Lawfully Remembered

by Ginny Sterling

  “Military police! Put your hands up now!” they shouted, echoing each other. Jesse kept a firm eye on the perpetrator who was now behind the wheel of the running vehicle. He sighted down the barrel of his gun and met the man’s eyes. He was terrified- and that meant recklessness. Jesse moved quickly to the side of the car, standing beside the headlights and away from the impact zone if the car drove off. Cobb was speaking with the robber, trying to get him to lower his weapon.

  “Put it down sir. Put it down now”

  “I ain’t putting it down! You’re gonna have to shoot me.”

  “I don’t want to shoot you but I need to go inside and see if someone needs help – and that can’t happen until you are unarmed.”

  “I ain’t putting my gun down. You put yours down.”

  “Put the gun down!”

  “No!” the robber shouted as he opened fire and shot Cobb directly in the chest. Jesse winced because he knew what it felt like getting a bullet that close on a Kevlar jacket. Man, that was going to leave a bruise, but it was better than being dead!

  Swinging his gun around, Jesse fired his gun, but not before he felt a searing pain along the side of his head. Staggering, he saw the assailant fall to the ground not far from where Cobb was leaning against the wall trying to catch his breath.

  Jesse met Cobb’s fearful eyes and knew he’d made a tactical mistake.

  He’d stepped right into the path of the running vehicle. He felt the car make impact with his body as he bounced off the hood. The burning pain turned into an indescribable, overwhelming sensation as he hit the concrete nearby, and the last thing he remembered was seeing the fluorescent lights above him as his head slammed into the pavement.

  “Smithson! Man, you gotta hang on! Jesse - can you hear me?”

  Groaning, Jesse could hear a man’s voice and knew whatever had happened to him was bad. He couldn’t open his eyes and the pain was excruciating – particularly worse along his right temple. Had he caught fire? It felt like it in certain spots on his skull. He could feel the overwhelming darkness swamping at him again and knew he was going to pass out. He tried to open his mouth but nothing would come out. Where was he? What happened?

  “Sir? I’m going to start an I.V. drip in your arm and as soon as we know you are stable- we’ll give you something for the pain. Can you hear me?”

  Jesse wanted to say yes – but it was like nothing was working right. He wanted to open his eyes and look around but they wouldn’t move. Had he been blinded? Reaching up, he could have sworn he was moving his hand, but felt the sharp prick of a needle in the arm he’d just moved… which meant it hadn’t moved at all. Was he paralyzed?

  The cool stinging sensation of the fluid going into his body was almost a shock to the system and he wasn’t sure how much more he could handle before slipping into the oblivion that lingered so very close to him.

  “Sir? Sir? Can you tell me your name?”

  “His name is Jesse Smithson,” the bodiless voice said beside him.

  “I need him to tell me,” another voice instructed.

  “Sir – what’s your name? Do you remember anything?”

  Laying there, he felt himself ebbing and the darkness was getting closer and closer to him. He didn’t want to die! Whatever had happened – he wasn’t a quitter!

  “I’ve got no dilation and no response from pupils. How much farther are we from the E.R? I don’t want to lose this one before we get there. Sir? Sir? You gotta stay with us - okay?”

  Okay, he thought painfully as he tried to ignore the overwhelming pressure on his head. It felt like his head was being crushed and the pain was intensifying. He heard a voice moan nearby and wondered if the other man was hurting too. He hoped that man lived through whatever had happened to them.

  “Smithson, it will be okay. We’re gonna get you some help, brother.” The other voice was talking to him gently, and that is when he realized that the voice he’d heard moan in pain was his own. He wanted to tell him that he wasn’t giving up, his body would heal. The rocking sensation of the vehicle came to a stop and he heard a bevy of noises around him as his body was jostled.

  “I’ve got a saline drip started; no meds given yet. Patient has blunt trauma to the head as well as a laceration from gunshot wound. Pressure is eighty over fifty and pulse is tachy. Male in his thirties, unresponsive… sir? Sir? You are going to have to wait here while we take him in.”

  Jesse knew the voices and movement around him meant he was at the hospital. Whatever was causing the pain meant that he would be taken care of and relief was bound to come soon. Breathing a sigh of relief, he knew it was up to them now and could give in to the darkness that beckoned him as he finally passed out.

  “Jones, we’ve got an extradural hematoma on the right temple with no resulting damage to the meningeal artery. Patient also displays signs of severe focul contusion causing cranial pressure and swelling. We need to relieve pressure and stabilize. I need noradrenaline and oxygen immediately.”

  “Are you intubating?”

  “Not yet - let’s see if we can get the pressure down and mask him. Get the head and neck in neutral alignment. Lower the flow of the IV – we don’t want to increase the swelling or cause more edema. Start him on propofol and knock him out. He’s fighting us.”

  “Of course.”

  Melissa felt herself watching the organized chaos around her and felt for the poor man in camouflage. He’d been brought in on a stretcher completely unconscious. There was a gunshot wound to the temple and he was lucky that the bullet grazed him. Many victims of a shooting ended up with brain surgery or dying before they arrived.

