Truth and Humility

by J. A. Dennam

  A swell of e

  motion hit Austin between the eyes. To hide it, he looked away, nodded. “Same time later?”

  The thought held appeal. “I ain’t going anywhere.”

  Austin looked at the nurse. She was wiggling into her latex gloves and gave the okay through misty eyes.

  As soon as he was alone with nurse man-hands, Derek zeroed in on her through droopy lids. “Go ahead...do your worst,” he rasped, his voice heavy with fatigue. “But before I pass out...Melanie needs to know...I want to see her.”

  Her scanner passed over his wristband, beeped. She smiled. “My shift ends in two hours, but I’ll be sure and pass that along.”

  “Got a headache.”

  “I can certainly give you something for that.” She scanned a vial and commenced to filling a syringe with the clear liquid inside it.

  “Better give me a lot.” When she cocked an eyebrow in his direction, Derek grinned. “Cuz my arms hurt like a bitch.”

  Shock. Her face registered it as her gaze swept down his body. When it landed on his right hand, she gasped in delight.

  Derek was flipping her off.

  Chapter 25

  “Danny!”

  “That’ll be four twenty-five.”

  Danny craned her neck to search through the cafeteria crowd, at the same time throwing a five at the cashier. She spied Mel’s blond head cutting through the line. Good. She was here.

  Forgetting her change, Danny scooped up her late breakfast – a clear plastic container of grapes and cubed cheeses – and fell in step with her friend. “We’ll take the elevators at the West end,” she said, popping the top of the container. “Not as crowded down there.”

  Melanie watched Danny walk and shove food in her mouth in a very undignified way. “Got your appetitHeye span>e back?”

  The crowd was thinning toward the west end and the bank of elevators was just a few yards away. Danny beamed at her as they sailed down the long hall. “He moved his fingers this morning,” she informed brightly and loaded a grape.

  Melanie’s heel caught the carpet and she stumbled to a stop. “He moved his fingers?”

  “And he asked for you.”

  That was something Melanie already knew. It was the reason she was out of bed and out the door within seven minutes...by far a personal best. But if Derek was re-gaining function in his limbs, that could mean... Tears sprang to her eyes. “Oh. My. God!”

  Danny backtracked, lunged for her friend’s arm and yanked her back into a walk. “No time for stupefied shock, dear. Your man is waiting for you.” She punched the up arrow.

  “You don’t think he just wants to end it officially, do you? Sorry, babe, I don’t want to burden you kind of crap?” Mel stuck her hand under the automatic hand-sanitizer spout as they waited for the elevator. Clear gel oozed into her palm and she scrubbed harmful germs from her hands with vigor.

  “He would have done that through me,” Danny assured, moving through her grapes with focused concentration. “He’s different this morning. I think being able to move something awakened his drive.”

  “And that the paralysis is more from swelling than from spinal cord damage.” Melanie chewed her thumbnail as she recounted the doctor’s list of possibilities. She made a face and tongued out the acrid taste of ethyl alcohol.

  The doors slid open. People filed out and soon they were alone in the elevator. “We won’t know anything for sure until the swelling is gone.” Danny chose the last cube of jalapeño cheese and closed the empty container. “But it’s pretty clear he’ll have use of his upper body at least.”

  “Which means he can still be independent,” Mel deduced, refusing the offered cube of cheese. Ick.

  “Which is the difference between life and death to someone like Derek.” Danny wiped her fingers on her shorts and gave her friend a hopeful look as she chewed. “It’s going to be a big day, Mel. I can feel it.”

  A group squeal was coming on, but the girls managed to tame it into a spastic giggle.

  “Gotta warn you, though,” Danny interjected, sobering aed,t thro little, “it’s a bit of a shock at first when you see him with all the contraptions and stuff.”

  “I can handle it.”

  “His face is pale.” The doors slid open. “He has tubes coming out of everything.”

  “Danny, I don’t care.”

