However, if I left my new job with only two weeks of experience, I’d better decide on a different career. That’s if I could even land on my feet somewhere else. Denver wasn’t far off, but it was expensive to live there. I’d end up at the Y, probably working a low-paying job, rather than landing a good job with upward mobility like the one here.
But it wasn’t even about what I’d do if I didn’t have the support of Zach’s family. It was about what kind of person I was. What kind of woman would drop a boyfriend, even an undeclared one, at the first sign of trouble? I didn’t want to be that kind of person, but I also didn’t know what I could be in for. Would I be able to handle it? In fact, what was the worst-case scenario, and how would life with a paralysis patient be?
Scenes of unbearable horror raced through my mind. Caring for the intimate needs of someone who couldn’t get himself to the bathroom on his own, for example. I’d never even slept with Zach. Would that even be possible now? If it wasn’t, was I prepared for a lifetime of no sex? Because if I committed, it was for a lifetime. I didn’t believe in divorce. I’d seen it destroy too many of my friends. I knew I was lucky to be one of the few people I knew whose parents were still married and still in love. Zach’s certainly weren’t, though his mother’s second marriage seemed strong.
Only seemed, my subconscious insisted. Rose knew nothing of Carl’s side business. Would she still be with him if she did? Would she even still adore Zach as she did if she knew he was a felon? Which made me realize I did. What he’d done made no difference. I wished he hadn’t, assumed he’d do it again, and still loved him. Maybe Rose would be the same, if Carl’s criminal activities ever came to light.
But reflecting on Rose and Carl wasn’t getting me anywhere in my quest for clarity. I decided that educating myself about what I could be accepting, if I stayed for Zach, might help. I wandered back into the ICU, and spoke to the first nurse I saw. Did she know of someone I could talk to about living with a spinal cord injury patient?
She told me to wait, and she’d send someone to me. While I waited, I looked around for Rose, hoping not to see her, and worrying about why I didn’t. My counselor startled me by approaching from the opposite direction from where I was looking.
“Ms. Baxter? I’m Helen. I understand you have questions about a loved one’s condition?”
“Potential condition. We don’t know yet,” I corrected.
“Come with me, please. Let’s find some privacy.”
Helen was kind but direct. “Any degree of spinal cord injury is going to produce changes that impact both function and self-perception. If your man does have a complete or incomplete spinal cord injury, you, as his caregiver, will have to overcome fear, despair, and, in some cases, revulsion. The first question I ask of people who aren’t married to the patient is, how deep is your commitment to the relationship? The next is, what is your main area of concern?”
She paused, waiting for my answer to the questions, I assumed. I fought to verbalize my position. “That’s the problem. I care about him, but love is just recently entering the picture. I don’t know how deep my commitment is, much less his. If I have trouble adjusting to reality, will it hurt him? I don’t want to hurt him, especially if everything else he loves is taken from him.”
She fixed me with a steady regard. “Sympathy is no substitute for unconditional love. In the long run, sympathy wears thin. You’ll do more harm than good staying out of sympathy. Can you answer the second question?”
“Physical issues,” I answered promptly. “Two areas of concern. I’m aware that paralysis requires intimate care that would … embarrass … most people. The patient has to get used to it, but I would imagine it’s humiliating. How do spinal cord patients relate to their caregivers on an intimacy level, when the caregiver must essentially handle other issues like she would for a baby?”
“You’re talking about bathroom assistance,” she stated.
“Yes. But that’s not all. I’m young, and I have a healthy sexual appetite. I also want children. What about all that?”
She set aside the caregiving question for the moment to assure me that total inability to have sex or father children was rare, even though certain realities required compensation. “I can give you a pamphlet with more details if you get that far,” she said.
The information about bathroom assistance gave me pause. Dear God, could I handle that? As if she’d heard my thought, the counselor finished by bringing me back to the most important question.
