I’m not dying.
Hospital. I’m in a hospital.
She was wiping his mouth with a warm, wet cloth. With light dabs, she sponged at his nose and he realized that the musty smell he’d thought was the drainage tunnel had been the scent of his own blood. He heard, but did not see, the plinking sound of bits of glass as she plucked them away from his face and put them in a hard plastic container.
She leaned her face close to his and he smelled mint mouthwash and a floral perfume.
“Mr. Carter? I know you’ve been through a trial. The police said they had to use the Jaws of Life to get you and the woman out of the front seat.”
Jaws of Life... Was he alive now? He thought he was dead. Floating in the stars. No. He had to be alive because he felt excruciating pain.
“Aleah,” he said, but her name came out like a choke and was indecipherable even to him.
“Mr. Carter, I’m so sorry if I’m hurting you. Am I hurting you?”
The angel’s words somersaulted over each other and didn’t make a lot of sense, and then Jack realized it wasn’t the angel, it was the fact that his brain was working on slow track. But he didn’t mind letting her voice wash over him. It took away his fears.
Impossible as it was, he clung to hope.
“I know it’s difficult to talk. Just go slow, Mr. Carter. Try to say your name. Can you do that for me?” she urged.
He wanted to please her. He didn’t know why, but he thought there might be some kind of judgment about all this. He lifted his tongue. “J-Jack.”
“Wonderful,” she breathed. “Marvelous.” She smoothed the cloth over his right eye and continued to wash it before moving on to his left. “It’s looking good. You’ll probably need some stiches over your eyebrow and along your hairline. Can you open this eye for me?”
The struggle was like Sisyphus pushing his boulder up a mountain. His eyelid barely lifted and what little he could see swam in front of him like a school of silverfish on one of his snorkel dives in the Caribbean. “I’m—not blind?”
“No.” She chuckled softly. “The blood and glass had matted them shut. I’m almost done with the other eye. I’m glad to see that no glass hurt this one.” She continued cleaning his left eye then rinsed the cloth. She used what appeared to be a long pair of tweezers to remove a tiny flake of glass from his upper lash. “You have long lashes. Good thing. They helped to capture this little rascal.”
She wore medical gloves, but he could feel her warmth as she traced her fingertip over the top of his left eyelid. “I think you should go ahead and open this eye for me now.”
Jack couldn’t believe the enormity of his task. If he opened his eye and didn’t see, what would he do? How would he cope? Would he have to have surgery? What if there was no cure?
“You’ll be just fine,” she assured him, touching his forearm and holding his hand in hers. “I’m right here.” She offered him more comfort and more confidence than he’d thought possible. He realized he was deeply afraid.
He finally managed to get his eye open, and as he looked at her he realized that in some sacred part of him, he’d hoped this was heaven, and that she might be an angel. Yet his slow and beleaguered consciousness affirmed that he was alive. As his eyes focused through swollen and bruised lids, he saw a beautiful stranger with an illuminated smile and dark eyes that promised a universe filled with hope.
“Hello, Jack,” she said with that voice he knew would haunt him for the rest of his life, even if he never saw her again.
She had a heart-shaped face; naturally, being an angel of mercy and saving lives, she would be all heart. She wore a white lab coat over maroon scrubs. Her name tag rested over her right side, heart pocket.
S. Mattuchi. RN.
“Nurse Mattuchi?” Jack mumbled, feeling a jagged pain saw through his head.
“You can call me Sophie. The doctor has ordered more tests for you. I’ve assured him your heart is stellar.” She leaned close.
Jack caught a floral scent in her dark hair as she fluffed his pillow and continued talking.
“Hearts are my specialty,” she continued. “I’m a cardiac surgical nurse, but I help out in the ER when they need me.” She pulled away and added, “I was off duty but came immediately when I got the call about you and your friends.”
Friends?
Suddenly, Jack’s mind was alert and the jumbled pieces of information in his brain fell into place. He moved his sluggish and swollen tongue. “Owen and Aleah?” He reached for Sophie’s forearm and squeezed it anxiously. “Tell me.”
“Owen is just fine. A broken collarbone and a few bruises. Aleah is being examined by the doctor right now, as is the driver of the other car. We were quite worried about you. You were unconscious and I was afraid you’d been blinded.”
“What else— I mean...” He closed his eyes and felt a scratch across his eyeballs as if they were filled with sand. Even the most minute movement was so difficult. “Please. Sophie. What else happened?”
“You have whiplash. No broken bones, but your ankle is sprained. No internal injuries. We’ll keep you overnight for observation. That concussion is dangerous. The neurosurgeon will be down later to check on you and she’ll probably order a CT scan.”
“Neurosurgeon?” Jack’s fear meter leaped to high alert.
“We have to make sure there are no blood clots or other damage. Best to cover our bases. Yours and ours.”
Jack tried to nod and failed. “Good thinking.” He paused for a moment. Words were reluctant to move from his brain to his lips. “Your insurance carrier will commend you for your prudence.”
Her expression was quizzical. “I wasn’t thinking of our liability—I only want what’s best for all our patients.”
“Don’t...take me wrong—” Jack tried to sit up but failed. He slumped back on the pillows. He groaned as he tried to touch his aching head, but when he lifted his arm he saw the IV and several butterfly bandages over a nasty gash in his forearm. A fleeting worry about scarring shot through his mind, but he dismissed it. He’d come razor-close to losing his eyesight. He was thankful that, in all likelihood, he’d walk away from this with some scars on his arm, a badly sprained ankle and a headache.
A beep went off in Sophie’s lab coat pocket. Anxiety distorted her pretty features and suddenly her entire demeanor changed. Her motions were brusque, hurried, but exact as she tore a plastic wrapper away from a disposable hypodermic needle. She dabbed gauze with alcohol and cleaned his IV site, then took the IV line, unhooked it and cleaned both ends of the plastic connections before injecting a vial of medication into his IV. “This will help with the pain,” she said, glancing into the hallway. She turned back to him. “This is your call button if you need anything. I know you must be thirsty, but we can’t let you have anything to eat or drink for a while. If you feel nauseous, you hit that button immediately. Do you understand?”
Jack nodded, disconcerted by her stern tone, and suddenly realized that the soothing melody of her voice had distracted him from what was going on in the rest of the ER. Sophie peered through Jack’s privacy curtain, and he heard what sounded like dozens of people all talking at the same time. Orders were being shouted. Someone was rattling off clipped, terse instructions. Rubber-soled shoes and sneakers pounded against the linoleum floor. Wheels of gurneys wobbled and screeched.
Though it sounded like pandemonium to Jack, an outsider, he knew these were professionals. He believed in this hospital and its very qualified staff. After all, it was only a few months ago, thanks to Katia Stanislaus’s expertise, that he and his company