Darkness Before Dawn

by Ace Collins

  It was just two miles to the hospital, but the short drive seemed to take forever. Although there was no traffic, Meg missed every light. Ten minutes after leaving her apartment and an hour after receiving the call from Officer Johnson, she finally arrived at the staff lot. Trying to act as though it was just another day at work, Meg got out of her yellow Mustang coupe and turned toward the building she knew so well. As she stared at the white brick building’s six floors, a cool, damp breeze hit her face. It was the same kind of breeze that hit her when she had first met Steve, an early fall evening of her freshman year in college. She had blown a tire on a trip back from the library to her dorm and he had stopped to fix it for her. He’d been able to fix everything since then. Except for this. He couldn’t fix death. No one could.

  Turning her face into the wind, she briskly strolled the forty yards across the parking lot. As she walked through the automatic door into the emergency room, she noticed a young man sitting to her right. Even in the midst of this horrible personal trauma, her training automatically kicked in. In an almost detached fashion, she made her assessment—not too serious, probably just bumped his head in a fall or traffic accident. A few stitches and he’d be told to use ice and take some aspirin. Routine ER stuff. The kind of thing she dealt with everyday of the year.

  As she continued her trek across the ER, she heard Dr. Jake Jones, a small, portly man in his forties. “And if you feel any throbbing, just take a couple aspirin. There’s nothing broken and except for some pain from those stitches in your forehead, I don’t think that . . .” The doctor’s words trailed off as Meg rounded a corner and made her way to the emergency room nurses’ station.

  “Meg,” a shocked Judy Lincoln exclaimed. “How are you?”

  Meg didn’t respond to the fifty-year-old nurse’s concerned question. She didn’t even acknowledge the older woman’s presence. Yet, a voice down the hall did catch her attention.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” Heather asked, her words spilling out like water pouring from a glass. “Listen, Meg, there’s no easy way for me to say this, Steve’s car must have been totaled and it caught fire. I was in ER when they brought him in and I don’t really think you want or need to see him this way. Why don’t you just talk to the hospital chaplain instead? He’s right down the hall. I can get him in a flash.” While Heather searched Meg’s eyes for some sign of understanding, her pleas fell on deaf ears. Meg had become a force that pushed her beyond logic or understanding. She needed to be with Steve.

  “Where is he?” Meg’s words were delivered in a firm, demanding, and almost mechanical rhythm.

  “But . . .” Heather began.

  “Heather, shut it down. I don’t need your sympathies or empathy. I’m a big girl and I’m a trained nurse. And I have a right to do what I want to do. Now where is he?”

  Heather gestured toward a small room across the hall.

  Meg nodded. Her need to see Steve was seated in more than just the love she had for her husband. It was also attached to a previous family tragedy. Her aunt had lost her husband in Vietnam. They never found the body. For years, the woman waited with the illogical hope that he might be a prisoner someplace and would someday return to her. That looking out the window, waiting for a call, searching each day’s mail had gone on for decades. Not seeing his body had created such a deep void, the woman never accepted her husband’s death. She was still looking or at least wishing for his return when she died forty years later. Meg had long believed that things would have been different if her aunt had just seen the body. Because of witnessing that woman’s progressive decline into a kind of silent madness, Meg sensed that only by seeing her Steve now, at this very moment, not waiting even a few hours much less a day, could she really accept all of this as something other than a nightmare.

  “I’ll go with you,” Heather offered. “You don’t need to do this alone.”

  Meg had never liked being treated like a child, even back when she had been one, and she didn’t want any help now. “Heather,” Meg shot back, “I’m a nurse, have been for a while now, and I’ve seen it all. I don’t need you to hold my hand.” Reaching forward, she gently pushed her friend to the side.

  “Don’t do this,” Heather whispered, putting her hand on Meg’s shoulder. “You’re in shock. You need to take a while and absorb what has happened.”

  Meg had seen shock put others on autopilot. Shock could twist a person and force them into unwise decisions. Maybe Heather was right. Maybe she was in a bad place now. After all, wouldn’t a normal reaction come with a flood tears? Yet she felt very little emotion. Is that how it should be?

