The Last Hour

by Charles Sheehan-Miles

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  I reached out and took his hand. “See this?” I said. “Is this your real hand? Or the one in there?” As I said the words, I looked back toward the hospital.

  He screwed his face up a little then said, “This one?”

  I nodded. “Yep. You need that one to walk around and play and live, but this is ... you. And when you lie, you hurt this part of you. Cause then you’ve got secrets, and those will weigh you down until this part of you can’t even live any more. And what’s the point of walking around without this part of you? It’d be like walking around without a heart.”

  He nodded. “I guess.”

  I let go of his hand, and we sat looking out at the traffic. Then my eyes widened. Carrie walked out of the building with Dick Elmore. Her face was concentrated, serious, with lines of stress in her forehead.

  “Isn’t that your wife?” Daniel asked.

  “Yeah. And my lawyer.”

  “Where do you think they’re going?”

  I could only think of one thing. If Carrie was leaving the hospital with Elmore, the court-martial board must have returned a verdict. I couldn’t think of anything else that could pull her away from here.

  “I’m guessing they’re going to find out what happened at my trial.”

  “Your what?”

  “Well, I had to tell the truth about something I saw, even though I was worried it was going to get me in trouble. You know how they have trials on television shows sometime?”

  “Yeah, but those shows are usually boring.”

  “I guess. Anyway, my trial was this week. And I’m pretty sure they’re gonna say I’m innocent.”

  “Are you?”

  I looked at Daniel and grinned. “Yeah. I think so.”

  “Well, good. It would suck to be innocent and get in trouble for it.”

  “I guess. It would suck more to have to live with lying about it.”

  I watched as Carrie walked down the sidewalk with Elmore, then into a parking deck. Part of me wanted to run after them. Hop in the car, ride along, and find out what the hell was happening. But I glanced at Daniel, and I couldn’t leave this kid sitting here in the hospital by himself. Sometimes you have to make choices, and they’re imperfect, but they’re the only choices you can make and live with yourself.

  What are they telling you? (Carrie)

  After Elmore paid the parking attendant, he pulled out into traffic. It was slow going until he turned up Massachusetts onto Reno, headed into Northwest DC toward Bethesda. I had Dylan’s phone in my pocket. Just in case. I stared vacantly out the window, asking myself what Ray would want me to do.

  What we’re suggesting is that you consider signing a do-not-resuscitate order.

  My eyes brimmed with tears at the thought. It wasn’t fair. None of this was fair. I’d done everything right, my whole life. I’d taken care of the people around me. I’d worked hard. I’d been honest. I’d been lonely, but mostly happy.

  Until the day I saw Ray Sherman crossing the green at Columbia. Ray had turned my life upside down, and made it mean more than I’d ever imagined. In the last nine months, I’d experienced both the highest and the lowest points of my life. Everything was raw and intense and sometimes truly horrible, and here I was, on my way to get the verdict, on my way to get the news that we had finally made it through to the other side, that we were finally going to get the life we both wanted. And it had come just a day too late.

  I wiped a tear absently off my face. I’d been more or less crying continuously since the doctor said those words. Do-not-resuscitate.

  Elmore sighed next to me, and said quietly, “Smalls called me about the accident, and ... I thought it best I stay away. All I know is it was serious. What are they telling you?”

  I sniffed and said, “They’re telling me Ray’s probably going to die.” Vocalizing those words made me want to curl up and die myself. I pulled my legs up close to my body and leaned against the door.

  Elmore said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I don’t even want to come with you now. But ... I know he’d want me too.”

  Elmore said, “Yeah, he would. He did the right thing, you know?”

  “Yeah, I know,” I said. “But it still hurts like hell.”

  He turned the car left on Military Road, into heavier traffic. People going to church and grocery shopping and to visit family and friends and living their lives just the same as they had yesterday. It was shaping up to be a beautiful summer day.

