The Color of the Season

by Julianne MacLean

  Can you at least send for the third year resident with the long brown hair?

  Leah… I want Leah.

  The drugs were making me sleepy…

  “Everything else looks good,” Dr. Crosby cheerfully said. “Now you just need to focus on healing. First thing tomorrow, we’ll set you up in a physio program.”

  “Physio?” I drowsily asked.

  “For your leg,” he explained. “The bullet went straight into a major muscle. Tore it up pretty bad. I’m afraid you’ll be off work for a while.”

  “How long?”

  “At least six weeks, I’d say.”

  Six weeks?

  Ah, hell. That wasn’t what I wanted to hear because I’d been busting my butt lately to get a promotion.

  “Will I make a full recovery?” I groggily asked. I certainly didn’t want to end up walking with a cane, stuck behind a desk before I could really prove myself in the field.

  Though maybe I’d already done that with this fiasco.

  “That’s entirely up to you,” the doctor replied as he lowered the clipboard to his side, “and how hard you’re willing to work at this. I’ll warn you now, though—it’s not going to be easy. There will be pain, but you seem to be made of pretty stern stuff. You just have to make up your mind every day—are you going to throw in the towel, or are you going to throw one more punch?”

  “A boxing metaphor,” I said with a sigh, gazing up at the ceiling, still thinking about Carla, wondering why she had come.

  “Just remember,” he said, “half the battle’s up here.” He tapped his temple three times with the tip of his finger.

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “Good for you. Now I have to go take care of a few things. This is Nurse Gayle. She’ll answer any other questions you might have.”

  She leaned over the bed and smiled at me.

  I had so many questions about what happened, I didn’t know where to begin—but it wasn’t Nurse Gayle I wanted to talk to.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I fell asleep again not long after the nurse left, and woke the next morning when an orderly came in to deliver a breakfast tray.

  He adjusted my bed so I could sit up and rolled the tray table across my lap. I took one look at the cup of broth and the tiny bowl of green Jell-O.

  “This is all I get? I haven’t eaten in five days. I’m starved.”

  “The doctor wrote DAT in your chart,” he informed me, “which means ‘diet as tolerated.’ They’ll see how you do sipping on this, then they’ll advance you to something more.”

  “So lunch will be better?”

  “Maybe. As long as you can keep this down.”

  “Great.” I reached for the cup of broth and hoped for the best.

  o0o

  A half hour later, my mother, stepdad and sister, Marie, walked into the room. Mom burst into tears at the sight of me.

  “Thank God!” she said, bending over the bed rail to hug me. “I’m so sorry we weren’t here when you woke up. I’ll never forgive myself.”

  “No worries, Mom. You’re here now.”

  Marie moved to the other side of the bed and hugged me as well. “You are one tough cop,” she said with a grin. “Too bad you missed all the hoopla. You were all over the news.”

  “Yeah?” I replied, shaking Eric’s hand. “So I’m a celebrity now?”

  “Pretty much,” Marie replied. “The reporters were outside for the first few days, but they’re gone now. I’m sure they’ll be back when they hear you’re awake.”

  I rubbed the back of my neck. “I’m not really up for talking to reporters. I haven’t even tried to walk yet. And I could use a shower.”

  “Don’t worry about any of that press stuff,” Marie said. “We’ll handle everything and tell them how you’re doing. There are a lot of concerned people out there, you know. All kinds of flowers were left out front. People were lighting candles and praying for you constantly.”

  I thought about my strange experience in the operating room and couldn’t help but wonder if it was all those prayers that had brought me back. I probably should have said something to my family about what occurred, but for some reason that morning, it seemed less real than it had when I first woke up to the bright pen light shining in my eyes.

  Maybe it was just a dream. Maybe that was the light I saw…

  “Have you talked to anyone yet?” Marie asked.

  I laced my fingers together on my lap. “About what?”

  “About what happened when you were shot. Did you know the carjacker’s in custody?”

  “He’s alive?” I was relieved to hear it.

  “Yeah, he’s fine. You shot him in the leg and he was released from the hospital after a day or two.”

  “What about Scott?”

  “He’s fine, too,” Marie replied. “He was lucky the guy had such terrible aim. It was just a surface wound on his arm. The woman is okay and feeling very grateful for what you and Scott did for her. She said the carjacker stole her van while she was pumping gas. He forced her inside, then got behind the wheel and kept the gun on her. Turns out he was running from some drug dealers he owed money to. The woman came to visit you a few days ago. Those are the flowers she left.”

  Marie pointed toward the window.

  “That was thoughtful,” I said.

  Mom leaned over the bed to kiss me on the cheek. “We’re just glad you’re all right. We’ve all been so worried.”

  She stepped back when two nurses entered the room with towels and a pan of water. “Good morning, Officer Wallace,” one of them said cheerfully. “I’m Terri. Are you ready for a bath?”

  “I thought you’d never ask,” I replied.

  My family went for coffee.

  o0o

  After a light lunch of vegetable soup and more Jell-O, which I kept down without any trouble, the two young nurses returned to coax me out of bed and take me for a walk down the hall.

