Everything Pales in Comparision

by Rebecca Swartz

  “Emma?” Daina’s voice was small, scared, confused.

  “I’m here, honey.” Emma leaned over, looked into blue eyes that were now wide with surprise and vague incomprehension. She grasped the hand that was grabbing for her. “It’s okay, I’m here.” Managing to sound calm, when she felt anything but.

  She registered the sound of hurrying footfalls on stairs.

  “It hurts,” Daina whispered. “Oh, fuck, it hurts.” And she started to cry.

  “I know, honey, I know,” Emma soothed her, squeezing her hand, brushing a palm over her brow. “Let me take a look, okay? Try to stay still, try to stay calm.”

  Distantly, she heard the wail of sirens. She quickly ran her eyes and hands over Daina, pulled up her shirt to reveal a single gunshot wound in her right side; the bullet had entered her lower back, punched out through her lower belly about an inch or so higher. It was a clean shot, but there was no way of knowing what it might have hit on the way through. It was bleeding profusely.

  She glanced around for something, anything, to use as a compress. Spying a flannel jacket in the closet straight ahead, she yanked it off its metal hanger which went whanging off somewhere, and folded the jacket roughly.

  “This is going to hurt, sweetheart,” she warned Daina. She gently eased Daina toward her, rolling her slightly forward onto her hip. She pressed the wad of fabric firmly against her back.

  Daina shrieked thinly. Emma tried not to flinch. Behind her, she heard Marlene Buchanan cry out, “Oh, my God! Daina!”

  Steve and Marlene looked as shocked and horrified as Emma felt. Marlene was turning white. Emma fixed her with a stern look. “Don’t you fall apart on me. She needs you. I need you. Get me some towels, hand towels, from the bathroom. Can you do that?”

  Marlene nodded, eyes on Emma.

  “Good. Go. Now.”

  Daina’s breath was panting out of her. Her eyes were squeezed tightly shut. She was becoming pale.

  “Daina?”

  Daina opened her eyes, blinked rapidly. “Yeah?”

  “I’m going to lay you back down, okay? It might hurt again, but your weight will help with the compress.”

  Daina gave a tight little nod. Emma slowly lowered her so her back was again on the floor, this time with the flannel jacket acting as compress beneath her. Daina winced, but lay still.

  “Okay?” Emma asked, reaching for her hand, gently squeezing it.

  Daina nodded, squeezed back. “Okay.”

  Marlene appeared with the towels. Emma grabbed two. Daina’s belly was slick with blood, so much blood it was almost as if someone had upended a can of paint on her. Emma placed the towels over the exit wound. “Steve, get down here,” she said calmly.

  Steve dropped to his knees beside her. She glanced at him; he was almost as white as his wife.

  “Hold out your hands.”

  They were steady. He seemed focused, controlled.

  “Press here,” she told him. “Gently, but firmly.”

  He placed a hand where she indicated and applied pressure. He flinched visibly when Daina cried out once more.

  “I know it hurts, sweetheart, I’m sorry.” Emma leaned over, made eye contact with her. “I’m really sorry, but I need you to be calm, okay? Can you do that? Just slow your breathing down.” Daina’s breath was rushing in and out of her in short, sharp gasps. “Try to calm yourself. I know it hurts, but the ambulance is coming and I need you to stay awake and stay calm, okay?”

  Daina squeezed her eyes shut, nodded, whispered, “Okay.” A tear leaked past her eyelid, slipped down her cheek.

  “That’s my girl,” Emma said, and her voice shook slightly. She brushed the tear away. “Marlene,” she said, strengthening her voice with an effort, “I need you down here, I need you to talk to her, about anything, just talk to her, keep her awake, alert, calm.” The danger of Daina slipping into shock now was very real, very present. “I need to check on my partner, he was shot—”

  “Your partner is fine,” she heard from outside, and she whipped her head around, to see Perry coming slowly up the steps, swaying slightly, backlit by flashes of lightning. The sound of sirens was very close.