  For some reason my mind kept turning to Stephanie Hicks. How she’d cried when handing me the letter. Because he husband was lying, and she knew it. She’d made a choice too, a choice to do the right thing, and I can’t even imagine how painful that must have been.

  “That must have been so hard for Stephanie Hicks.”

  “I can’t even imagine. And now she’s a widow.”

  I sat up in my seat. “What?” I cried.

  Elmore shook his head, and then spoke very quietly, very slowly. “Carrie ... Sergeant Hicks was the other driver. The one who hit you. They found a GPS tracker attached to your car.”

  I couldn’t see straight. I stared out the window, and everything was blurred with the damn tears that were overflowing my eyes again, and I think I started to hyperventilate. And all I could think was how was she going to be able to live with herself?

  I grabbed the door handle and held it tight, trying to get my breathing under control. Then I wrapped my arms around my stomach and took another deep breath, telling myself to get it under control, because I had to walk into that court-martial with my head held high. I had to represent my husband with the same kind of courage he’d shown. I had to do it for him.

  It took almost an hour to get to Walter Reed. Elmore pulled the car to a stop in front of the building where we’d spent the week sitting through Ray’s court-martial, and I took a deep breath. I could do this. I had to do this.

  Elmore looked at me. “Are you ready?”

  I nodded. “Yes,” I said.

  We opened the car doors and stepped out into the parking lot. The last time I’d been here, forty-eight hours ago, I’d been sure the pain was over. I’d been sure we’d been through hell and made it through to the other side.

  Forty-eight hours ago I had no idea what hell was.

  The room was packed with reporters. I heard a murmur of voices as I walked in with Elmore and without Ray. I followed him up to the front of the room, and instead of taking a seat in the front row, behind Ray’s seat, I sat down at the accused’s table.

  Captain Cox approached the accused table and said, “Doctor Sherman ... will you accept my condolences?”

  I blinked and frowned, and said, “Not yet. It’s not over.”

  “Well, then. Here’s to hope. Under normal circumstances regulations don’t allow for holding a session of a court-martial without the accused present. But under the circumstances, we felt it best to wrap this up quickly so you can get back to your life without this hanging over your head.”

  “I appreciate that, I guess.”

  He sighed and said, “Everyone is here. I’ll let Colonel Martinez know you’ve arrived.”

  He walked away. Elmore leaned over and said, “When we start, Captain Cox is going to swear you in. As Ray’s representative.”

  “All right,” I said. “Let’s get this over with, so I can get back to the hospital.”

  He nodded.

  A few minutes later, Cox came back in. He was followed a moment later by Colonel Martinez and the members of the court-martial board, who took their seats at the tables on either side of him.

  “The court-martial will come to order,” Martinez said.

  Cox faced him and said, “All parties and members and the military judge are present, with one exception, your honor. The accused is currently in the hospital and unconscious. The defense has moved that the court-martial proceed, with the accused’s wife representing him. The trial counsel concurs.” />
  Martinez looked at me, with pity in his eyes. He said, “Please swear in the representative of the accused.”

  Cox approached me and said, “Please stand and raise your right hand.”

  I took a breath and stood, meeting his eyes, then raised my hand in the air. I didn’t know what the purpose of this was really. I wasn’t going to be testifying. But if this was how it had to be done, then so be it.

  “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?”

  “I do.”

  “Please state your name and your relationship to the accused.”

  I swallowed, and then said, “Carrie Thompson-Sherman. I’m Ray… Sergeant Sherman’s … wife.”

  Cox turned around and said, “The representative of the accused has been sworn in, your honor.”

  “Very good,” Colonel Martinez said. He turned to the senior officer of the court-martial board. “Lieutenant Colonel Abbot, have the members reached their findings?”

  “We have, your honor.”

  “Are the findings on appellate exhibit one?”

  “Yes.”

  Martinez turned to Cox. “Would the trial-counsel, without examining it, please bring me appellate exhibit one?”

