“Five thousand to be a courier is fine. I’ll be in Silverton by morning. These stones— The last thing I want to do is hold hot rocks one second longer than I have to.”
Jonathan glanced back to the bedroom. “She does come from a rather interesting family… Get going.”
Stephen drove on the edge of what was safe for the current road conditions as he headed to the restaurant. He had missed dinner; now he was late for midnight coffee. Paula understood about his job, but standing her up twice on the same night would stretch her patience too far.
The restaurant was one she had chosen near her home where apparently they had live music until 2 A.M. on weekends. He picked up his street map again. He didn’t know this area and had already gotten lost twice. “Go through the forest preserve and cross the one-way bridge. The restaurant is exactly one mile west on the left.” Her directions could use some help. Go through the forest preserve—she didn’t mention four miles of forest preserve snaked through this area.
He’d stumbled into a stretch of trees so thick that at times they blocked all light. Homes in this area must run half a million dollars. If the restaurant was priced for its address, this was going to be expensive coffee. He finally found a road going west and saw a sign marking the upcoming scenic bridge. He had to squint to read the words. It really was one-way traffic. How old was this bridge? He waited for the flashing red lights to change and give him the right of way. He crossed the bridge as lightning cracked directly overhead.
A flash of white caught his eye.
He was done rescuing things. He was done… Stephen applied the brakes and backed up, peering through the rain. He’d seen something. Probably an animal. That was all he needed—a hurt animal putting him on pet patrol for the night. He lowered the window to see better.
It was the rear fender of a jeep. The vehicle was so far down into the gully it was visible only with the lightning.
He turned on his hazard lights and stepped out into the downpour.
The muddy bank crumbled under Stephen as he worked his way down, grasping tree trunks to help stay upright. There was the sound of rushing water down below and a squishing sound as he picked up his feet. His car headlights didn’t shine much light downward leaving this area in dark shadows. He didn’t dare risk using his flashlight until he reached the jeep for fear of dropping it.
Something had sent the jeep into the gully. Maybe a blown tire? So far he saw no signs that it had been struck from behind. His hand touched the bumper and Stephen leaned against the vehicle for balance, relieved to find it wedged into the ground so it wouldn’t shift.
The jeep had been down here awhile. Leaves coated the vehicle and rainwater had filled the depressions on the roof. Stephen struggled the last few feet so he could lean in to see inside. His feet went out from under him and he grabbed the side mirror.
Meghan, what are you doing out here? He shoved the passenger door partially open and squeezed himself into the seat to reach her. This road at this time of night— She must have been taking the back roads home.
She was leaning forward against the steering wheel and her seat belt was pulled tight.
“Meghan, can you hear me?”
Her answer was slurred and unintelligible. He probed carefully but didn’t find signs she had sustained an impact chest injury. The seat belt had done its job. He pushed aside part of a tree branch that had punctured the side window of the jeep and then snapped off. The blood in her hair had dried.
He spotted her cell phone near her feet and retrieved it, then saw her keys also on the floor near the gas pedal. She’d been conscious long enough to shut off the vehicle and pull out her phone. He started to reach for the keys, but his hand trembled too much to close around them. She’d been here long enough that conscious thought had turned to unintelligible sound. While he got himself lost trying to read a map, Meghan had been resting here slowly dying. The phone had a weak signal but he lost it as he dialed. He tried again and the call dropped a second time. He slid the phone into his shirt pocket.
“Meghan, try to wake up.”
He carefully turned her head and shone his penlight in her eyes. Though her pupils reacted there was no indication in her blinking that she noticed the light. She showed all the signs of brain trauma with an intense and deadly result. The rest of her body just hadn’t caught up with that fact yet. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here earlier, Meghan. I got lost on my drive a couple times,” he whispered, sliding his jacket around her, preparing to abandon her and head back up to the road to try to get a phone signal. He’d worked so hard to make sure no one died on him today. The bile in his throat threatened to come up.
He turned toward the open passenger door and got partway out before pausing there with his head down. Not this. The darkness grew for a few seconds until he pushed it away by strength of will. He took a deep breath. Meghan only had him right now. He couldn’t afford the emotions.
He pulled the phone out to try again. He punched the redial button and this time the weak signal held. “Dispatch, this is Stephen O’Malley of Unit 59. I need a code one dispatch, and if they can get airborne in this weather, a med-life flight.”
Four
Keep her steady!” Stephen struggled against the mud and wet leaves as he and the other rescuers carried the stretcher up the bank to the road. The bank had turned into a mudslide under the foot traffic of so many people. A helicopter was nearby; he could hear the rotors. Vehicles crowded the road. He’d gotten the response he needed but feared it was too late.
Kate shoved people out of the way to reach his side as they carried the stretcher to the waiting ambulance that would take Meghan the short distance to the med-life flight. He’d put out an emergency page to the family. “She’s alive, but it’s going to be a fight! Find out what happened here, Kate.”
She leaned in close to be heard above the noise. “I will. Jack’s meeting you at the hospital.”
“Meghan’s parents?”
“On the way! Silverton’s sheriff is driving them in.”