  “I know, but I just want to prepare you so you won’t – ”

  “I won’t fall apart! I just want to tell him I love him and stick my tongue down his throat!”

  Too late, Melanie realized her last comment was thrown out there within earshot of Derek’s parents as they approached the waiting room.

  “Nice,” Danny smirked. She flattened her hand against Melanie’s backbone and gave her a gentle push. “Don’t get sucked into the parent trap or they’ll tie you up in conversation. Just walk right on through those doors.”

  “Got it.” Mel sent the elders a wave without daring a look.

  “Room ten!”

  Melanie punched through the doors and, as instructed, headed toward the nurse’s station first. Noise assaulted her ears, but she also realized there wasn’t a soul around to give her permission to proceed. Should she wait? Call out for someone?

  Her mouth opened to do just that, then her eyes followed the sound of the commotion. Doctors, nurses, orderlies, all scrambled together in one room, shouting orders and clamoring for space amongst the clutter of machines and bodies.

  Someone’s in serious trouble, she thought grimly, unable to tear her gaze away. Then she glanced up at the number above the curtain.

  A wave of alarm pulsed through her body.

  Room ten.

  ____________

  Midnight was the safest time to walk the halls of a hospital. Most patients slept, the staff was thinned out to nurses and on-call physicians, no Bennetts around to tell him to stay away...

  Austin stepped off the elevator onto the ICU floor. Though he’d managed to buy himself another night, boredom had ruled his day. Mac and Sue made the time to stop by and, of course, his mother. The company was a nice reprieve from the tedium of daytime television, though he had to work in order to keep his secret liaison with Derek a secret.

  Dammit, he was a twenty-six year-old man. It was almost emasculating to lie to people about something like that, but respect for the Bennett family demanded it if he planned to become a member of it. Which he would some day. Now that he had Derek’s support, all he needed was Danneed>

  “Evening.”

  A nurse he’d never seen before continued to chew the end of her pen as she glanced up at him from her computer screen. Her eyes subtly widened, moved down then slowly up again. “Can I help you?”

  She was a skinny thing, couldn’t have been out of nursing school a year yet. They were getting younger and younger. “Austin Cahill,” he said, leaning an arm against the counter. “Is Nurse Reynolds working tonight?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “Good. I’m going to visit with Derek Bennett for a while, Nurse Reynolds arranged it for me.”

  The young woman’s face, an all-American type with a dusting of light freckles, gently altered from blushing interest to compassion. “Um...I’m sorry, but – ”

  “Mr. Cahill?”

  Austin turned. Nurse Reynolds approached quickly from behind. As the woman scrubbed her enormous hands with sanitizer, Austin remembered Derek’s nickname for her and his mouth turned up slightly. “I’m glad to see you,” he said conspiratorially, sticking close to her as she had indicated. “I think I was about to be sent back to my room.”

  Nurse Reynolds swallowed hard as she led him back outside the double doors. “I figured someone would have told you...”

  The woman was nervous. Austin sensed it, instantly became wary. “Told me what?”

  They stopped at the entrance to the waiting room and she indicated he sit.

  Uh-oh. “I’m fine on my feet, Ms. Reynolds. What is it?”

  The nurse too
k a breath for composure as she ran fingers through her hair. “Mr. Bennett suffered a severe intracerebral hemorrhage this morning. He began to seize...”

  “Is he okay?” That damned look on her face indicated the opposite. Austin’s middle tightened in preparation for the impact. He crossed an arm over his torso and began to message his aching side.

  “I shouldn’t be telling you this,” Nurse Reynolds paused, shook her head. Her eyes remained focused on the row of chairs behind him. Her conscience warred with itself as it recalled hospital policy. On the other hand, it firmly believed this man’s presence had had a positive impact on her most belligerent patient the previous night. “Mr. Bennett was taken into surgery. The doctors worked for over an hour to locate and stop the bleeding...”

  The word but hung heavily in the air like a lead weight. The long fingers messaging his side stilled. Austin stood frozen, his face stone-like. stone-lnbs" faceIs he still alive?” he asked slowly.

