Won't Last Long

by Heidi Joy Tretheway

“You’ll know,” she answered quietly. “Don’t overthink it. Don’t go by some checklist of what you think you want. You’ll hit this moment, and you’ll just know.”

  “I hope so.” Melina wondered if that moment of clarity would ever come.

  ***

  Melina signed her tab with a flourish and got up, unsteady. She pulled on her cashmere coat and draped the Giustiniano bag over her shoulder.

  “Mel, are you OK to drive home?” Andrea asked with genuine concern. “I’ve got some briefs to finish tonight so I didn’t drink much, and I could give you a ride.”

  “I’m fine,” Melina snapped. “I’ll be extra careful going home, Scout’s Honor.” She held up three fingers in mock salute, fumbling to press her pinkie down with her thumb.

  “If you’re sure…” Andrea trailed off.

  Melina climbed into her coupe and hit the wipers to clear the windshield. Sheets of rain sparkled under the illumination of Melina’s headlights.

  She took the curving back road to her neighborhood, through Wallingford’s maze of tangled streets: Kensington, Kenwood, Keystone and Kirkwood.

  Down a steep slope with houses lining the left and a forested ravine on the right, she turned sharply left on the street toward her home, expecting her car’s snappy response.

  Instead, her wheels spun, clawing at wet, slimy leaves that littered the road. Her tires slid, helpless to grip the slick street as the tail of her car spun sideways.

  “No!” Melina cried, slamming her foot on the brake, wrenching the steering wheel to regain control.

  The car fishtailed, overcorrecting and spinning wildly the other way—a half-turn, a full-turn, and over the edge of the ravine.

  She wanted to scream, to stop, to turn the car back to where it was supposed to be. But the coupe bounced, rumbled, racing toward the trees, still spinning.

  Melina felt a moment of weightlessness, and then the stranglehold as her chest and stomach slammed into her seatbelt. She felt an explosion, like being punched in the face, and another punch from the side.

  The car slammed to a stop with a sickening thud, its hood crumpled, driven nose-first into a tree. Its headlights went out. The engine was quiet.

  Nobody saw it fall.

  THIRTY-THREE

  “This is Joshua Danford,” he said, gripping the phone, instantly on alert. Friends don’t call you by your full name.

  “Mr. Danford, I’m afraid there’s been an accident. Could you please come down to the hospital?”

  Momo. Joshua’s mind flashed to the frail, wild-haired woman who might have found dozens of excuses to push herself too far and have another fall. Joshua hoped her hip wasn’t broken; it could force her to stay in a wheelchair for months—or permanently.

  “I’ll be right there. What room is she in?” he asked.

  “You already know about the accident?”

  He shook his head sadly. “I was expecting something like this might happen again; she’s pretty stubborn,” he said.

  “It is sad; this is totally avoidable,” the nurse agreed. “Just come to room 470, wing D. You know, we weren’t sure who to call for her, so we just dialed the last number on her mobile phone.”

  Her mobile?

  “Momo doesn’t have a mobile.” Fear crept up Joshua’s spine, threatening to choke him.

  “Momo? Is that her nickname? Her driver’s license said Melina.”

  ***

  Fear splintered Joshua’s brain. Keys. Keys, man, where are the keys? He found them on the counter by the apartment notice that no longer mattered. Nothing mattered except getting to the hospital, seeing her.

  He slammed his car door, peeling out of his parking space the way he never had when it was simply a fast car. Now it had to be a jet, a bullet, the fastest way to bridge the gap between his fear and what was real.

  “What’s the room number?” the receptionist asked.

  Joshua shook his head, trying to clear the wreckage in his mind. Somewhere inside, the nurse left the clue. Wing D. Wing D and room 740. Or 704. Or 470. Or something.

  The clerk took a painfully long time looking up Melina’s name and room number and explaining in detail how to get there. He couldn’t hear her. It was like listening to someone talk while underwater. All he could do was run in the direction she pointed.

