This Much Is True (39 page)

“Bravery doesn’t come to mind. Stupidity comes to mind.”

“I wouldn’t let anything happen to you. You have to know that.”

“Do I? Promises, promises,” I say in my best Russian accent. Mockery works. He looks a little pale under his fine tan. My harsh arrows against nostalgia hit their intended target quite nicely. “Don’t test me though. I only know about twenty Russian words and half are swear words.”

He tries to laugh. I attempt to at least try and smile, as if somehow being funny around him can undo the underlying horror of the current situation. But then, my upper lip throbs with fresh pain. “Ow,” I touch it tenderly in a small attempt to keep him preoccupied from looking down at the blood that’s beginning to pool in my lap. I draw the shredded edges of my coat tighter, so he won’t see it.

A few minutes later, he’s handing the driver enough rubles to have driven us across the entire city and back again. We alight from the car as one. I cry out when I step forward and my left foot buckles. Fear takes over.
What did that monster do to my foot?

Linc sweeps me up in his arms, despite my visceral protest and constant pleas to put me down. He carries me past the waiting gurney that one of the hospital staff has procured and walks directly into the ER, demanding to talk with the doctor in charge, even though I try to protest loudly but my cries are somewhat smothered by his coat sleeve.

I weakly raise my head and attempt to give him my best derisive look.

“You’re hurt,” he says gently. “Don’t start. What do you weigh all of a ninety pounds now?”

“Don’t start.”

Mollified somewhat and taking consolation in being in his arms, regardless of the eerie circumstances, I decide I’d better enjoy the damsel-in-distress routine for once—before Nika gets here or I pass out; both of which are becoming distinct possibilities. I look past his shoulder and see the long trail of blood that’s flows behind us like dripping paint, retracing our erratic path through the ER.
Shit. Not good.
My head pounds. My dignity suffers both mentally and physically from all sides, while my entire body begins to convulse as if I’m being turned inside out. I’m not really sure how much longer I’ll be able to keep up the
I’ve-got-this
brave front. My body already starts to betray me as I shake uncontrollably like I’ve just emerged from swimming naked in an Arctic lake.
If they have those.
I comfort myself with the fleeting thought that he’s here. And right now? I’ll take whatever part of him; he’s offering because, in this peculiar space and moment in time; I need Lincoln Presley. It appears from all counts that he’s saving my life
again
.

“Seems like old times.”

“Don’t do that.” My voice is no more than a murmur. I’m losing the battle with consciousness.

“What? Force you to remember?”

“There’s no forcing when it comes to remembering you. Just a wish to forget some of it, but I remember
everything
.” I close my eyes.

“So do I,” he says.

I open my eyes again and study his face. Lincoln Presley looks conflicted. I trace his furrowed brow with my free hand to try to smooth his sudden anguish away.

“We’re getting…
married
.”

He struggles in saying the last word.

And so do I.

I reach down deep inside of myself on a vain search for the right words to convey my true and honest feelings about this particular announcement from him and his thoughtless fucking timing.
Can’t I just die in his arms and not know this?
In those first suspended moments of knowing, I hate Nika Vostrikova so much that all I want to do is destroy her in any way I can. I hate all of her with my entire being because she has taken what I have always held on to—this egotistical notion,
really—
that Lincoln Presley would be mine.
Someday.

I finger his long dark lashes, trail my hand along his strong jaw line, and gauge the racing of his pulse at his throat. What I say next could undo all those marital plans. I could be honest and tell him the truth about us—him, me,
Cara
.

My throat constricts with all these pent-up emotions and truths as well as the agonized guilt and remorse that I constantly live with and the love I feel so strongly for Lincoln Presley right now.
Because I do…I do love him.

I open my mouth to speak only to realize that he’s been filling in my long, drawn-out silence with words of his own. Lincoln Presley is talking, and I haven’t heard a single word he’s said. But then, his words finally register with some part of my brain.

“She’s due in May. We’re pretty excited,” he says. “I’ve always wanted a big family and Nika’s game for one, too.”

His face comes alive with such joy that it inadvertently sucks the last air out of my lungs with its unintended force. Remorse for what I said to him the last time, for not telling him about Cara, for all the lies returns full force and haunts me now.

You can’t really hear heartbreak. It is remarkably silent but excruciating all the same.

You think you’ve already met up with the depths of sadness and despair. You’ve had your share. You think that there is no more that anyone can say or do to you that could make you feel worse, but you would be wrong even on this most terror-filled day.

I can’t breathe.
I’m staring into his face and noting the trace of happiness that lives there within him now; but I’m drifting away too far and too fast from him.
I’m evaporating right here, and I can’t breathe.