  The nurse swallowed again.

  Answer me! his inner voice shouted, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the words.

  “I’m very sorry, Mr. Cahill...”

  There it was. The sucker punch. Austin’s jaw clenched as his inner voice denied the possibility. “He was fine last night.”

  “These things can happen with a head injury,” the nurse explained quietly. “We can try to monitor it, try to repair it, but it depends on the severity of the hemorrhage. Mr. Bennett’s condition was by no means a stable one. Even if he survived the surgery, chances are he would have suffered severe, permanent brain damage.”

  Anger blotted out the logic of her explanation. “He...he was alert. Talking. Making plans!”

  “And by all appearances he was improving.” Nurse Reynolds was finding it harder to keep her composure as she watched the man begin to unravel. This was something she didn’t normally do. It was a physician’s job to break this kind of news to loved ones, but for some sad reason, Mr. Cahill had been left in the dark. It was a strange thing since her patient seemed to respond to him like no other. “His motor skills were returning. He even flipped me the bird shortly after you left.” A teary laugh burst forth and she shrugged helplessly. “I’ve never been so overjoyed to be on the receiving end of one of those. I went home and bragged about it to my husband.”

  Austin backed up a step, lowered himself to the chair that he now needed. “So you weren’t here when he...when he...” God, he couldn’t even say it.

  “No. My shift ended before Mr. Bennett’s neurosurgeon made his rounds this morning. But, according to his notes, he had just enough time to declare a good prognosis and then...it just happened.”

  Derek gone? Just to think it was nonsensical. He needed time to process it. To figure out how to process it.

  Danny.

  She would be inconsolable right now. And to think he hadn’t been there for her when she was told her brother had died. As he conjured the image, his heart turned to lava. The molten sensation spread through his chest until his voice – his very breath – was swallowed by it.

  “Mr. Cahill?”

  Nurse man-hands.

  “Can I walk you back to your room?”

  I ain’t going anywhere.

  They were the last words he’d ever hear from Derek’s mouth.

  Austin gripped the arms of the chair until the pain reminded him to answer.

  “I’d like to sit here for a while,” he whispered. “If that’s okay.”

  Nurse Reynolds gingerly brushed her fingertips across his shoulder. This was excruciating. Softly, she said, “Take all the time you need.”

  And she left him there. Alone. Hurting. Somehow she sensed it wasn’t the first time.

  When she cleared the double doors, Nurse Reynolds flattened herself against the wall beside them, buried her face in her hands and burst into tears.

  Chapter 26

  A thick sheet of gray blanketed the sky, slowly skimming over the enormous crowd of mourners as they gathered around the flower-draped casket. Overcast, gloomy…it set the tone as if Mother Nature orchestrated it that way. Austin sat behind the wheel and watched from a distance through the windshield of his truck. His presence was unwelcome, a detached outcast in the extreme sense.

  He wondered if he’d be able to spot her among the sea of bodies dressed in black. The desire to offer comfort, to protect and hover over her dominated over common sense. The fact was, he knew how much she was hurting. He’d been where she is now and could help her get through it…if she’d let him. It was hell to go it alone as he had.

  But, damn, the Bennett family was a large one. He had to accept the possibility she didn’t need him. Would never need him.

  Then why did he have this feeling that Derek had left his sister’s care in his hands? Did he misinterpret their final conversation? Was it wishful thinking on his part? Or was Derek’s willing advice on how to break through Danny’s shell actually the blessing he originally thought?

  The crowd began to disperse. It was easy to pick apart the groups. Family, friends, fellow climbers by the hundreds (mostly in shorts) who’d come to pay their respects, and even Bennett employees. Shaw, the kid he remembered from his rescue, was among the group. Tall, a bit on the lanky side, good looking enough but very young. Easy to spot with a white cast on the left arm. Austin figured if he watched him, he’d be able to find Danny close by.

  He wondered again if she was aware of how badly Shaw wanted her. Did the kid know he’d never have her?

