A Little Beyond Hope

by Tracie Puckett

  Matt was becoming just as worried about Luke as I was, which is why my cousin had taken a break from his job in the cafeteria and brought some food out to the search sites. He wanted to keep the search parties fed, but his main focus and attention was on our search leader. Luke had seemed well enough at the gym this morning, but after finding our house in wreckage and with the search stretching on without turning up any of the missing persons, he was becoming more irritable by the moment.

  “Luke,” Matt said, calling across a mountain of debris. Luke stood atop a 6-foot pile of concrete, overlooking what used to be a quaint and quiet Main Street. He was gone again, checked out. His focus belonged solely to recovering the last of the missing persons. There were eight, and of those eight, five were last seen on our street. So he set his attention there—ground zero. And nothing else mattered to him but saving those lives.

  “Luke, you with us?” Matt called up again. Luke’s attention snapped immediately to my cousin. “Listen, man, I know you’re—”

  “Matt,” Luke snapped, his face void of any emotion. That’s how he’d lead his search party these last few hours—loud, authoritative, and stoic. “Unless you have something to contribute to this search, you need to return to your station at the school.”

  “But—”

  “We don’t have time for conversation. Every second we waste is critical for the ones who are still missing. We’re done here.”

  Matt looked back to me as Luke turned and surveyed the other side of the street. There were crews, dozens of men and women, sifting through debris. Surrounding communities had pitched in, law enforcement and all, to help aid in the search for those still missing.

  “Don’t take it personally, Mattie,” I said. “He’s scared.”

  “We’re all scared.”

  “Yeah, but you know where your family is,” I said, barely above a whisper. “Charlie is safe at the school and helping with the set up of the temporary shelters. I’m right here. We’re safe. You have peace of mind knowing that the people you love and care about are okay. Luke doesn’t have that certainty right now. He’s panicking.”

  “Yeah, but you have just as much certainty as Luke does, and look at you. You’re not shutting down,” he said.

  “Shutting down isn’t an option,” I said. “I have to stay calm, stay as positive as I can. You and I both know there’s no way that everyone walks out of this unscathed, and I need to be the best possible version of myself that I can be when this all comes to a head. When he needs me, I need to be ready for him.”

  “He’s burying himself,” Matt said, cornering me a look of apology for the pun. “This search is going to kill him. He’s not facing the facts.”

  “He’s dealing with it the only way he knows how, okay? His dad is missing. Rebecca, too.”

  “And so are a lot of people.”

  “As was Grace and seven others, but they’ve been found, alive and safe,” I said, thankful that my voice hadn’t cracked. I didn’t want to falter; I couldn’t give him any reason to think that I was crumbling. Being strong was my only option now. “Listen, just because they’re missing now doesn’t mean this is over. We can’t start assuming the worst. It’s still too early to give up.”

  “Julie,” Matt said, letting go of a breath. “It’s been a full day.”

  “Matt, go away!” I yelled. “Your negativity is the absolute last thing that any of us need right now. Go!”

  My cousin looked at me, his eyes hardening.

  “You know I’m right,” he said. “And so does Luke. There’s not a lot of hope left for them. You need to stop avoiding the truth and accept that this is happening. There’s a chance that they’re gone for good. Two people you love are out there, probably hurt, undoubtedly starving, and you’ve gotta pull your head out of the clouds. Accept the fact that they’re not with us right now, and they may never be again.”

  I stared at him, my eyes burning with tears. The longer I watched him, the harder it became to breathe.

  He was right. I knew he was right, but for my sake and Luke’s, I had to keep thinking as optimistically as I could. I wouldn’t give up yet. Sure. This could be the end of life as we knew it. It could be the beginning of a life with very little hope. But for now, we still had a tiny shred of something to hold on to, and I’d take anything I could get.

  Without hope, we had nothing.

  Chapter Eight

  “Julie.” My eyes fluttered opened at the sound of my name. What day was it? What time was it? Where was I, and when had I fallen asleep? “Julie, wake up.”

