Letters from Home(10)
Author: Bethanne Strasser

“Zack!” she screamed even as she ran toward the two vehicles.

It happened so fast, the ungodly clash of metal filling her head as the truck slammed into Zack’s car. Glass fell to the ground in a symphony of bell-like sounds, followed by the screech of Zack’s car sliding over the concrete.

“Stay back,” her dad yelled.

She was almost there. Almost to him. “Zack!” she cried. A hand on her arm stopped her. She shook it off, intent on getting to the man she loved.

“Call 9-1-1. Lena!” Papi grabbed her. Shook her by her shoulders. She realized she was crying. But a crowd had started forming, and other people had their phones out, too.

Lena wiped her eyes. “Let me go, Papi. I’m a doctor.”

They went together, and her dad opened the passenger door. He leaned in and turned off the car. He spoke a few words, too, but she couldn’t hear. Hope blossomed. “Is he awake? Are you talking to him?”

Her dad didn’t answer right away. She tugged on his jacket. “Let me see, let me help him.”

“There’s a pulse and he’s breathing.”

Ducking her head, she could see blood pouring down his face.

“I hear the sirens. The ambulance is coming.”

She pulled off her jacket, her sweater, and then her cotton camisole, ignoring her father’s protests. She quickly pulled her sweater back over her head and entered the car, using the soft cotton of her undershirt to put pressure on the wound above his eye. Keep talking. That’s what she did for all her patients. “Hey, Zack. I hate to tell you, but I knew it was going to be you.”

His eyes remained closed. She lifted his eyelids one at a time. Ay, Dios mío. His left pupil was larger. Her heart threatened to burst from her chest, but she held the panic in check.

“They’re not going to be able to get you out of here.” A glance at the floor boards showed the deep buckling of the undercarriage. “Looks like you got your legs in a bind.”

She reached down and felt the length of one leg and then the other. “No blood. That’s good, Zack.”

Her lips trembled. “You’re going to be okay.”

“Miss, I’m going to need you to get out of there, now.”

She’d lost Podolski, she couldn’t let anything happen to Zack. “He’s got a concussion and laceration of the supraorbital artery. I need to keep pressure on it.” She couldn’t leave him. What if something happened? What if he regained consciousness and she wasn’t there?

“Elena.” Her dad. She felt a firm hand on her shoulder “Please. You’ve done your job, now let these men do theirs.”

She turned and saw the concern in his eyes. He nodded. She placed a kiss on Zack’s temple and let her fingers trace the swell of his lips. “Don’t you dare leave me, Zack Benson,” she whispered.

The flurry of activity that followed the accident carried her through those first hours. Family showed up. And right away, her mother took charge, setting up people to be with her as she sat at the hospital.

She didn’t want to hear about the heart attack the other driver had suffered or the family in southern California who’d lost a loved one. Zack could die. Even after surgery, the edema in his brain was severe enough that they’d induced a coma to try and protect it until the swelling subsided.

Green and red garland hung from the ceilings, swooping across the hallway, and little gold balls were hooked along each strand. Posterboard images of gifts and elves, bows and reindeer were plastered to the walls. Like a tunnel of cheer that created more of a knot of tension within her than the holiday spirit the staff was aiming for.

Lena bit her lip. She’d seen him once, before they’d taken him for another CT scan. But mostly, she was completely helpless. It didn’t matter that she was a doctor, she couldn’t do anything for him.

All her life, she’d been the one in charge, the one who knew what to do. They said he needed time. She knew that, but the urge to yell at everyone to do something was an invisible force, dragging her through some kind of hell on earth. Maybe she really was bossy. Tears threatened to spill at the thought of having been angry at him. If only—

“Hey, Lena.” Maria stood in the doorway of the waiting room.

Lena didn’t want anyone else to pat her on the back and offer her reassurances. She was a doctor, and the truth stared her in the face, mocked her with how little she could do. There was nothing.

Maria quietly entered the too-bright room and sat in the chair across from her. And sat. And sat. Silent energy flowed from her sister and rolled through her.

“What?” Lena spoke too sharply. “You have something to say. Say it.”

