Golden Hour (Crescent City)

by Campbell Reinhardt

  I thought the hostility swirling around when she was in the room was bad. But worse by far is the empty, choked quiet that drapes over everything. I lie in my bed, teasing my exhausted body with the promise of sleep that just isn’t going to come.

  I curl on my side and think of Mike. The way he always came to Gran first, kissed her cheek, asked about her day before he came to me. I used to tease him, say that if he was sixty years older, he would have been engaged to my grandmother. He always thought that was hysterical.

  And then my thoughts wander to Caleb, much as I want to lock those up and toss the key.

  Caleb Warren would get it. He would understand why a soul as beautiful as my Gran’s deserves to be with her family. He would know the pain of a loss that you see coming while everyone else turns a blind eye and pretends all will be okay.

  But Mike is dead, Caleb is a coward, and my family is in denial.

  I kick my legs out of bed and get in the shower. I refuse to lie here and feel sorry for myself. I’m going to spend the day gardening with my Gran, laughing over stories about fellas, and sharing one last cup of tea in the home we still share today.

  I will celebrate what I can while I can. I will not be a coward; I will not deny what beauty there is in my life, even in the face of immense sadness.

  But I will let myself have a good cry as the hot water pours over my head, before I put on my smile and face all my fears and pain.

  “Dean, my man,” I say, clapping him on the back. “Good to see you.”

  I’m still worked up over how things ended with Elise last night, but I’m not taking it out on this kid on his first day back.

  “Warren,” he nods. He sits down on the stretcher, takes out his inventory sheet, and starts pulling open cabinets in the back of the ambulance. I want to tell him that he doesn’t have to act tough, he doesn’t have to ignore what happened, but I realize that maybe he does have to.

  Maybe that armor is what will keep him doing this job day after day.

  “We got everything we need for the day?” I ask. I pick up a box of four-by-fours and pretend to count them. I have no fucking clue how many we’re supposed to keep on the truck each shift.

  “We’re good,” Dean says, scribbling on his clipboard.

  “Good deal.” I toss the box back and Dean picks it up, setting it in its correct place without sparing me a glance. “Alright then, I’m gonna head inside and see what Gabbie’s cooking. Smelled like gumbo when I dropped my stuff in the door. You want some?”

  Dean tosses his paperwork onto the stretcher next to him and slaps his palms to his knees in frustration. “You don’t have to do this, Warren.”

  “Do what?” I ask, rubbing my hand across my cheek. “I’m not pitying you if that’s what you think.”

  “You’re not?” Dean asks, not quite meeting my eyes.

  “Nope. Just trying to start fresh on the right foot,” I lie.

  I pity him.

  I pity the fuck out of him for being called to do this shitty job. I don’t have a choice. But Dean, he’s a bright kid. He could do any number of things that don’t involve scraping someone’s brains off of the concrete for barely above minimum wage or saving the life of some strung out, spastic asshole who doesn’t give a shit about anything but his next fix and doesn’t really deserve to be saved.

  But, since I can’t say any of that, I just smile and pretend that I’m the loyal, capable partner Dean Harper deserves.

  The vibration on my hip from my pager is actually welcome this time.

  “Hey,” I say, glancing at the message. “We’ve got a call. You want to drive or you want me to?”

  “You up for it, today?” Dean asks, climbing out of the back of the truck and trying to play off how he breathes in deep as he passes me, looking for the smell of whiskey.

  “I’m great and, today? Today feels like the perfect day to save some lives.” I almost choke on my syrupy words as I say them. “Come on, MVC on the Causeway.”

  Dean scrambles into the passenger seat of the truck, and I hop into the driver’s side and flip the lights and sirens on.

  “Damn, I think that’s the first time I’ve ever done that,” I say with a chuckle.

  We pull up the scene and it’s chaos. Fire trucks, another ambulance, and too many cop cars to count are already there. The entire bridge is shut down going both directions.

  “You alright?” I ask Dean as we walk toward the wreckage. He nods firmly.