  According to the other man that rode in with him, this soldier had been hit by a car and thrown to the side. She and another nurse were clinically moving about the room while the doctor looked at a scan on the wall and the chart that had been started. The man was finally unconscious. As they began to remove the layers and layers of gear, Melissa carefully removed the dog tags around his neck and stopped dead in her tracks.

  Jesse Smithson

  Fort Parker, Texas

  That name!

  Was it her Jesse? The boy she’d tried to ask out and yearned for all these years? Glancing at the man’s face, Melissa suddenly realized she could see a glimpse of that teenage boy she’d once admired in front of her, in full maturity. He was breathtaking and her heart ached painfully that there was a possibility that he was dying before her very eyes.

  “Jones? Jones? Time is of the essence – are you okay?”

  “I know him,” Melissa confessed, stunned that Jesse was here and injured.

  “Is that going to interfere with treatment?”

  “I need to step out while someone else gowns him – I just can’t,” she admitted, flushing with embarrassment. The doctor on call pointed at the corner and she stepped away, facing the wall. If she left the room, she would need to scrub up and change again to prevent a possible infection during any procedures.

  “Jones, if we need to get someone else - speak up now.”

  “No, I will be fine - I just can’t cross that particular hurdle.”

  “He’s gowned and covered,” she heard from behind her, and turned around to see the man on the table was swathed in a hospital gown and white sheets, hiding him from view.

  “Thank you doctor.”

  “If there’s any hesitation - tell me now because we are getting ready to drain the pressure on the brain and address the laceration. I need you on your ‘A game’, Jones, if he is going to make it without injury to his brain.”

  “Let’s get started then,” Melissa said firmly.

  She could do this!

  He probably had a wife and family depending on him. Being able to save someone and helping people is what had driven her into the medical field; she would not let Jesse or anyone else down. She detached herself mentally from the horrifying idea that she was working on her high school crush who’d haunted her for the last seventeen years.

&
nbsp; Melissa toiled for hours with several doctors in the room. She hoped no one noticed that she was taking particular care cleaning the wound on the side of his head and utilizing tiny stitches to close the gap. If he was a lucky man, he would come-to and heal up nicely with no aftereffects. If he wasn’t… well… if he lived, he might have a brain injury that was irreparable depending on the damage that was done when his head hit the pavement. She’d seen everything from loss of motor functions, to coma, to a vegetative state – and it all depended on the amount of swelling and the extent of the damage done. No one would know until he awoke - if he awoke at all.

  Saying a prayer, Melissa went back to work. She tried to ignore the sounds nearby since the mannitol Jesse had been given via IV didn’t work to decrease the pressure. The doctor was now putting a shunt in through a small hole to alleviate the increasing cranial pressure.

  They would do everything they could to avoid brain damage and Melissa was so thankful that Jesse ended up with Dr. Smalley. He was an incredible trauma surgeon that believed in thinking outside of the box – something that might help Jesse get through this. As she finished up her work, she met Dr. Smalley’s gaze.

  “You did good, Jones.”

  “I hope it’s good enough.”

  “Time will tell,” he said evasively.

  “I know.” Melissa knew it was the standard answer that he had to give. No one knew for sure, nor would he give out false hope. If Jesse was going to die, he’d give that answer, because Dr. Smalley had seen miracles happen to people who were on their way out. Unfortunately, he’d also seen perfectly healthy people simply give up and pass away. Everything was in God’s hands ultimately – not the doctors.

  “You want some coffee?”

  “I could use some- thank you.”

  “It’s going to be a long night. Let’s get a break while we can,” he offered, stripping off his gloves, gown, and paper hat, throwing it in the disposal bin. “I’ll meet you in the hallway once you get him settled in I.C.U.”

  “Sounds good- and thank you again.”

  Chapter 3

  Later that night when her shift was over, Melissa went up to I.C.U. to see how Jesse was doing. She didn’t expect him to wake up this evening. She just wanted his vitals stable and to make sure that everything else looked okay. She saw a man sitting near the door of his room, still dressed in full camouflage, as Jesse had been when he arrived. He was leaning against the wall of the room trying to sleep.

  “You know, I can get you a pillow if you want to rest here for the night? There is a room on this floor with a few recliners in it where you can get comfortable,” she offered politely.

  “Do you know if he’s going to be okay?”

  “I don’t know yet,” she admitted painfully, “but I sincerely hope so.” The man sat there quietly for several moments before getting to his feet. Wordlessly, Melissa walked him down the hallway and opened the door to a room that she had slept in many times.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Grant Cobb.”

  “Jesse is your partner?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know, they will probably let him sleep as much as possible so the body can begin to heal. Why don’t you rest and I will go check on him? You might even have enough time to head home and sleep in your own bed.”

  “I feel like it’s my fault,” he admitted painfully, looking at Melissa with devastated eyes. “I told him to bank left and I would take the right. If I was on the left, maybe he would be standing here instead.”

  “He would be feeling the exact same way and worrying about you then.”