  Cox brought an envelope to Martinez, who opened it and read it, his mouth in a firm, flat line as he read. I felt immediate tension. Could they still convict Ray, even after what Hicks said in his testimony? Ray waited from March until November before he reported the killing. Would that gap of time be enough to convict him?

  Martinez spoke. “I have examined appellate exhibit one. It appears to be in proper form. Please return it to the president of the board.”

  I clenched my fists. I’ve never been in the military, or in a court room for that matter, before this week. And I found the proceedings to be insanely tedious. Couldn’t they just get on with it?

  Cox walked forward, took the envelope from Martinez, then walked three feet and handed it to the senior officer.

  Martinez spoke.

  “Doctor Sherman, will you and your counsel please stand up and approach the president of the board?”

  My heart started thumping wildly. Very slowly, I walked up to the table, Elmore at my side.

  “Colonel Abbot, announce the findings, please.”

  Colonel Abbot had the look of a kindly old grandfather, and I can’t imagine that he had ever, before today, inspired such terror. But right know my knees were weak, my stomach clenching.

  He stood, and looked at me, and said, “Doctor Thompson-Sherman, this court-martial finds your husband, Sergeant Ray Sherman, innocent of all charges.”

  My knees sagged, and Elmore grabbed my elbow as I burst into tears. “Come on,” he murmured.

  “This court-martial is adjourned,” Martinez said. As we walked back toward the table, I felt Dylan’s phone buzzing in my pocket. Oh, God. I reached in, and pulled it out, and read the words through my blur of tears.

  GET BACK TO THE HOSPITAL. RIGHT AWAY. JULIA.

  What I had to do (Ray)

  “So, if you could do anything in the world, what would it be?”

  “I’d be a superhero,” Daniel said.

  “Yeah? What kind of a superhero?”

  He shrugged. “Not like Superman, he’s boring. More like ... I don’t know ... Batman. He rocks, you know? He gets all the cool stuff. What about you?”

  I chuckled. “Oh, I’d be Spidey. No question.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I guess ‘cause he’s an average joe, just trying to do the right thing.”

  Daniel jumped to his feet. “Yeah, plus he gets to swing from buildings. How cool is that?”

  I stood and said, “All right. So you’re Batman, and I’m Spidey.”

  “And the bad guys are going to blow up the hospital,” he said, his eyes wide.

  “Yeah. We gotta stop ‘em. Let’s go.”

  “Where do you think they are, Batman?”

  He studied the building then shouted, “The roof!”

  And he ran, and I ran after him. His clothes were changing, shifting, as he ran, right in front of my eyes, his blue jeans to black, his shirt to black, and then he had a billowing cape behind him. I jumped ahead of him, but he was fast and caught up with me. Moments later we were on the roof of the hospital. He ducked behind a huge air conditioning unit, and said, “They’ve got explosives in the helicopter, Spidey.”

  I ducked behind the air conditioning unit too, playing right along. “But what are they after, Batman? Who would blow up a hospital?”

  “It’s a ring of spies! The President’s daughter is in the hospital, and they’re going to hold her for ransom!” His eyes were wide as he said it. The kid believed. I grinned and said, “We can’t have that. We’ve got to neutralize the explosives.”

  “And protect the President’s daughter.”

  “And catch the bad guys.”

  “Ready?” he asked.

  “Let’s go.”

  Truth is, I hadn’t had this much fun in a long time, not since the morning Carrie and I jumped out of an airplane together. We ran around for a good hour, laughing. Somehow the spy ring became aliens, and then we were defending the rooftop from the alien invasion, shouting catcalls and yells at the aliens who dared invade Washington, DC.

  Once we defeated the aliens, he lay down on his back on the roof and said, “That was awesome, Ray.”

  I lay on the ground too, staring up at a flawless sky, and said, “You rock, Batman.”

  He grinned. “Ray? When we get out of the hospital, can you come visit me? Dad’s too busy to play with me, and Mom, she’s no fun.”