  I looked up from my cot to find Kara leaning over me, still whispering my name. She’d kept her voice low as not to wake any of the others sleeping around us in the gym, and I sat up.

  “Kara?”

  “I need you to come with me,” she said, nodding toward the outside door. “Come on.”

  I rolled off the cot and slipped my shoes on. She waited for me until I was ready, and then I followed as she started toward the gymnasium doors. Weaving in and out of cots around the sleeping citizens of Oakland, we finally made it to the doors and she pushed them opened.

  “What’s going on it? What time is it?”

  “It’s almost midnight,” she said. “And there’s a car waiting for you and Derek,” she said, nodding to a clearing at the end of the street. “They’ve found Lonnie and Zoey.”

  “What?”

  “Luke and Bruno rode the ambulances into West Bridge,” she said. “They’ve sent a car. They want you and Derek to get there as quickly as you can.”

  “Oh, God,” I said, and I didn’t even waste another moment to find out what more she knew. I took off toward the car that idled at the end of the block, running as quickly as I could. Dodging debris and piles of garbage along the way, I managed to make it to the car in record time. I slid into the backseat, only to find Derek next to me, yelling at the driver.

  “Thank God, she’s here, can we go now?” he yelled as I climbed in. I shut the door and nodded to the driver in the mirror. The car set off down the street.

  “What do you know?” I asked, turning to my friend. “What are they saying?”

  “They found them together in the district,” Derek said, still fighting the anger in his tone. Slowly, though, his voice turned to a sad-relief. “They were buried beneath bricks and—

  “Derek, are they—”

  “He saved her life,” Derek choked. “They found him shielding her body, cradling her. Protecting her. He took the blows. They’re saying scrapes and cuts—all minor. She’s hungry, but unharmed. They’re only keeping her at the hospital as precaution at this point.”

  “And Lonnie?” I asked. “Is Lonnie okay?”

  Derek fell silent, his eyes filling with tears. He looked down to his lap, his hands shivering. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he struggled to find the words.

  “Derek?”

  “They’ve admitted him to the ICU with Rebecca,” he said, swallowing hard. “He’s suffered head and spinal injuries.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know the severity of his condition,” he said, choking on tears. “But Intensive Care Unit? That says enough, doesn’t it?”

  I could barely swallow past the lump in my throat as he kept on talking, rambling on about the bloody condition in which they found Luke’s father. And all along he just kept repeating through the tears, he saved her life.

  When the car pulled up to the West Bridge District Hospital, Derek and I shot out of the doors and into the emergency ward. We were greeted by Bruno who ushered Derek in the right direction to find Zoey, but he held me back.

  “Bruno, please,” I begged. “I have to see Lonnie.”

  “You can’t see him, sweetheart,” he said, working to fight tears of his own.

  “I have to,” I said. “Where is Luke?”

  “He’s upstairs,” he said. “He’s with Grace. She’s been discharged, and they’re waiting together outside the ICU for any word on Lonnie o
r Rebecca.”

  I didn’t wait for him to say another word. I shot down the hallway, unaware of where I was going or how I would get there, but knowing that I had to find the ICU as quickly as possible. Lead by nothing more than determination and willpower, I managed to find my way to the waiting room where Luke and Grace sat waiting.

  I came up behind them, watching as Luke held her. Huddled under his arm, Luke’s step-mother gently sobbed against his chest.

  “Jules?” I heard him say quietly. I came closer, turning the corner so that they could both see me. Grace sat up at once, and Luke stood. I ran at him, wrapping my arms around him as tightly as I could. I cried against his chest for what felt like an excruciating ten minutes.

  “Have you heard anything?”

  “Nothing yet,” he said quietly, his red eyes puffy from the tears I hadn’t seen him cry.

  “Grace,” I said, turning to her. Her left arm was protected by a sling, and her eyes were blacked by bruises. “What about you? Are you okay?”