“In the first hours and days after a spinal cord injury, a person’s self-image compels them to stand by their loved one. Then the days and weeks of healing, therapy and ongoing care begin to wear away the social veneer. You think right now that if you left him, your young man would be devastated and maybe wouldn’t even fight for his life.
“You’d be wrong in the majority of cases. A spinal cord injury focuses a person’s attention inward. Even with the best of attitudes, they are too busy finding a way to cope with the profound changes in their lives to even notice if a casual relationship ends.”
“I can’t believe that.”
“Believe it. You said it yourself. You don’t even know if you’re committed, much less if he is. Do this. Unless you can’t – unless your concern for him drives you to be with him – stay away until he asks for you. That distance will give you the clarity you need.”
I thanked her and returned to my first retreat. I wasn’t sure I could take that advice. Staying away would lead Rose and Carl to the conclusion I didn’t care and was leaving him. With a sigh, I went to wait with Rose.
Zach
The most frustrating thing about the first few hours after my accident, at least the first few I remembered, was not being able to ask what the hell was happening to me. Dr. Wang was good about communicating, but I was dependent on him asking questions I could answer yes or no, and he didn’t always ask the question I wanted him to.
A group of people in scrubs came into my room and began unhooking this and hooking up that, without any explanation. When the bed started moving, I wanted to know where we were going, but no one told me. I remembered Dr. Wang telling me to stay calm, and I remembered the beeps of the monitor getting faster before I blacked out. Not wanting to black out again, I fought for composure.
The moving bed made me dizzy, especially if I watched the ceiling racing by. I closed my eyes, but that made it worse. We rolled into an elevator, and my stomach stayed behind when the floor dropped away. I began gagging around the thing in my throat, and someone leaned over me. “Breathe through your nose,” she said.
That helped, and someone said, “Excellent, Mr. Hayes. We’ll stop in just a moment. Hang in there.”
Not much else I could do.
When the elevator stopped, they rolled me out and into a room that looked bigger than the one I’d been in before the ride. I felt like a piece of meat as hands lifted me, sheet and all, onto a different bed. Someone placed something over my ears that felt like big, old-fashioned headphones.
Then the bed started moving, and I went headfirst into a tunnel. It was so small I feared getting stuck, and I started trying to make sounds. Moving my body was out of the question, and whatever sounds I produced were swallowed by the music playing in my ears. In an effort not to panic, I shut my eyes again.
After some time had passed, I started moving out of the tunnel in the same direction I went in, and when the headphones were lifted, I opened my eyes again.
“Congratulations, Mr. Hayes. You were a model patient.” Laughter came from all around, but no one told me the joke. A pretty woman’s face swam into view.
“We’re going to take you back to your room, now, Mr. Hayes, and then you’ll be able to see your mom and your girlfriend again, if you remain calm.”
Why did everyone fucking want me to remain calm? How was I supposed to stay calm when no one was telling me anything, I couldn’t feel much of anything, and I couldn’t talk? I sent a hateful glare her way, or
what I thought was her way. She’d disappeared, and since I couldn’t lift my head, I couldn’t find her.
The elevator started moving upward, but stopped shortly afterward. When the doors opened, a commotion ensued, and I heard a familiar voice.
“We fucking can see him, and we fucking will, or we’ll tear this place apart! That fucker wrecked my bike, and I want to tell him to his face how much trouble he’s in! Pug! Look in there – is that him?”
I groaned, causing someone else to put their face in my view. “Are you in pain, Mr. Hayes?”
Two blinks. But I would be if Jake got to me. I’d never felt more helpless in my life as I heard angry voices raised nearby.
“Let go of the call button. There’s no room for you in here. Wait for the next one.”
“I want to talk to that guy on the bed.”
“Let go, or I’ll call security.”
“Fucking call security, bitch.”
