Sharon Sala - When You Call My Name

Somewhere down the hall, Joy babbled, and Toni laughed. Lane smiled to himself at the sound, buttoning his shirt on his way to the kitchen to start the coffee. He walked in just in time to see Wyatt closing the back door.

“Up kinda early, aren’t you, buddy?” Lane asked, and then froze at the expression on Wyatt’s face, grabbing him by the arm. “What’s wrong?”

Wyatt tried to explain, but it just wouldn’t come. “I need to borrow one of your cars.”

Lane headed for the coffeepot, giving himself time to absorb the unexpected request, and wondering about the intensity of Wyatt’s voice. Yet refusing him was not a consideration.

“It’s yours,” he said.

Measuring his words, along with coffee and water, Lane turned on the coffeemaker before taking Wyatt to task. “Mind telling me where you’re going so early in the morning? This isn’t exactly Memphis, and to my knowledge there’s no McDonald’s on the next corner cooking up sausage biscuits.”

“I’ve got to go,” Wyatt repeated. “Someone needs me.”

Lane’s posture went from easy to erect. “Why didn’t you say so? I’ll help.”

Wyatt shook his head. “No, you don’t understand. Hell, for that matter, I don’t understand. All I know is, last night while I was wide-awake and watching dark turn to day, someone kept calling my name.”

The oddity of the remark was not lost on Lane, but trespassing on another man’s business was not his way.

“Do you know where you’re going?” Lane asked.

Wyatt eyed his brother-in-law, wondering if he would understand what he was about to say.

“I think, back to where it all started,” Wyatt said quietly, remembering the woman outside of the hospital and the way he’d heard her voice…and she, his. He’d ignored it then. He couldn’t ignore it any longer.

“Back to Kentucky?” Lane asked, unable to keep surprise out of his voice.

Wyatt nodded.

Wisely, Lane stifled the rest of his concerns. While he didn’t understand what Wyatt was trying to say, he trusted the man implicitly. He swung a wide hand across his shoulder and thumped him lightly on the back.

“Then let’s get you packed,” Lane said. “It’s an all-day drive.”

Wyatt had been on this road before. Last winter. And with no destination in mind. This time, he knew where he was going. He even knew why. What he didn’t understand was the pull that drew him down the road. The closer he came to the great Pine Mountain, the more certain he became that he was on the right track. He drove relentlessly, stopping only when necessary, compelled to reach Larner’s Mill before nightfall. He couldn’t get past the increasing panic he felt, or the fact that he was listening for a voice that had suddenly gone silent.

The sun was halfway between zenith and horizon when he pulled into Larner’s Mill, but the relief he imagined he would feel was not there. In fact, the urgency of his quest seemed to have taken on darker overtones. An unsettled feeling had taken root in his belly, and try as he might, there was no rational explanation for the emotion, other than the uncertainty of his quest.

When he pulled into the parking lot of the small community hospital and got out, he found himself wanting to run. But to where? Instead, he took a deep breath and entered through the emergency room doors.

A nurse glanced up from a desk near the door. “May I help you, sir?”

“I want to talk to one of your doctors,” Wyatt said.

She slipped a fresh page on a clipboard and held a pen poised above the lines.

“Your name?” she asked.

“Wyatt Hatfield,” he said.

“And what are your symptoms?”

“I’m not sick. But I was here before. Last winter, in fact. I had a car wreck during a blizzard. I was…”

“I remember you,” she cried, and jumped to her feet. “Dr. Steading was your doctor. You were the talk of the hospital for some time.”

“Why was that?” Wyatt asked.

“You know,” she said. “About how lucky you were to have had that donor show up when she did. With such a rare blood type, and the blizzard and all, there was no way we could access the blood banks in the bigger cities as we normally might have done.”

The expression on Wyatt’s face stilled as he absorbed the nurse’s unwitting revelation.

“Yes, I suppose you’re right. I am one lucky man.” He gave her a smile he didn’t feel. “So, could I talk to Dr. Steading? There are some things about the accident that I don’t remember. I thought maybe he could give me some help.”

“I’ll see,” she said, and shortly thereafter, Wyatt found himself on the way through the corridors to an office in the other wing. When he saw the name on the door, his pulse accelerated. He knocked and then entered.

“Dr. Steading?”

Amos Steading arched one bushy eyebrow, and then stood and reached over his desk, his hand outstretched.

“You, sir, look a damn sight healthier than the last time I saw you,” he said, his gravelly voice booming within the small confines of the office.

Wyatt caught the handshake and grinned. “I suppose I feel better, too,” he said.

Steading frowned. “Suppose?”

Wyatt took the chair offered him, and tried not to show his uneasiness, but it seemed it was impossible to hide anything, including an emotion, from the grizzled veteran.

Steading persisted. “So, did you come all this way just to shake my hand, or are you going to spit it out?”

Wyatt took a deep breath, and then started talking.

“I know I was in serious condition when I was brought in here,” he said.

“No,” Steading interrupted. “You were dying, boy.”

Wyatt paled, but persisted. “The reason I came is…I need to know if, in your opinion, I could have suffered any residual brain damage.”

Steading frowned. That was the last thing he expected to hear this man say. His eyes were clear and bright, his manner straightforward, and he’d walked into his office like a man with a purpose. None of this hinted at any sort of mental disability.

“Why?” Steading asked. “Are you suffering memory loss, or…”

Wyatt shook his head. “No, nothing like that.”

“So…?”

“So, I want to know what exactly happened to my head,” Wyatt growled.

“You had one hell of a concussion. I wouldn’t have been surprised if you’d gone into a coma.”

Wyatt started to relax. Maybe this would explain what he thought he’d heard. Maybe his head was still lost in some sort of fugue.

“But you didn’t,” Steading added. “After surgery, you pretty much sailed through recovery. There’s a lot to be said for a young, healthy body.”

“Damn,” Wyatt muttered beneath his breath. One theory shot to hell.

This time, both of Steading’s eyebrows arched. “You’re disappointed?”

Wyatt shrugged. “It would have explained a lot.”

“Like what?” Steading persisted.

The last thing he intended to admit, especially to a doctor, was that he was hearing voices. They’d lock him up in a New York minute. He changed the subject.

“I understand that I was given transfusions.”

“Transfusion,” Steading corrected. “And damned lucky to have that one. Whole blood made the difference. I’m good, but I don’t think I could have pulled you through surgery without it, and that’s the gospel truth.”

“I’d like to thank the person who cared enough to come out in such a storm. If it wouldn’t be against hospital policy, could you give me a name?”

Amos Steading’s face fell. He rocked backward in his chair, and gazed at a corner of the ceiling, trying to find the right way to say the words.

“If that’s a problem,” Wyatt said, “I’ll understand. It’s just that I’m trying to make sense of some things in my life, and I thought that retracing my steps through that night might help.”