Sparking Sara (The Men on Fire Series)

by Samantha Christy

  I put my jacket around me, shivering in the cold. I’d hoped her fever would be down by now, but the nurse outside told me that a spike in temperature was expected after her surgeries yesterday. They hope it will abate soon.

  “Damn, girl. You’ll be ready to move to Antarctica after all this,” I say.

  I pull the chair to the side of her bed and sit down. Then I tell her what I’ve told her twenty times a day. “You were in an accident, Sara. You’re in the hospital now. They gave you drugs to sleep, but you should wake up soon. You’re going to be okay.”

  I look at her hand, hoping my voice will have her finger moving again, but it doesn’t.

  I reach into the pocket of my coat and pull out the book I bought on my way home from the hospital the other day. Anne of Green Gables. Lydia said it was Sara’s favorite book growing up. She told me Sara read it at least fifty times. I open the cover and start reading.

  A nurse comes in a while later, catching me during the third chapter. I look up at her. She’s not the same day nurse as the last few times I was here.

  “Don’t stop on my account,” she says. “I think it’s great that you’re reading to her. Most families will just sit and watch TV or play around on their phones.”

  “I’m not family,” I tell her.

  “I know. Krista told me. She said you’ve been here a lot. Told me the whole story. I think what you’re doing is heroic.”

  I shake my head. “I’m sitting with a woman in a coma. There’s nothing heroic about it.”

  “I think you’re wrong,” she says, as she replaces Sara’s empty IV bag with a full one.

  I see movement out of the corner of my eye and immediately stand up, my heart pounding.

  “Look, there,” I say. “She moved her hand. Did you see that?”

  The nurse looks at Sara and then at her monitors. “Sara, sweetie, can you hear me?” she asks. “Can you open your eyes?” She makes a fist with her hand and rubs it on Sara’s chest. “Sara?”

  She looks back at me. “It can take a while to come out from under the sedation. And she is still on pain medication. What you saw could have been a reflex.”

  After the nurse leaves, I put down the book and talk to Sara. “I know you can hear me, Sara. I don’t believe what she said about the reflex. You moved your hand. I saw it. You’re going to wake up soon and you’re going to be okay. You were in a car accident, remember? But you’re safe now. You’re in the hospital. I called Oliver and he’s going to be here very soon. Joelle has been here as well. And Lydia. You remember Lydia? She’s the one who told me about your favorite book.”

  I see her finger twitch again, but I don’t bother calling the nurse. She’s just going to tell me some B.S. about it being a reflex. But I know better.

  For hours, I read to her. And when I go to the cafeteria for lunch, I leave my phone on the bed with Sara, having it stream one of her favorite shows Lydia told me they used to watch together, The Bachelor. I know she can’t see it, but maybe just hearing it will help.

  I’m eating a sandwich when Kyle Stone walks up.

  He nods to an empty chair. “Mind if I join you?”

  “Please. It might be nice to have someone actually respond to me when I talk to them.”

  He laughs sadly. “Yeah, I heard she hasn’t woken up yet.”

  “She will soon,” I say.

  His eyebrows shoot up. “Oh? Is that what they told you?”

  I shake my head. “No. But I know she will.”

  He takes a drink of his coffee, studying me over the lid. “The nurses tell me you’ve been here almost every day, all day.”

  I put down my bag of chips. “You going to tell me that’s not normal, too?”

  “I’m not one to judge, Denver. There was a time when I sat with a patient on my days off.”

  I raise a brow at him.

  “Several years ago when I was a resident, I had a pregnant patient who was in the hospital for weeks. She had no one. And I mean no one. Not a cousin, like Sara has. Not even an old friend.”

  “So what happened? Did you ever see her again after she left the hospital?”

  “I see her every day,” he says. “She’s my wife.”

  I almost choke on my soda. “You married her?”

  He smiles. “Sure did. So I’m sure as hell not going to be the one to tell you that you can’t have a relationship with a patient.”

  “A relationship?” I look at him walleyed. “No, that’s not what I want. I mean, I guess I want to be her friend. But she has a boyfriend, Kyle.”

  “One who’s still not been to see her from what I hear.”

  “Joelle said he travels a lot.”

  Kyle stares at me.

  “You think I’m trying to get into the pants of a comatose woman? What kind of guy do you take me for?”

  He shakes his head in amusement. “That’s not what I meant. And I think it’s admirable what you’re doing. Just don’t have too high expectations. Brain injuries are tricky.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, aside from any obvious physical deficiencies she may have, she may not be the person she once was.”

  “I don’t know the person she once was,” I say.

  “Even so, when she wakes up, she may be combative. Or angry. She may feel lost. Depressed. There have been studies done on patients with traumatic brain injuries and by-and-large, they all experience some sort of personality shift.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “It can be hard to explain,” he says, trying to find the words. “Think of it like teenagers who go off to college. When they return four years later, they are not the kids you remembered them to be. They are a different version of themselves.”

  “Yeah, but that’s based on life experiences,” I say. “How can a brain injury make you a different person?”