  She stood from her chair, and I wrapped her into a hug—one much gentler than the hug I’d given Luke.

  “It’s only a broken collar bone, sweetheart,” she said, trying to a force a smile, but she couldn’t begin to manage even a fake one … not when the love of her life was facing some very uncertain and critical hours in a hospital bed.

  We sat in the waiting room together for what felt like hours. Turns out, that’s exactly what it was. It was almost three o’clock in the morning before the first update came.

  “For Rebecca,” the doctor said, entering the small waiting room. We all perked up at once. “She’s awake.” There was a collective sigh of relief from Grace, Luke, and myself. “She’s still heavily sedated, and she’s not communicating well. She’s disoriented, tired, but she’s awake. That’s the most promising sign she’s shown so far.”

  “And what about Lonnie?” I asked quickly. “Lonnie Reibeck. Do you have any updates on his condition?”

  “He’s still in surgery.”

  “When will we know something?” Grace asked, stepping forward.

  “I assure you that you’ll remain updated throughout the night with any changes, Mrs. Reibeck,” the doctor said. “Right now, we’re doing everything we can.”

  ###

  With the good news that Rebecca had woken, Luke and Grace seemed a little at ease. But only a little. There were still so many uncertainties lingering—would she manage a full recovery? How long would that take? When could we see her? What was Lonnie’s prognosis? What were the extents of his injuries, and what were we to expect for his recovery post-surgery?

  I could see the questions written on their faces, too. Even though Grace kept her head low and watched her hands, I saw the pain flicker in her eyes every time a doctor walked by without news on her husband. Luke was quiet as ever. Even sitting next to him in the waiting room, I couldn’t make out the faintest sound of his breathing. He wasn’t speaking. He wasn’t moving. He was barely blinking.

  Bruno had joined us in the waiting room just an hour or so after we’d arrived. Like me, he kept watching the Reibecks. Every now and then he’d focus his attention on me, and without saying so much as a word, we both knew what the other was thinking—we’d never felt so useless. We wanted to help. We wanted to take action, make things happen. We wanted to say the right things but we didn’t have a clue where to begin. So we sat in silence and waited, hoping time would offer us a little clarity on how to help the people we loved.

  The night went on like that for what seemed like forever. I excused myself after a few hours of waiting in silence, promising the others in the waiting room that I’d return soon. I wandered down the halls of the quiet hospital until I found the room number Bruno had given me for Zoey. The door was shut, but there was a faint light coming from under the door. With a couple of light taps, I opened the door without waiting for Derek’s go-ahead to come in.

  “How’s she doing?” I whispered, looking over to the sleeping infant in the crib next to him. My friend sat a little straighter in his chair and looked over to his five-month-old daughter.

  “She’s happy, healthy … lucky to be alive,” he said, matching my whisper. I pulled up the footstool to his chair and sat down, taking his hand. Derek’s eyes moved from the sleeping infant to watch our entwined fingers, and he gave my hand a gentle squeeze. “How’re the others?”

  “Rebecca’s awake and stable,” I said, taking a long breath. “Lonnie’s in surgery. The doctors aren’t really saying much at this point. What have they told you about Zoey?”

  “She’s in good shape,” he said. “She was hungry, dehydrated. Minimal bumps and bruises, but all in all, she’s perfect as ever.”

  “That’s wonderful.”

  “Whatever Lonnie did to protect her from the impact saved her life, Julie.” The room quieted to almost a complete silence. It was only then that I realized that the faint light I’d noticed under the door from the hallway had been from the TV. He’d muted the sound to maintain the quiet; he’d taken to watching nothing but the motions on the screen.

  “Just to hear her breathe,” he said. “So I know she’s okay.”

  I nodded. “Is there anything you need? Anything I can get you?”