Stephen pulled himself up into the ambulance. The doors slammed behind him and they were moving.
“You kept her alive.” Aaron pushed up the oxygen flow. Stephen was glad this man was here to help him. Aaron had been his training officer years before.
Stephen swiftly slipped an IV line into a vein on Meghan’s left arm. “It looks like her watch broke at 11:12 P.M. She is well over that critical hour.” The survival stats for trauma victims dropped alarmingly after the first hour.
Meghan’s face was darkening with bruises. Stephen wiped away mud that had splashed on her pale skin and wished she would open her eyes. If he thought it would help, he’d even pray to her God. Tears burned the back of his eyes but he refused to let them fall. Hold on, Meghan. Her breathing was so shallow.
The ambulance pulled near the waiting helicopter. Stephen shoved open the doors the instant they stopped. The helicopter had set down in the parking lot, the open spot in the midst of the trees barely large enough to give the rotors minimal clearance.
“It’s a twelve-minute flight. She’s heading to the best trauma unit in the state.” Aaron grabbed the end of the stretcher and helped Stephen ease it down. They carried her to the helicopter and fit the gurney onto the track that pulled it in and locked it down.
“Do you have room for one more? I know her,” Stephen pleaded.
“He’s one of mine,” Aaron added.
The trauma flight medic pointed to the jump seat. “Monitor her breathing and keep talking to her.”
Stephen surged inside before the guy could change his mind, took the seat indicated, and clipped on the six-point restraint harness. Rotors began to spin.
“How’s she doing?”
Stephen glanced up from the floor tiles to see his brother striding from the elevators. Jack must have come from a fire scene—his shirt was streaked with the stain of wet charcoal nearly inevitable during a fire cleanup. Stephen rested his head against the wall behin
d him. “The same. Alive.” He was too tired to expand further. In a desperate attempt to keep Meghan alive, the doctors had lowered her body temperature and put her into an intentional coma. Her heart was beating. Everything else was an unknown. They wouldn’t remove the respirator that was breathing for her until after the brain swelling came down. He’d been sitting in this chair since she arrived. If he left, he was afraid she’d die on him.
Jack dropped a sack on the seat beside him. “A change of clothes and a razor. Go clean up some of that face fuzz she teases you about. I’ll pace for you while you change, see if I can wear a few more millimeters into your path on the floor.”
Stephen smiled. Jack was the right kind of brother to have in a crisis, just enough humor to keep a situation in perspective and stop the drowning in despair. Stephen rose and picked up the sack. “Her parents are down in the cafeteria sharing a cup of coffee.”
Jack squeezed his shoulder. “I’ll find everyone if there’s any change.”
Stephen nodded and went to clean up. He’d changed shirts earlier, but there were still mud and bloodstains on his jeans, and it wouldn’t do Meghan’s mom any good to see it.
From the pocket of his jeans he pulled out the new checker he had been working on for Meghan. The quiet conversations between her mom and dad were beginning, “If she’s only blind…” The other possibilities were too terrifying to plan for. No one knew what was coming, but the blow to her head worried those who saw the early CT scans. At least she would be able to feel checkers and tell by touch which ones were different.
Meghan had been alert for at least a few minutes after the crash. The doctors said that was promising. Stephen’s hand tightened around the checker. She had to get better. In an undeclared way Meghan had joined the group of people he would always have in his life. He couldn’t lose her.
She’d had a crush on him growing up; he wasn’t so blind he missed that. Encouraging her then had seemed the wrong step when he knew he was averse to letting anyone be closer than a friend for the long haul. He’d been protecting her, but he could have been more kind about it. And later when she had come back for nursing school, worked at the hospital—what had he been waiting for? She’d been the best kind of friend, pleased to see him and kind with her words when he did great but also when he blew it. He should have seized the opportunity. In waiting, he had irreversibly lost.
Please, give me another chance. That’s all I want. Another chance. Don’t die on me, Meghan. I can’t handle it.
Stephen pounded nails through the drywall, each blow a strike against time. They were slowly warming Meghan up and easing her from the drugs. He couldn’t take the waiting at the hospital anymore. He was too afraid. Her eyes were open, her hands were twitching, and she was responding to pain. But until the drugs were out of her system, they didn’t know how far she was coming back. It had been four days since the accident. She might wake up and talk in an hour, tomorrow, a month from now…or never. It was terrifying.
When Stephen’s dark emotions built, the best cure was work. He was remodeling this home, already having an idea of the couple who would best be the new owners. He rebuilt the kitchen with Sandy in mind. She loved to cook.
A knock on the back door interrupted him. He took three steps back, turned the lock without looking, and went back to hauling the next piece of drywall to the table to measure out the cut for the exhaust ductwork.
“You want help?”
He pointed Jack to the counter where extra gloves lay.
Jack grabbed the drywall and held it steady as Stephen started the saw. The noise stopped any conversation. The sawdust felt rough against his skin as it stuck to sweat-covered arms. Stephen shut off the saw and put it in a safety box so he didn’t step on it.
“You know it’s 2 A.M.”
“I know.”
