Nobody's Tears: The Quiet Place
In reality, she doesn't have a set day off; when one is the aide de camp to the Commander of a WASP base, one is pretty much on call all the time. However, the Commander knows the value of his team, and that of the person at his right hand even more. He's a rare one, she knows, and she's grateful.
So it is that one sunny afternoon, dressed in civvies, she's able to catch the shuttle from her billet to the medical complex downtown. The hospital, a monstrous hive of stainless steel and gleaming glass, is set into several acres of meticulously groomed gardens filled with beautifully sculptured topiaries and neat, colorful flower beds. For a hospital that boasts the latest in medical technology, it seems to be trying hard not to look like what it is. At night it will gleam like a diamond, shining on its hill and drawing admiring eyes. It's a place for miracles, where the supermodern meets the most basic of human needs.
As she crosses the wide intersection with a handful of people in scrubs and lab coats, she fervently hopes it is a place of miracles, for the sake of one young man who lies deep within its clinical embrace.
The receptionist at the desk in the three-story atrium glances up when she enters, but the girl is sharp and she remembers the face even before the WASP ident is flashed. "You were here the other night, weren't you? For Ensign Tracy?" she asks.
"Yes. Have they moved him?"
"No."
This means that Gordon is still on a ventilator in the critical care unit, where he will remain until he either improves or is declared brain dead. The knowledge of these facts pass between them in the space of a heartbeat, then it's gone, replaced by the receptionist's kind smile.
"I think his brother went down to get some lunch," she says, pulling up the 3-D room schematic on her console. "I'm sure Ensign Tracy would love some company." The girl taps a command into her console, and a machine at her elbow hums and spits out a white plastic tab labeled with VISITOR-CRIT U and TRACY, G-NONFAM. She attaches a badge holder to the tab and holds it out over the high desk. "Go on up."
Sure enough, when she enters Gordon's room, none of the family members she saw that terrible first night are in residence, but there is a beat-up leather duffel bag in the corner and a sweatshirt that will label the wearer 'Property of Stanford Engineering Department' draped over the foot of the bed. On the table near the chair rests a black leather bound book with a red ribbon marking a page somewhere near the middle, with a pencil, eraser, and small hand-held sharpener laying nearby. There is soft music playing from somewhere, freeform and ethereal notes punctuated by the sound of waves crashing on a beach. Another table across the room is set with a huge bouquet of cheery yellow flowers of all kinds; sunflowers, roses, daffodils, mums, and daisies. At its base sits a small stuffed squid, made of deep blue plush printed with foil dots of every color meant to mimic its natural markings. The squid's eyes are oversized sparkly blue gems, and a hand-lettered sign is propped amongst its tentacles: AIN'T NO PARTY LIKE A SQUID PARTY.
She finds herself grinning; even from the little she knows of Gordon, she has no doubt he would appreciate the sentiment. Then she turns to survey the figure on the bed, and her smile fades.
She moves back to the chair and sets her own bag beside it, then steps up to stand at Gordon's side. The bruising and swelling are beginning to fade on his face, and the lines of his jaw and cheekbones are starting to emerge. His long golden lashes are fanned on his cheeks, matching the eyebrows that have been cleaned of the blood from the two-inch gash healing on his forehead. Red-brown trails on his scalp disappear under bandages and a field of golden stubble.
The rest of him is a shapeless mass of bandages, splints, gauze, and padding holding his reassembled frame together. Tubes run in and out of his flesh, and his chest shudders with the push and pull of the ventilator. His legs are encased in a custom-fitted polycarbonate 'cast', replacing those of old-fashioned plaster she's heard about from her grandparents. Her high clearance has granted her access to his medical file, and although some of it is beyond her ken, she knows that he's getting top-notch care by what she sees before her. Still, the very fact that he's here is enough to make her want to go to some deserted place and scream until her voice fails her.
Instead of the tornado she feels pushing against her ribs, her voice comes out in a whisper. "I'm sorry," she murmurs.
