“Jack! What do you know?”
“He’s going to be all right. He cracked his head, lost a spleen, is scraped up all to hell, but the injuries are apparently not life threatening at this point.”
“Was he burned?” Mel asked, thinking about a grenade and the heat.
“No. Pitched through the air, though. But not burned.”
“Oh, thank God!”
“Mel, he lost his leg.”
“Was the damage too severe? Was it inoperable?” she asked.
“He lost it in the explosion. There wasn’t a chance. Losing the leg was what almost killed him. He lost a lot of blood.”
“Oh, poor Rick. Where’d they amputate? Above or below the knee?”
“Above. But they saved a lot of thigh and femur. He’s still in recovery. We haven’t seen him yet, but he’s going to be all right, Mel. Mel,” he said, then paused. “This is rough. We’re not family. Liz isn’t a spouse and I’m not his father. We’re not getting a lot of help, if you know what I mean.”
“I’m not sure I do.”
“I don’t know if they’re going to let us bring him home. He might be transferred to some military medical facility for rehab. If I was his father, I could probably bring him home and take him to the nearest hospital for rehab. If I’d just worked with Lydie to adopt him legally before all this—”
She heard the regret in his voice. Jack felt as if he’d let Rick down. “Jack, just see Rick, let him know you’re there, find out how he’s doing medically, with pain and trauma. Decisions about where he’s going next will come when they come.”
“I know.”
“And Jack? You might want to sleep. I hear the exhaustion in your voice. You have to be strong for Rick. Very strong. You can’t cave in to things like pity, worry…”
“I’ll be strong.”
“How’s Liz holding up?”
“Better than me. She was so relieved to hear he’s going to be all right, she started to cry and laugh at the same time. She doesn’t quite get it, that she’s not getting him back right away. And when she does, he won’t be the same.”
“You both just need to see him. He’s not going to be himself for a while.” She paused. “I wish I was there with you, Jack. I could help. And I miss you so much.”
“Are the kids okay?” he asked.
“They’re fine, Jack. We’re all fine. Just missing you, that’s all. But you’re where you have to be.”
“Really, if I could just get him home, with our family, I’d feel so much better.”
“That will come.” She took a deep breath. “He needs to finish this journey. He needs the rehab, a prosthetic leg. Some counseling.”
“Yeah,” Jack said. “Yeah, I know.”
“Would you like me to tell people? Or would you like to make calls yourself?”
“Will you do it, Mel? Lydie, Connie and the boys? If you can call Preach, Mike and Paul, they can call the squad. Are you up to it?”
“Of course, darling. I’ll make the calls right now. Everyone is waiting. Will you do something for me?”
“Anything I can.”
“When you see Rick, please tell him I love him. And I’m proud of him. Tell him I’ll do anything in my power to help him. And tell him…No, it’s too soon for that….”
“For what?”
She took a breath. “When I lived in Los Angeles, I worked with a doctor in emergency for almost a year before I learned he wore a prosthetic leg. He was quick, confident, strong and very talented. It’s not only possible, it’s probable. It’s just that…I’m sure getting there’s a real bitch.”
She rose from the desk behind the reception counter. “Hi. How are you?”
“Fine. Good. Um, I was just wondering if you’d heard anything from your husband. About the kid. Rick.”
“Yes,” she said, walking toward him. “He’s going to be all right. He has multiple injuries, all treatable. He’s got head injuries that aren’t a threat, he lost a spleen, is scraped up real bad but not burned, and he lost a leg in the explosion.”
The man’s eyes grew wide and shocked at that last. Then, when he collected himself, he asked, “Above or below?”
She knew exactly what he meant and wondered about his association with amputees. “Above the knee. Sounds like you know something about that.”
“In fact, I was sent to Landstuhl after an injury and got cozy with a lot of guys who lost limbs. Below the knee was easy compared to—Well, you know.”
“He’s got a lot of rehab ahead, but the outlook is potentially positive. He’s safe for now.”
“Hmm,” he said, dropping his gaze, shaking his head. “Good. He made it through. Poor kid. What did your husband say—that he’s twenty years old?”
“Just barely. And the sweetest kid you’ll ever meet. Nice of you to inquire.”
“I’ve been thinking about that whole scene. Shook old Jack up pretty good. I haven’t seen him very often over the past few years, but I’ve never seen him shook up like that.”
