Titan: We fell in love — in the cruelest of ways

by Fields, MJ

  When she hands the phone to Irons, he asks me to hang up and wait for a call. I know he will be using a secure line.

  When the phone rings, I answer.

  “He asleep?”

  I look over. “Yes, thank God.”

  “The leg?”

  “He’ll die if he continues fighting to keep it.”

  “Fuck! I knew I should have gone.”

  “I’ll get him back there. There’s no way he’s going to let anyone here touch him. He refused an IV line at first and has been hiding the pain meds and antibiotics. He doesn’t trust them.”

  “Don’t blame him.”

  “Neither do I. Jaxson, there’s something else.”

  “Always is.”

  “The girl is here.”

  “I was hoping she was a figment of his imagination.”

  “No, and Capt. Straker was there when we found her.”

  He doesn’t say anything.

  “They had her confined to an area on the fourth floor, no female personnel in sight, and they were treating her”—I fight back my emotions and tears—“like she was a prisoner.”

  “They have no idea what to do with her,” he snaps. “And Straker should be boots on the ground, barking orders at field medics, not in a hospital treating people.”

  “They took her arm.”

  “He bothered by that?”

  “I think he was, but it didn’t seem to shock him. I think he knew they’d have to. But that doesn’t excuse the way they treated her.”

  “Can you get to her without being caught?”

  “I threatened to go to the press if they didn’t assign a female nurse to her and allow Tanner and her to visit. She’s very taken with him.”

  He chuckles. “Most females are.”

  If only he knew.

  “He saved her life, and I think, maybe, she can save his, too.”

  “Meaning?”

  “She lost her arm, he’s losing a leg. Maybe he won’t fight it as hard because of her.”

  He lets out a deep, unsteady breath, and then we sit in silence for a moment.

  “I can’t believe he wouldn’t let her go. That’s not like him.” He sighs. “If you can get me a picture of her, I can send it to a few of my sources.”

  “I have one already. I was just waiting for Tanner to send it to you securely. And Jaxson, this screams GITMO to me. She needs help.”

  “Fuck.” I hear him pound his fist on a hard surface. “My gut’s saying the same, Laurie. I was hoping it was because I have Lily and Calee here.”

  “Well, maybe it is, and maybe it feels that way to me, too. We’re parents, Jaxson.” I half-laugh. “The world opens up even further when we start thinking of how much we love them and what we want for them.”

  “Not just us. Apparently, him, too.”

  I look over at him. “He’s a good man.”

  “Takes a strong person to see that in him, Dr. O’Neil. I’m guessing that’s another reason Will was falling for you. You’re smart, and not just book smart, but street smart as well.”

  I push a piece of hair away from Tanner’s eyes. “I guess.”

  * * *

  When I walk out of the bathroom after my shower, he’s smiling as he looks toward the door, and then I hear an unfamiliar voice.

  “I hope you don’t mind. This little one was rapid-firing the word American as she held up her bear, so I thought I’d bring her to see you.”

  “Of course.” He struggles as he pushes himself up then looks toward me. “Would you mind taking her for a spin while I use the bathroom? And, Nurse, you wanna get this thing out of me?”

  “Of course.” I walk around the corner.

  She looks at me then quickly at him.

  He smiles at her, nods, and tells her, “Friend.”

  “Friend,” she repeats.

  As I push her out the door, she looks around then up at me.

  I raise my hand to my chest and say, “Laurie.”

  “Laurie,” she repeats.

  “Yes, I’m Laurie. And you are?”

  Her smile disappears. She looks afraid.

  I point at myself. “I’m American friend, Laurie.” I point at her. “You are Syrian friend.”

  She nods.

  I point back to myself. “Laurie.” And then at her again. She appears troubled again. I walk around and squat in front of her as she clutches the Teddy bear to her chest. “It’s okay. American friend, and you are Syrian friend.”

  She looks at me warily then looks around, fear set in her eyes. I shift my gaze to where she is looking and see the staff is staring at us. It pisses me off.

  I stand and ask, “Are any of you parents?”

  No one replies.

  I squat down and point at myself. “American friend.” Then I point at those standing and looking at us. “Idiots.”

  “Idiots.”

  I laugh. “Exactly.”

  She starts to smile and looks back toward the staff. “American. American. American.”

  I reach up and push her Teddy bear toward her the same way I held Calee’s blanket to her when I was teaching her to self-soothe after not putting her down for the first twelve weeks of her life, hoping that would comfort her when in childcare while I was at work. It worked, except for when she was around me. She didn’t leave my side ever in those times. And yes, I preferred it that way.

  “American Teddy bear.” I point at her bear. “American Titan.” I make a brutish face and flex my arm muscles like a bodybuilder.

  She smiles big.

  “Yeah, Titan.” I make the same face and the same gesture.

  “Titan.”

  I nod and stand up. Then I walk behind her and push the chair. “First, coffee. Then Titan.”

  “Titan, American.”

  “Yes, he is and proud of it.”

  * * *

  When we finally make our way back to the room, she’s happily drinking orange juice from a carton, a half-eaten container of Jell-O is wrapped in a napkin on her lap and she has a bag filled with bagels on the seat next to her tiny body.

