by Grace Walton
To him there was no shame in suicide. He saw it as one final act of control. To a man who’d spent his whole life controlling and manipulating outcomes, it was just another day at the office. It didn’t matter if the outcome was final. He could make sure he chose the time and the place. He could take his life in one last act of defiance against the forces of this world. He could do it, and he would.
Gritting his teeth against the pain, he carefully put one foot in front of the other until he made it to her bedside. He slowly lowered himself until he sat on the wide clean bedcovers. He watched the girl carefully to see if there was any sign she felt the bed move as he sat.
She didn’t. She remained still and pale. She looked dead already. And Hollister would know. He was acutely aware of how the Grim Reaper left his victims. The man had seen so much death and violence over the course of his life it had become almost commonplace. But not this time, no, not this time.
He was thankful for the soft sounds of the monitors. They told him she was truly still alive. He picked up her limp hand. He noticed the cuts and scratches across her palm as he turned it over. Most likely they were caused by her frantic attempts to save him with that rock from the river. The thin turquoise bangle he’d given her so long ago slipped down her arm. He imagined Gage had fastened it around her wrist after the medical staff had seen to her comfort. She’d have liked that. It was the only piece of jewelry she ever wore. It was a fitting testament to a love that never really had a chance.
Gage hadn’t spared him anything in the retelling of what she’d, so heroically, done. Even now, seeing the evidence of her struggle against the elements on his behalf, he could scarcely believe her courage. What strength it must have taken to plunge into that icy river to try and save him. What an iron will she must have used to pick up that small boulder from the freezing water and hit it against the window of his truck again and again and again.
He raised her limp hand to his face. He laid her battered palm against his hard jaw. It felt warm and soft there against the bristles of his shadow beard. He relished the feel of her warmth. She was still alive. She was still there. She was still Blackbird.
And while she yet remained, he was not alone. She’d been the only one in his whole life to still the eternal emptiness within the gaping and hollow yaw of his being. Magnolia Ferguson had kept him anchored to this life and this Earth since they’d met when she’d been nothing more than a gangly, awkward adolescent.
It wasn’t her body that had first drawn him to her. No, never that. He had been a man when she was still an untried girl. No, the initial draw had nothing of the flesh about it. He’d seen her budding beauty. He’d known from the first she would grow to be beautiful. But he’d never considered she’d be the one. The only one.
When he’d taught her to drive, he’d been enchanted by her funny laugh and her way of making failures seem like triumphs. She’d been indomitable. Her incredible expressive eyes had twinkled with joy, always.
When he’d come back from his own personal battlefield this last time, that joie de vie was gone. She’d been like a closed down and shuttered house that once resounded with the joys of living, but now stood empty and lonely.
He’d made it his job to revive her senses. To drag her back into the land of the living. To make her wake up and see him standing before her, loving her. Now he wished, with all his bereft heart, he’d just walked away.
Nothing good had come of his machinations. She’d learned to live again without him. She’d made a life for herself, with another man, without him. She’d taken the ashes of her broken life and she’d molded them into a new life of beauty, purpose, and peace, without him.
He knew she was stronger than he’d ever be. This still, lovely girl dying on the bed was stronger than he’d ever thought was possible. If he believed in a higher power, he’d be on his knees begging. He’d be making the kinds of one-sided bargains men in foxholes make.
Hollister would gladly give his broken wreck of an existence for Maggie. It would be the easiest decision he’d ever make. If he believed. But he didn’t. He was cold-eyed and methodical enough to understand there was not going to be some fairy tale resolution to this night.
By the morning, Maggie Ferguson would be cold and dead. There would be no shower of golden healing light hovering over her bed in this obscene place. There would be no miraculous angelic visitation. She would be gone. And he would be left…alone.
For just a second he let his mind wander. He let his thoughts drift from the horror of this reality to fantasy. Magical thinking took over. And for a few brief moments of succor, he fed that thinking. He let himself ponder the what ifs.
What if yesterday had never happened? In some fictional parallel universe, Maggie was still whole and safe. She was serving coffee at her quirky boutique café. She was laughing in that irresistible way of hers. In this altered reality, he was a better man. A man who’d never made his living through violence, a man who was decent. A man who was worthy of loving Maggie and could be loved by her in return.
A nurse pulled back the heavy curtain. The sound of the metal curtain rings scraping across the metal curtain rod destroyed his happy fantasy. There was no escaping the facts. Here he sat watching as a death sentinel. Observing as the only woman he’d ever love drifted slowly, inextricably away.
The nurse murmured an apology as she walked over to look at the machines. She made a few notations in the handheld device she pulled from its sleeve at her waist. She frowned.
“You’re her next of kin?” Her voice was clinical.
He thought about the question. Of course he wasn’t Maggie’s next of kin. He was nothing her. Not really. Though she was everything good and clean and essential to him, he was nothing to her. If he’d meant anything to her, she’d never have gotten herself engaged. Come to think of it, she’d never have gone out with that animal, Chase Brown, if she’d ever thought she belonged to Hollister.
So with reluctance, he told the woman the cold, hard truth, “No, I’m not related to her.”
