Undertow

by Natusch, Amber Lynn

  25

  It took me a while to pull myself together, and that was only after I had been summoned by one of the hospital administrators. The men watched me disappear back into the ER after I promised to keep them updated on Decker's condition. The other two they could visit, and they were on their way to go see them after I departed.

  My meeting was little more than an informal request for me to take time off, starting my contract on its original schedule. They could clearly see that I was not handling everything that had happened well, and I was certain that Dr. Lewis also had something to do with it. I didn't think he had liked me very much from the start, and my reaction to the events that followed had done little to change his feelings toward me.

  I agreed to the terms presented, knowing that arguing would have only caused more problems than it solved. I didn't want to start off on bad terms, and, since I had already shown them one breakdown in my professionalism, I didn't want to show them another. I was, however, allowed to stay in Decker's room for as long as I wanted. Visiting hours didn't apply to staff members, even those on hiatus.

  So I took full advantage of my loophole, diligently watching over both him and his monitors, looking for any changes in his behaviors and condition. I also studied his chart notes carefully, making sure that nothing had been overlooked. Thankfully, the majority of his injuries were not life-threatening on their own; they only added to the stress on his body while it tried to heal. The few burns he had were only second degree, and were primarily on his hands and neck, the presumption being that he had shielded himself from the bulk of the blast. His leg, however, had nearly cost him his life. And the infection it allowed in still threatened both life and limb.

  The laceration that he sustained while trying to abandon ship, carved deep into his right thigh, had nicked his femoral artery. He nearly bled out before he ever arrived in Anchorage. Had it not been for Robbie and his ingenuity, Decker never would have made it. Robbie had managed to get hold of a buoy tethered to heavy rope, floating in the water around them, and make a tourniquet of sorts out of it, which not only served to lessen the blood loss but also kept Decker’s torn survival suit up out of the water and above his heart. But even with those measures taken, I'd almost lost him.

  Almost.

  Still, the systemic infection that coursed through him posed an entirely different threat. It was silent and insidious, ravaging the compromised tissues his injuries left behind as well as the healthy ones that had escaped unharmed. With his healing efforts being pulled in so many directions at the same time, his body was having a hard time fighting off the bacterial intruders. If the doctors were unable to find a suitable cocktail of antibiotics quickly, his fate would be uncertain.

  Staring down at him in his hospital bed, I resolved that losing him was not an option—not to injury or infection, and especially not to the sea. It never would be an acceptable outcome. I loved him too much for that.

  So the waiting game began. Over the next two days, I sat by idly while a team of specialists decided what the best course of action would be to kill off the infection and keep him comfortable while he healed. The consensus was that they would keep him in a chemically-induced coma for another day or two while he continued to heal from his emergency surgery and until the worst of his burn pain passed. They didn't mention much about the infection other than that they intended to continue the intravenous antibiotics that had already been administered. It had not progressed, which seemed a success in their eyes, but it had not relented either, a fact I was desperate to point out. I didn't like their plan at all.

  I selfishly wanted him to be awake. In my heart, I felt that, if I could just look him in the eyes, I would know if he was going to be okay. But I kept my medical opinions to myself and waited while the doctors carried out their plan. My only option was to continue to keep vigil over his bed and wait for a sign—a miracle.

  Brad was transferred to a specialty burn unit somewhere in the lower forty-eight states after his considerable third degree burns showed aberrant healing patterns. He was taken to a medical charter plane and flown south. I never had a chance to see him before he left.

  Robbie was almost ready for discharge, having been the least wounded of all. I got to visit him early on the day he was to be released; he looked like himself again, and it made me smile. He was going to make his way back to Dutch Harbor and stay there until his eye fully healed or until the next fishing season, whichever happened first. I offered him my father's house to stay in, but he declined, a look of pain taking over his expression. He'd all but lost a father when mine died. Robbie never really knew his dad. He left him when he was just a boy.

  “Are you going to come back at all?” he asked, hedging around the elephant in the room—making arrangements for my father's estate.

  “I'm supposed to hear back from Dad's attorney soon. I'll know more then. I don't assume there is much to go through. He had no assets other than the boat and the house. Whatever cash he had will likely have been left to me, and, if not, it'll find its way to wherever it belongs without my help,” I told him plainly, far more able to discuss the matter when I thought of it as a business transaction rather than the organization of my deceased father's belongings and wishes. I needed to keep it clinical for my sanity. Emotions were more than I could manage at that time.

  “If you need anything—” he said softly, reaching across his hospital bed to take my hand.

  “I know, Robbie,” I replied, giving it a squeeze. “The same goes for you. My dad loved you like you were his own. He would want to make sure that you were taken care of.”

  “He was a good man, Aesa. I'm glad you were able to see that in the end.”

  I felt my throat start to close down on me before I could answer.

  “I know,” I whispered, fighting hard against the tears that threatened to escape. “I should get out of here. The nurses will have some paperwork for you to fill out before you can go. And I should really get back to Decker.”