  Tanner is sitting on the bed, my phone on his lap, and his hands are running up and down the back of his neck as he mumbles, “Think, think, think.”

  “Titan.” She smiles, and his eyes spring open. “American, Titan.” She points to him.

  The obvious worry diminishes, and he smiles. “Good morning.”

  She holds up the wrapped cup. “Friend.”

  “For me?” He points to himself.

  “Titan.” I see her wrapped stump move as she seems to be trying to reach for something.

  I quickly move to help her.

  She looks at me. “Laurie. Friend.”

  I nod as she stands on shaky legs, holding the cup out to him.

  “Titan, friend.”

  “Yeah, little one. Yeah.”

  I help her into the chair next to his bed, and she hands him the cup.

  He holds his hand to his chest. “Thank you.”

  She mimics him and repeats his words, “Thank you.”

  He scowls and shakes his head, pointing to the cup. “Thank you.”

  She repeats the words with harder pronunciation.

  He shakes his head again, and she begins to frown.

  I take the cup from him, and she looks at me and shakes her head. “Titan.”

  “Yes, Titan.”

  I take her hand and, with mine around it, stretch it out to him.

  He says, “Thank you,” and I say, “You’re welcome.”

  After three times, she gets it. She smiles and holds it out to him, and he takes it.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  * * *

  After about an hour, she becomes visibly uncomfortable, and Nurse Peterson returns to the room.

  She shakes her head. “Titan. Laurie. Thank you. You’re welcome. American. Friend. American. American. American.”

  My heart is breaking, and I’m not alone. I
can see it in his eyes, too.

  “Time to get some medicine into you and let you rest, Laylee.” Peterson is much softer than she was before her and I met just yesterday.

  “Laylee?” Titan asks.

  “Syrian friend,” the little girl speaks sharply.

  “Why are you calling her Laylee? Do you know who she is? Has her family been in contact?” he asks.

  “She said Laylee over and over in her sleep,” Peterson explains.

  “No, Syrian friend.” She hits her chest. “Friend.”

  “Okay then, Syrian friend. We can come back after you rest a bit.”

  “No, no. No. No. No.”

  “Can you just give her medication here?” Tanner asks. “Let her fall asleep then transfer her back to her room?”

  “You are a pain in the ass, American friend,” she whispers to Titan as she reaches in her lab coat and pulls out a syringe.

  “Idiot, idiot, idiot, no.” the girl slaps her hand away from her.

  Peterson cocks her head and asks, “Did you just call me an idiot?”

  “Idiot.” She shakes her head and points at the syringe.

  “Did you father this one, Sailor?” Peterson picks on Titan’s fear of needles.

  He looks at me with almost pleading eyes. “Shoot me up with something so she knows it’s okay.”

  I nod and get to work as he talks to her.

  “Hey, it’s cool. See? Laurie is going to give me a shot, too. Laurie, shot, sleep. Syrian friend, shot, sleep. It’s cool.”

  Her lips quiver as she stands, climbs up next to him, and whispers, “Idiot. No.”

  He rubs his hand over her hair. “It’s cool, friend.”

  “Cool?” she asks.

  He nods and wraps his arm around her tiny back, pulling her head against his chest. “Do this shit at the same time.”

  When she turns and sees me on the other side, pulling up Tanner’s gown sleeve and wiping his arm with an alcohol swab, she looks confused.

  “It’s okay, friend,” he whispers.

  Peterson does the same to her, except half of her arm is no longer there.

  “Idiot.”

  Titan shakes his head. “Help. It’s help, little one. Just look at me.” He holds his hand to the side of her head so she can’t watch. “Just look at me.”

  I begin to count. “One … two … three.”

  Peterson and I give them both an injection at the same time, and I realize in that moment, as they look into each other’s eyes, both facing the same fear, both losing or have lost a piece of themselves, they found something stronger. She will grow from it, he will break because of it, and Peterson and I get to bask in it. It’s as if beauty and tragedy have come together at the same moment in time.

  After they fall asleep, emotions of the past day overwhelm me, and I turn my back so that Peterson won’t see me cry.

  “Should I take her?”

  I shake my head. “I think they deserve a few minutes.”

  “Would you like some coffee, or are you going to try to finally get some sleep?”

  I chuckle. “I’m fine.”

  “You wanna tell me why she called me an idiot?”

  I can’t help laughing, and after wiping the tears away, I turn to her and tell her what happened.

  She laughs. “You know this girl is gonna go home and think that the only Americans who aren’t idiots wear camo and look like him.”

  I look at them and nod, crossing my arms and running my hands up and down to warm and comfort myself.

  “The girl’s got good taste,” she jokes. “Fine man, terrible attitude.”

  I give her a look.

  “I know, I know, healthcare.”

  “My father was a career Marine. I know what you all go through. But this one and those he’s closest to, they’ve seen the lion’s share of it over the past few years. I won’t pretend I know what happened before I got here, but I hate to see someone so burnt out by bureaucracy that they become numb to humanity.”

