by Davis, Mary
After a few more mouth checks from RJ, the curtain was pulled back. “Hello, I’m Dr. Brown.” And he was just that, a warm shade of brown with short, black hair, late thirties or forties. “How are you feeling?” He pulled up a rolling stool and sat down.
“Fine. A few scratches and a rope burn. I really don’t know why I’m in here.” Only perhaps a half dozen reasons. But Roger was worse, and she wanted to check on him. These nurses wouldn’t see to him as she would. And what if the doctor overlooked something? The nurse came back and waited for the doctor’s orders.
“You have inhaled smoke, you’re bleeding”—he pointed to her hand—“and your blood pressure is elevated. I would say ‘fine’ doesn’t quite cover it.”
“It’s up because I’m agitated and anxious to get out of here and find my husband.”
“Carol, would you check the waiting room for Mr. Villeroy?”
“I already did. He’s not there.”
“And why would he be? Or is it this hospital’s policy to make a person who arrives in an ambulance wait in the reception area? He has a concussion and a laceration on his upper cranium, and he inhaled a lot of smoke.”
“You a doctor?”
“Nurse. And I’m a good one.”
“But not a very good patient. I thought that was reserved for us doctors.” He wheeled himself beyond the curtain. “Paul, was a man with a head injury and smoke inhalation brought in by ambulance?”
“I think so.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll find out.”
“Thanks.” Dr. Brown wheeled back. “The search is on. Now relax so we can take care of you.” Nurse Carol unwrapped her bloody hand while the doctor examined her rope-burned hand. RJ proceeded to check her ears with the tongue depressor.
“Use a local on this and clean it well. Put on Silvaden and wrap it.” The doctor circled to the other side of the bed. “How did you manage to scrape the skin off both sides of your hand? It looks as if you caught it in something.”
“A handcuff.”
“That one I haven’t heard before. The bleeding has stopped but will start again when we clean it.” Though he still examined her hand, she could tell he had switched from speaking to her to instructing the nurse. “Use a local. I’ll have a look at it after it’s clean and see if stitches will do any good.”
She winced when he touched her little finger.
He raised his eyebrows at her.
“It may be broken.” She didn’t want to admit it because it would delay her from getting to Roger.
Though he didn’t say anything, she could hear in her mind his earlier words, “ ‘fine’ doesn’t quite cover it.” He scribbled his instructions on her chart and stood.
Paul came in then. “I found the missing patient, a Roger Villeroy, concussion and smoke. They stitched up his head. He’s doing fine. They just moved him upstairs. Dr. Green wants to keep him overnight to be sure. And—he asked me to give you this.” He pulled RJ’s toy Harley from behind his back.
“Cycoe!” RJ dropped the stick and latched onto the toy. Now she would become a raceway.
“You can go up and see him when we get you patched up.” The doctor’s face broke into a broad smile.
It wouldn’t be soon enough for her. She wanted to see Roger with her own eyes and determine if he was fine.
The doctor was about to say good-bye to her when he stopped. “What do we have here?” He frowned at her leg.
“A scratch?”
He gently lifted the hem of her jeans. “Your sock is soaked with blood, and you’re bleeding on my bed. It’s more than a scratch.” He snatched up a pair of surgical scissors and cut her pants from the hem to the knee. “Paul, get me a warm, wet towel. Carol, get me a suture kit.” Paul left, and Carol brought the kit.
By the time they’d finished fussing over her, she had called her parents, and Roger’s doctor had paid her a visit to update her on his condition.
Dr. Brown left—seventeen stitches later. She hadn’t realized her leg was so bad. She had been occupied with other things. Nurse Carol ordered her out of her clothes to check her for additional injuries. It wasn’t easy getting dressed again with both her hands wrapped in a hundred pounds of gauze. They’d had a difficult time splinting and stitching her left hand.
The nurse wheeled her out with RJ on her lap. The doctor prescribed a wheelchair in addition to the amoxicillin and extra-strength pain reliever. He wanted her to stay off her leg for a few days, and with her hands injured, she couldn’t use crutches.
Her parents were waiting for her. Her mother crossed to her first and scooped up RJ. “What did he do to you?”
Always the worst. “He saved our lives. Can we talk about it later? I want to go up and see Roger.”
Her father took over the wheelchair from Carol. “The doctor said you should go home and rest.”
“After I see Roger.”
“We were so worried about you.” Her father steered the chair toward the elevators.
“And when they found your van abandoned in a car wash—” Her mother had a vivid imagination and probably pictured the worst, but even she couldn’t imagine all that had happened.
Her parents waited in the hall with RJ. She left the wheelchair by the door and hobbled in. She didn’t want Roger to see her in it.
When she bumped into the bed, he opened his eyes. A smile stretched his mouth. “Are you my nurse?”
“No. I can’t stay. I wanted to check on you before I go. How are you?”
“They put four staples in my head! What do they think—I’m a term paper?”
Jackie smiled, glad to see he hadn’t lost his sense of humor. “The staples are better—trust me.”
He reached for her hand and came up with a fistful of gauze. He gave her a sympathetic look. “I sure know how to show a girl a good time. All the best places.”