Her brain conjures up a phantom Gordon whose voice smiles in her inner ear. Hey, it's okay. We all know it can happen, right? S'just my turn.
"It's not fair," she replies, reaching out to touch his left hand with the tip of her index finger. His skin is cool and supple; that and the discreet bag of pale yellow hanging below eye-level on the IV pole tell the tale of expertly-managed hydration. "It shouldn't have been your turn."
The Gordon in her mind shrugs, not being cavalier about his own mortality, but just following a line of simple logic. If not me, then who? Would you wish this on someone else in my place?
The proper answer, she knows, is 'no.' She's not to wish paralysis or a terror-filled, painful death even on her worst enemy, not that she has any. No, if she had to choose this condition to befall anyone, it would be him, because he has the spirit and the courage and the sheer chutzpah to come back from such a thing.
She shakes herself. This is not what she came to do. He may not be able to respond, but a part of her hopes that what the doctors say is true-that somewhere, deep inside his bruised brain and torn body, he can hear that someone cares. He needs to know that he is not forgotten by the world, that it's not just going on blithely without him, and it's waiting for his return.
The brother who is currently out of the room is no doubt helping to allay any deep, if unknowable fears Gordon has about that. However, there's a Gordon-shaped space that's going unfilled at WASP, and she's going to make sure he knows it.
"You're missed on base," she begins, settling into the chair. "Everyone's keeping tabs on how you're doing. There's even a pool on what day you're gonna wake up." She grins. "Don't worry; it's all going to charity." The grin fades just a little, and her fingers brush his once more. "Of course, we really don't care when you wake up," she reassures him. "Just that you do."
It feels a little creepy, talking to someone who is present but unaware, and part of her would be fine with picking up her bag, walking out the door, and going straight to the nearest bar for a good long sob into a salty margarita. The other part of her is determined not to let fear and grief get the best of her-and, by extension, the best of him.
Although who is Gordon Tracy to her, she wonders? Just some guy she works with, and not even that closely. Yeah, she likes him, and yeah, he kissed her one night a few months ago in a tipsy moment, but that's it. If they'd been a little more with it and decided that a good shag was what the evening called for, what would that have meant, anyway? Would he have called her the next day? Would she have suddenly become somebody to him?
Why is she here? She's nobody.
The Gordon in her mind scoffs, his handsome face twisting in scorn at her presumption. Don't take it out of context, sweetheart, he says. Maybe you haven't heard about me.
Oh, she's heard plenty about him, she retorts. She's heard a few earfuls from this one and that one, about how good he is, about how he knows just the right way, knows how to make a girl beg oh please, Gordy, don't stop-
An alarm begins to chime softly, snapping her back to the present reality. A nurse walks in, whisper-quiet on rubber soles, followed by another nurse moving just as quietly. They are both women, one slightly older than the other, dressed in white pants and teal scrub shirts printed with sea creatures. She wonders if that's a theme with this floor, or if they're going along with Gordon's running joke.
The first nurse taps the screen of the monitor, resetting a counter, and the other busies herself checking his vitals and making notes in the digital file. Neither one has registered her presence. The two nurses finish their tasks, and then move to stand with one of them at the head and one at the foot of his bed. In a moment, their actions make clear what's happening: Gordon is being turned to avoid pressure sores as a precaution, even with the advanced material of the bed he's resting on. With a few deft motions, they also change the sheet he lays on, and for a split second, she gets a glimpse of his naked rear end. True, it's toned to a perfection that has yet to succumb to the atrophy of disuse, but at the moment it's mottled with bruises, and the sight floods her with pity.
With efficiency that borders on sleight of hand, the nurses finish their tasks and Gordon is once more settled into stillness. The music continues to play, the recorded waves continue to splash, but Gordon still lays with a machine breathing for him. Nothing has changed. It's all the same. The urge to scream until she's hoarse comes slamming back into her.
