EPILOGUE
"…still standing, decimated by fire. Bystanders - "
Mark automatically thumbed the "mute" button. He didn't think the sound could really penetrate Steve's deeply drugged state, but while he found himself drawn to the screen over and over, unable to completely turn it off or turn away, he wasn't quite ready to listen to it, either. He had heard enough for one day.
Pulling his eyes away from the camera pan of the blackened shells of buildings, quickly replaced by the face of the Fire Chief pushing his helmet back on his head and speaking into a microphone, he turned to glance out the large window instead.
He had paced the circumference of the small room more than once, too keyed up on adrenaline and nerves to sit, completely unable to leave. Realizing that he was now seeing absolutely nothing outside of the window either, he turned away. He could sit down, but his heart was still hammering as if he'd run a marathon. He was jumpy - unsettled. Instead, he aimlessly read all the monitors, not really registering what any of the numbers meant, reached out to adjust the IV drip.
Very useful, he mocked himself. Life-saving work, doctor. You've done a lot of that today.
He looked back at Steve and took a second to adjust the blankets next. They didn't need it, but what was one more gesture of fumbling futility? He seemed to be having a day for that. He moved around the end of the bed, adjusting the covers at the bottom next, so that they wouldn't irritate the elevated and heavily swathed foot, the result of so many hours of surgery that Mark had eventually lost track. The orthopedic surgeon had patiently shown him x-rays and diagrams, explained what he had done and what he would still need to do, then had been briskly cheerful about the injured arm, pointing out a long, splintering fracture of the ulna on the x-ray and describing the braces and treatments he had in mind. Mark had smiled and nodded and tried to look sincerely interested, but it had mostly gone over his head. This must be what the average relative of a patient feels like, he thought dimly. Ignorant. Numb.
Steve stirred and he moved closer to the head of the bed, making soothing noises. The head dressing was pristine too, hiding another ugly, messy wound that had required tedious cleansing of splinters and dirt and cinders and soot, then careful closing over the glimpse of exposed bone. Mark shut his eyes to banish the image of it, the memory of which still made his own head lift dizzily from his shoulders. He fussed with the blankets again, lifting them a little higher to hide the braced right arm.
The left arm was settled over Steve's chest, wrapped in a dressing to soothe skin burned by the blistering air, probably after Steve had removed the sleeve to protect his nose and mouth. After a brief hesitation, he pulled the blankets still higher, to cover that too.
It could have been worse, he told himself sternly. Much worse, he remembered with grim vividness. He suddenly needed to sit down.
He dragged a chair close to the bed and dropped into it. Bits of recalled conversation and sound passed through his brain and his heart picked up tempo again. Part of him wanted to block them out, but another part couldn't quite let go. He didn't want to remember, but he didn't want to forget, either. After all, it had almost been the last thing…it could have been. It had been very close. He reached over and fidgeted with the blankets again, smoothing them, lining them up to lie meticulously straight. He stared at them for a second, then rose and took another turn about the room.
Very close.
He hadn't known what exactly to think when he'd first taken the call. For a minute he had thought it was a wrong number or a misconnection - but there were Steve's cell phone digits, lighting the small screen. Then he had thought that maybe he was picking up another transmission - a radio or television station. Oddly enough, it was Cheryl's voice that finally jolted him to the realization that what he was inadvertently eavesdropping on was really happening, real time, right now. He'd struggled to recollect and piece together the first parts in his mind, trying to fill in the wordless sounds with pictures, even as he'd reached for his desk phone to call Steve's precinct. When Steve did not pick up his own phone, every wildly improbable but reassuring theory his mind had been busily constructing was blown to pieces. Even as he'd pushed the desk sergeant for some indication of Steve's location he'd been cranking up the volume on the cell phone, nursing the fragile connection, pulling out his car keys.
Looking back, for the life of him he couldn't imagine what is was he'd thought he was going to do to help when he got there. Run faster than a speeding bullet? Leap tall buildings with a single bound? That was Steve's job - he was woefully lacking of skills in that department.
He glanced back at the television screen. The perky reporter, her face creased with some semblance of concern, was holding the microphone in another poor soul's face. His eyes skimmed briefly over the closed captions, looked away again.
He couldn't honestly recall what had happened next. He must have driven, he must have arrived - mostly he remembered hanging on the sounds coming from his cell phone, his heart frozen with both ferocious pride and sick dread as he heard Steve try to coax Cheryl to leave. He didn't know when he had started the talking. The silence had gone on too long, he supposed, and he had really thought for a minute - well. It had been a terrible minute, that was all, one he never wanted to relive.
