by Diana Hunter
“I’m sorry, sir, you can’t ride in the ambulance unless you’re a relative.”
The words only partially registered. His response was automatic. “I’m her fiancé.”
The doors to the ambulance were already shutting, metal and glass barriers to the love of his life. He took a step forward, but a policeman’s hand stopped him.
“Let them get her to the hospital, sir. Come on, you can follow right behind.”
Later, he wouldn’t be able to remember that ride in. His mind had gone into some automatic mode that drove the car, keeping the ambulance in front of him and the police car behind him all in a row as they made their way to the hospital. He parked…somewhere, running to her just as the paramedics were dropping the legs on the stretcher.
Phillip held Sarah’s hand, forcing himself not to let her see how worried he was. His long legs strode beside the stretcher as the paramedics hurried along the corridors of the hospital. He schooled his face and did not let her see the alarm behind his eyes…that she was conscious at all was a miracle in itself.
Twin doors blocked the corridor. A woman in a paisley shirt and white pants stood in his way. The paramedics never slowed but the nurse put out her hand to prevent Phillip from following.
“You cannot come in here, sir. You must wait out there.” Her tone was kind and understanding, yet firm. It was never easy for loved ones to wait and she often wondered who had the harder time of it—the one in the emergency room or the one who waited for news.
Phillip swallowed hard again and watched the stretcher until it turned a corner and Sarah disappeared from his sight. He knew he couldn’t follow her. He knew he should go to the little room specifically prepared for those who waited and paced. But he couldn’t move. His unfocused eyes stared at the floor as he tried to breathe. This should be a dream. This shouldn’t be real. This was the stuff of nightmares.
“She’s in good hands, sir. C’mon, let me take you to the lounge.” Dimly Phillip felt an aide touch his arm and he allowed her to maneuver him the short distance to a small, well-lit room only a few steps from those fateful doors.
“Let me bring you something to drink, sir.” The aide eyed the tall man carefully. She imagined he was normally well-dressed but now his white shirt, streaked with blood across the front, spoke of the horror he was going through. She’d overheard his curt exchange with the nurses who had run to meet the paramedics. The blood obviously belonged to the woman whose side he hadn’t wanted to leave. His wife? Girlfriend? She eyed him critically. Shock oftentimes set in among rescuers as the tensions eased and the reality of what they’d witnessed hit them upside the head. No doubt about it, this one needed watching.
Phillip mumbled something—what had the woman asked him? Used to taking command, even in crisis situations, his brain now felt wrapped in cotton and he just couldn’t think. All he could see was Sarah’s body, bruised and bloody as it lay on that stretcher.
Pacing in the waiting room now, he glanced down at his shirt. The front flap was sticky with blood. Her blood. Phillip ran to the men’s room and threw up.
He emerged a different man. Years of self-discipline kicked into action after he’d emptied his stomach. He was no good to Sarah if he couldn’t hold his act together. If there was ever a time she needed him to be strong, it was now. He would not fail her.
As he came out into the hall, he took a look around. To his right lay the double doors. Sarah was back there somewhere. A small office was to his left and a little behind him, and directly across the hall, was what passed for a waiting room, a rather large open space with typical orange vinyl seats stretching along the white walls.
He couldn’t sit there. And he couldn’t go through the doors. He turned to the nurse’s station.
But the man who sat behind the desk had no information. “What is your relation to the patient?” he asked Phillip.
“She’s my fiancée. We’re getting married in three weeks.”
“Sorry, sir. I cannot give you any information at this time.”
Phillip wanted to slam something. He couldn’t just stand here, impotent. The muscles of his neck strained with his effort to contain his frustration.
The double doors, now on his left, swung open and a nurse paused in the opening. “Sir? Are you the one who came in with the accident victim? A woman with light brown hair?”
His heart pounding, Phillip strode toward her. “Yes.”
“Will you come with me, sir? We need some information.”