  ***

  He nearly flattened the nurse exiting Melina’s room, a man taller than Joshua was, but thinner and wiry.

  The nurse blocked the door. “Hang on a second. Are you going to see the patient?”

  “Yes. Melina Avgerakis. They just called me. I’ve got to see her now.” Joshua felt like his heart would explode, it was beating so fast. He had to see her. Right now.

  “OK, man, just take a minute,” the nurse calmed Joshua. “Before you go in, I’d better explain what’s going on with her so you know what to expect, OK?”

  Joshua shook his head. “Talk later,” he said, and pushed past the nurse.

  Melina lay still in a bed that seemed to swallow her. Her blonde hair was caked with blood and stitches cut a line across her forehead from hairline to brow. Her eyes were closed, bruised and puffy, with smeared mascara exaggerating the pain she must be feeling.

  An oxygen mask obscured the rest of her face, and the white white white of hospital walls and linens felt like a spotlight on Joshua’s growing panic.

  “She has a head injury,” the nurse explained, coming up behind Joshua, who had frozen midway between the door and Melina’s bed. “Her car went into a ravine, but her airbag deployed and saved her face from the steering wheel.”

  “A car accident?” Joshua asked stupidly, his thoughts spinning.

  “Yes. Her seatbelt also caused a lot of internal injuries,” the nurse said, “but we’re hopeful with the first surgery that there won’t be much more bleeding.”

  Joshua paled. It was worse than it looked.

  “She’s lucky. If she hadn’t been wearing a seatbelt, no way would she have survived,” the nurse added. “She hit that tree hard. But she’s really lucky that someone found her at all. I heard a jogger found her; no one could see the wreck from the road.”

  Joshua willed himself forward, picking up Melina’s pale hand. Swelling erased its knuckles and wrinkles, like a blown-up latex glove.

  He watched her, and waited.

  ***

  “Melina?”

  Joshua leaned in as her eyelids fluttered.

  She blinked through a cloud of pain and painkillers. Her head bent toward Joshua.

  “Melina. I’m here. You’re here. In the hospital. You’re OK. You were in a car accident but you’re going to be OK. You’ve got to be.”

  He pressed her good hand to his face and sobbed. “I love you. I can’t stand to lose you.” Melina’s eyes widened, fully alert.

  Joshua wrapped his arms around her shoulders as carefully as he could, avoiding the tubes, trying to comfort her. He kissed her cheek—puffy but unobstructed by bandages or the oxygen mask.

  Her eyes looked fearfully around the room and seemed to ask a hundred questions. Joshua knew it would be his job to bring her back to reality.

  He explained what he was able to piece together from his sleepless night’s worth of visitors. They brought him her handbag near dawn, soiled and bloody, and he pawed through it, finding her mobile phone and calling her parents.

  After he called them, promising updates as soon as he had more information, he called Andrea and found out how Melina had left the Mercury Grill the night before.

  “Maybe she wasn’t drunk, but she was definitely tipsy,” Andrea said, the pain of regret in her voice. “And the roads were slick, and she always drives fast ….” she trailed off. Any one of those could have caused the crash, but in combination they proved almost fatal.

  Melina listened to Joshua, mute, eyes tearing as he explained the extent of her injuries. CAT scans showed some swelling in her brain, but it was unlikely the head injury would cause permanent damage. The rest of her would heal with time, an
d scars.

  Melina grasped at her oxygen mask, removing it from her face. “I’m glad you’re here,” she croaked, her tongue dry and swollen.

  Joshua clenched his jaw, struggling to keep an even, positive expression. He could hardly bear to watch Melina, who looked as if she’d lost the fight of her life.

  One tooth was chipped, another missing, and both lips were cracked and raw. Spots of dried blood remained on the corners of her mouth and her chin.

  “Can I see?” she rasped.

  At first, Joshua didn’t understand the question. But then, he realized: she was asking for a mirror. His eyes shot to her orange purse with a compact mirror inside. Should I even give it to her? I don’t know if she can take it right now.