  “Go,” he ordered, pulling me down to him for a hug. “But you call me when you're back in town, understand? I don't want to find out you've been there and I never heard a peep from you.”

  “Deal.”

  He nodded once in approval after I stood up, ready to make my way to Decker's room.

  “I'll see you around, Ice.”

  “You'd better.”

  I forced a playful wink before I closed his door behind me, lingering just outside of it for a moment. I wanted to compose myself before returning to Decker's room. I knew it was far from likely, but, if he had woken up while I was gone, I needed to get my wits about me before I saw him. It was highly likely that I would fall apart the second I saw his sad brown eyes looking at me, but I wanted to be strong for him. I at least needed to try.

  Once I felt like I had collected myself, I made the short trip back up to his room, only to find him unconscious, as he had been since arriving. My resulting frustration knew no bounds. I had missed the few moments he had regained consciousness after his surgery, still drugged up on the couch of the doctor's lounge. Decker had woken up screaming incoherent things and was highly combative with staff. He was instantly sedated. The decision to put him into a chemically-induced coma came shortly after that.

  As my anger rose, I knew I needed a distraction, and I was happy to see my cell phone flashing a message at me from across the room. I picked it up to find an email waiting for me from my father's attorney. He wanted to meet me at Dad's house to go over the paperwork and finalize all the legal documents so that we could be done with it. He had taken the liberty of getting the belongings from my father's safe deposit box for me so that I wouldn't have to make that trip too.

  I sent him a note back saying that I would arrange my travel plans ASAP and get back to him, letting him know exactly when I would arrive in town. While I sat beside a motionless Decker, I spent the next hour getting everything squared away. The charter service that had brought me to Anchorage was able to
get me home the next day. The owner knew my father and had heard of his passing. He bent over backwards to accommodate me.

  With everything set to go, I looked over at Decker, still in his induced slumber, and wondered when he was going to be released from it. I grabbed his chart and searched the notes to refresh my memory, but nothing in there spoke about when they intended to revive him. My frustration mounted further, knowing that I was leaving under such uncertain terms. I wanted to be there when he woke up, but I also wanted to get things sorted out with my father's estate as quickly as I could so that I could get that off of my plate. I hated to choose.

  “I have to go for a day or two,” I said softly, not wanting to startle him, which was hardly possible given his state. Gingerly brushing the stray hairs from his face, I bent down and kissed his forehead, avoiding the various bruises and cuts that were in various stages of healing and a variety of colors. “I'll get back here as soon as I can. I promise. I don't want to leave, but I need to get this done. I'm sorry.”

  I waited a moment, a small part of me expecting him to answer in his perfectly calm and rational voice, but he didn't. All I heard was the beeping of the myriad monitors strapped to him, peppered with silence. With a sigh, I straightened up and made my way out of his room in search of his attending physician. I wanted to make certain that if he did wake up while I was gone, it was because he did it on his own, not with the aid of his medical team. That was a moment I wanted to share with him, and I had no intention of having it ruined.

  I needed to make that fact known.

  26

  I left early the next morning for home. The flight seemed much shorter than the time before, most likely because I was nervous about what awaited me on the other end. Signing papers wasn't a daunting task, but I knew that, when I was there, I would have to pick out a headstone for my father and erect it next to my mother's—reunited at last, both on land and in the sea.

  When we arrived, I picked up a rental, the same Jeep as before, and drove to my childhood home to await the lawyer. He was kind enough to meet me early rather than make me sit around all day. I appreciated his consideration.

  I tried to ignore what it was like to be in my house, knowing that my father would never return. It wasn't a huge stretch for me; he was rarely ever home when I was growing up. I sat in the kitchen with a cup of tea and worried about Decker while I waited. The conversation with his attending hadn't gone as well as I had hoped. When I had found out it was Dr. Lewis, I wasn't surprised at that outcome. He informed me that I had no say in the matter, not being family of any kind, and reminded me that the hospital was extending me a courtesy by letting me stay all hours of the night with him. He also reminded me that the courtesy could be revoked at any time. So I was left to wonder if he was spiteful enough to wake him while I was gone, solely because I didn't want him to. I hoped that wasn't the case.

  A knock on the door saved me from my paralyzing analysis of the situation, and I got up to let Mr. Brown in. He was a plain-looking older gentleman, dressed in business casual attire and clutching a briefcase from the seventies in his hand.

  “Ms. Fredriksen,” he said warmly, extending his hand. “I'm very sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you,” I replied as I met his reach. “Please come in.” I ushered him into the kitchen to sit while I put some water on to boil. “Tea?”

  “No, thank you. I won't be here long enough for that to whistle,” he explained opening up his case of paperwork. “I only have a few things for you to sign. His will was extremely simple: everything went to you. I do have the paperwork from his lock box, like I told you over the phone. It’s in this envelope here. I didn't open it, but I assume you'll find the deed to the house and titles to any vehicles in there. Sometimes there are bonds or other monetary things, but I find that most often it's just paperwork that needed to be kept in a safe place.”