Remorse shone from Maria’s eyes. “I’m sorry for being so hard on you last night.”

“Forget it—”

“It wasn’t my place…and I was jealous.”

“What?” Lena wiped another tear from her cheek. Damn tears. “Why?”

Maria blushed. “You always have your life together. Everything—perfect. School, career…I looked forward to beating you to true love. Something! You were always the awkward one. And really, you never cared about dating or finding a man.”

Her sister sighed. “I have something for you.”

Lena gasped and reached for the familiar folded piece of paper Maria held out to her. “You had it this whole time?”

“They found it on Zack.”

Her trembling hands unfolded the letter and her eyes stung as she recited the words she already knew by heart.

Each day is another day closer to having you in my arms.

I can’t wait to see you on Christmas morning.

Stay safe. I’m praying for you.

Lena sucked in a breath. He’d added at the bottom:

P.S. It’s me.

A laugh bubbled out but quickly sent tears to her eyes. He would have given it to her that morning. Her thoughts wandered through the last week, the last year, the letters, the love they shared, all the time they’d wasted when they could have been together.

“Mr. Benson’s on his way. Dad went to get him.”

Lena nodded and dabbed at her eyes. “Good.”

One of the nurses came into the waiting room and nodded to Lena. “Zack’s back in his room, if you’d like to see him, Doctor Rodriguez.”

She stood and crossed into the hallway toward his room. Her throat ached, tight with emotion as images from this morning flashed through her brain. She took one step through the doorway and came up short.

“I can’t—.” She gasped for air, but couldn’t seem to catch her breath. Lena started to turn, wanting to run.

A hand came down on her shoulder. “Of course you can,” Maria spoke with conviction. “You are the strongest person I know.”

“I’m so scared,” she managed, tears streaming down her face.

“He needs you.”

Lena let her gaze linger at Zack’s face—even intubated, with the side of his face a battered, swollen mess, he was handsome. He had a splint on his left wrist, and under the thin hospital gown, his ribs were wrapped tightly.

Her feet found their way before she’d given it a second thought. She took Zack’s good hand in hers. It was cool, but not clammy or cold. The skin felt soft against her fingers. She lifted it and held it against her cheek.

Maria was wrong.

It was the other way around.

She needed him.

Chapter Twelve

“Just another day,” the woman whispered, a warm presence at his side. Her fingers wove through his, the touch a reminder. Of what? His brain couldn’t think. Like a fog swirling through the morning air against the trees and hills, his thoughts wouldn’t form. And his eyelids were too heavy to open.

Pain in his side throbbed and worked its way up through his shoulder. He arched away from it.

The touch returned. Where the hell was he?

“Maybe some more Demerol,” she continued in that soft, mellow voice. He wanted to see and tried to sit up. God, what was wrong with him? “Everything’s going to be okay. Back you go, soldier.”

Soldier? Had there been an attack? They were supposed to be out of Kandahar—pulled out. Where the hell was Joey? Where was that kid? He was supposed to report. No. He was dead, dead. Killed in action. His heart raced. Moving in sixteen hours. Troop transport over the border into Kuwait. Who was in charge? What happened? Why couldn’t he remember? Think!

Sharp pain behind his eyes.

“Dad. Help me. He must be dreaming. He’s going to hurt himself. Where the hell is the nurse?”

No women on the front lines. Why was she here? They would kill her. He’d seen it all, seen too much. She never should have joined. She wasn’t safe here, no one was safe…

Her voice moved around him. Beep. Beep. Beep.

“Damn it!” he murmured, fighting against unconsciousness. But the fog buried his panic, and he sank down, down into oblivion. “Go home, Lena.”

…

At the click of the door closing, Zack came to full alert.

Cool air brushed his cheek. The incessant beeping of the EKG was already starting to give him a headache. I have a heartbeat. Then he remembered. The truck. It hadn’t killed him. First, he moved his feet. He stretched the muscles in his legs next. So far, so good. He clenched his fist, felt an ache in his shoulder.