  Ah, shit, I thought as my eyes watered. And I said, “Maybe. I can’t promise for sure. For one thing your parents would be all like, who is this strange man hanging around my kid? That’s never good. Plus ... well ... I don’t know if I’m gonna make it.”

  “Why not? You thought of a ball and it came true. You made yourself into Spiderman.”

  I frowned and held up my arm. It was true. My sleeves were red with a black web pattern on them. Just for kicks, I extended my arm like ... well, like Spiderman ... and shot out a web. Holy shit. It covered an air conditioning unit. That was gonna be a mess to clean up.

  I sat up. “You have got to be kidding me,” I muttered.

  How much power did imagination and hope have in this world? I’d returned Sarah to her body ... with her help, admittedly. But she was recovering, awake. She was in a lot of pain, sure, but she was alive to feel that pain. She still had a chance for that second kiss, for that life she wanted.

  Suddenly my heart was beating in my chest. Because ... what if I could do it to myself? What if I could somehow free myself from this ... this oblivion ... and go back home to Carrie and my life?

  I swallowed. “Maybe you’re right, kid.”

  I got to my feet then pulled him up. “You mind if we go check on what’s going on with my body? It’s been all day, I’m worried they’re giving me tattoos or something.”

  He snickered. “Why would they give you tattoos?”

  “Kid, you never know what a bunch of women will do when your back’s turned.”

  I don’t know why I felt such urgency to go back down. Maybe just to ... see.

  How do you really know what hope can accomplish? Unless you try? So we slowly made our way back downstairs, back to the intensive care unit. Everyone was still there. Mom and Dad were leaning on each other, wounded, exhausted. Dylan looked like he was about to explode, and Alex was speaking with him, urgently, a serious and loving expression on her face. Crank and Julia were sitting across from her parents. I walked down the hall, eyes skipping past them, and glanced in at Sarah. Jessica was curled up in the chair next to her bed, eyes closed, and Sarah was asleep. Jesus, she was going to have a long haul recovering from this. I didn’t even want to think about the kind of pain she must be in with her leg cut open that way.

  “Almost there,” I said to Daniel. And then
we walked several doors further down.

  My body was in there, the monitors all hooked up, the rasp of the respirator still forcing my body to inhale, exhale, because I wasn’t breathing on my own.

  “You don’t look so good,” Daniel said.

  “Thanks, kid.”

  “But you didn’t die yet.”

  I nodded. “There is that,” I said. I reached out and touched my body, and felt a shock, like when you accidentally touch a live wire. But I didn’t let go.

  Was it possible?

  I swallowed. I had a little time to decide. Because I wasn’t going to leave Daniel here alone. But when Daniel was better ... I was going to fight. I was going to fight to heal, fight for my life, fight for Carrie.

  “It’s kinda creepy in here,” Daniel said.

  “Yeah, it is,” I said. I reached out with my other hand and touched my body, and the contact was like two magnets coming together with a resounding click. This was so weird. I closed my eyes, and tried to feel what was going on in there. And ... well ... there wasn’t much. Not much at all. My heart was beating, and I could feel the blood rushing through my veins and arteries, pushing oxygen into my brain. But nothing from the head. It was like a big empty basket, and that could mean I was brain dead, or it could mean I just needed to be in there for anything to be happening. And I had no way of knowing which it was.

  But ... just maybe.

  I exhaled, audibly, and with some force pulled my hands away. Then I said, “Let’s go down the hall and check on your mom, okay?”

  “Okay. Do you think they’ll still be sad?”

  I shrugged. “Who knows? I’m guessing yes, because they love you and want you to be okay.”

  He gave a half smile.

  We walked back out toward the door of the ICU. My eyes darted from one to another of my family, both my parents and the family I’d inherited from Carrie. And I had a crazy moment where I felt such love for every single one of them, even Carrie’s dad and her crazy ass mom. It made me smile.

  “So Daniel, when you get out of the hospital, you gotta keep all this secret, okay? Cause no one’s gonna believe you anyway.”