  “We’ve got an eighteen-wheeler crossed over into oncoming traffic, took out this SUV over here,” the cop—a young female officer with a brusque voice—says as she leads Dean and me over to the patients. “Driver of the semi appears to be okay, is refusing transport so my partner’s over there talking to him.”

  I nod as I pull on my gloves. Refusing transport because he was probably high and doesn’t want a blood test. “SUV?”

  “Mother and her teenage daughter. Daughter was driving, they’re pretty beat up, but I think they’re okay. Your friends have them in the back of their truck right now.”

  “What’s that noise?” Dean asks, squinting against the irritating, ceaseless drone.

  “Third car involved over there.” The cop points to a small car, upside down. The glass from the windows is littering the ground around it, and the horn is blaring. “Patient is still trapped inside. Fire guys said as soon as they get her out, they’ll cut the horn.”

  “Let’s take a look.” I motion to Dean, who follows close behind me. The closer we get to the car, the more horns start going off in my own mind.

  The black car.

  The brown hair I can see through the shattered window.

  No.

  Fuck no.

  “Elise,” I breathe. I haul ass over to the car and lean down where the two firemen are. “Is she okay?” I ask, trying to keep my voice level, to not let my panic seep out.

  “That’s your job to tell us. She’s not conscious, can tell you that much, but we’ve just about got her out.”

  He’s blocking my view, but I don’t let that stop me. I duck under his arm and brush the hair out of her face with panicked hands. I look at the face, bloodied and bruised, and I have to check the urge to fall to my knees, lose my shit, right here in front of all of them.

  In front of Dean, who I pitied less than an hour ago because he lost it once, seeing someone he cared about in a bad situation.

  It’s not her. I feel terrible for this girl, but thank god it’s not her.

  “Be careful with her right side. That’s the hip that she broke in the fall,” I say to the two medics moving Gran.

  I’d be lying if I said I didn’t at least cross my fingers for a quick second and sort of hope it might be Caleb who showed up to transport her. Not just because he had such a good rapport with Gran, but because, dammit, I hate the way things were left yesterday.

  “Lissey, they know how to do their job.” My dad stands in the corner, arms crossed, his words curt and brittle from worry. We’re all worried. He looks at Gram and his expression goes soft. “You’re okay, right Ellie?”

  Gran nods her head while closing her eyes and pressing her lips together tightly as they slide her over onto their stretcher, like she’s bracing for the pain she knows will come with movement.

  “Easy!” I yip.

  Mom huffs and shakes her head, making her shiny bob swing back and forth. “Really, Elise, do you need to wait in the hall?”

  “I promise we’re being gentle with her, ma’am,” the female medic says, and she gives me the same reassuring smile I give my most upset patients.

  She’s a very nice woman. But she isn’t Caleb. She isn’t patting Gran’s hand and joking with her about taking her out to two-step. And Gran isn’t smiling either.

  “Can I ride over with her?” I ask, crossing my arms because they feel useless. I feel like I should be doing something with them.

  “Elise, be serious. The nursing home is right down the street!” Mama sighs, her exp
ression heavy on the eye roll.

  “It is a short ride, ma’am. We’ll take good care of her,” the medic says, giving me same hand pat I’ve given my patients and considered comforting.

  I don’t feel comforted. I feel condescended to, brushed off, treated like a hysterical nuisance making a big fuss over nothing.

  The thing is, it doesn’t matter that it’s a short ride, I don’t want Gran to be alone. This wasn’t my choice, and it certainly wasn’t Gran’s.

  And Mama may be right. It may be childish and selfish of me to not want her to go, but right now, I don’t care. I want to stomp my foot and punch the walls and scream in my mom’s face that this is family, and we don’t just toss aside people when it’s more convenient than banding together and weathering the storm together.

  But I can’t do any of that because, no matter how upset I am that Gran is leaving our house, I also know how hard my mom works to take care of Gran. How she’s stayed up with her all night when the hallucinations got too bad or how she’d wet her bed and it needed to be stripped for the third time.

