Day Three

by Patricia Spencer

  “My sister is…disinclined…to receive psychiatric care, due to the risk of it becoming public and adversely affecting her reputation. Our family has a very high profile, you see. Our father is U.S. Special Envoy Brendan Rease. Very influential in the State Department—they issue the work visas and such?”

  The effect on Dr. Lee was electric. “I see. Miss Rease is…” He searched for the right word. “…Notorious?”

  Brenna snorted. “Now, there’s a man whose plane just touched down.”

  Dr. Lee looked distressed. “I have used wrong word?”

  “No.” She cast a sideways glance at Daniel. “You used exactly the right word.”

  “Dr. Lee,” James said. “I am a medical doctor myself. I run the Rease Foundation AIDS Clinic in New York City. My sister did not ask for this consultation, I did. She is…resistant. Her judgment is impaired at the moment.”

  “Don’t, James.”

  “In the interest of her safety, we—her husband-to-be and I—must remain for the interview. Otherwise, she will deny all symptoms and not receive the care that her situation merits. I have been at her side since she was extracted from the Kavsak war zone and have noted nightmares, terrors, flashbacks, depression, and emotional lability. I believe she is at risk for suicide.”

  “Suicide? Oh. If so, she must be in psychiatric unit. Twenty-four hours watch. Locked doors. Safety precautions.”

  “I beg of you. Don’t.”

  “There’s no need for a locked unit,” Daniel said. “I can stay with her around the clock.”

  Blinded by the Rease Effect, Dr. Lee scarcely registered Daniel’s offer.

  James raised an imperious hand. “A locked ward is sound judgment, Dr. Lee. However, given my sister’s…notoriety…and her vulnerability to public scrutiny, I feel she will progress more readily if she is cared for on the acute care unit, with Mr. Ellsworth and myself taking turns watching her.”

  “The liability of the hospital, if—”

  James cut him off. “I am willing to assume full responsibility for my sister provided she cooperates with her care. She will speak candidly with you. She will take whatever medication is prescribed. And she will participate in private psychotherapy on a regular basis, until such a time as her balance is restored.” He turned pointedly toward her. “Agreed?”

  “You son of a bitch.”

  “I’ll take that as a ‘yes’. Why don’t you start by telling Dr. Lee about the flashback you had just before Daniel arrived? I think that would give Dr. Lee enough information to make a diagnosis and prescribe some treatment for you.”

  She glared at James.

  “Speak,” he ordered. “Tell us who Alexander is.”

  Daniel’s head tilted, she noticed. It was a small inquisitive rotation, but the gesture was clear. He had no idea who Aleksandar was. He didn’t remember.

  She took a deep breath. Prayed she could stay in the present moment. Aim for matter-of-fact. “Aleksandar was the boy who smashed Daniel in the face with the butt of his rifle.”

  Daniel flinched.

  “Ah,” Dr. Lee said. “This boy threatens you too?”

  “He threatened me first. Then he hit Daniel.”

  “How did he threaten?”

  “He stuck the muzzle of his rifle in my neck.” She placed her fingers below her jaw to demonstrate. Her skin was warm and the arteries beat faintly in her neck, but she felt the cold steel. She quickly dropped her hand.

  “He was going to shoot?”

  “He wanted to, but he was too scared. He was fourteen. I think I would have been his first close-up kill. He was shaking, torn between killing me and trying not to.”

  “What did you do?”

  She lifted her eyes to Daniel’s, watching him carefully.

  “I told him to pull the trigger.”

  “Oh, Jesus, Brenna. No,” Daniel whispered. Exactly the same way he did that night. The brain that didn’t remember, did.

  “So you were very frightened. Scared for your life.”

  “No. I was calm. Daniel was terrified.”

  James and Dr. Lee simultaneously glanced at Daniel, seeking confirmation of her story from him.

  Daniel’s face lost its color. It was all a blank for him.

  A good thwack in the head had its merits.

  Dr. Lee turned back to Brenna. “So you were calm.”

  “Yeah. Calm.” Not to say: A little disappointed.

  Dr. Lee glanced at his watch.