“Rick’s pretty special. Listen, speaking of the past few years—I think about that woman and baby a lot.”
“Listen,” he said. “I’m sorry I had to lie to you, but that baby had nothing to do with me. I knew about the woman—I knew her man left her out there, ready to pop. I checked on her a couple of times and knew she had a sketchy past, like a lot of us, and she refused to go to a clinic. She said it would be all right, but I found her in a mess.”
“Why didn’t you tell me the truth? Why’d you let me think it was yours?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t know if you’d help otherwise. And I did get her on a bus. If she didn’t run out on that sister, they were willing to take her in, help her. Sorry, that was about all I could do.”
“You could have done nothing,” Mel said. She smiled. “If you’d done nothing, it would’ve been a disaster. She and the baby—”
“Yeah, well, I gave it a shot. Glad it worked out. Hope things work out for Rick, too.”
“So how come you’re around here twice in the same week?” she asked him.
It brought a grin out of him and she remembered, way back to that scary night, when he’d said,
Tough
little broad, arentcha?
He had grinned just like that. “I got a job with the construction company. Haggerty’s.”
“A real job?” she asked, eyes wide. “Where they take taxes out of your check and everything?”
“And everything,” he said, smiling.
“You live around here?” she asked.
He chuckled. “Exactly. I’m staying in a camper until something comes up for rent. If you hear of anything…”
“Sure,” she said. “If I hear of something, I’ll let Paul know.”
“Thanks. You take care.” He turned to go.
“I never did get a name.”
He turned back. “Dan,” he said. “Dan Brady.”
“Please,” Jack said. “I know how you’re feeling right now, but I’ve been down this road before and wounded Marines are unpredictable. Sometimes they’re just grateful to be alive, sometimes they can be real loose canons. If he’s unstable and angry, let him unload that on me first.”
“Will you tell him I love him?”
“Sure, honey. I’ve only got ten minutes with him. Let me get the lay of the land. If he’s mentally stable, you’ll go in next.”
She bit her lip and nodded reluctantly; he could just imagine how crappy that made her feel, but Jack couldn’t be sure how Rick was going to take to either one of them being here. Logically, he should want his closest people near him. But getting blown up and waking up in a hospital ward could skew someone’s sense of logic something fierce.
It was a small ward, only six beds. But six where there should only be four. Hospitals catering to the war-wounded were crowded, even with the number of wounded decreased. He spotted Rick right off—a white bandage wrapped around his head, his face cut and scraped, a bandaged stump where there had been a right leg. He wore green scrub pants, the right leg cut off, no shirt and his sheet was kicked away. There was a surgical bandage on his side; the spleenectomy, Jack assumed. An IV dangled above him; Jack hoped there was plenty of morphine in it.
He looked around; green walls, white linoleum floors, that hospital smell of disinfectant and medicine. There was a guy in a circular bed with pins in his skull, a guy with a thigh-high cast on one leg, another sitting up in bed who looked for all the world to be uninjured, though there was a wheelchair beside his bed, a young man with his arm in an elevated cast level with his shoulder and a man flat on his back, in traction. And Rick. It was clearly an orthopedics ward. Jack nodded at the other patients as he entered and they returned the nod, grim-faced. Right away he knew, they weren’t angry—it was that Rick was the newest patient and they were waiting to see what happened next.
He stared down at the boy and saw the tears on his cheeks and his mouth parted in a dark slit as he took breaths slowly and deeply.
“Rick?” he said softly.
Rick’s eyes opened. “Jack,” he said in a whisper.
“You have a lot of pain, son?”
He winced and nodded, squeezing out another tear.
“Did they tell you about your condition?” Jack asked him.
He nodded. “When did it happen?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.
“’Bout a day ago. They got you right up here. You’re out of Iraq, you’re in Germany. You know where you are, son?”
Rick gritted his teeth and nodded.
“Remember anything?” Jack asked.
“I…Ah…I remember someone screaming at me. He kept saying don’t you give up, don’t you quit. Fucker. I ever see him again, I’m going to kill him.”
Jack felt himself almost laugh; at least he had fight in him.
“I brought Liz.”
Rick’s eyes came open instantly. “No,” he said in a breath. “No.”