It comes to me swiftly how I never fully understood the ramifications of my decision with Cara until now. How this one decision has come back on me in all these visceral, unexpected ways. This one hurts the most. Linc has gone on with his life and is having a baby with someone else. I won’t be a part of his life.

Some part of me believed in the fairytale. I skipped over the true ending of
Romeo & Juliet.
Yes, it’s true that we do that play for an entire month during the season, so I
know
how it ends
.
Still.
I egoistically and naively thought we would work it out.
Someday.

Instead, there’s
this. This heartbreak.

It hurts like hell. It’s as if I’m being burned alive.

“Thank you, Elvis,” I manage to say just before my body reacts for me.

This feels good. Dying feels fine and I welcome the blackness with open arms.

Because today? I’ve truly lost everything
.

* * * *

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Linc ~ Staying with the lies

T
hings will work out; however they’re supposed to work out. My mother used to say something like that. It’s a stupid saying. I never understood it. I don’t understand it now. And yet, I stare at the unconscious body of Tally Landon and can only wonder at its truth. Because she’s here; and I’m here. After everything that’s gone down between us, that has to mean something for both of us.

I pray to God. I beg for salvation. I make a deal with Him. I ask for forgiveness for all the bad choices I’ve made and for all the transgressions I’ve induced and for the lies I continue to tell.

The hospital staff manages true discretion. They rushed Tally inside one of the first available rooms in the ER, after she passed out. “She’s my wife. I’m Lincoln Presley,” I said, having decided within those first few minutes that lying would be easier. And lying gives me this little window into Tally’s psyche.
Yes, lying is so much easier.

I fill out a few sheets of paperwork, pull out a Visa, balefully hand them a wad of American Express checks, and keep my vigilant gaze on Tally at all times, while they quickly assess her injuries. I provide the sketchiest of details to some police detective about Tally’s assailant but keep my entire focus on Tally.

I all but freak out, when they finish cutting off her clothes in the ER. There are deep lacerations and bruises along both of her legs, especially her inner thighs, and my mind starts to go to the most horrific places. The medical staff automatically performs a rape test.

I have to leave the room after that. I throw up in the first restroom I can find and acknowledge how deeply I hate the man who did this to her and Moscow, equally.

After a half-hour, the first detective returns with an attentive look and informs me that they found a guy. He says, “Perpetrator,” in perfect English but that seems to be one of the few English words he knows. He goes on to tell me in a mixture of Russian and broken English that the guy matches the description I gave earlier about who I saw in the alley. They want Tally’s statement. I gesture towards the window of the exam room where, just beyond it, Tally still lies unconscious while they work on her. The detective tells me that the guy isn’t dead.
Yet.
The perpetrator is in critical condition in this very hospital on a different floor and about to go into emergency surgery; I feel somewhat unhinged because I secretly wish he was dead, and that I could be the one to kill him when he tells me this.
What is happening to me?

Sometime later, I call Nika with a relentless need for pretense. I need her to tell me that everything is okay and; for her part, it is. Hearing her say it helps. I continue to lie about where I’ve been all afternoon. “Practice—pitching, hitting, catching balls—
the usual,”
I tell her. I call my pitching coach.“There’s been an emergency with a close friend of mine, and I may not make the practice. Don’t count on it,” I tell him. “I’ll do my best to make practice, but I might not.” Deep down, I know there’s just no way I can throw a baseball right now, but I give him false hope. I cover my bases.
I lie. Again.

I fill up the endless time in an almost unconscious daze and endlessly study the non-English-speaking medical and nursing staff as they work round-the-clock. Yes, I do my best to avoid the despair, but it’s there all the same. My eyes glaze over at the gravity of the situation. Guilt assails me from all sides now because I’d been telling Tally about Nika and me and our baby; yet all the while she was bleeding out from multiple stab wounds, going into shock over a possible sexual assault, and suffering from a severe concussion. I was the jerk going on about the rare vein of happiness; I’d been able to find, in recently learning Nika was pregnant and making plans for our future, because I was determined on some sadistic level to make Tally pay for how she’d left me on Valentine’s Day, after Charlie and Marla’s wedding. Oblivious to the true horror of her situation and too intent on inflicting my own brand of emotional pain upon her, I didn’t see what was fully going on with her, until she passed out in my arms; and I finally noticed all the blood that trailed behind us across the hospital’s sparkling-clean floor, forming a curiously accusatory pattern that led straight to me.