  “Jesus, Perry!” Emma rose, grabbed another couple of towels. She and Marlene traded places.

  She reached Perry’s side just as he sat heavily on the top step. His entire left side was drenched with blood, and his left arm hung uselessly. He held it tight against his body with his right hand.

  “How bad?” she asked gently, kneeling beside him.

  “Two in the shoulder. Shattered it, I think. I can’t really feel anything.”

  She reached to open the top buttons of his shirt, eased the fabric aside, surveyed the bloody ruin of his shoulder. It looked very bad. She pressed the towels against the injury to stem the blood flow. He hissed sharply. “Okay, that hurts.”

  “I’m sorry. Here, hold these,” she told him.

  He looked pretty gray, but he was alert. Jerking his head back in Daina’s direction, he asked, “How is she?”

  “Single gunshot wound. Lower abdomen.” She pressed her lips briefly together, shook her head. “I don’t know. She’s bleeding a lot.” She swallowed, hard.

  “Go to her,” he said gently. “I’m all right.”

  “What about her?” Emma thrust her chin in Cathy’s direction. A flash of lightning illuminated her still form.

  “She’s dead.” The words fell like cold stones from his lips.

  A crack of thunder punctuated the news. She realized the sirens had ceased; red flashing lights now filled the area. The minutes it had taken them to get there had seemed like hours.

  And then, behind her, Marlene’s voice, brittle with anxiety and fear, called out, “Emma!”

  She shot to her feet, dashed back inside.

  Marlene looked at her, eyes wide. “She’s fading in and out. She won’t stay awake.”

  Emma knelt, lifted Daina’s head, cradled it. Her eyes were closed, her muscles slack, her breathing shallow. “Daina? Honey? Wake up, it’s me, Emma.” She spoke in a strong, sure voice, to penetrate the depths Daina was sinking into. She shook her gently, patted her cheek. “Daina, come on now, wake up, sweetheart. Wake up.”

  Daina eyelids fluttered, opened. Her pupils were tiny, black pinheads. She was going into shock. Emma glanced quickly at the towels Steve continued to hold firmly in place. They were darkly sodden.

  “Hey, you,” she said, looking back at Daina, forcing a smile. “Stay awake, okay, stay with me. The ambulance is here.” She could hear the noise and bustle of the EMTs. Mercifully, the sirens had been turned off. “You’re going to be fine, just fine. Just hang on, don’t—” leave me, she almost said, and she felt herself beginning to shake, felt a sob threatening to tear loose from her chest, and she fought it all back, “—don’t give up, Daina, stay with me, okay?”

  Daina blinked slowly; tears leaked from the corners of both eyes. “Did you get her?” she whispered.

  Emma had to lean close to hear her. “Yes, I got her.”

  Daina managed a faint, fleeting smile. “Good. Fucking bitch shot me.” She spoke with a trace of her usual fire.

  Emma smiled, leaned forward, kissed Daina’s forehead, and saw tears, her own tears, fall onto Daina’s face, to mix with hers. And then she felt Daina suddenly relax in her arms, and with alarm, she looked to see her eyes had rolled back and her eyelids were closing. And she cried, hoarsely, “No, Daina, no! Wake up, stay with me, please…”

  The EMTs were there then, and she had to get out of their way. Steve and Marlene stood back with her, while all around them the air was lit with red, washed in the red of flashing emergency lights. And she looked down to see her hands were covered in red, washed in the red of Daina’s blood. And she remembered the night—had it only been two weeks ago?—when her hands had been similarly awash in Daina’s blood, when she had saved her as she lay bleeding her life out, and she had a terrible, frightening feeling that this time she hadn’t saved her
, couldn’t save her. She had tried, dear God, she had tried, but she was desperately afraid that this time she had failed.