  I know that my mom’s board straight posture and the way that her lips are stretched into a thin line are all part of some form of self-preservation. It can’t be easy for my mom—a former nurse, someone who devoted her life to caring for other people—to have to admit that she isn’t equipped to take care of her own mother anymore.

  I stand silently as the medics get Gran as comfortable as possible, fix her floral robe over her, and strap her securely to the stretcher.

  They wheel her out of the room and into the hall.

  “See you at the Estates, Mom,” Mama says brightly. She’s taken to referring to the nursing home as “the Estates,” as if that somehow changes the sad environment that my own grandmother will be a resident of into something glamorous.

  “Elise, wipe the grim look off of your face. She’s not dying,” Mama mutters in my ear, her words slowing to a stutter toward the end as she catches her crassness.

  I bite the inside of my cheek and wait a long moment before I respond.

  “Do you have all of her things?” I ask my mom, determined to be as helpful as I can in the face of what can’t be changed. “Do you want me to bring anything over for her? Her pillows from home? What about her favorite books? Let me help her get settled.”

  My mother takes a deep breath, as if I’m the one being unreasonable. “It’s not necessary, Elise. We’ve arranged for everything she needs to be sent over.”

  “Are you sure? What about her cookbooks?” I knot my hands together and squeeze hard, partly because I’ve already put the question out there when I know full well she’s not going to be able to cook.

  My grandmother, whose cornbread won every state fair ribbon for thirty years running, will never cook again.

  “Elise, it’s your day off. Go. Enjoy the sunshine,” she says, plastering a bright smile on her face and shooing me. “Gran will be there every day, you can stop in any time.”

  It’s true. The nursing home may be a hike from home, but it isn’t far from the hospital. If I plan things well, I can stop by everyday on my way to work. I can still have morning coffee with her when I get off a night shift.

  Mom grabs her purse from the chair and links her arm through Dad’s. I look at her, really look, and she does look relieved. But she also looks unsure. I know in my heart she agonized over this decision, and I know that, despite her cheerful outer appearance, she’s hurting too.

  I stand in the hall alone, staring into the room that used to be Gran’s. Mom’s right. We’re lucky to still have Gran with us, still healthy in body, and in the hands of professionals who can attend to her needs and care for her the way she needs.

  She’s going to be fine. I’ll see her all the time.

  “She’s going to be fine,” I whisper to myself.

  “She is. We’ll make sure of it.” A soft voice tickles my ear at the same time a warm hand slides into mine.

  I whirl around and look right into those eyes, so magnetic and blue. I glance down at our hands. He weaves his fingers through mine and squeezes tight.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask, my voice an embarrassing squeak.

  I wanted him to be here, hoped for him to be, but I guess I never really expected he’d show up. Now that he’s here, I can’t deny the warm happiness that spreads through me. I pull my hand back to tuck my hair behind my ear, and the loss of connectivity between us suddenly makes an awkwardness in the hall. It’s like all the things we said and all the things we didn’t are creating an invisible force field that we keep knocking up against.

  “I was getting off work when they got the call for the transport. I was thinking about you,” he says, his voice dropping, his hand moving back to take mine again. He stops himself short and runs that hand through his hair instead, leaving it sticking up at odd angles. I resist the urge to reach out and smooth it flat. “Your parents let me in after a very thorough question and answer session. Thought I’d come by and see how you were holding up.” He leans close, his eyes full of regret, and his voice desperate. Like he wants to make amends. “How are you doing?”

  I move an inch, two, closer to him, taking comfort in the nearness of his body even if we’re not ready to touch again just yet. I meet his eyes and don’t hide a thing. I can’t. “I wish you had been the one to take her. I know she would have felt better about that.” I wrap my arms around myself, giving self-comfort that doesn’t hold a candle to the kind of comfort he could offer.