  “The sooner we get you moving the better,” Nurse Becky said as she lowered the bedrail. “It’s been five days since your surgery, so we don’t want to hear any excuses. No more lying around.”

  “Believe me,” I said, tossing the covers aside, “no one wants to be out of this place more than I do. No offense to you and Terri.”

  “None taken,” Terri replied with a grin.

  I had no intention of complaining, but it seemed a gargantuan effort just to swing my legs off the bed and set my feet on the floor. All my muscles felt rubbery.

  “It’s perfectly normal to feel a bit weak at first,” Terri said, “but you’ll be fine once you start moving.”

  “No problem,” I said. “I got this.”

  Nevertheless, it took me a minute or two to take the first step and walk fully upright, and I didn’t enjoy having to shuffle down the hall like a senior citizen, but I was determined to get back on my feet so I could be discharged as soon as possible.

  “You did great,” Nurse Terri said when we returned to my room. “I hope we didn’t wear you out too much.”

  “Nope,” I replied as she helped me back onto the bed. “So tell me, Terri. What are the odds of a tasty steak dinner tonight? Maybe some mashed potatoes and gravy? A little red wine would be nice.”

  She glanced up at me flirtatiously as if I’d just asked her out on a date, when all I was referring to was the supper tray that would be delivered later.

  “Odds aren’t great,” she replied. She covered my legs with the blanket.

  Another visitor walked in just then, and I felt a rush of adrenalin as I looked up.

  “Hi Josh,” she said.

  Nurse Terri patted me on the shoulder and turned to go. “I’ll leave you two alone.”

  “Carla…” I replied.

  Slowly and cautiously—as if she had no idea what sort of reception she would get from me—Carla approached the bed.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Maybe this was the reason I came back from the great beyond—to feel Carla’
s lips on mine and see that look in her eyes once more. The look that said I’m still in love with you.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked, taking hold of my hand over the side of the bedrail.

  “Good,” I replied. “Better.”

  She squeezed my hand tighter. “We were so worried about you. I want you to know that I was here every day. Kaleigh made you a card. Did you see it?”

  I shook my head, so she went to retrieve it from the windowsill where it stood next to the flowers brought in by the carjacking victim.

  Carla handed me the card. It was made of light blue construction paper. On the front it said Get Well Soon over an image of a sailboat against a sunset, which Kaleigh must have painted herself.

  With great care, I opened it and read the note inside:

  Dear Josh,

  Please come back to us.

  Love Kaleigh

  For a long moment I stared at the words, hand-printed in navy blue ink, and wondered what she meant by that. Was she trying to tell me she wanted me back in their lives? Or was she referring to my coma?

  When Carla and I began dating, Kaleigh was a somewhat prickly thirteen-year-old, and I never really felt as if she’d welcomed me as a potential stepfather. Whenever I came by to visit, she’d disappear into her room to practice her guitar.

  So, what was this? Could I dare to hope that she might feel differently now because of what happened to me? Or that Carla might feel differently?

  “This is nice,” I said, closing the card and lifting my eyes. “Tell her thank you.”

  Carla took hold of my hand again, stroked the pad of her thumb over my knuckles. “I couldn’t believe it when Marie called and told me what happened to you. Then I saw it on the news, and I just felt…”

  Her voice broke. She wasn’t able to continue.

  “You felt what?” I pressed.

  Guilt? Regret?

  Love?

  Carla shook her head as if to clear it. “I don’t know. I just wished our last conversation hadn’t ended the way it did. I hate the way we parted, with so much anger.”

  “I was the angry one. Not you.”

  “But you had every right to feel that way,” she said, “and that’s not how I wanted it to be. Over the past few days, I couldn’t bear to think about how I walked out on you, just leaving things like that, without working it out.”

  “There was nothing to work out,” I firmly said. “You came to tell me you wanted to be with another man and that wasn’t what I wanted to hear. It still isn’t.”

  Her eyes fell closed, and she reached for a chair to pull closer to the side of the bed. “I’m so sorry, Josh. If only you knew how hard this has been for me.”

  All I could do was stare at her.

  “It’s not that I don’t care for you,” she continued. “I do. You’re an amazing man, and that’s what made this so difficult. I loved what we had together, but there was just something…” She paused. “Something was missing.”

  So there it was. She hadn’t changed her mind after all.

  Her words stirred a new cloud of anger in me. Hadn’t we already been through this?

  “I don’t know what you mean by that exactly,” I said, “because there was nothing missing for me. But either way, I’m not in the mood to get dumped again, Carla.”

  She covered her forehead with a hand and sighed. “Oh, I’m so stupid. I shouldn’t have come. I’m sorry.”

  For a moment I watched her shake her head and knew she was mentally punishing herself. Then I thought about Brooke, my other ex-girlfriend who had cheated on me with my best friend. She was a woman I had not been able to forgive. Now here sat Carla who left me for another man she believed was her soul mate—a man who gave her something I couldn’t.

  Something mystifying. Something she couldn’t explain.

  This frustrated me to no end.

  “There’s no need to apologize,” I said nonetheless. “I appreciate you coming. It means a lot.”