  “Please?” she was insistent. Slowly, he opened it and placed it in her good hand.

  She moved the mirror in orbit around her face, looking, taking in each scratch and scrape, the purplish bruises, the swollen mouth and eyes, the jagged stitches from hairline to eyebrow. Her matted blonde hair was limp and filthy.

  “This is me?” It was a statement of disbelief. But for Joshua, knowing that the worst was over and healing could begin, it was relief.

  “Nope, this is just temporary,” he said fiercely. “You’re going to heal and you’ll get rid of those stitches and you’ll get back to normal in no time.” He kissed her hand. “You’re still beautiful, and I love you.”

  Melina squeezed her eyes shut, tremors shaking her broken body. Joshua heard her sobs as his fear for her warred with his elation of finally seeing behind her mask. He was absolutely certain of who she really was.

  Tears streamed down her cheeks, releasing hours of pain and terror that the painkillers held back. Melina’s emotions poured out of her, laid completely bare.

  “You love me anyway?” she whispered.

  “I love you always.”

  Melina pulled Joshua closer, his face inches from her bloody mouth. She struggled to speak.

  “Mel, what is it? What do you want?” he asked, wondering how much damage the compact mirror had done.

  “I want you,” she breathed. “I want you always.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Joshua spent the next few weeks moving between visits to Melina in the hospital, household chores for Momo, and hours at work on autopilot.

  Although the garden was largely dormant, he brought fall foliage to brighten Momo’s house and Melina’s hospital room. Momo swapped her wheelchair for a walker.

  Melina begged Holly and Eric to bring her laptop—anything to distract her from the hospital’s five channels of soap operas. She finally got clearance to leave the hospital once doctors were certain that her head injury wouldn’t have lasting effects and her abdominal injuries were healing properly.

  On discharge day, Joshua came to her hospital room, beaming.

  “You are in too good a mood, you know that?” Melina said grumpily. “This is not the most fun I’ve ever had.”

  “No, but it’s going to be!” he said, mischief dancing in his eyes.

  “Why?” she was instantly suspicious.

  “Well, that’s for your doctor to approve, and you to wait and see.”

  Joshua clearly hasn’t learned his lesson about how much I hate surprises.

  ***

  Instead of driving to Melina’s house north of the city, Joshua turned the Porsche east toward the mountains. They cruised a curving freeway that could take them across the country, but turned off of it just as they reached the foothills of the Cascade mountain range.

  Joshua steered down the narrow road, trees tall and quiet around them, a few snowflakes falling on wet pavement. Melina recalled the rustic island cabin he had chosen for her birthday and wondered if she could stand a frigid night in a mountain cabin.

  I might not need air conditioning at this time of year, but central heating would be nice.

  “Are you going give me any hints at all?” she begged as they drove further from civilization.

  “Nope,” he said, grinning, concentrating on the tight turn in the mountain road. His Porsche seemed like a poor choice for this weather.

  Suddenly, the tightly packed evergreens opened into a wide clearing flanked by a massive stone wall. An expansive log cabin-style lodge perched on the edge of a steep cliff, and Snoqualmie Falls dropped at least twenty stories below.

  The hand-carved sign read Salish Lodge & Spa.

  ***

  Their room’s wide windows faced the falls, which churned hundreds of feet below them, sending up a fine cloud of mist. Tens of thousands of gallons of water thundered over the falls each minute.

  Melina couldn’t suppress her glee—everywhere she looked, their room had something to savor. The freestanding, impossibly deep porcelain tub, generous enough for two. The way the water poured into it from a spigot on the ceiling. A steam shower with fourteen spouts.

  “Melina? Come in here,” Joshua said, pulling her from the bathroom to a couch by a real log fire. It crackled and warmed them, a stark contrast to the cold mountain weather on the edge between snow and rain.

  “Joshua, it’s wonderful,” she enthused, wrapping her arms around him. He hugged her back gingerly, as if she could be broken again at any moment.