One of the nurses exits the room, but the other stops by her chair. "Are you his girl?"
"No. I'm in his squadron."
"Oh." A pause, while they both regard their silent companion together, then she smiles. "It's good that you're here." Then the nurse is gone and she's alone with him again.
She doesn't want to leave, but she doesn't want to stay. This is her place, and yet she has no business being here. It's not like she has anywhere else to be, though, so she ultimately stays in her chair. Her eyes wander around the room for a moment, and finally her gaze lands on the book with its scarlet ribbon marker lying on the table at her elbow. It's a well-handled object, to judge by the scuffs on its edges and the wear on the first half of the pages. The front cover is stamped with three gilt letters: VGT.
Normally, she wouldn't dream of intruding on someone's private journal, but her curiosity is quickly getting the best of her. With a glance toward the open door to ensure that it is indeed empty, she flips open the cover. On the first page, there is a pre-printed message: If found, please return this book for a reward of: In the space, someone has jotted $200. Underneath this notation, there is a name: Virgil, an email address: virgil dot tracy at tracyindustries dot com, and a phone number with an area code she can't place. The words are written in a bold, strong hand, the letters precise but not the all-caps of military or law enforcement. The letters remind her of the ones she's seen on blueprints, very clear and yet stylish in their own way.
She glances at the first few pages, which turn out to be landscapes of a mountainous terrain. The drawings are done in pencil, but are beautifully shaded with what looks to be the light of early evening. There are several sessions from what look to be a life drawing class, nudes in various poses, all with the far-away gaze of people trying to ignore the fact that they're being intently studied by a group of strangers. A few more pages into the book reveal a deserted beach, complete with coconut palms; this one has been rendered partly in colored pencil, but remains unfinished. A still life of a rusting tractor is meticulously detailed, and there is a color two-page spread of a wheat field so alive that she would not be surprised to see the golden heads rippling in the breeze.
By this time, she's well into the first third of the book, and that's when the sketches change. The art-student formality changes into a much more casual tone, and faces begin to appear on the pages. She recognizes those of the brothers, and she can feel her heart gain a spiderweb of hairline cracks. Many appear to be taken from photographs, featuring younger, happier versions of the pain-filled faces she recalls. The dark-haired oldest appears in an early drawing, sprawled on a lounge chair with a blond boy cuddled on his chest; both are wearing swim trunks and are heavily asleep. A thin young man with light eyes appears on another page, a thick book perched on his lap, chin in hand. One page has several studies of the hands of an older man wearing a wedding band. An entire page is devoted to a breathtaking portrait of a pretty, dark-skinned girl with her hair piled atop her head in a messy bun. A name is jotted in the margin: Kayo-18.
If her heart had merely cracked before, it shatters completely now as she turns the page. Gordon's face beams out at her, the monochrome of graphite and cream-colored vellum unable to dim his inner light. Many times, the artist has captured him in motion, with only a few lines to convey him knifing into the surface of a pool. One sketch is halfway to a portrait, where the artist has picked out the muscles on Gordon's shoulders and arms with loving detail at the top of a butterfly stroke. Another sketch renders Gordon as a comic-book character in Speedos, wearing an Olympic gold medal around his neck and an American-flag cape billowing out behind him.
The last page, the one the ribbon marks-this is of the scene before her, of Gordon lying in the bed, his face slack and marred by bruises. She wonders why in the world someone would want to preserve this moment, but then she knows: If this is the artist's last view of Gordon, he wants to keep it with him. Or, she muses, if he recovers, the artist wants to be able to show him: This is where you were. This is where you came back from.
"Who are you?"
The voice cuts through the quiet, making her drop the book back onto the table with a clatter. She whirls to see the middle brother, the one who'd donned the clean-room gear to go into Gordon's room the first night. He's taller and broader in the shoulders than she remembers, with dark brown hair gelled off his forehead and a cleft chin to go along with those high cheekbones he shares with all of his brothers. His eyes are the same shade of amber as Gordon's, only right now they are sparking with anger.