  Her watery eyes lifted. “If only you knew how much we prayed for you. Constantly. We didn’t want you to die.”

  I let my head fall back against the pillow and stared up at the ceiling. “Thanks. That’s something.”

  But when I thought about the place I had visited when I flatlined—how peaceful I felt there, especially in the memories…sitting in the rocking chair as a boy, holding the baby, looking up at Leah—I wasn’t convinced all those prayers had done me any favors.

  Why in the world had I come back? I don’t recall making that decision. At least not consciously. Someone must have hit me over the head with a frying pan and pushed me.

  Part of me wanted to go back there…to that incredible feeling of perfection. It seemed as if everything was about to become clear to me in that moment when Leah smiled at me, just before I felt the massive jolt.

  I was suddenly wracked with confusion and turned my head on the pillow to meet Carla’s gaze. “Are you sure about him?” I asked, referring to Aaron Cameron, the man she had chosen over me. “Is there any hope for us?”

  Our eyes locked and held.

  She shook her head.

  My stomach turned over. All I could do was lie there and stare at her.

  Eventually, I let out a deep breath. “I’m glad you came,” I said in a low voice, “and I hold no ill will. But it’s time for you to go now.”

  Nothing happened for a moment. Then she rose from the chair. Her lips touched my cheek. I closed my eyes, savoring the sensation, imprinting it in my mind forever.

  “I’m so glad you’re all right,” Carla whispered in my ear.

  I simply nodded and watched her leave.

  Chapter Seventeen

  My visit with Carla took a lot out of me. After she left, I didn’t have the energy to talk to my family. All I wanted to do was be alone, close my eyes, rest quietly. Accept what was final and could not be changed.

  My sister Marie understood. She said she would return with my nieces and nephews that evening.

  o0o

  I’m not sure how long I slept. All I know is that when I woke, a golden light from the setting sun was beaming through the window.

  I felt groggy and uncomfortable.

  I pressed the call button and waited impatiently. An ambulance siren wailed outside.

  Finally, Nurse Becky hurried through the door. “Is everything all right?”

  I inched upward on the pillows and grimaced at the stiffness in my body. “I’d like to take another walk.”

  “Sure. That’s a great idea.” She approached the bed and lowered the rail. “And very ambitious of you. Most patients have to be dragged kicking and screaming out of their beds after surgery.”

  “I don’t want to just lie around,” I told her. “I need to get back to work. Sooner would be better than later.”

  She hooked her arm under my elbow as I swung my legs over the edge of the bed. “You must really enjoy your job.”

  Even after getting shot? I asked myself. Was I crazy to want to get back on the street? What would happen the next time I pulled someone over in the rain? Would I even be able to get out of the car?

  “I guess so.”

  Again, my muscles felt weak and rubbery, but I was determined to be mobile again. I couldn’t let myself fall into a rut, or God forbid, mope around like a heartsick loser for six weeks.

  “You’re scheduled for physio tomorrow,” Nurse Becky told me as we shuffled toward the door. “And you’re doing great. Just remember, even a healthy person would find it a challenge to walk after being asleep for five days.”

  I wasn’t really in the mood for conversation, but I wanted to use my body and I knew I needed someone at my side. At least for today.

  We walked the full length of the hall and back, and I realized quickly that that was more than enough. “Thanks, Becky,” I said. “I needed that.” By then I was feeling a bit dizzy and needed to get back in the bed.

  A few minutes later, as I stared up at the white ceiling again
, I found myself contemplating the mysteries of the universe—which was not like me at all. But I couldn’t figure out why I hadn’t felt any fear or anxiety while I hovered over my body in the operating room. I’d known I was dying, yet I felt no regret or sorrow over what I was leaving behind.

  It wasn’t what I’d expected.

  None of it was, considering I was never the type to believe in souls and heaven and all that silly spiritual mumbo jumbo.

  A voice in the room startled me out of my thoughts and caused me to jump. “Did someone order a psych consult?”

  I lifted my head on the pillow. There stood Leah at the foot of my bed, wearing a white lab coat with a blue shirt underneath it. The evening sunlight from the window reflected blindingly off the aluminum clipboard she hugged to her chest.

  “That’s a definite yes,” I replied, more than a little relieved to see her again, “for the crazy cop in room 604.”

  Her face lit up with a smile as she moved to the side of my bed.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Let’s get you sitting up so I can do a proper assessment,” Leah said. She laid the clipboard on the side table and raised the head of my bed with the push of a button.

  This allowed me an opportunity to admire, up close, the lovely details of her face—and how much she had changed. She sure wasn’t a kid anymore.

  “Isn’t there some sort of conflict of interest here?” I asked. “Because we know each other personally?”

  “I didn’t mention that to anyone,” she said. “Did you?”

  “Not a single soul.”

  “Then let’s keep it that way, as long as you promise to be honest with me.”

  I raised a hand. “Scout’s honor, Doctor.”

  She sat down, reached for the clipboard and pulled a retractable pen out of her breast pocket which she clicked with her thumb. “You were never a Scout, were you, Josh?”

  She quickly scribbled something down.

  “Looks like you caught me in a lie already. Are you making a note of that in my chart?”