  Meg looked up and caught her reflection in a window. Yes, that was her face complete with the dark brown eyes, the arched eyebrows, the high cheekbones, and the bee-stung lips. But now she wore an expression that projected a cold, solitary, and hard person. It was a look she didn’t recognize. Could that be her?

  For a moment she looked back to her friend. She teetered on reaching out and asking for help. Her lips quivered and she felt a bit faint. Then she remembered her aunt. No, shock or not, she had to do this. Pushing Heather’s hand from her shoulder, she moved forward. Wise or not, she had to be with Steve. After all, he had made this last trip to be with her. He couldn’t rest until his trip was actually completed with her at his side. And that was what this was all about. They both needed to complete the trip.

  After taking a deep breath, she walked into the room and flipped on the overhead light. There on a hospital gurney, in a room normally used to save lives, lay a still form covered by a white sheet. The figure under that covering remained rigid. There was no hint of life.

  Suddenly, her strength gone, terror gripping her by the throat, she backed up until she felt a cool wall against her shoulders. Her knees rubbery, her stomach churning, and her head spinning, she turned toward the door wanting to run as far as she could from this room. But she couldn’t move. Even as she began to hyperventilate, something forced her gaze back to the gurney. She still had to know. She had to see this with her own eyes.

  The door pushed slowly open and Heather walked in. “Meg, you don’t have to do this and you don’t need to do it. But if you’re determined to see him, please let me be with you.” She opened her arms as if begging to draw Meg in for a hug, but Meg didn’t accept the gesture.

  “Please leave,” the grieving woman asked. “Just wait on the other side of the door. I’ve got to do this, Heather. Maybe someday you’ll understand.”

  “Meg.”

  “I still feel his presence,” Meg whispered. “I can’t accept he’s gone. I’ll never accept it unless . . .”

  “So,” Heather softly pleaded, “just let me stay.”

  “No, please go. I’ll be out in a second. I need one more moment alone with Steve.”

  As her friend sadly pushed the door open and left, Meg closed her eyes and called upon a higher power. “Dear Lord, please wake me up. Please make all of this a bad dream.”

  As she opened her eyes, she discovered there would be no wake-up call. The body remained on the gurney just as her prayer remained unanswered. There would be no reprieve or escape.

  Meg focused once more on the gurney. She’d seen enough dead people under sheets to be able to recognize if the body was a man or woman, a child or an adult. Those experiences now told her something was wrong, very wrong. This couldn’t be Steve. The body wasn’t big enough. Maybe this had all been a mistake. Clasping her hands together, sweat beading down her forehead, she took the first unsteady steps toward the gurney. As she grew closer, her heart galloped and the room began to spin. For a moment, she felt as she would pass out.

  “Oh, Lord,” she breathed. “Please stop this. Give me strength.”

  As if this prayer had been answered, the spinning room slowed down and ground to an unsteady halt. Suddenly, she again had some control.

  Once more focused, Meg inched her left hand forward and found the top edge of the sheet. As she touched the linen,
her wedding ring sparkled under the harsh light. It was a single gold band, nothing elaborate or fancy, but it represented something and someone she had loved deeply for so long. What did it represent now? Memories?

  She suddenly recalled the day he had first slipped it on. As she relived that moment it felt as if Steve was once more with her, holding her hand, grabbing the sheet. With a renewed strength brought on by feeling his presence, she gave a quick, steady pull and was visited by something she hadn’t expected. What rested on the gurney took her breath away and made her stomach boil. It was like pictures she had seen of casualties in war zones and it stunned even this trained and experienced nurse.

  What was in front of her wasn’t so much one body but random, burned parts laid out on a table. They were positioned like broken china awaiting regluing. But this mess could not be put back together. There wasn’t enough glue in the whole world. The crash had literally torn this body apart and left it unrecognizable. Unexpectedly, the fact that the man had not just been shredded but burned gave Meg hope.