  Oop. Time’s up. Where did those fifteen minutes go? She didn’t even get to the part about Dragoslav and Mr. Fierce, or Maric and the children. Oh, well.

  “PTSD,” Dr. Lee said. “Trauma. Belief that one’s own life is at risk. Nightmares. Flashbacks. So on. You were correct, Dr. Rease. I will write orders for medication.”

  Hopefully, the medication would be better considered than the ‘eval.’

  Dr. Lee left, assuring the Envoy’s Son that Brenna’s confidentiality would be strictly maintained. At James’ insistence, the psychiatric part of her medical records would be kept on paper, locked in a filing cabinet, and available only to the medical staff directly responsible for her care. The electronic documents regarding her physical injuries would stay in the computer system, thus explaining her stay.

  The door closed with a solid click behind the rattled Korean, who, Daniel didn’t doubt, was now convinced a link had been established between Brenna’s confidentiality and any work visas he wished to have renewed in the future.

  James was a piece of work. In order to get her cooperation, he had humiliated Brenna with the threat of psychiatric lock-up, reduced her to begging as he demonstrated how little it took to strip a mentally-ill patient of all status. Now James stood at the doorway, back turned, his chin dropped to his chest, rubbing his temple with the air of a weary traveler who had been denied a place of rest.

  James lifted his head and came back to face him and Brenna. “All right. First stone.”

  The change in his appearance astonished Daniel. The Rease persona had dissolved. He looked like a troubled man with red-rimmed eyes who had been sleeping in a chair for too many nights to watch over his sister.

  He never meant to have her locked up. If he had, he would have booked into a cushy hotel days ago and let someone else keep the suicide watch. James had played everybody—him, Brenna, and Dr. Lee—to get what was best for his sister. He’d been ruthless. And successful. He was James Rease. Son of the Envoy. Protective Older Brother.

  “I pass,” Daniel said.

  James wearily crossed the room to Brenna’s bedside.

  “Brenna.”

  She turned her head slowly from side to side, denying his approach.

  “You asked me earlier what I was saving your life for. Do you remember that?”

  She rolled onto her side, giving him her back.

  He went around the bed and crouched down at her eye level, his elbows on the mattress.

  She ran her fingertip endlessly over a wrinkle in the sheet.

  “Come on, Brenna. Say ‘Fuck you’ if you remember.”

  The fingertip made its endless figure eight.

  “I’m saving you for me, Li’l Bear. Because I love you, and I need you, and I don’t want to be a Rease all by myself.”

  “You made me feel small.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I just—” James pulled his sleeve across his eyes. “I just can’t lose you, you know?”

  “I’m tired of being here.”

  “It’ll get better, sweetie. I swear to God. Just hold on, okay? Please, Brenna? Hold on for me?” He broke down. “Please don’t quit. I love you so much.”

  He put his head on the edge of the bed, crying openly. “Please, Bear.”

  Tch. She put her hand on the top of his head and, after a moment, tugged. “Come here to me,” she whispered, a faintly Irish lilt in her voice.

  James sat up beside her, circled her waist with his hand, and carefully embraced her. “Mom used to say that, when she was
going to fix our hearts.”

  “Yeah.” She pressed her chin against him. “I remember.”

  Daniel watched silently, touched by the affection they had for each other, brother and sister with their heads together, settling each other as they must have done since childhood.

  James finally sat up, kneading his eyes with his thumb and middle finger. He looked whipped.

  “Daniel? I want to go call Gary. Will you be around a little while?”

  “I’m here for the duration, James. ’Til we get her safely home. Here,” he fished his keys out of his pocket and tossed them. “Take the Benz. It’s in the visitor’s garage. Press the Home icon on the GPS and help yourself to my place. Go shower. Sleep. Food. Whatever. Just dig around ‘til you find what you need.”

  James hesitated, assessing Daniel, then Brenna.

  “Go on,” she said. “I promise not to overpower him and bust loose.”

  “Okay. I think I will.” He pecked Brenna’s forehead, squeezed her hand tight, and picked up his cell phone from the bedside table. He stopped in front of Daniel on the way out. “Watch her. She’s wily.”