“Then I’m very sorry sir, but you’ll need to leave. We’re taking her to a private room where she can be surrounded and comforted by her family.”
He knew what that meant. He knew she had very little time left upon this Earth. They would transport her to a room where Gage and Carrie could say their last good-byes. It was fitting because Hollister knew he had no place in that blessed circle. He was nothing more than a heathen, in their eyes. He was a man who’d made his way in the world by the shedding of blood. He was essentially nothing more than a murderer, even if the causes he’d fought for had been just. A man like him had no business being at the bedside of a saint.
He leaned down and pressed a long, tender kiss to Maggie’s forehead. He felt the prick of tears behind his closed eye lids. He took a long shuddering breath.
“Good-bye, my love,” he whispered to her.
Chapter Fifteen
“We’re hoping the power will be back on soon,” said the friendly nurse.
If he’d been paying attention, Hollister would have noticed her avid interest in him when she’d begun her shift. But he hadn’t. He’d been sitting, staring out the window into the parking lot. It’s what he’d been doing since they rolled him back to his room. He’d sat there, dressed in a set of pale blue borrowed scrubs, watching the relentless snow fall. First it covered the ground. Then it inched its way up to covering the vehicles in the parking lot. Then the lights in the building flickered out. And finally, the hospital generators hummed to life and provided a dim, murky light that emanated from the shadowy hallway outside his room.
“You’re going to be discharged, as soon as we get the power back on,” she explained.
The woman had a nice smile punctuated by a matching set of dimples on either side of her mouth. She turned the full force of those dimples on the handsome, if solemn, man sitting in the room’s one chair. She knew who he was, of course. Everybody in Bozeman knew about Hollister. The way she l
ooked at it, this was a wonderful opportunity for her to catch his interest. But the man wasn’t cooperating.
“Mr. Hollister?” she tried once more.
“It’s just Hollister,” he said in an absentminded way.
Well, at least she now knew he could hear her. She forged ahead. “I said you’ll be released once the power is back on. But if I were you, I wouldn’t try to get out in this weather. The emergency room is packed with folks who are stuck because the storm has all the roads closed. Maybe I could find you a nice cozy spot somewhere private, if you want me to.”
There was a world of innuendo in that simple statement. The young woman wasn’t just offering him a cozy chair and a blanket in one of the hospital’s many waiting rooms. He understood that. He needed to let her know he wasn’t interested.
“No thanks,” he turned her down. “I know this room is needed for someone else. Just go ahead and bring me the forms. I’ll sign them and get out of your way.”
“But… but…” she sputtered. “Where would you go?”
Ironically it was pretty close to the same question he’d been asking himself ever since he’d been kicked out of Maggie’s ICU cubicle. The answer he’d come up with was purely rhetorical. It was: Why does it matter? And for that question there was no answer, rhetorical or not.
He shrugged at the pretty little nurse. “I’ll get by,” was all he said.
He knew it was a lie. But he’d become a very good liar over the years. He’d gotten so good at it; he could almost fool himself, almost.
“Can I get my own clothes?” he asked.
“Of course, they’re back from the laundry. They’re hanging in your bathroom.”
“Thanks,” he said, never turning his head to look at her once during the entire brief conversation.
“Mr. Hollister…” she began.
“It’s just Hollister,” he answered in an eerie repetition of their interaction.
“Hollister then, I don’t think you’re ready to be released.” There was a world of doubt and suspicion in her voice.
“Bring the forms, I’ll sign them. Then I’m no longer your problem.”
“That’s not quite true,” she hedged. “If we let you go knowing you might hurt yourself or anyone else, we’ll be held liable. I’ll be held liable.”
“I’m no harm to anyone,” he said.
“That may be true, but you seem awfully depressed.”
“Just bring the forms,” he ordered in a voice that brooked no defiance.
The young woman looked worried, but she went to do as her patient demanded. And she glanced back at him as she left the room. He seemed like a mythical hero, handsome and dangerous, sitting there staring out the window. She’d changed her mind about garnering his interest. She’d leave this complicated man to some other woman. He would be too much for her, she knew it.
Once he was dressed in his own clothing and had signed all the paperwork, he was rolled down to the main lobby of the hospital. Because of the weather, all the released patients milled around in the large vestibule. The generators provided just enough electricity to run the dim lights and the other life-saving equipment. Heat was not considered important enough upon which to waste the generator’s limited resources. Consequently it was getting colder inside by the minute.
People huddle together for warmth. A few blew on their hands. Others walked briskly back and forth to generate body heat. For a few minutes Hollister watched them with a dispassionate eye. It wasn’t the first time he’d been in such a situation.
He knew the best thing to do for yourself was to keep focused on survival. That and his indomitable will had saved him more times than he could count. He was finding that this time, he just didn’t care whether he lived or died. In some ways, if he died, it would save him a great deal of trouble.
He watched them, the milling people filling the space. They all had somebody. No one was alone. Every person there had someone on which to depend. Everyone but Hollister.