“We’re all safe. That’s what matters.”
“Thank the Lord.” He raised her hand to his lips and kissed the tips of her fingers that were sticking out from the gauze.
A tingle swept through her body. She wanted to cuddle up next to him until the morning when she could take him home. But her parents were waiting, and she was drowsy from the long day and the morphine. “I have to go. I’ll be back in the morning to take you home.” Home. She liked the sound of that.
“I’ll be counting the minutes.”
She kissed him and hobbled away.
“Oh, before you go—they caught Sweeny. You don’t have to worry.”
She nodded and left. She would sleep easier knowing that man was behind bars.
❧
Roger lay awake, staring at the little holes in the ceiling panels and listening to the drone of activity from the hallway. He had slept most of the afternoon, lessening his chance for sleep tonight. Someone had come in with a dinner tray. He wasn’t hungry. The fog in his head had cleared, and he was anxious to get out of there. Now that Sweeny was caught and the CD-ROM was, he hoped, in the right hands, the dominoes would begin to fall. He hoped he was left standing. It was out of his hands now and in the Lord’s.
He wished Jackie would come back but knew she wouldn’t until the morning. Maybe he should call her. Did she have a separate number? Would he have to talk to his in-laws? What if Jackie was asleep? He didn’t want to wake her. She’d had a harrowing day.
They had a lot to talk about and decisions to make. Some decisions he might not like, but as long as Jackie was willing to work things out between them he could live with almost anything. She said she wanted to take him home. Whose home? He didn’t have one, and she lived with her parents. But he wanted to be anywhere she was.
Startled by the phone, he swung around. A rush of pain flooded his head. He closed his eyes and took even breaths. He reached out where memory told him the phone was and picked up the receiver. “Hello.”
“Did I wake you?” Jackie’s lilting voice soothed away the remainder of the pain.
“Here, I’ll give it to you.”
He pulled a small tablet and half a pencil out of the nightstand drawer and wrote down the number. He lay back on the bed and closed his eyes, picturing Jackie’s smiling face.
“I’m glad this is all over.”
His gut tightened. “It may not be over yet.”
“What do you mean? You said they caught the guy.” He could hear the worry in her voice.
He didn’t want to scare her, but he also wouldn’t lie to her and tell her it was over. “This goes way beyond Sweeny. But no matter what happens, believe that the Lord will work everything out.”
“What do you mean ‘no matter what happens’? What else is going to happen?”
“I don’t know. Maybe nothing concerning us. But I do know it’ll all work out in the end. The Lord is in control of even this.”
After an hour of letting Jackie’s soothing voice wash over him, he relented and hung up.
He climbed out of bed and walked to the bathroom. He was supposed to call for help. He could make it on his own. When he came out, two men in suits were waiting for him. The Feds.
❧
Jackie arrived at the hospital at a quarter to seven the next morning. Roger’s release time was supposed to be seven. Her father drove her to the hospital and pushed her wheelchair through the halls. She would leave it in the hall again to go in to see him. What had Roger meant ‘no matter what happens’? No more surprises. No more secrets.
As they neared Roger’s room, two men in suits came out with Roger between them, his hands behind his back. “Jackie.”
“Are you handcuffed?” She pushed herself out of the chair. “What’s going on?” Her insides tightened.
“They have to take me in. It’ll be fine.”
“Fine? No! I don’t want them to take you away.” She wanted to take him away. This was what he meant by “no matter what happens.” She looked at the two men. “You have the wrong guy. He hasn’t done anything wrong.”
Roger regained her attention. “Jackie. It’ll be all right. I have a strange peace that makes no sense at all. Just trust God.”
She put one gauze-wrapped hand on each side of his face and kissed him. A tear rolled down her cheek as they took him away.
Lord, be with him. I trust You to get us all through this.
She felt a peace too. God was sufficient, no matter what happened.
Her father came up beside her and put a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll take you home.”
“I want to go wherever they are taking him.”
“There’s nothing you can do.”
“I know, but it is better than sitting at home wondering.”
He pulled the wheelchair up to her. “Then we’d better hurry.”
Sixteen
Jackie took each step slowly as she descended into the basement of the hospital, clutching the hand rail, her legs barely holding her weight. Could she do this again? The metal doors loomed before her with the word Morgue stamped in dark red letters. As she approached, ready to pass through the doors, the letters began to bleed. Beside the steel gurney, the sheet floated back. No, not Roger! “There’s no mole.” She looked around. “There’s supposed to be a mole.” She was alone in the cold room with the body. “Where’s the mole?” No one was listening to her. “This isn’t right.”
Jackie bolted upright from her regular nightmare. It didn’t come as often anymore. She and Roger in a burning building and she couldn’t get him out, or he died at the hospital because they didn’t think he was really hurt, or Martin Sweeny shot him. Sometimes it was all three. But they all ended with her a widow in the morgue.
She rolled toward Roger’s side of the bed. Cold and empty. A moment of panic rippled through her. Roger couldn’t be gone again. No, he was here, and this house was proof of it. ICOM Electronics had given him a sizable reward, ten percent of what he had saved them, for all the work he had done on their behalf. A mortgage-free house, four bedrooms, three baths, and a huge yard for RJ to play in along with all the brothers and sisters Roger planned for him to have.