  “No,” he shook his head. “Only the promise that you’ll keep me updated when you hear anything about the others.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Especially Lonnie,” he said. “Because what he did …”

  “Lonnie loves his granddaughter, Derek,” I said, trying to manage a smile. “He would’ve done anything to protect her. Even if that meant—”

  “Giving his own life,” Derek said, looking back up to his daughter. His eyes only grew heavier with sadness, and a single tear slid down his cheek as he looked back to me. “I should’ve been there.”

  “Now don’t you dare start blaming yourself for any of this, Derek,” I said. “Nothing that happened out there was within our control. Besides, with the direction and force that the storm hit, there’s nothing more you could’ve done even if you had been there. What’s worse, if you would’ve been in town, you’d most likely be among the injured. You could still be out there right now buried, hurt … dead. But you were away. You were gone. And that’s the best possible thing that could’ve happened for you and for Zoey. Once she’s fully recovered, you’re here, uninjured, and healthy as ever to take care of her. She needs that. It was a blessing that you were nowhere near Oakland when that storm hit.”

  He nodded. “Yeah.”

  And though it seemed that he’d listened to me, that he’d heard me loud and clear, his tears kept falling. One steady stream after another, Derek’s face soaked with tears.

  “He saved her life,” he said again, as if those were the only words that he could manage once the emotions got the best of him. “I need him to be okay, Julie. Zoey needs as much family as she can get, and she’s not getting that from my side. Lonnie, Grace, Luke, you … her mother … she needs them just as much as she needs me.”

  I nodded and gave his hand another squeeze. “Time will tell. All we can do right now is hope for the best.”

  “Hope?” Derek scoffed. “More like pray. Hope only goes so far, Julie.”

  Chapter Nine

  I couldn’t shake Derek’s words, even after I’d given both him and Zoey a soft kiss on the head before saying goodnight. I left the room not long after I’d entered. Derek needed his rest. So did the baby, and sitting up with Derek all night wouldn’t help either of them get the sleep they both desperately needed.

  Even as I said goodnight, walked out of the room, and closed the door behind me, I couldn’t get those words out of my head. Hope? More like pray.

  I wandered the hallways of the hospital, hoping to get lost—in the building, in my thoughts. Anywhere. I didn’t want to go back to the ICU and watch the people I love suffer in silence. I didn’t want to sit there for another second eager to help, but having no idea how to. So I walked.
r />   Hope? More like pray.

  I stopped just outside the hospital chapel, staring at the stained-glass doors.

  “What am I doing?” I asked myself, taking hold of the wooden handles in front of me. I wasn’t the praying type. Not really. I wasn’t even sure I knew how … or if there was even a right way to do it. No matter, it was already too late. I’d opened the doors to the dark, quiet chapel, only to find one lonely person sitting in a pew near the front.

  As the doors eased to a close behind me, I walked from the back of the aisle and studied the man. His chin was dropped forward to his chest, and as I approached him with a few quiet steps, I soon noticed his eyes were closed. As he sat and prayed, I took a seat next to him in the pew, reached over and took his hand, and squeezed his fingers. He didn’t budge.

  After a few silent minutes, he finally opened his eyes. A single tear rolled down Luke’s cheek, and he turned his head to meet my gaze.

  “It almost feels selfish, you know?” he asked, his voice sounding weaker than I’d ever heard it. Even back in the days when he’d been hospitalized with a bullet in his chest, Luke had never seemed as defeated as he seemed right then. “It never seems fair to ask for anything.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “We think we have problems,” he said. “We lie. We complain. We overreact and overanalyze every little thing. And no matter how bad we think we have it, there’s always someone else who has it worse,” he said, sounding just like Matt. It makes you realize your problems were never really problems at all. “And then here we sit—praying for some kind of miracle … for something more … for some kind of magical fix.” His words grew quieter as he looked down to our joined hands. “But there is no magical fix. Not this time. There’s nothing anyone can do. Life and death … they’re part of this world we live in. All we can do is accept it.”

  “Life and death?” I asked. “Why are you talking like that? Luke, we still don’t know—”