  She stood helplessly off to the side, watching the EMTs attend to Daina. Glancing outside, she saw two more ministering to Perry. Three police officers converged, surrounded Cathy Marks’ body, then looked toward the house. One of them broke away, heading for the house and she thought, Ah, in a distant kind of way, I’ll have to answer some questions. A moment later, another EMT was in her face, insisting she be looked at. She suffered through it, suffered through the few preliminary questions asked by the cop, surrendered her gun and her ID badge. It was protocol; she’d fired her weapon, shot someone. She relinquished both freely. And all the while, she wondered why it all had had to happen. But it was pointless to wonder; she didn’t have an answer. She knew she never would. Some questions just didn’t have answers.

  She watched Daina being lifted onto a stretcher, watched as they prepared to bear her terribly pale, still form away. She felt as she had that first night she had borne witness to this exact same scene. She felt herself disassociating, felt disconnected, raw inside, altered. She felt as if she would fracture where she stood, that she would shatter into a thousand little pieces and those pieces would never quite fit together as they had, that the events of this day, this night would change her utterly. Without even realizing it, she began to shake.

  Outside, it began to rain.

  EPILOGUE

  She sat on the edge of the bed, stiff, unmoving, still as glass, feeling just as fragile. Her eyes were wide, blank, staring at the wall three and a half feet in front of her, not seeing it. Her hands were folded in her lap, her feet on the floor, ankles together. The only discernable movement was the slow and steady rising and falling of her chest as she breathed; inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. Automatic, life sustaining. No thought required at all. Which was a good thing; coherent, cohesive thought eluded her. Her mind was as blank as the white wall before her. No shape, no contour, empty, flat.

  She was dressed in black: black dress, black hose, black pumps. A black sweater was draped over her shoulders. It was one of the few occasions when she would wear a dress; normally she eschewed them, considering them somewhat impractical. But for certain events, she felt that a dress was a more appropriate choice of outfit, that it denoted a measure of respect in specific instances: civic functions, weddings, funerals. The sweater around her shoulders was warm, almost uncomfortably so, but she knew she would be grateful for it later. The temperature had dropped in the last week. Summer was fading into fall. It made much more sense to wear dresses in the summer.

  She’d been present when they’d turned off the life-support, though she hadn’t wanted to be. But her attendance, her presence, had been requested, almost expected, and she hadn’t the willpower to refuse. But it had felt all wrong, she had felt horribly out of place, as if she were someone in a play, an extra who’d been scripted in at the last minute, with no speaking lines, no real reason for being there, except to stand off to the sidelines and bear witness to the event. And, in reality, that was the part she had played; when it was over, and the time of death given in a hushed tone and dutifully written down, she had silently turned away from the others present, and had strode stiffly, swiftly from the room.

  The cause of death, as she understood it, had been a brain embolism. The words reverberated through her mind as her long stride carried her from the hospital. Brain embolism. Such a complicated word for such a simple thing. A clot, which had cut off the flow of blood to the brain, starving it of oxygen, killing it. She couldn’t quite grasp it, or accept it. She gave up trying. She left the hospital without a backward glance.

  She’d received a phone call later that evening. The funeral would be two days hence. Again, her attendance was requested. Again, she hadn’t the willpower to refuse. She agreed, though she hated funerals. On the few occasions she’d had to attend one, she had always felt uncomfortable, restless. But she had suffered through them because it was the respectful thing to do.

  This funeral, however, was different. She’d never lost anyone close to her before. And while she’d been denied the chance to get to know the deceased as well as she would have liked, as well as she would have wanted, still, there was a history there. She could not turn her back on that. She may have felt deeply troubled in regard to the loss, confused, torn, saddened, but she also knew where her duty lay, her responsibility.

  And so she sat, perfectly still, in her bedroom, and the funeral was in an hour and she had to get to the funeral home, but she couldn’t move. She could only sit and breathe and stare.

  She heard a sound then, a soft knock at her door, and then the even softer tread of footsteps across the carpet. She registered an approaching figure, also dressed in black, in her peripheral vision: black slacks, black silk shirt, black dress shoes. She didn’t turn her head, didn’t look. It was only when the figure stood before her, and then crouched at her knees and said gently, “Hey, you,” that she tore her eyes away from the wall.

  “Hey, yourself,” she greeted Daina softly, with a trace of a smile.