  “Thanks,” I said, taking the envelope he offered.

  He continued explaining the paperwork while I rifled through the manila envelope, unearthing the very documents he told me I would find in there. There were some miscellaneous papers to do with the boat and the business too, all of which seemed irrelevant given that it was resting on the sea floor for eternity. Then there was a folded piece of notepaper, hidden at the bottom of the package. I was reaching in to pull it out when I heard the lawyer asking me something.

  “Aesa?” Mr. Brown prompted, reaching a pen toward me. “Could you sign here please?”

  I feverishly signed all that he put in front of me without bothering to read the documents. My dad had trusted him for years so I saw no reason not to as well. When we finished up, he briefly explained the rest of the process to me and said he would be in touch soon. I smiled and walked him out, still curious about the random note in my father's envelope. The second he left, I went into the kitchen to investigate what it was.

  Not in a million years would I have ever expected to find what I had withdrawn from that innocuous manila folder.

  I unfolded the aged paper gently and turned it right side up so that I could read the handwriting that I found on it—my mother's handwriting. I would have known it anywhere. The note comprised only four lines, but they spoke volumes. My heart sank as I collapsed into my chair, reading a truth I could never have known. A truth that my father kept from me for my own good and to the detriment of my opinion of him.

  You didn't want to give me a divorce, so this is your payback. Every time you even think about your precious Bering Sea, you'll see me, floating dead just beneath the water. I'll ruin it for you. My parting gift in repayment for all you failed to give me.

  I stopped breathing entirely, the shaking of my hand picking up the erratic rhythm my lungs had held before they ceased to function entirely. My mind could not wrap itself around what my eyes could so plainly see. The note, written by my mother right before she died, trembled before me, but its meaning was still very clear. She had not done what she did out of depression and sorrow, as I'd long thought. She had done it out of spite and misery, and, though my father may have been the cause of some of that pain, her anger and hatred were not his doing. She drowned herself in the sea not to be with him, but to taint those waters a bloodied red to haunt him forever. And the worst part of it all was that he knew and never told me.

  He never said a thing to disparage my mother in front of me. Never that I could remember. Not when I blamed him for her death. Not when I told him I was leaving because of it. Not even when I told him I wished it was him and not her lying on the sea floor, food for the very animals he sought so fervently to catch.

  He never said a thing.

  Instead, he’d suffered his sentence, for which he'd been wrongly accused, for nearly a decade. I'd convicted him of murder and cast him aside, not knowing that all could have been reversed had I known the truth. That tiny scrap of paper would have shown me that he was not the criminal I made him out to be, but he didn't divulge it. He didn't because he loved both me and my mother too much—more than he valued himself.

  A water spot grew wide across the note I still held, soon joined by another. Then another. I quickly folded it up before it was ruined by my tears and put it in my pocket, unsure of what else to do with the damning evidence. I didn't care in that moment. All I cared about was the guilt I felt and how much I would have given to have the chance to tell my father that I had been so wrong about him. So very, very wrong. But he was gone, and, though my heart burned from the loss, there was a soothing calm that slowly resonated through my body. I had come and done what I had set out to do when I planned to return.

  I had made peace with my father.

  Though words went unsaid and apologies unmade, he knew I loved him and he took that with him to his grave. And I knew he loved me too; my mother's note further entrenched that knowledge. As I wept alone over the kitchen table, I did find solace in that.

  27

  Even though I desperately wanted to, I had no way to leave that night, so I stayed at his
house, huddled up on the couch in the living room while I stared out at the clear sky riddled with stars. Sleep overtook me eventually, but I awoke feeling groggy and disoriented, not remembering having fallen asleep at all. The chirping of my cell phone alerted me to the fact that I needed to get back to the airport, as my flight was leaving in only a short time. I happily collected the few things I'd brought with me and made my way out to the rental. Being in that house made me sad. I didn't want to be there any longer.

  Shortly before I boarded the plane, I received a text message from a nurse at the hospital. Her words were few, but concise: “He's waking up.” My whole body went numb. I needed to get back there. I didn't want him to wake up alone.

  The entire flight was spent with me obsessing over my choice to leave and how much of a dick Dr. Lewis was really proving to be, especially if he'd intentionally done what I suspected. I'd have him up on malpractice charges if that was indeed the case and I could prove it. Regardless, I was just happy that Decker was well enough to be pulled out of the coma and returned to some state of consciousness. I couldn't wait to see those eyes.

  * * *

  “Decker?” I called softly, taking his hand in mine as I crouched down beside his hospital bed. “Can you hear me? I'm so sorry I wasn't here earlier. I had to go home for a bit, but I'm back now.”

  His eyes fluttered in response, trying to open themselves fully, an act that he hadn't achieved in days. I could see that the ceiling light in the room was making it harder for him and immediately sprang up to shut it off. Once that was done, he seemed much more at ease and cracked them open just enough to see. They instantly landed on me.