’d die first! Because I love you, Hawk, I—”

  His mouth stopped the words with a long answering kiss before he swept her up long enough to set her down on the bed. The response was so reassuring a wave of sheer relief swept through her.

  “I love you, too, sugar. And I love whatever makes you so quick to give yourself up for someone like me. I never thought of God thinking about me, much less having anything to give me. That’s just—”

  Pandora suddenly rolled and he reached for the bulkhead to steady them, making the only effect a slight shifting of her weight against his. “It’s just too good to be true.”

  “It is true!”

  “Well, if Starr hadn’t been out there by himself, so long, I’d let you prove it.” He kissed her again. “Right now, I have to go. But I’ll be back when the storm’s over.”

  He left her then, and after he was gone, his presence lingered like poignant music, with all the sensations returning again, and again, whenever she thought of him. It wasn’t until just before she drifted off to sleep, that she realized she had been—literally—swept off her feet.

  Exactly like Marion had predicted.

  28

  Acceptance

  “I had a very strong determination to resist my impulses, but yet, in the bottom of my heart was a little faint feeling that I had found something even stronger than my will power. ~ Nellie Bly

  By the time Dee woke the following morning, the storm had blown itself out and Pandora was moving at a swift graceful clip, once again. The slanted decks were finally steady and no longer rolling or erratic.

  Dee felt wonderful. After peeking in at Marion to find her still asleep, she showered and took her time getting dressed.

  She looked into the mirror and was startled by her own reflection. After a month of outdoor living, she had acquired a rich tan of a depth she hadn’t achieved since she was sixteen and devoted an entire summer to get. The makeup she had brought along paled in comparison, so she set it aside. Instead, she made do with a little eye-shadow and lipstick of a slightly deeper shade than the pink turtleneck sweater she was wearing. She was ready in a mere ten minutes. One could definitely get ready for the day, faster, when there was less to do.

  She twisted her hair up into the clip and pulled a chocolate-colored knit hat with a fur brim over it all. She was rummaging in her make-up bag for a small bottle of perfume when she heard a muffled moan from Marion’s cabin, and she set things aside to look in on her.

  Marion was engaged in a slow motion struggle to disentangle herself from the hammock.

  “Dear…Lord! I’ve got the worst…hangover…” Marion’s hand went to her bandaged head. “Owww! What happened?”

  “Just take it easy and try not to move too fast.” Dee helped her sit up and propped pillows behind her back to lean against. “Don’t you remember anything?”

  “I was adjusting one of the sails and…oh, Dee! Hawk hit me!”

  “What?”

  “He did! I heard him yell, and then he hit me!”

  “The boom hit you, Marion,” she insisted, even though the accusation brought that same feeling of dread back into the pit of her stomach. “He tried to warn you, but you didn’t hear. It was the boom that knocked you overboard. Put a terrible gash in your head and you had to have eight stitches.”

  “Stitches!” Her hand moved to her head again, and she traced the bandage with her fingers. “Who on earth?”

  “Hawk did.”

  “You let him do something like that to me? What if I get gangrene or something? How could you!”

  “I didn’t have any choice, Marion. You were bleeding so terribly, I…don’t worry, it was all very professional. He just… “

  Their gazes met and there was a long, uncomfortable silence.

  “I told you,” Marion breathed finally. “Didn’t I tell you?”

  Dee sat down on the foot of the bed and ran a hand over her brown ski pants. “It doesn’t have to mean he worked at Wyngate, though. It could be a coincidence.”

  “You should have come right out and asked. Say, did you work at Wyngate? Yes or no.”

  “I can’t put it that way, Marion. Not when he already said he never heard of Wyngate before I brought it up. To ask if he worked there now, would be accusing him of a lie. I don’t want to upset him again.”

  “Dee, have you lost your senses? He’s as good as proved himself. How many normal everyday people would have been able to sew up somebody’s head? Would you have?”

  “Oh, I couldn’t!”

  “That’s my point. You’d have done your best with a butterfly bandage and wrapped it up. I’m surprised he didn’t kill me! And if he didn’t, then…” She raised a warning finger for emphasis and another pain shot through her arm. “Ouch! My word! What happened to my arm?”

  “He had some trouble with the morphine.”

  “Morphine!”

  “The boat was rocking and banging like you wouldn’t…”

  “Morphine! You let him give me drugs? What if I was allergic?”

  “Shhh! Marion, you want them to hear us? I told you everything was perfectly sterile. Never used. I watched him tear open the packages, myself.”

  “If I get addicted
, what am I going to tell my kids? I’d be a disgrace to Bill’s memory! I…”

  The door clicked open and they both froze.

  “Good morning, ladies,” Hawk’s tone carried the usual pleasantness they had become accustomed to before he lost his temper. “Are we having some trouble in here?”

  “She’s…upset about the stitches,” Dee spoke up first.

  “There was no choice, Marion.” He put a hand under the older woman’s chin and turned her face up to look carefully into her gray eyes. “No uneven dilation. Can you focus on my finger?”

  “Dee!” Marion’s voice was barely a whisper.

  “Bet you’ve got a bear of a headache, though,” he soothed. “Go get her a couple aspirin, sugar, while I check and see if there’s any…”

  “No, I want Dee to stay!” Marion’s voice had the ring of a petulant child, and Hawk’s eyes softened as he looked down at her.

  “That was a terrible experience, Mare. I’m sorry it happened. Think you can forgive me?”

  “My mouth tastes like seawater, my head’s killing me, and you…you had no right to give me drugs!”

  “You’d have thought I was torturing you if I hadn’t. It was so rough down here you got about twice too many holes poked in you as it was.”

  “But a woman my age could be addicted!”

  “Well, if the pain gets too bad, let me know, and I’ll give you some more.”

  “Good grief, what do you take me for? I’ll die first. I don’t care if…”

  “Just kidding. I don’t think a woman of your strength and will power needs to worry about addictions.”

  “Don’t try to butter me up. I’m put out with you, Hawk. Extremely put out! If I didn’t know better, I’d think…”

  He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.

  The gesture startled her. “Oh, I…suppose I’m just irritable.”

  “Understandable,” he assured. “So you’re officially relieved of duties until you feel better. Breakfast and a couple aspirin will do wonders.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “How about some tea and toast?” Dee suggested. “It’ll just take a minute.”

  They left Marion’s cabin and as Dee went to the sink to fill the teakettle, Hawk came up behind and put his arms around her. “Are you still the same girl I left last night?” he asked.