Once everyone who would have wanted to harm them was behind bars, Roger explained to her that he’d had to go on the run from her to distance himself and the danger that pursued him. That he would come back to make sure she was indeed safe. He told her that Martin Sweeny had found out about her and RJ and threatened to harm them if Roger didn’t cooperate. And when she had questions about his absence, and she had a lot, he answered her directly and fully, no more vague answers.
She wrapped her robe around herself and headed down the hall. RJ’s bed was rumpled but empty. He was probably watching Willie the Operatic Whale for the seven hundredth time. Roger had some catching up to do in the children’s video department. As she entered the kitchen, something in the dining room caught her eye. She walked three steps in reverse.
Four of the largest red roses she had ever seen sat in the middle of the table with four heart-shaped boxes of chocolates circling the vase. On each box was a different penguin, and each penguin held a helium balloon that said I love you on it. Beside the plethora of gifts was a note. She picked it up.
Happy Anniversary!
One rose for each year. I love you with all my heart.
RJ is at your parents’. Enjoy a quiet day to yourself.
I made reservations at Manny’s for 6:30. See you there.
All my love,
Roger
She read the card that had been hiding under the piece of paper. It echoed her own heart.
The rift between Roger and her parents was healing. They got along better now than ever. The long nights of talking things over had helped. Roger had been candid and honest with them. He told them about helping his friend Jim Moore, about Sweeny and the troubles with ICOM Electronics. Even her mother had warmed to him. She liked the idea of her son-in-law being a hero, though Roger flat out denied he was any kind of hero. Her mother had actually cooked his favorite food on his birthday last month, barbecued spare ribs. When Jackie had started to cry and Roger asked her about it, all she could do was squeak out the word happy.
A whole day to herself. She hadn’t had a whole day to herself in a long time. What would she do? She could finish unpacking those boxes in the corner of the basement and make banana bread before the three bananas were too ripe. And the laundry always needed to be done.
But if Roger was leaving her to her own devices, she knew exactly how to spend her day—shopping! Top on her list was a dress to wow Roger, have her hair and nails done, get a facial. . . .
❧
She almost bought a little red satin dress, but red wasn’t her color. Instead she found a black velvet dress with faux diamond rhinestones, long sleeves, and a neckline that scooped just enough to show off the diamond cross necklace Roger had given her on their first anniversary. The piece de resistance was the back of the dress. In place of fabric a lattice work of faux diamonds was strung together.
She had thought about wearing a dumpy old dress or a faded T-shirt and holey jeans for leaving her alone all day on their anniversary. Two things stopped her. One, he’d remembered their anniversary. She recalled that her dad had been in the doghouse a number of times for forgetting. He’d tried to cover up with a hastily purchased card and a promise of a special dinner. Mom was never fooled. Two, she had spent almost enough money today to make up for his absence. But after her nightmare, she still felt that uneasiness of not seeing him and holding him. She couldn’t wait.
First glimpse of the entrance to Manny’s flashed her back to the doors in her nightmare. She wished Roger was with her and not meeting her here. She took a deep breath and pulled the door open. Roger was not in the entrance waiting for her as she had expected.
The host approached her. “Right this way.”
�
�I’m waiting for someone.”
“Your table’s ready.”
She followed him. Roger must already be at the table. But how did the host know who she was?
“Your table.” He pulled out a chair for her.
The same one. She sat down. She looked across the table at the empty chair. Where was Roger? Her breaths came in short, quick puffs. She could do this. Roger would be here. The chair almost seemed to push her out, but she willed herself to stay. She would trust Roger, but more important she would trust God. God had brought Roger back to her. She forced herself to take normal breaths, slow and even.
A waiter came and set a plate of grilled salmon, rice pilaf, and steamed vegetables in front of her. Across the table, he set a medium-well sirloin steak, baked potato with extra sour cream and chives on it, just the way Roger liked it, and the same kind of steamed vegetables. It was the very thing they had ordered last time. But she hadn’t ordered. She didn’t even have a menu yet. She turned to tell him so, but he was gone, and Roger was gazing down at her.
She jumped up to give him a hug as he leaned over, and she caught his chin with her shoulder. He grabbed his chin and mouth.
“Oh, Roger, I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m fine.” His grimace contradicted that. “I don’t want anything to spoil tonight.”
She wrapped her arms, carefully this time, around Roger. She didn’t care if people were staring. If they knew how long she had been waiting to spend just one anniversary with her husband, they would understand.
After they sat, Roger bowed his head and asked a blessing for their food, their anniversary, and a future filled with many more anniversaries together. She gave a hearty amen to that.
A cell phone rang at the next table. They both jumped, then laughed.
“No phones, no interruptions. Tonight is all ours.” He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. “I wanted to pretend this was our first anniversary, but I want us to move forward into the future and not live in the past.”
“I never want to relive our first anniversary.” She lifted her water glass to him. He took her cue. “To the future.”