  Daina covered her hands with her own, looking up into Emma’s face, her eyes a startling sapphire blue. Emma stared into them, saw herself reflected in them.

  “How are you feeling?” Daina asked.

  “I don’t know,” she answered honestly, because she truly didn’t know how she felt. “I mean, he was my father, I should be feeling something, but—I don’t know.”

  “Do you still want to go?”

  “Want to? No, not really. But I should. Maybe—” She paused, considering. “Maybe I need to.” She lifted one shoulder in a vague shrug.

  Daina nodded, seemingly more in acknowledgment than agreement. “Do you still want me to go with you?” The question was voiced in a considerate, thoughtful manner.

  Emma smiled. “Yes. I want you with me. Always.”

  It was more of an answer than was required and she knew it. Daina obviously knew it, as well. She nodded again, then lowered her head to rest her cheek on Emma’s knee.

  “How are you feeling?” Emma asked, lifting a hand to gently run her fingers through Daina’s hair. It was longer now, not short and spiky like it had been.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re sure?”

  A slight movement against her knee, a nod beneath her fingertips. “I’m sure.”

  It had been four weeks since that night at the Buchanan home. Daina had spent eight days of those four weeks in the hospital. Already taxed from her initial injuries, her body had barely been able to withstand the brutal shock of the second assault. She had become tachycardic, due to the massive blood loss, as her heart valiantly strained to keep her alive. Eventually, she had been stabilized with the help of blood transfusions, and she’d undergone emergency surgery to resection her perforated intestine and to remove her right kidney, which had been irreparably damaged by the bullet.

  That first night Emma had spent at the hospital, getting coffee for herself and Daina’s parents, sitting and talking quietly and worrying with them.

  “You’re blaming yourself, aren’t you?” Steve asked at one point, as the three of them sat anxiously awaiting word on the outcome of the surgery. It had already been three hours.

  “Shouldn’t I?” Emma had asked, somewhat bitterly. She sat with her head lowered, hands clasped between her knees.

  “No, you shouldn’t,” he replied firmly. “No more than I should, or Marlene, or Daina, herself. This is nobody’s fault. Shit happens, as they say. Based on what you’ve told us, nobody could have foreseen this.”

  She knew he spoke the truth. But that didn’t ease the ache in her heart, the palpable fear and despair that she hadn’t done enough and that Daina would pay the price for her shortsightedness. He spoke the truth, but what good was that truth when the woman that they loved lay down the hall on a surgical table fighting for her life?

  “Do you know what she said to us, when you left this
afternoon?” Marlene asked quietly, gently.

  Emma could only shake her bowed head.

  “She said ‘That’s the woman I’m going to marry.’”

  Emma raised her head, startled, dumbfounded. “She said that?”

  Both Marlene and Steve nodded.

  “She said that you were her sanctuary. That she’d never felt safer than she did when she was with you.” Marlene’s eyes met Emma’s without blinking. They were a paler shade of Daina’s.

  Emma hadn’t wanted to hear those words, had felt ripped open and scoured raw at the sound of them, at the knowledge that she hadn’t kept Daina safe, had failed utterly to do so. Steve must have seen the look on her face, must have read it for what it was, her absolute refusal to entertain the notion that she had done everything she could, that nothing else she might have done would have changed the outcome in the slightest.

  “Now, you listen to me, young lady,” he began, and Emma, despite herself, had smiled inwardly at that. “My daughter is alive because of you, twice over, and she is happy, because of you. If you want to beat yourself up over could-haves and should-haves, you go right ahead. But you’re wrong to do so and I, for one, will not help you do so.”

  She had sat motionless for several moments, allowing the words to sink in. And then she had stood. “Excuse me,” she said politely, and had left the waiting room, blinded by a sudden flow of scalding tears.

  After stepping outside and sobbing almost wildly into her hands, crouched against a brick wall, she had eventually managed to rein in her emotions. She ended up prowling the halls restlessly. It was there that she had run into Sergeant Michaels, heading down the hall she was pacing.