I haven’t exactly been forthcoming with the hospital staff about who Tally really is; because it was surprisingly easy to exploit my celebrity and just go with the telling of the first lie that I was her husband. I’d pretty much shouted this fact aloud to anyone that would listen, after we first got here, in quickly realizing how easy lying really was. It’s true that I’ve taken advantage of the situation and my celebrity, and that I’m unstoppable now. The hospital staff is a little in awe of my baseball star status. They’ve heard of Lincoln Presley, the baseball player. The Los Angeles Angels. The Russians seem to love L.A. and I hear them murmur about this in broken English among themselves.

The deception quickly lends itself to my own personal fantasies about meaning more to Tally—about being more than just some guy she used to know but never should have known.

I stay with the lie. I revel in the lie. She’s mine for now, at least. And, I’m most definitely hers.

Nika calls me back. She tells me she’s decided to stay in the country with her family for another two days until the actual game and wonders if I’ll be all right. I assure her that I’m fine, even though I can’t stop shaking. I breathe a heavy sigh of relief that I have a brief reprieve when it comes to Nika. I can’t even think about the implications of Tally and Nika right now, and how I’ll ultimately deal with all of that.

I’m supposed to be getting ready for the Angels’ exhibition game. Instead, I sit here holding Tally’s hand because I’ll take any part of her that’s left. Meanwhile, my head swims with all these raging thoughts about marrying Nika and our baby, but then I’m equally assailed by all these memories of Tally.
I can’t leave her. I won’t leave her.
That tenet stays with me even as I only vaguely consider that it will destroy everything I have with Nika Vostrikova.

Choices.

I will have to make them. I already have, haven’t I?

I’m bound to the magnitude of only one truth now.
I won’t leave Tally. Ever. Never again.
My allegiance to it effectively blows me away. Yet another part of me wonders how that will be tested just like it always has been in the past.

At regular intervals, the hospital staff moves in and out of the room where they’ve put Tally without saying too much to me. The barrier for English and Russian appears infinite. I don’t care. I have nothing more to say. As long as I’m willing to cover the medical bills, people don’t ask me anything. I don’t want them to ask me anything because I don’t want to answer. I don’t want to tell the truth, not on this day anyway.
I

’ll stay with the lies. I need them to be true.

She’s mine. For now.

One of the nurses comes in and takes Tally’s vital signs for the umpteenth time. Next, they roll in a portable ultrasound machine and gesture that I should leave the room, but I indicate in my own American way back that I’m staying and shake my head side-to-side to get that point across. I’ve come this far. I’m determined to go all the way.

The technician shrugs and then extends the wand over Tally’s abdomen and lower extremities. We all watch the chaos unfold, as Tally’s internal organs flash up on the 3-D screen. They seem to know what it means while I look on in a stupor of confusion, but with growing concern at all the turmoil that seems to race across the monitor. There’s blood oozing everywhere inside of her. That can’t be good. Their faces are somewhat grave, and it scares the hell out of me. The doctor strides in, visually takes in the screen shots, and then makes a few handwritten notes on Tally’s chart. He says a few things in Russian and looks over directly to me as if I’m supposed to have an answer.

I shake my head. “English?”

So far, everyone here has babbled on in mostly Russian. I’ve given up hope of finding anyone who could really understand me beyond the Russian cop who knew enough English when I spoke to him a few hours ago to at least take down my side of the story.

“Ah, you’re American,” he says. “Me, too. I’m Dr. Michael Markov. My parents were Russian, but I was born in San Francisco. I moved here a little over two years ago when my father wanted to return to Moscow. So, we did, just before he died.” He gets this despondent look. What he’s just revealed explains just about everything. He’s this blond, good-looking American guy whom I would gauge to be about thirty-five. I would have a beer with him under different circumstances. I decide I can handle him. Somehow, this makes me breathe easier.

“Lincoln Presley.” I extend my hand.

He shakes it and smiles a little. “The baseball star. The whole ER is talking about you.”

I nod. I stand up to my full height and face him. I’m taller. Tired. Put out. Adamant. I decide now might be the time to exert my influence because all that fucking fame and power surely grants me something. Surely, this guy can help me out.
Help me out here, man.
“Yes. Lincoln Presley. I pitch for the Los Angeles Angels.” I glance over at Tally’s still form. “We’re here for an exhibition game. Day after tomorrow.”

Complete recognition of who I am and an obvious penchant for baseball crosses his features at the same time. He knows me. He likes baseball. His stance and enthusiasm change right in front of me.