The sounds of a struggle, and then the elevator doors mercifully closed. I hoped my room was way the hell up, top floor, whatever. That would give these hospital pukes some time to make sure I was protected before Jake and the gang made their way up the stairs. Maybe they wouldn’t even know where I’d been taken.
A disorienting series of turns came next, before my bed was parked back in the same room where I’d woken up earlier. While some hands fluttered around me, Dr. Wang came in. Where the hell had he been while all this crap was going on? He let me see his face, and then backed away.
“Mr. Hayes, it seems you have a committee from your ah, club, who want to speak to you. They are causing quite a disturbance. We have offered to call the police, but the leader has said we need to ask you if that is what you want. Do you want us to call the police?”
It was an impossible choice. If I told him no, I’d be helpless if Jake and the others forced their way in here. The consequences could be deadly, or worse. If I told him yes, I’d be burning all bridges to the club. Wang talked again before I could decide what to blink.
“I should tell you the MRI revealed you have a partial injury. This means you have a very good chance at recovery of most of your body’s functions. However, your injury is such that any jarring movement could create further damage, potentially completing it and therefore leaving you paralyzed below the chest.”
Terror seized me. Full paralysis below the chest! I widened my eyes to show him I was scared.
“I repeat. Do you want us to call the police?”
One blink. And with that blink, I set myself outside the club forever.
Cricket
The doctor nodded at us as he went into Zach’s room. He had a faint smile, which told us nothing. He also had an air of tension surrounding him, almost palpable in the waiting room. I clutched Rose’s hand and she squeezed back.
The answer was there, in the chart in his hand, but we wouldn’t hear it until Zach had. Every fiber of my body wanted to rush in behind him, be there for Zach when he heard, and hold him when he learned his life as he knew it was over. Tears leaked from my eyes unchecked.
Rose was sobbing openly, and since I couldn’t reach Zach, I enfolded her and we rocked together, waiting through an eternity. Minutes passed, and then the elevator opened again and half a dozen policemen spilled out.
What new hell was this going to be? Had Zach caused the accident? Were there other victims? Rose bore the look I could feel on my face. She wanted to ask. Her mouth parted, but she couldn’t get the words out. Neither could I.
One officer went to the nurse’s station and spoke in low tones to the charge nurse there. I couldn’t hear what he was saying. Two positioned themselves on either side of Zach’s door, while the rest spread out through the floor, some disappearing from sight. The one who spoke to the nurse approached us.
“Mrs. Hayes?”
“Schafer,” she answered. “I remarried.”
“Mrs. Schafer then. Is there someone who could come and pick you up? We have a situation, and I’m instructed to get you to safety. Who is this?”
With his last question, he acknowledged my presence for the first time. Rose answered, “This is my son’s girlfriend, and we’re not going anywhere until we learn more about his condition. What’s going on?”
“Ma’am, is your son involved with a motorcycle club that calls themselves the Dust Devils?”
Rose closed her eyes as an expression of pain crept over her features. My heart sank.
“Yes,” she answered.
“Apparently, he’s done something to rile them up. They’re downstairs creating a disturbance. We were called to handle it, and one of the people involved made threats against your son. Now, I understand your reluctance to leave, but we aren’t sure how many of them there are and what further action they’ll take against the hospital. We’re evacuating everyone who can leave.”
“How many are down there?” I asked.
He looked at me. “Five, I believe. Do you know about them?”
From the corner of my eye, I saw my supervisor and the head of security exiting the elevator and walking toward us. I gulped. The next thing I said could bring my career to a screeching halt. But for the sake of everyone in the hospital, I had to answer. “Yes.”
The officer gripped my arm and marched me toward a seat in the waiting room. I glanced at my supervisor, who was making a beeline for us. There was no way to avoid her hearing what I was about to say.
“That’s all of the hotheads, officer. The club is small, not more than thirty members, most of whom are the sons of the original members. Most of them are harmless. If the ones downstairs are Jake, Pug, Snail, Gears, and Hoss, there aren’t any more to worry about.”