Grateful to be doing something at last, Phillip followed her through the doors into sterile surroundings. Small rooms led off a wide corridor that circled around a central medical station. Smocks of every color hurried from place to place, giving one the impression of a well-organized beehive. Every worker had a place to be and a job to do.
Not all the rooms were occupied, Phillip realized as the nurse led him past two that were dark, their metallic arms and locked cabinets waiting their turn to serve. The third room, however, proved to be a major source of the center’s activity. They waited as a man, carrying a tray of blood samples, exited the room. Phillip knew that was more of Sarah’s blood. How much did she have left?
“She’s been calling for you. Well, she’s been calling for someone she calls ‘Sir’.” The nurse shook her head. “At first we thought she was trying to talk to one of the doctors but then realized she wanted someone else. One of the paramedics,” she paused to nod at a young man filling out paperwork at the curved central desk, “remembered you had followed them in. We’re taking a chance that she’ll settle down after she speaks to you.”
Phillip listened, trying to get a glimpse of Sarah through the throng of people in the room. How many people did she need working on her? He nodded at the nurse. “She’s my fiancée.” He looked back through the glass. “Is she…I mean…?”
The nurse put her hand on his arm. “She’ll be fine as soon as she settles and lets them take a look at her. She has a broken collarbone and a very nasty cut on her forehead. But she won’t let us set the bone until she speaks to ‘Sir’.”
Phillip took a deep breath, centering himself and relaxing his face into a look of calm. A second breath to calm his heartbeat and take the tremor out of his voice and he was ready. The nurse nodded approvingly and led him into the controlled bedlam.
Sarah lay on the bed, her eyes barely focusing on her surroundings. Even though the wound at her temple had been cleaned, the sight of the bone gleaming through the gap in her skin made him want to throw up again. He didn’t. She needed his strength and he bent his full will on her now.
“Sarah, it’s me, Phillip. Can you see me?”
He waited until her eyes found him. The spark of recognition thrilled through him. She tried to speak but he put a finger on her lips.
“I’m here. The doctors need to set your shoulder and stitch up your head. They’re going to give you something for the pain.” This last was just as much a directive to the doctors as it was an attempt to comfort the woman he loved. “You have to let them do this, Sarah. Do you hear me?”
She whispered something and Phillip had to bend down to hear her.
“Tom died. I don’t want to die.”
With a start, Phillip stood up. “Is that what this is about? Sarah, you’re not going to die.” His voice took on a softer tone and he bent down, bringing his face close to hers. “You have a broken collarbone and a dislocated shoulder. You also have a cut on your head that’s going to need stitches. That’s all. Let them fix it. You’ll be up and around in no time.”
“Promise?”
“I promise. I’m here, Sarah. It took me years to find you. I’m not going to let anything like a little car accident take you away from me.” He smiled as he said it, even as he fervently prayed it was true.
She nodded, closing her eyes, trusting him. From where he was, Phillip looked up at the doctor across from him.
“We’ll take it from here. Why don’t you wait outside?”
Phillip shook his head and stood, keeping Sarah’s hand firmly in his. “No, I’ll stay. She needs to feel me here.”
“Then at least sit down so when you faint you don’t have so far to fall.”
Someone kicked a rolling stool at him and Phillip hooked it with his foot. He would sit down. Not because he might faint—he knew he wouldn’t, no matter what. He was in control now. But because by sitting, he’d be out of the way of the people who worked to help Sarah. His ego didn’t need him to be front and center. It only needed him to be there.
* * * * *
Will listened to his friend’s strained voice, trying to hear over the phone what Phillip wasn’t telling him. “Will, she’s hurt and I can’t help her.”
“Is she in surgery?”
“She is now. They let me stay while they prepped her in the emergency room and then walk with her all the way to the operating room. She was out of it by then. They’d given her some drugs to make her sleep so they can set her shoulder. She’s still there.”