  “Oh, looks to me like I stepped in a whole nest.”

  James chuckled and clamped his hand on Daniel’s shoulder on the way out.

  As the door closed, Daniel’s cell phone rang. He fished it out of his front pocket, and looked at the caller ID. Sam Chisolm.

  “Excuse me, Brenna. I have to take this.”

  He pressed the Answer button and put the slender phone to his ear. “Hi, Sam.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m at the hospital.”

  Sam’s voice changed from annoyance to concern. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes. I’m fine. I’m here for…someone else.” Daniel hadn’t told Sam about Brenna’s injury. Her privacy mattered to her, and the last thing she needed was for Sam to blab all over the Press Club that she was back in D.C., in hospital. She’d have the press crawling all over her.

  “I got your message, Daniel, saying you were taking two weeks off. This is a piss-poor time.”

  He switched the phone to his opposite ear and moved to the window, his back to Brenna. “It’s always a piss-poor time. That’s why I have so much Compensatory Time Off accumulated.”

  “You need to be minding this Kavsak documentary.”

  “I am paying attention. Marga Velazquez has the footage, and she’s cataloguing it for the edit.”

  “Have you started writing?”

  “No. I haven’t.”

  “You should have copies of the footage. You should be reviewing it yourself.”

  “I have copies. I know how to do my job, Sam.” He also knew Sam was right.

  “I’m telling you as a friend to pay attention. You hear?”

  “Yes. I hear.”

  Sam hung up, apparently too aggravated to close graciously.

  Daniel pressed the End button, wondering why Sam was telling him as a friend. When he turned, Brenna was watching him. He powered off the phone and slipped it into his pocket.

  Mentally switching off his concerns about work, he sat on her bed. She withdrew fractionally, involuntarily. The burden of violence she had witnessed in Kavsak for thirty months had caught up with her. Her brain had shorted out in self-defense. Today, James had given voice to her mental fragility, and made it impossible for her to sustain even a pretense of normalcy.

  She looked so shame-faced it made his heart hurt. James had administered a choking dose of tough love. Worse, Daniel had been there to see it. She was a proud and private woman, and her brother had brought her to her knees with him as a witness.

  “You are the most courageous woman I ever met, Brenna Rease.”

  She stared at her blanket and miserably shook her head. “No.”

  “Courage isn’t just about dodging bullets, honey. It’s about keeping on trying when the odds look insurmountable.”

  He lifted her chin and gently brought his mouth down and kissed her. He closed his eyes, willing his heart-full of feelings to flow across that tender connection, to tell her without words that he loved her, that she would be all right, that he would stay with her no matter what.

  She broke the kiss and buried her face in his neck. Her hands came up to his shoulders, and she clung to him as a drowning woman clutched a life preserver.

  Chapter 20

  Outside Brenna’s window, the white light of day dimmed to a deep orange glow. The trees were silhouettes that would soon become indistinguishable from the night sky. She missed the fresh air and openness of the outdoors.

  With her room door always closed to ensure her privacy, she felt imprisoned, reduced to conjecturing about the world by the sounds that drifted in, such as the commotion of shift change now taking place a few doors down at the nurses’ station. For half an hour, twice a day, the unit staff doubled, as arriving nurses overlapped with the departing ones, who handed their patients off like batons in a relay race. It had become one of the landmarks of her day.

  She rearranged the sheets, tugged at the Wound-VAC tubes attached to her thigh, and repositioned herself, trying to get comfortable. Which wasn’t really possible.

  “Brenna?” Daniel’s chair was at her bedside. He sat forward, elbows on his knees, and started matching the ends of his fingers to each other. He had been pensive, preoccupied, all afternoon.

  “Hm?”

  “Did I help you?”

  Something in his tone made her go still. He was going to ask questions she dreaded answering. “Did you help me what?”

  “Did I help you when Alexander put the gun to your neck? Did I at least try to protect you?”

  Dear man, so worried he hadn’t been honorable. “You caught me when I was running into the gunfire. You spun me so your body shielded mine if Aleksandar fired again. Of course, the bullet would have gone through both of us—a two-fer on the ammo. But you didn’t know that. So, yeah. You made a good effort.”

