Chapter 5: Beauty in the Breakdown
I hate hospitals. No one wants to tell you anything, ever. They claim they are 'working on it', or that they need you to 'fill out paperwork', 'take a seat', 'wait for the doctor.'
My wife and my whole world were resting on the thinnest wire imaginable and all they could do was tell me to wait. I had driven at maximum speed, on icy roads and in the snow to get to Black Creek Road, only to find a twisted heap of metal that had once been a Nissan and ambulance lights moving away down the mountain. I fought, screaming with a couple of the leftover officers, who just pushed me back into my car out of traffic and sent me here, to this godforsaken place they call an emergency room.
And here I stand, begging for information about what could be the dying mother to my children, and they all pass me by with half-knowing gazes.
"Hey, excuse me," I grab hold of a young kid who must be an orderly, "Do you know if there's a younger woman down one of these halls, brown hair, she was in a car wreck?"
"Uhm…" he doesn't look like he knows but then he asks, "What's the name?"
"Rainey."
"Oh," he smiles fiercely past the pot-break I can smell in his messy hair. "Yeah man, yeah. There's a Rainey down in room 304, that way. Is she your wife?"
His eyes brightened as he nudges me knowingly.
"Yeah, she is. Why?"
He nods approvingly with a wink. "Cause' she's hot. Nice job, man."
Stoner college transporter or not, I know he's damn right and I smile wide with a pat on his back.
"Thanks kid, I owe you one."
I doubt he'll hold me to the promise, but I assure him with another pat and then dart off down the long hallway toward 304, my iced boots sliding on the tile floor as I hear a few nurses shouting for me to stop. But I'm gone around the corner before anyone can quit my advances.
"299…300…301…302…303…"
I mumble quickly as I look from door to door, inching closer every second. I make it to the last door on the right, 304, and come to a screeching halt when a man comes sliding out, white coat and all. He looks up, I nod anxiously and I know he knows just who I am.
"Mr. Rainey?"
"Yes. Is…" I try to look inside of the window past him but can't see much of anything. "…is my wife in there? Is she alright?"
"She's doing well, yes."
In a flash, a heartbeat, I think of another. "What about the baby? Is the baby alright?"
He assures me well. "The baby is perfectly fine, sir. Roxanne landed on her back inside of the damaged car, which prevented anything worse from happening."
"Can I see her?"
He shuffles a little, grasps his clipboard tighter and glances back through the window of the room before bringing his tired, aged eyes back to me.
"I think that might be good for her actually." I breathe out and thank him. "She's been extremely lucky Mr. Rainey. Scrapes here and there, bruising on two of her ribs from what I can see so far. We're going to run some tests in a few minutes though."
"Is she awake?"
"She's been dozing on and off, but you're welcome to go ahead in. I'll come back when we're ready for the x-rays."
His hand drops in a pat to my shoulder then, showing me the way toward the door and I catch my breath before going inside. Save for the dripping, the room is quiet, it's peaceful in a strange way, and Roxanne looks as helpless and lost and altogether beautiful as ever before.
I come around to the window side of the bed, where snow flurries hit the glass and make me shiver from the cold. She's asleep and the doctor meant what he said about the cuts and bruises. Her arms are covered in tiny nicks, her neck has a long scrape, and there's a deep gash above her left eyebrow half covered by a bandage.
I can feel tears stinging my eyes for the first time since I saw the crushed metal wrapped around the mountainside boulders. I want to breathe but fear what sort of strange noises will come out if I try anything but sitting; so I fall down and watch her sleep. I think about the last time she was in the hospital delivering the twins, how perfect that day was, and how it had gone off without a single hitch. And then I think about the time before it, when she wound up in the hospital on St. Thomas, hooked to an IV for a week.
I blamed myself alone for that time still, as much as for this one.
My knee shakes watching the beeping monitors and not completely knowing what they mean, and I reach out to softly move my hand over hers, feeling the tape and needle in her skin tug a little under my movement as I drop my face into my free hand. The tears burn but not as badly as my heart does. It feels like it's on fire, or worse, completely dead.
A few moments pass and there's a shifting sound. I look up to see fluttering eyelids and parched lips prying open.
Roxanne coughs and I'm at my feet, grasping her hand and brushing her hair as I lean over.
"M-Mort…"
Her voice is weak, disturbingly weak and it nearly kills me.
"Shhh, I'm here. Relax baby, I'm here now."
I kiss the warm skin above her cut, hold her close under me without hurting her further, and try to soothe everything that I feel and I assume she is feeling. The trance of cure is broken though, by nothing more than the one thing that warms me most in life, her laugh. My brow twists in confusion and I glance down to see her looking up and giggling.
"Mort, I'm okay. I'm good, look at me."
With a gulp I fall back down to my chair, concerned for how she's acting.
"I'm not dead yet. You can't get rid of me that easy."
"I've just been so worried."
I try to brush away my tears but see her reach out instead and touch my cheek, pushing away the wetness. She smiles and I know she's well somehow, despite what she's been through, despite the condition I'd seen the car in on the way here. She is my Christmas miracle.
"I promise I'm all in one piece still. And the baby is going to be okay too."
She keeps grinning and easing my mind as I squeeze her hand hard, leaving a trail of kisses up her arm in desperation, just to feel and cling to her.
"The doctor said you had a couple of bruised ribs."
"They'll heal."
I lift the blanket a little and gently look under her hospital gown to see the smooth skin of her stomach, patchy with dark spots. My palm touches the place as she sighs and laughs out loud at me, "Ah. Cold hands buddy."
"Oh, I'm sorry."
I snatch my hand away and lay the blankets back down as she grabs my sweater and jacket, forcing me to come closer and look in her eyes. Her breath is warm on my lips and I can feel the life full in her, the green sparkling in her eyes, the honey of her skin glowing past all the cuts and exhaustion. And that's when she whispers to me.
"Nothing is going to take me away, I won't let it. The last thing I thought about was you and the kids. I can't lose you or leave you, Mort."
I brush her cheeks softly and nod.
"I'm so happy just to see you open your eyes." I kiss each of them softly. "I'm sorry this had to happen, I wish I knew who to take it out on."
"Nobody."
At this I disagree. "No, no. Someone intentionally did this to you. It wasn't an accident."
"But it doesn't matter." Her smile brightens. "Tomorrow's Christmas Eve and I'm going to walk away with a few cuts, no big deal. Everything is fine, honey. Let it go."
"Roxanne, its more than that, it's--"
She covers my mouth with her hand. "Sh. Stop."
I lower my gaze and accept.
"You love me right?"
My eyes roll in obvious agreement and she grins.
"That's what I thought. So please let's forget about the car and the accident and all of it. I only want to think about you and Max and Madeline, and Christmas. Okay, please?"
Her fingers trail away from my lips with hopeful eyes and I know I'm sold for the look.
"Okay. I promise. It's dropped."
"Thank you. Now…" she grasps my shirt and tugs me down over her bed again, giggling. "…what do you say you come up with a plot to spring me from this bed?"
It's that, her insistence for nothing more than the finer, fun things in life that makes me finally begin to laugh. I move down and kiss her hard; forced harder by her own tug of my hair and the desperation I can taste and feel on her lips. She's done it again, making me forget all the shit to find only the peace in a bad situation. She is my sunlight in the middle of an ice storm, my smile when everyone else including me is frowning and in fear, and she is the only person in this world that I trust to any extent to make me the happiest man the same.