Will was already closing down his computer at work, mentally going through the instructions he would leave his secretary. “Phillip, I’m on my way. You don’t need to wait alone.”
“Thanks, Will.”
Relief, palpable in Phillip’s voice, gave away the state of his worry. Will hung up his phone, decided the papers on his desk could stay right where they were and threw on his suit jacket, already dialing Jill on his cell phone. He gave her the news, trusting that she would call Aleshia. Did Sarah have any family in the area who should be notified? He’d have to ask Phillip when he got to the hospital.
Thirty minutes later he found Phillip pacing like a caged lion in the surgical waiting room.
“What’s the word?” He handed Phillip a cup of hot chocolate he’d picked up along the way. Will would never understand his friend’s dislike of the rich, brown coffee that sustained the majority of Americans, himself included. Phillip took the large paper cup, setting it absentmindedly on one of the small tables at the end of the row of chairs no one sat in.
“No word. She’s been there for over an hour now. What’s taking so long?”
Will shook his head and picked up the cocoa, putting the cup in Phillip’s hand again, this time steering him toward a seat. “Sit down before you wear a groove in the linoleum and tell me what happened.”
Phillip filled him in about how Sarah had dressed that morning for work, just like every other Monday morning, then gotten in her car and driven off. Except this time there had been one difference—they’d had their first ever almost-argument. Phillip had mentioned to Sarah that he would be going shopping today to buy her some outfits he would like her to wear to work and she had quickly put the kibosh on the idea. When he’d reminded her of her upcoming vows, she had shaken her head and told him she wasn’t budging on this. What she wore to work was her prerogative.
“It was a silly argument, really,” Phillip tried to explain. “At some point in the discussion, she accused me of wanting her to be independent but not giving her clear boundaries of where she could and couldn’t be.”
“Are you?” Will’s voice remained neutral.
Phillip shook his head. “Maybe not. I don’t know. We agreed we’d discuss it later, since trying to talk about it five minutes before she left for work wasn’t really the time.”
“Did you kiss and make up?”
For the first time since entering the hospital, Phillip smiled. He thought his face would crack it hurt so much. “Yes. Like I said, it wasn’t really an argument—it was more of a…heated discussion.”
“Mr. Townsend?”
The two looked up. A man in clean scrubs stood in the doorway. Phillip stood, his heart suddenly beating so loudly he could hear it in his ears. “Yes?”
“Mr. Townsend, I’m Dr. Riley. We have some questions to ask you.”
From behind the doctor, a uniformed police officer stepped into the room.
“What’s the matter?” Phillip looked from one to the other, a small unease settling into the pit of his stomach. “Is Sarah all right? What’s going on?”
The doctor held up his hand. “She’s still in surgery. There was more damage to the shoulder than we anticipated. Mr. Townsend, according to the information you gave the admitting nurse downstairs, Mrs. Simpson–Parker is your fiancée, is that correct?”
“Yes.”
Will stood up and came to stand beside Phillip, a frown on his face.
“And the two of you are living together?”
“No. I don’t see what our living arrangement has to do with her injury, Doctor.” Phillip tried to keep the sarcasm out of his voice and knew he was only partially successful.
“Was Mrs. Simpson–Parker coming from your house this morning, Mr. Townsend?”
Will stepped forward. “I don’t think Mr. Townsend is going to answer any more questions until you tell us what this is all about.”
The police officer spoke for the first time. “Mrs. Simpson has some marks on her body that are not consistent with a car accident. We’d like to know where those marks came from, Mr. Townsend.”
Phillip opened his mouth but again Will intervened. “Are you asking Mr. Townsend if he beat up on his girlfriend?”
The officer nodded, irritation puffing him up. “That’s exactly what I’m asking him.”
“Sarah is going to be my wife. I love her. And you stand there and accuse me of beating her up?” Phillip’s head swam. He had beaten her. In addition to Will’s marks across the tops of her breasts, his three red stripes across her bottom would give her something to remember for the better part of the day. He’d teased her about it just before she had gotten in the car, giving her a little swat and watching her turn red as she realized how sitting all day was going to feel. Will and the cop were arguing about something…what were they saying? Mastering himself, Phillip caught just the end of Will’s tirade.