  “The brain is a mysterious organ, Denver. We still don’t fully understand it. But it’s also miraculous. And it can do things for your body that baffle doctors. The results of MRIs after a brain injury are grey at best. Sometimes all we can do is make an educated guess.”

  I nod my head. “Sara’s doctor doesn’t seem to want to tell us anything either way.”

  “Because he can’t. We simply just don’t know.”

  I take the last bite of my food and ball up my trash. “I should get back now. Thanks for the company.”

  “Anytime,” he says, reaching into the pocket of his lab coat. Then he hands me his card. “Feel free to call me if you have any questions, if you want me to explain anything to you, or if you just want to grab a bite together while you’re here.”

  I take his card and stick it in my back pocket before thanking him and walking away.

  When I return to Sara’s room, I pick my phone up off her bed, the episode of The Bachelor having ended.

  I call Oliver again. And again, it goes straight to voicemail.

  “Oliver, this is Denver Andrews. I’m wondering if you got the message I left two days ago about Sara. She’s been in an accident in New York City. She’s not alone. Her cousin has been here. And so has Lydia. But you need to get here as soon as possible. Please call me.”

  The accident happened five days ago, and I reached out to him the day before yesterday. I can’t wrap my head around why he’s not here yet. Hasn’t he noticed that his girlfriend has gone off the grid?

  Oh, shit. Suddenly, I wonder if Oliver could have been in the car with Anna and Sara. All the windows were busted out with the exception of the rear one. What if he was sitting in the back seat without a seatbelt and got ejected from the car and is lying dead at the bottom of the river?

  I decide to call Jake at NYPD later and have him look into it. It should be easier now that I know Oliver’s last name.

  I look closely at Sara and I can tell something is different. After days of sitting with her, I’ve gotten to know the exact position her hands tend to be in. The angle of her head. The curve of her elbows. I stick my head out her doo
r. “Has anyone been here since I left?”

  Her nurse looks up from a chart. “No, sorry.”

  “What about you? Did you go in there and reposition her?”

  “Not lately, why?”

  “Her hands are different. Almost like she brought them together over her stomach and then lost her grip.”

  “Let’s take a look,” she says, following me into Sara’s room.

  “Sara? Can you hear me?” she says. She opens one of Sara’s eyelids. “Can you open your eyes, sweetie?”

  No response. No movement of her hands. No flutter of her eyelids.

  “These things can take time,” the nurse tells me.

  I nod as she exits the room.

  I put Sara’s hands back the way they were. That way, I’ll know if she moves them again. As I’m doing it, I think about what Kyle said about people being different after brain injuries. I hope she isn’t. I hope she can still paint—if she’s able to, that is.

  I get out my phone and Google more of her paintings. Then I talk to her about them. What they look like. The colors that she used. How they make me feel when I look at them.

  I find one that I think must be of her parents. Joelle said they were older, and this painting shows an older couple with a young girl—a toddler. And I wonder if the girl is her.

  “Remember how I told you my parents are gone, too?” I say. “I’d love it if you could paint them like you painted yourself with your parents. Except I have a sister, so she’d have to be in the painting, too. I think I told you that you’d have to go to Colorado to do your research. Man, my parents loved to ski. Every year, they’d drag us to one mountain or another. I think Aspen and I learned to ski before we learned how to ride bikes. I remember one vacation, it was blizzarding so badly that they closed the slopes to skiers. But my parents still took us outside. We walked up the bunny slope, and then Aspen and I tried to slide down on our butts. It didn’t work, though, because it wasn’t steep enough, so we decided to roll down, the way you would on the side of a grassy hill. For hours, my parents watched us, freezing their asses off while we rolled down the hill and then walked up and then rolled down again. It must have been miserable for them, but they wanted us to love the snow as much as they did. And I don’t remember being cold, even though I know I must have been. All I remember is laughing with my sister. And my parents—I can still see them clapping and cheering through the heavy snow.”

  I see another twitch of her finger. I decide to play her some more music because the other day when I played the Beach Boys, Sara moved for the first time.

  I stand up and place my phone on her pillow. Maybe hearing it louder than before will help.

  I remember my grandma as I listen to song after song.

  Then, I stop breathing. I stop breathing because Sara opens her eyes and looks at me.

  And I swear we’re back in the car on the bridge. Her eyes lock on to mine, and all I can think about is how scared she was in the car. How desperate. And she must still feel like that now, because the way she’s looking at me—it’s exactly the same.

  I feel around for her hand, not wanting to avert my eyes from hers. I take her hand in mine. “It’s okay, Sara. You’re going to be okay. You were in an accident. You’re in the hospital now. You’re safe. It’s okay.”

  I know I should call the nurse, but I can’t. I’m frozen in time. I can’t tear my eyes away from hers. I’m afraid if I even blink, her eyes will close. I just hold her hand and assure her she’s going to be okay.

  And then, before another minute passes, she closes her eyes. But not before I feel her squeeze my hand. Well, it’s not a squeeze, per se, more like a weak attempt at one, but a squeeze no less.

  “Sara? Sara?”

  Her eyes don’t open again and her hand releases mine.

  Finally, I reach down and press the call button for the nurse. Because it’s the only thing I can do. Because I’m overwhelmed by my feelings.