"I-"
"This is a private room," he snaps. "You shouldn't be here." He crosses to the table and sets down a steaming cup, laying a wrapped bundle that smells like pickles beside it. He sees the open cover of the book, and the anger in his eyes turns to fury. "I think you should leave," he grits, his voice dipping into an icy rumble.
She's on her feet now, and grabs up her purse. "I'm sorry. I'll go." She's halfway to the door when his voice stops her.
"Wait-" He lets out a breath, obviously rethinking his outburst. "I'm sorry; that was rude. You're the Commander's aide, aren't you?"
"Yes."
He holds out a hand. "I'm Virgil. I'm Gordon's brother." His grip is firm, but not too hard, and she can feel callouses as her fingers leave his palm. "Sorry about that. This is…" he gestures to where his brother lies, words escaping him.
"It sucks," she finishes for him, and he nods.
"Yeah." He glances up at the monitors, then back at her. "I guess he's been okay."
She nods. "They changed his sheets a bit ago. He looks good, considering."
Virgil studies her for a moment. "Were you there when it happened?"
"I saw it on the monitor." The memory comes rolling back, making her breath catch in her throat again. If she closes her eyes, she knows she'll see the boat exploding against the darkness, white water vomiting fire and metal and a single bloody form that hangs limply just below the surface.
"Damn." He shakes his head. "I'm glad I didn't see it...and yet I wish I had. You know?" Virgil glances up at her. "I wish I'd been there."
"It was so quick. No one could have stopped it, if that's what you mean."
"No, I mean...I wish I'd pulled him out of the water. So that the first person he saw afterwards was…" He clears his throat gruffly. "A familiar face. One of us."
She hurts for him, hurts for all of them. "He was unconscious, from what I hear, but I understand what you mean."
"Yeah."
The silence stretches out between them. The music plays on, the waves crash.
Virgil stirs, a shiver running through him. "Did you say something?" he asks.
"No," she begins, but she can feel it too, now. Something in the room has changed. As one, they both turn toward Gordon.
The fingers of his left hand are twitching-not just a nerveless flick, but a grasping, searching motion. For a moment the two of them just gape at what could not possibly be happening, but is.
Virgil slowly gets to his feet, his artists' hands visibly shaking as he reaches for Gordon's hand. "Gordy? It's Virgil. You in there, little bro?"
Alarms begin to keen as Gordon's breathing kicks against the ventilator, and instantly the room is awash in medical personnel. She steps back, watching as Virgil is gently directed to the side as Gordon is examined. In a few seconds, someone raises their voice in the half-humorous tone she's heard used by medicos attempting to reassure those in a dire situation.
"Hey there, Gordon," says a doctor. "Are you with us?"
"I see those eyes," says someone else. "How about you blink twice if you can hear me?"
Gordon must perform the required action, because everyone laughs. "There he is," someone says. "Virgil's here; wanna say hi?" Virgil steps forward to the bedside, and as he reaches for his brother's hand, she slips away.
She consults the holographic directory downstairs, then walks to a set of stainless steel doors set several feet below the gleaming marble surface of the main floor. The doors can be reached by a sloping ramp, but she descends the five steps into a small rectangular space that is invisible from the floor above. The doors swing open easily and close behind her without so much as a whisper of noise, plunging her into the darkness of a tiled room. As she walks into the room, light dawns from fixtures on the wall, illuminating the airy space of the chapel in soft white radiance.
She moves toward one of the light oak pews near the front, and out of habit begins to dip to one knee while still in the middle of the aisle. Suddenly, her legs will no longer hold her, and she crashes painfully to all fours on the slick stones. The chapel is deserted, and it's in this safe, hidden place that the urge to scream finally dies, replaced by the soft splash of tears against the tiles.
By the time she leaves, it is full dark outside. She turns to look at the hospital, this shining palace of miracles, and stares at it for a long moment before walking to the bus stop.
-End-