“…and what goes on between two consenting adults is none of your business, buster.”
The officer narrowed his eyes and pulled out his handcuffs. “You’re under arrest, Mr. Townsend.”
“What for?”
“Domestic abuse. And if the doctor finds out you fucked your wife-to-be in the ass, I’m throwin’ sodomy charges in as well.”
“You can’t arrest a man for—” The officer’s Miranda rights recitation cut off Will’s protest.
None-too-gently, the cop turned Phillip around, pushing him to the wall and spreading his legs wide. His rights went in one ear and out the other as the officer brought back first one, then the other wrist, cuffing them behind his back. Not until the cop started to push him out the door did he protest. “No, I can’t. I have to stay here. My…she needs me.”
“Yeah, she needs you like she needs another accident. Out, mister. You’re going down.”
“Will…”
“I’ll take care of it.”
Anger mixed with hopelessness prevented Phillip from seeing the stares as he walked through the corridors of the hospital, handcuffed and under arrest. It wasn’t true what he’d told the cop. Sarah didn’t need him by her side right now. He needed her.
Chapter Nine
Charges
Breathing. The first thing Sarah was aware of was her own breathing. For some time now, she’d been taking small breaths. Slowly, deliberately, she drew in air, filling her lungs, letting the fresh air blow away the dust and cobwebs in her brain.
But the deep breath made her shoulder ache. Why did her shoulder hurt?
Sounds filtered into her consciousness. Muffled at first, she gradually distinguished voices. A man’s and a woman’s. They sounded troubled. She’d heard them before, somewhere. In some other life, maybe.
With an effort, she opened her eyes. White. And green. White above her, green to the sides. Dim. Where was the light? Why wasn’t she in her own bedroom? At least, she didn’t think this was her bedroom.
“Sarah, thank God you’re awake.”
A woman sh
e didn’t recognize stood beside her bed. She was beautiful, with a radiant smile. Sarah wanted to smile back at her but it just seemed like so much effort.
“They’ve been keeping you pretty heavily sedated. I’ve called for the nurse. She’ll be right here.”
Another woman came from around the green curtain at the side of the bed. Funny how she could come through a curtain. Where were the walls?
“Oh, look! You’re awake. What pretty brown eyes you have.”
The nurse checked a tall pole at Sarah’s side. Lights blinked and several lines wormed across a screen, making no sense to Sarah. She felt wrapped in soft cotton. Pulling in another long, slow breath, she closed her eyes and went back to sleep.
The next time she awoke, her head felt clearer. Sound still came several seconds after awareness. She was lying flat, the pillow under her head not doing much to give her head any lift. As a result, she could really only see the white ceiling above her. If she turned her head a little to the right, she could see the IV monitor. She knew what that was now, even if the numbers and squiggly lines still didn’t make any sense to her. A light green curtain hung at the window, pulled shut against the night. Above her, somewhere behind, a small light illuminated the room.
This was definitely a hospital. She blinked several times as her mind focused. Now what was she doing here? She looked left at the long green curtain that cut off her view of the door. Only then did she notice the bandages and casting of her left arm. The dull ache in her collarbone began to throb.
Fumbling on the blanket, her hand located a remote control. Was this for the TV that hung just at the edge of her vision? Or would she move the bed up and down if she pushed the buttons? Blinking and bringing the remote closer, then moving it farther away, she tried to clear the remnants of her sleep so she could read the icons beside the buttons.
Deciding that the most worn button must be the one for the nurse, she pushed it. Nothing happened. No bell went off, no alarm. At least her bed didn’t move. She wasn’t sure she liked lying flat but she was pretty sure she didn’t want to sit up with her shoulder aching like this. She pushed the button again.