  She woke up.

  She. Woke. Up.

  I back up and fall into the chair. And then I feel a drop of warm water on my cold hand. I bring my hand up to my face and realize I’m crying.

  I close my eyes and sigh. Okay, yeah. Maybe it’s time to go talk to someone.

  Chapter Eight

  “Thank you for meeting with me so quickly, Reverend Feldworth.”

  He directs me into a small hospital conference room and closes the door behind us. “Please, call me Marcus,” he says. “And it’s my job. I’m happy to be here.”

  We sit at a table, opposite each other. He puts a bottle of water in front of me and keeps one for himself.

  “Thank you,” I say, reaching for it.

  “I find it helps. It lubricates the vocal chords and makes it easier to talk. For a lot of people, talking about what’s bothering them is stressful and anxiety dries out the mouth.”

  I take a drink of water.

  “So, what prompted you to call me?” he asks.

  “People keep telling me I need to see a counselor. But I really don’t want it on my record that I saw a shrink.”

  “You should know that at some point in their career, almost every firefighter uses counseling services. Believe me, it doesn’t get held against you. But I’m here to counsel as well. So why don’t you tell me what’s going on.”

  “Do you know anything about me?”

  He tries not to laugh. “There are eight FDNY chaplains and over fifteen thousand firefighters and EMTs. We work part time and also have our own church parishioners to deal with, so no, I’m afraid to say I don’t know anything about you. But I’d like to, if you’ll share your story with me.”

  I tell him about my parents and about the hard time I have dealing with car crashes. I tell him how I used to be a cop in Kansas City. I even tell him about my arrest and subsequent probation and exoneration. Then I tell him about Sara.

  “So you want me to tell you if it’s okay for you sit by Sara’s side?”

  “Yes. No.” I sigh. “I don’t know.”

  “I can’t tell you that, Denver. Is it wrong for you to sit by a woman’s side who has no one else to sit with her? By the same token, is it okay for you to become emotionally attached to someone you helped rescue?” He looks me straight in the eye. “Are you in love with her?”

  “In love with her? Why would you ask that? I don’t even know her.”

  “It’s obvious to me that you’re experiencing intense feelings when it comes to this woman. It’s not uncommon for people to think they are in love with someone they’ve never had a relationship with.”

  “I’m not in love with her,” I say. “She has a boyfriend. That’s not what this is about.”

  “Well, what is it about, then?”

  “If you ask Aspen, she’d say that I have the need to save Sara because I couldn’t save our parents.”

  He nods as he listens to me. “And what do you think?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, I guess she’s not entirely wrong. But I know I can’t save everyone.”

  “Tell me about your childhood. Who were you before your parents died? Have you always been the kind of person to control and protect against danger?”

  I laugh. “I was the kind of person to serve up danger,” I tell him. “I was wild and reckless.”

  “You didn’t want to be a police officer or a firefighter before your parents died? You didn’t dress up as a civil servant on Halloween? You didn’t pretend to put out fires in your dad’s shed out back?”

  “No. I wanted to be a rock star.”

  “A rock star?”

  “I played guitar when I was a kid. I wanted to be Richie Sambora.”

  “Who is Richie Sambora?”

  “Only one of the most prolific guitar players of his time.”

  He gives me a blank stare.

  “You know, the guitarist for Bon Jovi.”

  “I see. And what happened to that dream?”

  “I wasn’t good enough, for one. My sister is the one
who got all the musical talent. She’s a prodigy on the piano. But I still play for fun sometimes.”

  “What I’m getting from this is that the need to protect people began only after the death of your parents.”

  “I guess it did.”

  “Since the pattern of protecting people developed after they died, it makes a strong case for their accident being a significant factor in activating this pattern. In effect, your job exposes you to accidents and disasters that put you in a position to have the opportunity to succeed in rescuing people. This is probably in contrast to your perceived failure to save your parents.”

  “But there is no way I could have saved my parents. I wasn’t even in the same state at the time.”

  “I know that and, logically, you know it, too. But our behavior is not often dictated by actual facts.”

  “So I’m crazy.”

  “No, Denver, I’d say you’re anything but. What you do on a daily basis is exceptional. Some might even say heroic. But it’s your job to understand what drives you to do what you do. It’s possible that by putting yourself in situations that repeat the trauma of your parents, you are subconsciously attempting to master it.”

  “Master what?”

  “Saving people,” he says. “Which is something I’m here to tell you can’t be mastered.”

  “So what do I do?”

  “Talk to people. Talk to me. Your sister. A psychiatrist, maybe. Because talking about it will eventually help you to realistically deal with how it feels when you can’t save everyone, which may be what is holding you back when it comes to performing your job.”

  “But what about Sara?” I ask.

  “Are you hurting anyone by sitting with her?”

  “No.”

  “Are you avoiding any responsibilities?”

  “I don’t really have any responsibilities outside of work.”

  “Do you have any unusual expectations about what will happen when and if she gets better?” he asks.

  I narrow my brows at him. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean if she gets better and walks out of this hospital and out of your life, are you willing to accept that?”

  “Of course I am. That’s all I want for her. It would be incredible if that were to happen.”