  “I know you wanted to go to a five-star resort,” Joshua said, “but I thought we should get more than just fancy decorations and room service.”

  “There’s no room service?” her face fell.

  He laughed. “Of course there’s room service, silly! But call me a traditionalist, I think we should at least go down to the dining room and eat at a proper table for Thanksgiving.”

  “Thanksgiving?” she looked at him blankly, flipping the pages of her mental calendar, not certain what day it was, or even what day of the week.

  “You’ve been out of commission for a while, Mel. Thanksgiving is tomorrow. Good thing, too; I’d hate for you to spend it eating hospital food.”

  His expression changed; mischief returned. “But for tonight, I thought, let’s order in. Room service—anything you want.”

  He held out a thick, leather-bound menu. “Why don’t you look at the specials?”

  Melina took the menu and opened it. Inside, a ring dangled from a satin bookmark.

  Joshua cupped her face in his hands. Melina shrank back, aware of her scarred face, still stained yellow with bruises; her missing tooth, and another cracked and jagged. The line where her stitches closed her forehead was still an angry red.

  “You’ve never looked more beautiful to me than you do now, when it’s just you, without the trimmings,” Joshua said. “Melina Avgerakis, will you marry me?”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Melina and Joshua cocooned in Salish Lodge over the long weekend, enjoying the contrast between the fireplace inside and the fierce wind that whipped through the trees and down the path of the falls.

  A thin, pale moon cut into their room and they woke, talked and held each other, remembering the intimacy that a hospital full of doctors and staff prevented.

  At first, they made no move to call anyone, family or friends, after Melina said yes. They held it close like a secret, as if their bubble might burst.

  But after four days, they reentered the real world.

  “Hello, Dad? It’s Joshua,” he said loudly across a scratchy telephone connection, glad to finally hear his father’s voice. Melina sat a few yards away, looking out the window, listening intently.

  “I’m good, real good—how are you enjoying Istanbul?” Joshua listened for a while, nodding, as his father launched into a story from his most recent posting in Turkey.

  Finally, Joshua interrupted. “So Dad—Dad—the reason I’m calling is I have news. You know the girl I’ve been dating, Melina? Well, we’re getting married.”

  He paused, listening to Captain Danford and pacing across their hotel suite.

  “No! No, Dad, nothing like that, I mean, she’s not, uh, pregnant. Dad. I love her. We’re getting married.” Another pause, and Joshu
a winced. “Well, I was kind of hoping you’d at least congratulate us.”

  Joshua looked over to Melina and grimaced, still listening to his father. “Where is Serena now?”

  A new expression clouded his face; this one darker, more hopeless. After a few more minutes, Joshua put down the phone, his face sagging.

  “He’s not coming,” Joshua’s voice confirmed the finality of his father’s answer.

  “Why? What could he possibly have to do that’s more important than watching his son get married?” Melina demanded, springing to Joshua’s defense.

  “How about watching his own marriage fail?” Joshua hung his head. “He said, ‘I’m not flying halfway around the globe to watch you do something that will just end badly.’”

  “Do you think we could change his mind?” Melina stroked Joshua’s hand in comfort. “Maybe if we waited a while, maybe if things got better with your stepmother?”

  “Look, you know what the first thing he said was when I told him we were getting married? He said, ‘That won’t last long.’”

  ***

  Melina picked up the phone next, reaching her parents in their living room. She’d heard from them several times since the accident, and Joshua provided diligent updates on her condition even though she didn’t want to be the one to call.

  Her parents each held an extension as she told them the news.

  “Good for you, sweetie,” her dad said, and she could almost hear him smiling through the phone.

  “He seems like a real nice man,” her mother added. “I hope you’re happy.”

  “We are,” Melina sighed. “It’s been so hard getting back to normal, and now this is so not normal, but it feels right.”

  Melina described how Joshua proposed.

  “Well, you be sure to take some nice photos.” her mother said. “Hire a good photographer, not one of those cheapie ones.”