  He holds his hand out, close, and finally closes his eyes and puts it on my forearm. He runs his hand up to my shoulder and back down to my wrist, a slow, gentle caress that lets me know his hand is shaking. He closes his fingers on my elbow and tugs me toward him. “I bet Gabbie and TJ did a fine job. Besides, I wanted to be here for you,” he says, his voice raspy with regret.

  “I’m surprised you were thinking about me at all after the way we left things the other day.” I rub my hand across my forehead, pushing the hair out of my face. He traces his fingers over mine, rubbing his thumb along my eyebrow and down my jaw tenderly.

  “I acted like an asshole.” He lets his hand move down until his fingers glide over my neck. “Elise, you were right. It’s like I’ve been half-dead myself.” He shakes his head. “Did you ever have frostbite?”

  I shake my head and press one hand, cautiously, onto his chest, over the place where his heart is thundering. “I’ve studied it, of course. I hear it’s incredibly painful. But we aren’t exactly in an area where it would be much of an issue at all.”

  “If you actually get frostbite, you know, it kills the tissue. You feel nothing,” he says, his eyes cast down and to the side. “We were out, it was a long as fuck day. Colder than we expected. The desert temperatures are so extreme, we weren’t always prepared. I was fucking glad my feet were numb. It beat having them hurt by a longshot. But I brought it up and Lopez smacked me in the back of the head. Said, ‘For a medic, you’re a damn moron when it comes to taking care of yourself.’”

  “You had frostbite?” I ask, imagining him, hair cut short, shaved clean, a crisp uniform on. I want to know more about his time in the service, about the people he met and the things he saw, good and bad.

  “The beginning. You know you have a real friend when a guy will yank your boots off and rub your putrid feet with his bare hands.” His laugh cuts short and he stares down at his boots for a few seconds. I bet, in his head, he’s back in the frigid camp, his feet in Lopez’s hands. “He came up with some swears that would have made a truck driver’s ears melt off his goddamn head, but feeling came back.”

  “Thank God,” I breathe. I realize now that I’ve never seen Caleb’s bare feet. I have no clue if he has all his toes or not. Not that it would have mattered at all—I’m just glad there’s a happy ending for his feet.

  “Definitely not what I was saying at that point,” he says around a gruff chuckle. “See, the thing is, when your tissue is that dead, it’s unb
elievably painful when the feeling comes back. A really ridiculous comparison would be how it feels when you have pins and needles after your foot falls asleep. But put that feeling on roids and then mutate it. I’ve never screamed so hard in my life.” He wraps his arms around me and looks into my eyes.

  “But it worked?” I press.

  “They came back to life.” He brushes the back of his hand on my cheek. “It hurts. When you’re completely numb, and then the feeling rushes back like that. It’s not that crazy to think a guy would run from pain like that.” His voice drops low.

  “I’m sorry about what I said the other day—”

  “Stop.” He cuts me off with one ragged word. “You’re bringing me back from a numb place, Elise. I’m not gonna lie. It hurts like fuck, and sometimes I don’t want to feel that pain.”

  “I understand.” I lean close, our lips almost brushing. “I’ve been feeling that pain for such a long time, I think I went numb in a whole different way. But I didn’t need to push you like I did. You have the right to mourn in your own way, on your own terms.”

  He runs his hands up my back and pulls me tighter to him. “You have the right to tell me the truth. I need to learn how to deal with shit, even when I don’t like it.” He draws a long breath in. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

  “You were thinking about me?” I stutter.

  He pulls me into his warm, sturdy chest and I fight the urge to glance around the hall to see if anyone is watching us. It shouldn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.

  “Only one hundred thousand times a day,” he says, his eyes searching my face.

  “That’s pretty specific,” I say, raising a brow and fighting down the huge smile that’s breaking over my face just because I’m this close to him. Just because it’s so good to be in his arms.

  He gathers me close to his chest, so close I feel the heat of his skin through his clothes. “That’s how many times the human heart beats in a day. I’d say it’s a fair estimate of how many times a day I catch myself thinking about you, Elise.” He tips his head down to kiss me, long, soft, and with the promise of more soon.