He glances over at the sleeping Tally, too, and nods at me slowly, effectively putting it all together in a single instant. “Her condition is critical. Two deep stab wounds to her abdomen have caused serious internal bleeding, and the IUD has perforated the uterine wall.” He turns to the screen and points out a Y-shape on the screen that sits at a peculiar angle. “The IUD needs to be removed. The lacerations and bruising on her legs are mostly superficial. Her foot has multiple broken bones, and the ankle is badly sprained. We’ll cast that.” He sighs and glances back at his chart. “The ultrasound doesn’t look good. The removal of the IUD and stopping the internal bleeding so we can determine the extent of her injuries are critical. We already confirmed there was an attempt at a sexual assault, semen along her inner thighs, and semi-detectable vaginal penetration but inconclusive.”

“Semi-detectable. Inconclusive. What does that mean?” My tone is harsh, but I don’t apologize.

“We don’t know for sure. It looks like he tried to sexually assault her but may not have succeeded.”

“Well, that’s
great news
.” I don’t attempt to hide my sarcasm, and he looks a little put out by it.

“It appears, she fought him hard, Mr. Presley. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but she’s actually very lucky.” My face must show utter disbelief because he hurries on with his speech after that idiotic comment. “The internal bleeding has to be stopped. In addition to the knife wounds, there appears to have been blunt force trauma to her abdomen. It looks like the assailant kicked her.” He frowns, probably because of the incredulous look on my face. “In any case, the IUD has perforated through the uterus, and we have to take her surgery to remove it. There’s a
risk
.” He pauses and looks at me hard. “We may have to perform a hysterectomy, but we won’t know until we get her in surgery. Microsurgery has come a long way even for something as delicate as the uterine wall. Dr. Wallenski is the best, here in Moscow.”

His qualification of
here
in Moscow
worries me. “Can’t we just wait and fly her back to the States?”

He studies me intently for a few seconds. “She won’t make it to the States. She’s lost a lot of blood, and she’s bleeding out internally.”

All the air rushes from my lungs, and I stagger back suddenly unable to breathe. It seems he was waiting for that kind of reaction from me. He slowly nods and then goes on without waiting for the words to make any more sense. “Depending upon how the surgery goes, she may not be able to have children. She’ll need counseling about all of this. Eventually, she’ll be fine, both physically and mentally, but an attack like this…well; she may not remember much of it, but it will take time and counseling and support from family and friends. She has all of that, right?”

I nod, not trusting myself to speak because I don’t know anything about Tally’s life anymore, as if I ever did. Marla won’t tell me anything about Tally. Nobody’s been able to find out anything of what’s going on with her for months.
I let her down.
This single thought assails me now. I let her down when I let her walk out of my hospital room and didn’t call her back. I’m sure she was waiting for me just beyond that door just waiting for me to say
something. Anything
. And I chose to let her walk out. I didn’t say a word, blinded by anger at her for the things she’d said. Yet I was the one who had let her down in first place.
I couldn’t afford to do it now. Not again.

“Mr. Presley? We need your signature on the surgical form. You said you were her husband?” He looks unconvinced.

“She’s my wife,” I say, lying for the second or third time in less than four hours, although it feels very real when I say it this time. It seems like I should be the one who decides Tally’s fate. Who’s going to question a star baseball player for the Angels here to pitch a baseball game in Moscow? Hell, I’ll give this guy tickets to the game for saving Tally’s life.

In the next few minutes, I actually promise him a ticket to the game as I irrationally go on and on about baseball, while Dr. Michael Markov prepares the paperwork. He eventually slides the forms over in my direction and smiles with sympathy as if he knows I’m fighting the shock and pain of this day, both for Tally and myself. I hold my breath and say a little prayer and have to hope he doesn’t begin to question my authority over Tally’s health directives. I scribble my signature across
Tally Presley’s
patient form. I can’t even look over at her now.

“I’m sorry,” the doctor says. “It’s a horrible thing that’s happened. It’s a risk—the surgery, but it’s necessary. I know it’s an extra blow to know that she may not be able to have more children, but hopefully it won’t come to that.”

My head whips up. “
More
children?” I ask. “What did you say?”

“How long have you two been married?” Markov gets this uncertain look.

I need to weigh my words carefully before this whole lie about being her husband comes undone.
Then, what would we do?

“Not long,” I say and hold my breath at the same time.

The doctor studies me for a few moments. “Your wife told us she had a child almost three years ago at the end of January. She confirmed that for us when we took her medical history before we gave her the morphine for the pain in prepping her for surgery. Didn’t she tell you?” Now the doctor looks skeptical and unsure of who I am in relation to his patient.

I shake my head side-to-side, striving for some kind of outward control, and weigh my words carefully.
Tally had a baby?
  “We had a misunderstanding until recently; and then we worked it out and got married. I didn’t know. She never told me. We weren’t together for a few years until recently.”

The doctor raises his eyebrow and looks at me even more closely. “When did you first meet?”