  “I keep thinking that if I went into the situation a little quicker…”

  “That you could have been killed or injured too?” she said softly, smiling kindly at him. “You didn’t do anything wrong Mr. Cobb. Now, please rest and I will go check on him.” Melissa watched as he sat down in one of the chairs, and she walked over to the small linen closet in the room, removing a white blanket and flimsy pillow. She handed both to him and nodded sympathetically.

  “If you need something to drink or a restroom – there is one down the hall. I will let the nurses station know you are staying the night and to alert you if there is a change.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Certainly.”

  Melissa dipped out of the room and gingerly opened the door to I.C.U., slipping inside. She could hear the beeps, hisses, and whirs of the machines in the room as they worked in a rhythm to keep the people staged in here alive until they could be moved safely. Moving slowly from curtain to curtain, she finally saw him; he was hard to miss.

  Jesse’s dark head was wrapped in bandages due to the graze on his scalp and the shunt in his head. His chin was covered with dark scruff and it was scary to see him lying there so completely out of it. She knew his body would need time to heal, and fought the urge to shake him to ask if he was okay. He wasn’t, and she knew this.

  Instead, she picked up his chart at the foot of his bed and scanned through it to see that his blood pressure was rising slightly and the measurements seemed to be doing better. When he’d come in originally - his blood pressure was bottoming out, even with the pressure on his brain increasing. Stepping beside the bed, she carefully reached out to touch his hand.

  So many years had passed, and yet her high school crush on the teenage boy he’d been had never faded. She’d often wondered if he’d gone to college or joined the military. He’d been active in ROTC all four years of high school and it had seemed to be a natural fit for him. She wanted to apologize for throwing up on his boots that day so long ago, and the memory made her smile softly.

  That young girl had grown up quite a bit over the years, growing stronger mentally than she’d ever dreamed. She could handle this now and would pray for him to awaken so she could get the chance to say hello and make that apology that was long overdue.

  “Just be okay, please,” Melissa whispered softly to the sleeping man before her. “You have so much more to live for in this world and I am too young to say goodbye to my first crush already. I’d like the chance to talk to you and see if the years have been kind. I sincerely hope so. I always thought you were such a nice guy and wanted to get to know you more. Sleep well, Jesse.”

  Releasing his hand, Melissa walked back out into the hallway to the nurse’s station and smiled to see Cassidy was the floor nurse on duty tonight. The two of them had decided to become nurses after graduation, but Cassidy chose not to specialize like Melissa had.

  “What are you doing down here,” Cassidy said, smiling brightly.

  “Visiting an old friend,” Melissa replied morosely. “Can you watch bed eight for me carefully tonight and let me know if you notice anything goofy - okay?”

  “Who’s in bed eight? I just got on duty and haven’t looked at the charts yet.” Cassidy turned and glanced at the board, paling and turning back to look at Melissa. “Is that who I think it is? Oh Melly- I am so sorry.”

  “I know. I was shocked too and yes - I think it’s truly him. He looks the same but much more mature. A few grey hairs, a few wrinkles, but who doesn’t have them? Yes - I recognize him like it was yesterday.”

  “Don’t we all?”

  “Unfortunately- yes.”

  “Are you heading home? Do you want me to call you? I remember how much you had a crush on him back then. I didn’t understand it, but came to realize we just have different tastes in guys.”

  “Yes – just text me and let me know if there’s any changes. I’m not assigned to him because he’s in I.C.U. but that doesn’t mean a caring nurse can’t check on a patient. Oh - by the way, there is a soldier in the second waiting area sleeping. They came in together on the ambulance. Can you send him a tray of food later when they make the rounds?”

  “Is he hot?”

  “Cassidy, I didn’t even really look,” Melissa said with a half-smile. “Are you already over the flavor of the week? What was his name… Perry?”

  �
��Peter… or was his name Pierre? Yes, actually he turned out to be a scumbag and I just want someone who’s a decent fellow without any baggage. Is that so very hard to find?”

  “You are the same age as me and we’ve both never married - so I’d say the answer is definitely a resounding YES,” Melissa teased. “Goodnight, Cass – text me later.”

  “I will.”

  It was almost two days before Jesse woke up on his own, in a lot of pain. The doctors had sedated him and removed the shunt while he was under. The pressure had gone down significantly, and other than the bandages around his head – he looked and appeared healthy. It was the rest of Cassidy’s text that broke her heart. Jesse had amnesia. It seemed that he couldn’t remember who he was or how he even got there.

  Chapter 4

  Melissa avoided going to see Jesse once she knew he was awake. There would be nothing more painful than seeing the blank look in his eyes again. It would be like reliving that moment in high school when she’d introduced herself and asked him out.

  Part of her wondered how bad the amnesia was – if he remembered his name or if it was so severe he couldn’t perform small tasks. Cassidy had promised her that she would keep Melissa informed of the little things, but she couldn’t disclose what was going on due to it being a HIPAA violation. She would have to distance herself from what was going on with him for a few reasons.

  The first reason was that seeing him brought back a flood of painful memories. Being teased about throwing up on Jesse’s boots. There was something about Jesse’s boyish smile that had burned brightly in her memory, causing her to hold a candle for that teenage boy for years to come. This was all a reminder that she’d never dated anyone and had passed up several chances because it just didn’t feel right deep down inside.