Slowly, finally, he blinked his eyes. Blinds covered the windows, a light in the bathroom was on, and a soft glow from the light above his head revealed his best friend, Mike, sitting in the seat at the foot of his bed. “Hey,” he croaked.

“Holy shit,” Mike stood up faster than Zack’s brain could register. In two long strides, he was out the door. “Doctor!”

Zack took a deep breath. Once, then twice. He wanted to move, needed to move. He started to sit up, but a pain in his side made him wince.

“Mr. Benson, you should lie back, you have several cracked ribs.” A nurse came through the door, and a doctor hurried in, a stethoscope looped over his neck. He stepped up next to Zack and placed the cold metal of the round listening device against his chest.

He found Mike’s gaze on him.

“Elena…” he managed to say. Why did his throat hurt so damned much?

Mike hesitated.

The pounding in Zack’s head throbbed against his temple.

“She left.”

Zack lifted his arm to check his watch, but his wrist was bare. He fixed his gaze on Mike.

“It’s January 3rd.”

“Gone?” He couldn’t have missed her. God couldn’t be so cruel.

“She has a flight in thirty minutes, out of Red Bluffs. Mayor Parker is flying her to Sacramento where she’ll get a plane to Texas.”

Zack leaned forward and reached for the IV.

The doctor pushed him back as Mike picked his phone off the table.

“You need tests, Mr. Benson, and rest.”

“Take it out,” Zack demanded, his voice starting to come back.

“I can’t—in good conscience—do that.”

“I can’t reach her on the phone,” Mike spoke up.

Zack stared at the middle-aged man with the white jacket and sympathetic eyes. Every second was the possibility of not seeing her. Each moment, a replay of last year. “Can’t keep me—”

“Head injuries can be very tricky, Mr. Benson. You could do more damage—”

“Tape it up, I’ll come back.”

Zack held the doctor’s gaze steady. He wouldn’t admit to the searing pain in his left temple or the dull throb in his left hip. He’d been through more hell than this and survived. Lena was not getting away from him again.

“Mike, clothes.”

The doctor scowled and checked his watch. “I have an extra pair of scrubs in my office. Please, give me five minutes to do a quick assessment and put my mind at ease while the nurse goes to get them.”

Zack would have objected, but Mike agreed for him. “I’m going to pull the car around. I’ll keep trying Lena’s phone. Do what the doctor says, Zack. I’ll get you there. I promise.”

A lump formed in his throat as he nodded. The tight feeling as he fought the swell of emotion riding through his veins rocked him. She’d been here. He’d heard her voice, felt her touch.

Christmas was done. Leave was over.

“Look to the right.”

Zack followed the sequence of instructions, familiar with the quick assessment. He’d given plenty of them to his soldiers over the years. He wasn’t in great shape. No denying it. His head hurt like a mother—but he wasn’t going to die.

And that was enough.

He pushed forward and swung his legs over the side of the bed.

“There is one thing,” the doctor began.

“Scrubs,” the nurse interrupted as she came through the doorway with a wheelchair. “Do you need help?”

Zack took the greenish blue material and snaked a leg in. Then he stopped. “What the fuck—”

“That’s the thing.”

A catheter.

“Get it out.”

“It’ll just take a moment.”

A chuckle shook his shoulders, and it felt good, even if it did remind him of the beating he’d taken, reminded him of seeing Lena that morning and waving to her. The chuckle became a laugh and then a painful cough as he was told to lie back and the nurse exposed him.

Humility. Nothing more humble than being a patient with a tube in your—

The nurse removed the catheter, then washed her hands before unhooking his IV and taping the tubing securely against his forearm. “There. You’re all set. I just need you to sign some paperwork.”

The scrubs went on easily now, but he was running out of time. The room spun just a bit as he stood, and she put an arm around his waist and guided him toward the wheelchair.

“I can walk.”

“Not around here, you won’t. Hospital policy.” She helped him sit then wheeled him toward the nurses’ station where Mike was standing with the doctor. Maybe Mike hadn’t liked the idea of Zack getting involved with Lena, but when it came right down to it, Mike backed him up. Trust. Zack felt an overwhelming gratitude for his friend.