  As the majority of mourners headed toward their vehicles, a few lingered by the casket. The crowd in shorts filed past the seated row of family, took extra care to show love, mutual loss and support. Finally, he was able to identify the elders, Herb and Mary. Slowly, they rose from their folding chairs with the help of family and, after a brief moment by the casket, they too moved on. frcoentif When Shaw finally left, all that lingered was a solitary figure, still seated, head bent. The minister sat beside the mourner and spoke a few words. Nodding in understanding, he stood and reluctantly walked away.

  Austin knew it was Danny even though her back was to him. Her slim neck, her shape, her soft sun-streaked hair pulled back into a plain ponytail. The limousine reserved for family moved down the winding drive of the cemetery and was followed by the empty hearse and countless cars. Minutes passed. The cemetery was quiet, vacant…and still she remained under the tent by Derek’s casket. Should he go to her? Especially now that she was no longer surrounded by family? It was clear she wished to be alone with her brother for a while before his casket was swallowed by earth in a final act of closure. But she shouldn’t be out there like that, exposed when hidden dangers lurked in unforeseen places.

  Austin reached for the door handle but fell short of pulling it when another black-garbed figure appeared, approached her from the side. It was a woman, blond, petite, familiar.

  Melanie, wooden, despondent, lowered herself to the folding chair beside her friend and gazed at the casket through watery eyes. Her face hurt from crying, her throat burned. The two women sat in silence, both struggling to accept the fact that the man they loved was inside it. She blindly reached out a hand and groped for Danny’s. Their fingers laced, clenched tightly.

  “I still can’t believe it,” Melanie whispered brokenly. “That he’s in that box. That I’ll never see him again.”

  Danny swallowed hard and stared at their joined hands. Her eyes were dry, the bulk of her tears spent long before the funeral. “He isn’t in there, Melanie. Not really.” When her friend nodded in understanding, Danny swiveled her head to look at her. The exhausted grief that dulled Melanie’s delicate, porcelain features exposed the great love she’d held for Derek. “He loved you too, you know.”

  The need to express that came from deep within. Had Derek told Melanie how he felt about her before he died? Or was he ethereally using Danny as a means of communicating it now?

  Tears welled in Melanie’s blue eyes and she buried her face in her hand. “I said it t
o him, but he wouldn’t say it back.” She nodded. “But I knew he did. Danny, he was so gentle with me after what Brett had done, so caring. He always dropped everything and came when I needed him. And plenty of times just because he wanted to. The way he held me, spoke to me…made love to me. I knew.”

  The effort to breathe became laborious as Danny listened to Melanie’s tearful words. The woman crumpled completely and put a fist to her heart.

  “I never got the chance to see him! I feel so cheated! There’s this void right here and I’m so afraid I’ll never feel right again.”

  Like half of yourself has been ripped away, Danny finished silently, fighting the lumphtids. in her throat. The part that holds your insides together. She couldn’t cry again. She didn’t know how much more of it she could take. She released the woman’s hand and wrapped her arm around her shoulders, pulled her in. She was hit with the realization it was more therapeutic to offer comfort than it was to accept it. “It’s funny…but I can feel him around me. Outside, where he loved to be…in the gentle breeze or when the sun hits my face…and in the house. He’s everywhere in that house. But it’s been so crowded lately, I have to wait until the early morning hours to sit with him in private.”

  “You can’t sleep, either?” Melanie asked miserably.

  “Not for long,” Danny admitted, her eyes clouding over with a haunted cast. “I’m too scared to dream.” Because if she did, who would talk her down from her nightmares in the middle of the night? In the darkest hours, she’d found herself staring down at Derek’s empty bed, the covers undisturbed. Abandoned. Feeling alone in every sense, Danny would curl up on the handmade quilt their mother had made for him and cry until restless sleep found her again.

  “Did you know,” Melanie sniffled, her temple pressed to Danny’s, “he did confess something to me last week.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The first time he realized he was attracted to me.”