  “Running into—? Wait, I thought he had the rifle in your neck. Could you just go chronologically?”

  Her heart shook her ribs like a prisoner fighting the bars of a jail cell. She didn’t know what to tell him. Very little, she supposed. What was the point of revealing more? It would eat Daniel alive if he knew she had traded the children for his life, and it wouldn’t change a thing. The act was irreversible, like having sex on a billiard table, or winning a Pulitzer. Better to leave the self-reproach where it belonged, with her.

  She had been forced to make a choice, and she had made it. It was not the option Daniel would have wanted her to take, but... Brenna blinked, glimpsing flashes of that deadly weapon, of Daniel on the floor, of Maric’s cold madness as he lowered the gun to Daniel’s head.

  No!

  She dragged air through her nose into her lungs. She wasn’t going to think about it. She wasn’t going to feel anything. She knew why Maric hated emotions. They led you somewhere that was too big, too uncontrollable, a place you had to resist. If you went there, you were lost forever. You just hung on to your brain. Tried to stay rational.

  “Bren?”

  “I cracked up, all right? I wanted to die. I’d had enough. The rest was just steps in a dance.” Do-si-do. Swing your partner—in an arc, like Dragoslav swings Mr. Fierce. She felt a buzz on the periphery of consciousness.

  “The last thing I remember was making love to you. Then I woke up at the hospital in Ancona. My parents were there, and you weren’t. It took me three days to get enough memory back to realize you must be in trouble, and that I had to find you. What happened in between?”

  She concentrated, narrowing her eyes, trying to remember. Weisbaden. Surgery. Debridements. A haze of fever. Opiates. James at her side while her father Made Appearances and bellowed for The Best Possible Care. In her lucid moments, she wondered about Daniel. Had he survived? In what condition? She’d finally had James call the hospital in Ancona, just to know if he was alive. He was. She desperately wanted to see him, but if she did, she’d h
ave to confess to him that she had lost the children. The thought was unbearable. So she’d done nothing.

  And here he was.

  “I talked to Luc when I was looking for you. I asked him about the children. He said you and Jasha brought me in alone. He said you mentioned four children, and that you went back for them.” Palm inward, he held up his thumb and began to count. “Mr. Fierce. Grub. Heckle. Jeckle. Squeak.” He ended with five fingers splayed. “Luc was sure you said four, not five.”

  She stared at his fingers, each representing a child. She felt the snap, like synapses misfiring.

  She held up her hand, open fingers mirroring his. She saw Mr. Fierce, dangling, Dragoslav’s meaty fist wrapped around his ankle. “Voice out of hell,” she said, slowly folding the thumb into her palm. “Choosers of the Slain. Valkyries take the boy to Valhalla.”

  Daniel looked perplexed.

  “Dragoslav was going to eat him later,” she explained.

  He shook his head, horrified. “Dragos— Which boy, Brenna? Which boy.”

  “I stepped on a land mine,” she said, closing the remaining four fingers over her thumb. “I never made it back.”

  Daniel arrived home a little past eight, parked the car, grabbed the DVDs with copies of Brenna’s unedited footage from the back seat, and walked around the side of the house. The motion detectors turned on the garden lights, a string of colorful lanterns that made the yard look as festive as a Christmas tree lot.

  The tulips were blooming along the brick path that snaked through the yard, roughly paralleling the perimeter. The sitting area under the pergola in the right rear corner looked welcoming, with its stone border and fond memories of time shared with friends. The vegetable beds, prepared last Fall, were warming up, but not quite ready for the hot-season crops. Along the left fence, green peas grew up the trellis, their feet tickled by fresh leaf lettuce. He stood there, feeling subdued, soaking in the sight of his little paradise, awakening after the winter, promising him a place of stillness amid the chaos.

  He could have stayed at the hospital a little longer after James returned with Pad Thai for dinner, but he came home right after eating. He felt heart sore, shrouded by grief. Brenna had folded all her fingers into her palm. The children were all lost. He and Brenna had had six children in their care. Kristjan had died in his arms. One boy was taken to Valhalla. She never made it back to the other four.