“If I hadn’t brought her, she was going to try to make it on her own. She needs to see you’re okay, Rick.”
“I don’t want her here! Just get her out of here!”
“Listen,” Jack said, leaning over the bed. “I could no more leave her behind than—”
As Jack put a hand down on the mattress beside Rick, Rick let go a howl of pain that nearly shook the walls. Jack jumped back in shock and fear, but Rick just kept screaming and flailing around. The nurse was beside the bed instantly. “I didn’t touch anything,” Jack said apologetically.
The nurse ignored him and just talked to Rick. “Deep breaths, I’m upping the drip a little. Deep breaths, hang on, it’ll kick in right away. Come on now, just breathe.” Still, it took a moment for Rick to calm down. The howling ended with some soft whimpering that finally gave way to a couple of moans.
The nurse turned toward Jack. “Did you sit on the bed?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “I leaned a hand on the bed, but I wasn’t anywhere near him.”
“Phantom pain,” she said. “You probably leaned your hand where the leg used to be. It’s spooky, but it’s the real deal. He felt it and it hurt.”
“Jesus.”
“Better if you just don’t touch anything. The first forty-eight hours are real rocky, but it’s going to get better. Is this your first experience with an amputee?”
“Yeah,” Jack said weakly.
“I have some pamphlets. Why don’t you take a couple of hours to look through the literature. I think he’s going to rest for a while now. I just gave him a nice boost.”
Jack followed her to the nurses’ station, glad to see someone was willing to be helpful to him there. When Liz saw them leave the ward together, she was immediately tailing them. Jack turned and asked her to give him just a minute with the nurse and continued on, leaving her behind. The nurse handed him some pamphlets and he asked, “You take care of a lot of these guys?”
“Full-time,” she said with a little nod of her head.
“Help me out with something here,” Jack said. “I just told him I brought his girl and he freaked out. Told me to get her out of here. Right up to the injury, there was no problem between him and the girl.”
She frowned. “Reactions like that usually come later, after the reality settles in. This soon after the injury, patients are just being stabilized, they’re struggling with the pain and trying to get a fix on what their condition is. His response might be connected to pain and drugs. But later…Not too unusual, I’m sorry to say. Some men and women adjust so well, it’s astonishing. Sometimes the new amputee is very needy, desperate for confirmation that he’s still worth loving. Sometimes he doesn’t even want to chance it, pushing loved ones away. There are a lot of psychological and emotional adjustments to go along with the physical. Everything from the pain and fear to self-esteem issues. You’re going to have to learn about all this, and be patient.”
“How long does that go on?” Jack asked. “The adjustment?”
“Purely individual. But you should see what you can learn about this for now. And maybe you can help get the young lady through it?”
“Aw crap, what am I going to tell her?”
“I always recommend you start with the truth. This isn’t an easy time for anyone. Try to watch those expectations. But you could tell her most of what the corporal is feeling is beyond his control. He’ll need help getting through it. And yet, he might resist help. It’s a contradictory process for some.”
“When are you going to get him up, out of bed?”
“We had him up, briefly. He didn’t like it. He’s still in a lot of pain.”
“God, I need my wife here.” In fact, he couldn’t remember a time he needed her quite this bad. “Thank you,” he said. “I’ll look through this stuff right away.”
He turned to go back to Liz. The second he noticed she didn’t seem to be where he’d left her, he heard the screaming.
“Get out! Just get out of here! I don’t want you here! Go away! Get out!”
“Oh, Jesus,” he muttered, running for the ward. He stopped in the doorway and what he saw emptied him out inside. Liz stood beside Rick’s bed, her hands over her face, her beautiful long hair hanging down like a curtain, her shoulders quaking with her sobs while Rick nearly came off the bed, screaming at her. Jack moved quickly, put his arms around her and pulled her away. When they were back in the hall he held her against him protectively while she cried. He’d never felt so helpless in his life. It almost felt as though if he crouched down, he could scoop up the pieces of her broken heart off the floor.
The same nurse was beside them again. “I’m going to give him something to calm him down a little bit. And I’m going to tell him you’ve left the hospital for now. Let’s give him some space. Like I said, the first forty-eight hours are real rocky.”
“No shit,” Jack muttered. “Come on, honey,” he said, pulling Liz down the hall and away.