He wondered in an idle fashion if his sisters would grieve his death? He supposed they would, Merrie especially. He was sorry for that fact. But she was young and had her whole life before her, she’d heal. And she’d come out stronger on the other side. He knew her that well. She and her new daughter, Aja, would make a life for themselves.
His eyes settled on the stairs leading to the second floor of the hospital. He jammed his hands into the stiff pockets of his jeans and walked towards the steps. He knew what was up there. They were all up there. All the people who’d brought him to the hospital along with Maggie. They were up there praying for her. They were up there, in some kind of dark waiting room. He knew Gage and Carrie were at her bedside. He took a great deal of comfort in that. Maggie wouldn’t die alone. Not like he would.
But the rest, the men from Montana Miracles, the hospital chaplain, some folks who’d already been at the hospital from the Ferguson’s church, they’d all be there. They’d be praying and serving each other in any way they could. He’d seen it happen before. There’d be crying, but there’d be some laughing too. Folks would start telling their stories. First one, then another would relate how much the dying person meant to them, what that person had done for them.
He’d observed it so times. He’d been an intimate part of it a few times when he’d lost soldiers. In Hollister’s mind, it was a much more sacred way to honor the dying than holding a funeral.
Without knowing why, he started slowly climbing the staircase. It was very dark as he climbed higher. It almost felt like he was leaving one plain of existence and entering into another. Everything looked and felt foreign. Which was, of course, quite ludicrous. He was still in the same building he’d been in before, in the same town, in the same country. None of that had changed in the least.
But he felt different. Hollister felt shattered. The act of inhaling and exhaling was an almost unendurable effort. Every breath cut him wide open. His hand gripped the stair rail with a fierceness that made his knuckles tear at his skin. He was sure they’d rip through it, bloody and sharp, any moment.
When he reached the top of the steps, he was surprised. Instead of the crowds of people he’d expected, he found only Dan Gentry and Fiona Cooper. In the dim light, he saw they were sitting at opposite ends of a long hard sofa studiously avoiding each other. To say they were his two least favorite humans, was an understatement.
He made himself go over to them. “Where is everyone?” he rumbled.
Fiona looked up at him. Her face, free of any smidgeon of make-up, tightened. Her lank dishwater-colored hair was scraped off her face and confined by a rubber band. Her clothes were shabby- just old jeans and a worn out t-shirt. Her nails were all bitten down to the ragged quick. There was even an unconcealed eruption of acne over her chin. She was not the chic and expensive Fiona Cooper he knew.
“Gage and Carrie are in with her. The Montana Miracles staff went back out on the road to see if they could help stranded motorists.”
Hollister’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t trust this woman. He never had. Even though they’d been as physically intimate as two people could be, he’d never let her close in the ways that counted. He knew, from what he’d overheard on the street that afternoon that Fiona’s true character had ultimately asserted itself. She’d stolen Maggie’s fiancé. He could hate for that alone.
“I thought Gage told them to stay at the hospital?”
“He did,” answered the prissy little preacher. “But he couldn’t stop them. They said they would do more good out there helping than sitting here waiting.”
Hollister stared at the man. He looked much the worse for the wear. His arrogant attitude had vanished. And he looked as ashamed and miserable as did Fiona. Maybe they were both good actors?
“Cerise?” he inquired about Maggie’s mother.
It wasn’t that he wanted her here. No, he didn’t. The older woman had always treated him like a hired hand, even though he owned half of Montana Miracles. To the high and mighty Mrs
. Cerise Ferguson he was just another expendable cowhand. Somebody to saddle her favorite riding horse or fetch her luggage from the limo. She’d never known his true origins. If she ever did, he was sure she’d be as obsequious as was possible.
“Gage’s mother is still at the ranch. She doesn’t know about Maggie,” Dan said. He never raised his eyes. He just spoke to his shoes as if they might answer him.
Both of them nodded in tandem. And they both started to speak at the same time.
“Yes, I needed to ask her forgiveness,” said the woman.
“I had to confess,” murmured the man.
They looked at each other with a world of pain in their wet eyes. Once they made contact, they immediately turned from each other. Guilt and regret were written deep across both of their faces. Hollister thought the searing brand of what they’d done would scar them for life. And they deserved the ugly scars, every one of them. He hoped they suffered the agonies of the dammed for what they’d done to Maggie.
Leaving them to their misery, he walked over to the door leading back to the hospital rooms. There was a phone mounted on the wall. He peered at the small sign above it. In the half-light gloom he read. Call for Admittance, it read. He picked up the receiver, nothing happened. It seemed the electricity needed to make the thing work was considered unimportant to maintaining life.
Without waiting to think, he shoved at the heavy swinging door. It lurched open. Silently he prowled down the dark corridor stopping at each door to read the name of the patient inside. When he got to the one that read, Ferguson, Magnolia, he knocked softly.
A haggard Gage opened the door. He reached out his hand to tug Hollister inside. The antiseptic odor hit his nose and stung. The only light was from the myriad machines. They looked like a string of obscene Christmas lights. They blinked in many colors as they marked Maggie’s progress towards death. He wanted to rage aloud. He wanted to free the beast that was his fury at the injustice of the moment. But for her sake, he didn’t.