The nurse entered, gave him a professionally sympathetic smile, then set about marking down the different readings, checking for any changes. When she reached the IV she tossed him a tolerantly exasperated look before adjusting it carefully back to its original rate.
Mark shrugged a helpless apology and her knowing smile deepened. Doctors could really get in a nurse's way, he knew, and worried father doctors must be the worst of all. He made a mental vow not to touch anything else. Maybe he should put the covers back to their original state, too. While she busily fulfilled her duties, he turned back to the television.
Death toll of zero, it said. A couple of firefighters injured, none seriously, and Steve of course, a lot of vagrants treated for smoke inhalation, mostly released. That was the one good thing about these old buildings - fewer toxic materials, fewer complications from smoke inhalation. No lives lost. They were calling it a miracle.
The nurse bobbed a silent farewell and left. Mark looked back at Steve, brooding over how white he looked - how battered. But he was alive, and he was part of the reason that a lot of other people were alive, too. As he watched, Steve stirred restlessly, shifted his leg as though still trying to drag it from the clutches of the broken stair.
"Sssshhh…" Mark rested a hand lightly on his arm. "Sssshh…"
Stuck in the habit of the past hours, he slid into the chorus of one of the songs, sang it softly, using all the silly intonations that child-Steve had loved. He smiled when Steve stilled, settled back into a narcotic-soaked sleep.
He wondered what conscious, grown-up Steve would think if he knew that he still responded to the songs his father now reserved for the kids in pediatrics. When he was well again - really well - he'd make it a point to tease him about it. With his hand still on Steve's arm, he sank back into the chair by the bed, picked up the remote. The reporter was still talking, and he switched off the button for the closed captions.
They were wrong.
It wasn't a miracle. That was too facile. The only miracle today had been people like his son who had the courage to risk and sacrifice and act - people like Cheryl and the paramedics who had braved the crumbling building to pull Steve out. Then again, he supposed that kind of decency and commitment might be considered a miracle.
He had known some terrible moments today when he had wished passionately that Steve was just a little less decent - a little less committed. Brave, but not so brave that it would risk him never returning home. He was ashamed of the feelings now - not only because they were unfair to the other lives saved - other people who were also dear to someone, someone else's husband or wife or daughter or son - but because they seemed disloyal to Steve as well.
He patted the dressing on the arm beneath his hand. "I know how much you believe in what you do, son. I do. But there's such a thing as carrying this Superman bit too far."
The door opened and Amanda's troubled face peered in. When her eyes caught his, she pushed the door all the way inward and stepped inside. She glanced at Steve. "I just heard," she whispered. "I'm so sorry I wasn't here sooner. How is he doing?"
He'll be all right. He'll be leaping tall buildings with a single bound in no time.
Because there are some things that a father just has to get used to being afraid about - some things that he cannot - should not - change. "Oh, he has some recovering to do. But he'll be trying to get out of that bed before you know it."
No point in trying to explain his struggle with that terrible paradox of parenthood: how you teach and preach and guide, pray about the kind of adults your children will become; all unsuspecting as to how they might seize on the ideas you sow and take them in a direction all their own, grow further than you expect, further even, sometimes, than you're comfortable with.
CJ would teach her that in time, better than he ever could.
Amanda came further into the room, moved around the bed to perch on the arm of his chair and drape her arm around his shoulders. She gave him a squeeze. "And what about you? This must have been terrible for you. How are you feeling?"
Mark glanced back at the television., at the smoke that hung heavy over the backdrop of buildings, then at Steve, burned and bandaged and pale, but his face surprisingly peaceful in sleep. Staring at the screen for a minute more, he finally reached over and clicked off the remote. The picture disappeared.
How did he feel, when all was said and done? He tried to sort through the emotional detritus of the day, poking through the ashes for an answer. His eyes stopped on Steve's face, that horribly painful, oddly companionable cell phone conversation that was almost their last replaying in his head, and his heart swelled with - something.
Could the worst moments of your life also be the best? What would he trade for that glimpse of his son that he so rarely got to see up close, for that chance to be there with him, to be there for him? What would he change about him if he could?
How was he feeling?
He patted the hand on his shoulder, gave it a returning squeeze.
"Lucky."
The End (September 2004)