  This can’t be my Steve. It’s a mistake. Steve could never look like this. It just can’t be him! Someone else must have been driving his car.

  But that hope was quickly and cruelly dashed when she saw the man’s left hand, that same hand that had made him Springfield University’s star baseball pitcher and the same hand upon which she had once placed a gold ring. And there on the ring finger of that hand was a simple, plain gold band. It was Steve’s ring, the one she’d given him. The one that was engraved inside the band, “ ’Til death do us part.” And death was now not sixty years from now as it should have been.

  After one final look, Meg pulled the sheet back up. “As simple as making a bed,” a head nurse had once told her about covering a corpse. And it was easy, but still each time she had done this simple act she’d always wondered how many hearts had been shattered by that death? Now she knew that simple act of pulling up a single white sheet over a body wasn’t just covering a lifeless body, it was closing and locking a door that would never again be opened.

  3

  AS MEG OPENED THE DOOR TO THE HALLWAY, DR. JOHN SEYMOUR, A brash, devastatingly handsome young resident strolled toward her. Yet, even though they were only a few feet away, he evidently failed to see Meg. Perhaps that is why as he approached, his words were directed only to Heather.

  “Hey, sweetheart, you really do look fine this morning. No one wears a uniform the way you do.” He finished his offhanded compliment with a long wink and a big grin.

  Usually Heather had a quick comeback for the doctor’s flirting, but maybe because of her concern for her friend she remained mute, only responding with a stern glare. Failing to read her expression, Seymour continued to prod one of the hospital’s most desirable single employees, “Why, Heather, who stepped on your tail today?”

  “John,” she whispered, “there was an accident this morning, and . . .”

  Opening the door wider and stepping fully into view, Meg interrupted Heather in mid-explanation. In unison, both nurse and doctor turned toward her.

  “We’ve got to get someone to oil those hinges,” the doctor laughed. “The squeaking could wake the dead.”

  Heather cringed, but Seymour, sensing he had a captive audience, continued. “Well, Nurse Richards, good morning. I didn’t expect to see you this early, but it’s always a pleasure to be around such beauty even if you’re taken. That husband of yours is one lucky man.”

  “Doctor, Meg is . . .”

  Cutting Heather off, Seymour added, “Beautiful. Yes, she is. And I’ve got some good news for Meg, and I’m not going to keep her in suspense for even a moment longer.” His face beaming, he continued, “Nurse, the lab finally got caught up after you left yesterday.”

  Heather jumped in again, “Whatever the news is, I don’t think this is the time!”

  A stubborn Seymour just kept right on talking. “Meg, I overheard you saying yesterday your husband would be coming home this weekend for your anniversary and I knew you’d want to surprise him with the good news. Congratulations! Your suspicions were confirmed. Our official tests prove you’re pregnant!”

  Seemingly realizing that no one else was reacting normally to this bit of wonderful news, a confused look quickly crossed the man’s face. “Listen, Meg, I’m sorry if I spoiled the surprise by telling you in front of Heather, but I know how long you’ve been trying and I just didn’t think that you’d want me to hold back. If I was wrong, just remember I’ve never been known for having any tact.”

  Meg’s eyes met the doctor’s momentarily then she lowered her head, turned, and walked toward the ER door. In the background, she heard him ask, “What did I do?”

  Meg was out of earshot before Heather could explain.

  As she exited, the same accident victim she’d observed when she’d first arrived held the outside door open for her. He was so lucky. He got to go home to be with his family. Or maybe it wasn’t luck but fate. Maybe fate had dealt her the wrong hand and him the right one.

  Walking resolutely across the parking lot, she again felt the damp breeze hit her face. Like a slap in the face, the cold wind emphasized how quickly things could change. In a split second, good had become bad and pleasure had morphed into pain. Just as quickly, an answered prayer had turned into a meaningless coda in an evening consumed by tragedy. The “wonderful” news she’d been waiting and praying to hear for what had once seemed a long time didn’t seem to matter now. How ironic! The only thing she and Steve needed to make their lives complete had only been confirmed after his life had ended.