Jack rolled up his sleeves and settled in for a few hours of work. It wouldn’t be the first time they had spent a night waiting together. “Kate can’t sleep either. She’s on the way to the hospital.”
Stephen hesitated. “Did she find out anything else at the scene?” He knew Kate had spent another day out there.
“She paced every inch of it with the investigating officers and came up with the same answer as before. Besides skid marks left by the other car, which show that the other driver likely accelerated onto the bridge, there’s little to work with. So far no one has reported seeing anything. There is some evidence that the very end of the bridge railing might have been clipped, suggesting the other car has some damage, but rain washed away any trace of paint scrapes. Security tapes from the two gas stations in the area have fourteen cars on that road during the twenty minutes before 11:15, just in case Meghan’s watch was fast. The cops are looking for them.”
“Someone did this and left her there.”
“They’ll find him.”
Stephen nearly drove the nail through the wall. “They better.”
“What’s next?”
Stephen pointed behind him. “Flooring in the living room. I decided it should all come up.”
Jack folded the two lawn chairs Stephen called his living room furniture and moved the two barrels he used as tables. “Meghan’s a fighter, Stephen.”
“I know.”
The phone rang as they were losing the battle to force up a piece of flooring that had been nailed down forty-three years ago. Jack reached for the phone and Stephen waved him off. If this was bad news, he wouldn’t ask Jack to take the call.
Mrs. Delhart was on the phone and she was crying. “Meghan’s asking for you, Stephen.”
Five
Meghan turned her head trying to find relief from the headache, but no matter which direction she looked the darkness was the same. She reached a shaky hand up to touch her left eye and felt the brush of eyelashes to reassure herself that her eyelid was open. It was so strange living in this world of darkness. It had no dimensions, no objects, no people…it was just a black hole where she had to feel her way around.
She jerked to the left as a squeaky wheel on a cart moved outside the hospital room door. She longed for earplugs. The sounds were overwhelming. There was never any warning of what was coming. Jesus, it’s like living in a body that is now just one raw nerve. How do I live trapped like this?
She knew it was night. Her mom had tucked her in and her dad had kissed her good-night. She’d smiled as visiting hours ended and convinced them she was tired so they wouldn’t worry so much about her. At least the confusion of voices had ceased with the coming of the night shift. This room was too near the nursing station. She spent her days listening to rushing feet and the sound of overlapping, urgent voices. All too often someone was beside her before he spoke to warn her he was nearby. I want my privacy back. I hate living in a fishbowl.
She struggled to sit up under the numerous blankets. The doctors said she would eventually get back her ability to regulate her body temperature, but it wasn’t happening yet. Her mind was also doing its own thing with its sense of time. She was wideawake. She swung her legs to the side of the bed and reached to the left to orient herself with the furnishings.
Mom left her clothes folded in the top drawer of the dresser. Meghan dressed, wishing she knew what color the clothes were. She felt for the chair beside the window, and once she found it, tugged over the blanket from the bed for her lap. It was such a small room. At least she didn’t have to walk in the darkness but could move from point to point by touch.
She felt around the chair looking for the television remote. She found the water pitcher, a bowl of jelly beans, a stack of get-well cards, a folded newspaper, and two books. She turned and checked on the radiator, moving carefully so as not to knock over one of the flower vases. It smelled like she was living in a florist shop. She found the television remote and clicked on the late night news. It wasn’t too bad, listening to the commentary. She tried to pretend she was doing something else and had the news on in the background so she wouldn’t just sit here thinking about
how she couldn’t see it.
She picked up one of the books. From the weight and the raised lettering on the cover it felt like the book on John Adams she had bought her father last month. Tears welled in her eyes. Being blind was a miserable existence. She wanted to see the pages, to read for herself again. Having someone read to her was such a painful compromise.
She couldn’t take her parents down with her into this sadness; it wasn’t fair to them. It’s so hard to be brave, Lord. I just want a doctor to work a miracle and let me see again. She slid the book back on the table. She’d find a way to read again, find a way to live her life. She had no choice.
A soft tap on the door was followed by the sound of it opening. The shoes sounded hard on the tile floor and that suggested it wasn’t staff. She swiped at her eyes.
“Hi, Meghan.”
Stephen. She desperately wanted to tell him to go away, but instead she jerkily nodded and heard him enter the room. He came by at least twice a day. She carefully touched her face and felt the soreness across her cheek and swelling around her jaw. Mom had told her that the bruises on her face had come in black and purple and were now fading to leave her skin with a yellow leathery tinge. She must look horrible. She lowered her hands, took a deep breath, and smiled toward where she thought he stood.
Stephen would be her friend, be generous with his time, help her cope. She had only to ask—no, she probably didn’t even have to ask. He wanted to rescue her.
She wanted so badly to lean against him, to let him take that role. But she wasn’t sure he was up to it. And she couldn’t put that burden on him.
He was a good man, just not someone who could lead the way on the journey she faced. Learning to walk with a cane was the easy part; what she needed was someone who could help her accept. At best Stephen could only be temporary comfort. She was physically blind, but Stephen was spiritually blind. If she pitched forward and had to count on a friend to catch her, she knew her choice—it had to be Jesus.