  11

  In the News

  Laurie

  Over the next few days, me and Nurse Peterson have made a nonverbal agreement regarding Tanner and the still unnamed little girl, who is far from a thief yet has managed to steal a piece of all our hearts, to shorten the time of their visits.

  It’s still bothersome that she isn’t with other children. Peterson doesn’t express it in words, but in the way she looks at the girl and reacts to my questioning it. The one phrase she throws at me when I get vocal is, “It’s classified.”

  In the past few days, there has been no headway made in gaining more information about her, via Irons’ people. The realization is painful to all of us that her mother is dead, and the probability of a father from a third world nation coming forward, seeking his daughter, is less than the likelihood that he even knows of a daughter, nor cares to have her home.

  “It is unimaginable to me that no one is turning over every stone to find you, little one,” I whisper, thinking that, like usual, they’ve both fallen asleep after their antibiotic and painkillers had been shot into their arms as they looked at one another.

  “Makes no sense,” fighting to wake, he slurs. “Just like it makes no sense that Shadows is still MIA.” He turns and looks at me. He’s paler, weaker, and fighting less.

  I place the back of my hand on his forehead. He’s warm.

  “Or that you are pushing so hard for everyone to live, knowing you’re making poor choices where your health is concerned. You won’t last a week, Lieutenant.”

  “I’ll make it to mission completion, Doc.”

  “You better make it longer than this mission, Lieutenant.” I wait until his eyes begin to close and his breathing steadies out before whispering, “I need you for another.”

  I watch him sleep for a while, fighting my own need to sleep as I wait for my phone to ring so that I can sing my girl to sleep.

  Sitting beside his bed, I answer the FaceTime request.

  “Mommy, mommy!” She waves and smiles. “Mommy, we fished today, cooked hot fogs on fiya, made ‘moes.”

  Frankie and Lily smile at each other and mouth, “S’mores.”

  “Have you had ‘moes, Mommy?”

  “Not in a very long time,” I admit.

  She yawns and stretches big. She looks happy but exhausted.

  “Awe you coming back soon?”

  I nod. “I am, but I don’t want to spoil all your fun.”

  “How many?”

  I cover my mouth and yawn. Those things are definitely contagious. “How many what?”

  “Sweeps. How many sweeps till yous come hewa?”

  “I think three more.”

  She yawns again as she nods, and so do I.

  “You ready for your song?”

  She nods, takes the phone from Frankie, and lies back in the bed. Then I watch her get covered up.

  I’ve missed dozens of bedtimes because of work, but this time it affects me like it never has before. Fighting emotions, I softly sing the words of the one song that puts her and, apparently, me at ease. A placebo for the hugs I am missing.

  She falls asleep quickly, contently, and then I hang up just as a nurse, not Peterson, comes to take our little one … I mean, the little one to her room.

  “Where’s Peterson?”

  “She’s in a briefing.” She begins to walk over to her, but I beat her to it.

  “I’ll take her up with you in case she wakes.”

  Once in the elevator, I look at the nurse with the mousey brown bob and glasses. Then I look at her badge. “Dennis?”

  She nods.

  “If she wakes up—”

  “Give her the bear and tell her the American is sleeping. I’m aware.”

  And bitchy.

  Exiting the elevator with the little one asleep in a wheelchair, I see Peterson. Her back is to us as she walks down the hallway toward the little girl’s room.

  Peterson waits for Dennis to leave the room and then helps
me tuck her in.

  “I hate that she doesn’t have a name.”

  Not that she’s been overly friendly, but when she doesn’t reply, I look up at her and study her stern face. “The mask is recognizable, Peterson.”

  She looks up. “They’ve found a place for her.”

  “What?” I gasp.

  “Did you expect the US military to just keep her here? Come on, Laurie.” She looks back at the little one. “She’s not ours. She belongs in Syria. They found a doctor and a great hospital—”

  “She’s not ready to—”

  “No,” she cuts me off, “we’re not ready for her to go. But keeping her here isn’t going to possibly reunite her with family or someone she may know, someone she’ll trust to tell us her name.”

  “We both know what happens to orphans in war-torn countries,” I hiss.

  Millions are without homes, most go uneducated, thousands sold or trafficked. The lucky ones find their families, but unfortunately, the majority are also suffering from PTSD and aren’t mentally well enough to care for themselves, let alone a child.

  Looking down at her, Peterson’s mask falls, and she finally shows emotion as she rubs a hand over her shoulder. “Not to this one, it won’t. And not because she’s missing an arm. She’s going to survive. She’s going to thrive. Her instincts are good, Laurie. She’s a survivor.”

  As my stomach sinks, I hold my hands against it.

  “You need to get that man back Stateside so he can have the surgery he needs and you can see that little girl of yours. And you need to have faith that she will be okay. She isn’t going to be thrown out of an airplane. She’s going to a place with other children who speak her language.”

  “And that is enough for you—”

  “We have no choice,” she snaps quietly at me.

  After realization sets in, I look at her. Her eyes are cast down as she places a piece of folded paper under the blanket then looks back up at me.