  Sliding into her Mustang, she slammed the driver’s side door, tightly clenched the steering wheel, and looked toward the heavens. So this is the way God worked! And if this was the case, then why bother trying to live a good life or even praying? What had it gotten her? She had experienced a few incredible years and then it had become a nightmare of pain and regret.

  Looking out through her windshield, she took a deep breath and shouted, “Why? What have I done?”

  She had more she wanted to say but she couldn’t bring herself to tell God what she thought of Him. Besides, she’d lost her voice and for the first time since the phone had awakened her from such peaceful dreams, tears filled her eyes. She was completely alone and that knowledge spilled out into the night, the car, and her heart. It rolled over her like a powerful ocean wave. A silent voice suddenly screamed unrelentingly that nothing would ever be the same again, that death had come and the parting was real and there was no stopping the “dark music”!

  4

  FOR TWO DAYS, MEG MINDLESSLY WALKED THROUGH THE DUTIES THAT had been suddenly and unmercifully thrust upon her. She graciously greeted scores of visitors as they came into her apartment with arms full of food and mouths spilling out thousands of meaningless words. Some even said they understood just how she felt. She wanted to laugh in their faces. How could they know how she felt? No one could know how she felt. She wasn’t even sure herself. She wished they had all just left her alone. After all, alone was now the story of her life and she felt it was time to begin living that story.

  She vaguely remembered spending time picking out a suit, a shirt, and a tie to give to the funeral director, but what did it really matter? After all, the slate gray coffin she’d chosen would be closed. It had to remain locked because Steve, like Humpty Dumpty, couldn’t be put back together again. He could have been buried in a sheet and no one would have known. So why had they wasted good clothes that someone else could have worn? In fact, picking out clothes that would never be seen reflected the nature of everything about a funeral. The whole experience seemed like a colossal waste of time. There were far better things to do than say good-bye to someone who couldn’t hear or reply. Besides, she had said her goodbyes at the hospital. That is where she’d learned the true meaning and felt the full weight of “ ’Til Death Do Us Part.”

  So as Meg now waded through all her obligations, she saw no reason for any of this. It was all
just social mumbo-jumbo. She seriously thought it should be cancelled; it was accomplishing nothing more than drawing out needless pain. But when she suggested just a graveside memorial, her wishes were quickly shot down. Her mother and Steve’s folks insisted on a full-blown funeral. And when Meg balked at attending the church memorial service, her mother raised her voice and scolded her. “How would it look if you weren’t there?” Then she’d added, “Steve would want you there.” Meg had just nodded and forced a solemn smile. What a joke! Steve didn’t want anything anymore, and he wouldn’t care if she were there or not. His mind had stopped and with it all his wishes.

  With each passing moment, she grew to hate the thought of the funeral even more. She saw no real purpose in it. Was this the way all widows felt? Did they also dread dealing with a ceremony that was really nothing more than hollow words among old friends?

  Love had been the anchor in her life and that love had come from Steve. He had radiated it with his touch and his kiss. She felt it in the way he looked at her. It gave her confidence and made her strong enough to handle anything. But now that love was gone. And with each passing moment, it grew more distant. And without that anchor, she was adrift. So why hold a service that pointed out to the world the guiding force in a woman’s life had left her?

  Beyond the ache in her heart and the sense of incredible loneliness, the worst part of the two endless days had been her meeting with Reverend Cheston Brooks. There was nothing wrong with the man. Brooks, short, middle-aged, and blessed with a gentle spirit and a soft delivery, was the kind of person everyone liked, including those who didn’t ever darken a church door. Yet over the past forty-eight hours she’d come to loath the sight of him. He’d visited with her on two long, drawn-out occasions and each meeting left her feeling more empty and lost. Worse yet, the preacher in his haste to make her feel as though God was with her had actually done just the opposite. Brooks had planted a seed that made the widow wonder if God wasn’t really the problem rather than the solution.