His brow furrowed. “Are you kidding me?”
“No, sir.”
Just then, my supervisor butted in. “Cricket, do you mean to tell me you’re involved with a motorcycle gang?”
I stared at her without answering. Instead, I asked, “Why are you here?”
“I was informed there was a disturbance involving your boyfriend. Your name came up.”
“In what context?”
She glanced at the security officer next to her. “Before the police got here and arrested him, the person who created the disturbance yelled, ‘Tell that cunt Cricket that this is all her fault. She’d better be ready to suck my dick every night for a month if she doesn’t want me to kill that fucker Zach.’ Do I have that correct, Officer Daniels?” The big security guy at her side nodded, staring steadily at me.
My ears were ringing. Rose had heard, and gasped at every ugly word my supervisor quoted. Daniels spoke for the first time. “Are you the Cricket the perp was speaking of?”
I looked helplessly from one to another of the four people who stood in a half-circle before me, preventing my escape. I hung my head. “Yes.”
“You’re fired,” snapped my supervisor. I was still in my probationary period. I knew she could do it. The sound of my career going down the drain batted at my ears.
“You can’t do that,” Rose protested. “She didn’t have anything to do with those people! Tell her, Cricket.”
“Then how did they know her name? How does she know theirs? We can’t have her kind working here. Give me your badge,” she directed me.
I lifted the lanyard from my neck slowly, pulled it over my head, and handed it to her. The badge hung from it like a flag of defeat. “Now clear out. You’re banned from the hospital.”
This time, Rose and I both gasped. “I can’t!” I wailed. “Zach!”
“Daniels, escort Miss Baxter from the building.”
I cast an imploring glance at the real police officer, but there was no help there. All I could hope was that Jake’s entire crew had been arrested, or I was in more danger than Daniels could know. I tried to tell him.
“You don’t know what they’ll do to me! Please! You can’t just kick me out. At least escort me home. Please!”
My begging fell on deaf ears. As we reached the main doors of the hosp
ital, Daniels stepped out with me just far enough to get me all the way out, and then let go of my arm.
“Wait!” One last plea he had to listen to. “My purse! It’s in my locker. I need it.”
“Wait here.”
Twenty-One
Zach
They’d removed my airway tube without explanation. Guess it was okay, because I was breathing all right on my own. No one had come to tell me exactly what the MRI showed, but I took the ‘extubation’, as they called it, as good news. Dr. Wang had said good chance for ‘most’ of my body’s functions.
I wanted to know which ones he thought I wouldn’t recover. Still, my throat was sore, and I didn’t want to talk much. It was a case of hoping he came in soon and hoping he waited until tomorrow at the same time.
Voices in the hall made me believe there were guards on my door. I didn’t know if I was being protected or held prisoner. For all I knew, Jake’s bike had been stuffed full of cocaine or meth. He’d asked me to ride it on one of my errands to Rawlins so Carl could look at a problem while he was busy with ‘other club business’.
Naturally, he didn’t tell me what the ‘other club business’ was, and I didn’t give any clue that I had a pretty good idea. I’d been bummed that I wasn’t fully patched in yet, even after scoring two bikes for the club, but I had been told Smokey would likely award me a small cut of the profit off the top even though I wasn’t entitled to it. When they sold, I’d have enough money to buy my ride, finally. I missed riding.
It wasn’t so easy to get on a bike, once I bunked at the clubhouse. No one wanted to loan their ride, so when we went out as a club, I was in the chase vehicle with Sarge or Doc, depending on where we were going. Doc didn’t get out much unless it was really important, like Sturgis.
So I jumped at the chance to take Jake’s for a spin. I should have thought it through. Now not only was I lying in a hospital bed, possibly broken beyond repair, but Jake was reportedly up in arms about the loss of his bike. And who knew if evidence found on it was going to send me away for a nice, long, all-expense paid vacation on the State’s dime.
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