Rachel Lee - Snowstorm Confessions

She shook her head. “He couldn’t even remember for ten seconds that he was in the hospital.”

“That’s what I was just told. Your ex, huh?”

Bri simply sighed. Jake winked at her. “Fun times. Not. Good luck.”

Back in the room, a glaring Luke was still drinking his milk shake. Bri’s first question was straight to the point and directed at Mike.

“Is the company going to send transport for him? He obviously can’t work like this.”

Mike shook his head. “They said they aren’t going to hire an ambulance just to move him somewhere else. When he’s ready for a car and plane ride, he can go home. They’re sending out another builder.”

Luke released the straw. “Nobody else is going to do my job.”

Mike shook his head. “Sorry, Luke, but you’re in no condition to do it yourself. You can advise, but you ain’t climbing no mountains.”

“I’m sure not staying here.”

Dr. David spoke. “Well, you sure as hell aren’t going to stay at the La-Z-Rest. You need to be under observation. You’re going to need help until we can get you up on crutches, which doesn’t look like anytime soon what with that broken arm. Regardless, you might be a wheelchair commando for a few weeks, and you can’t be by yourself.”

The freight train was bearing down on her. Bri felt as if she were standing at the end of the tunnel and could see the light coming. At least until he could be transported, she was probably the only option. She gave up the fight, hoping she wasn’t making a huge mistake.

“He can stay with me, but I need to make arrangements for a chair and a hospital bed. I’m assuming you want to continue elevation on the leg?”

David nodded. “Best to keep the swelling down.”

“I don’t want to stay with you,” Luke said.

“Sorry, buddy, but it’s your only choice. Don’t worry, I’ll ship you out as soon as I can.”

“I’m sure,” he said bitterly, then fell silent.

Bri tried pretending a brightness she didn’t feel. “I need to get things ready.”

“I’ll help,” David said. “We’ve got plenty of rental stuff here at the hospital. We just need to arrange to move it. Are you sure you have room?”

“I never use my living room anyway.” Resignation was beginning to set in. A week, maybe two. She looked at Mike. “Can you get all his things from the motel? Eventually I’m going to need his personal care products, and maybe some clothing.”

“I’ll do that as soon as I’m done with the deputy.”

Bri reached out and touched his arm. “Come by in a few days. Don’t leave him feeling cut out of the loop.”

Mike nodded. “I will. As soon as I know how the company wants to handle all this.”

“They really won’t transport him?”

Mike shook his head. “We’re all just widgets, ma’am. Every one of us can be replaced.”

She wondered if Mike knew how sour he sounded. She’d think about that later. She looked again at Luke. “I’m going to need some relief when I have to come back to work.”

“I’ll help,” Jan said. “My break is coming up soon.”

Bri would have been happier if someone else had offered, but she didn’t want to examine that too closely. Luke was a closed chapter, right?

Right.

* * *

By five that afternoon, Bri’s living room had been transformed. A hospital bed, complete with a frame-and-pulley system to keep Luke’s leg elevated, had been installed. She’d arranged it so he could see the television, and moved unnecessary items out of the way or into other rooms. Since he was going to have to get around in a wheelchair with his leg sticking straight out, at least for a while, she cleared pathways so he could get out of the living room and down the hall to the bathroom. Any way she looked at it, that part was not going to be easy.

“Bonehead,” she said aloud. “You should have just stayed in the hospital. Or paid someone to fly you out of here to somewhere else.”

Except she didn’t know where else he could go. The two of them had been orphans, their parents gone, no other family to speak of. It was either her living room or some rehab facility—and he was likely to need rehab eventually regardless. In the meantime, until the worst of the concussion passed, he couldn’t be trusted on his own or without continual observation. Nor was it as if there were some convalescent facility nearby he could transfer to. One of the downsides of truly being in the boonies.

She felt ticked at DEL for treating him this way, too. He’d been injured on the job. They should have been all over themselves trying to help instead of saying he could just stay put until he could travel by conventional means. It was as if he had become useless to them.

Then another thought struck her. Could he lose his job over this? She wouldn’t put it past them. A lot of these large companies looked at employees as interchangeable parts, as Mike had said. Lose one, find another.

Pulling on her jacket, she went outside to salt her porch, steps and sidewalk yet again. Not much longer now. She put the salt away in the plastic bin she kept on one corner of her porch and stood waiting. The past, she thought, was about to descend with a vengeance.

The ambulance appeared around the corner and pulled up in front of her house. She knew both the EMTs, of course. Tim and Ted. They joked that they were the “Tim and Ted Show,” and sometimes they lived up to that appellation with their zany humor and jokes. Today they were just looking busy and rushed.

She went down to them as they opened the back door of the vehicle, and saw Luke strapped into a wheelchair with his leg extended in front of him.

“Everything is not okay,” Ted muttered to her. “Loony tunes.”

“Concussion.”

He sighed. “I know that. I was just warning you. Sometimes he makes sense. Sometimes not so much.” He hopped up inside and passed down a couple of heavy plastic bags. “Supplies, meds and instructions, and his personal belongings,” he said by way of explanation. “Open the front door for us, will you?”

Except for a couple of groans when he was inadvertently jostled, Luke remained surprisingly quiet. Ted and Tim were sweethearts and helped Luke to the bathroom before lifting him onto the bed and helping to raise his leg.

Throughout, Luke groaned sometimes but didn’t complain. She gave him credit for that because he certainly had enough to complain about.

“Doc David said to tell you he had IV painkillers before he left the hospital. None of that stuff in the bag until around nine p.m.”

Then Ted paused. “You can’t do this alone.” He pulled out a card and scribbled on the back. “Our home phone numbers. You need anything at all, call. Did you get some stuff he can eat? Because we can run to the store or something.”

“I stocked up on broths and there are four milk shakes in the fridge.”

Ted nodded approval. “We’ll bring some more tomorrow.”

Then they zipped out with cheery goodbyes.

After she closed the door, Bri thought the house felt at once strangely full and strangely silent. As if something dark had entered.

Only her own past. Hooking her jacket onto the hall tree, she went into the living room to check on her patient. To her surprise, he was wide-awake and more like himself. His gaze was sharper, as if the world had once again come into focus for him.

“I’m sorry, Bri. I’m messing up your life.”

“That depends. If you behave yourself, no mess. How are you feeling?”

“Like I took a bad fall and broke too many things. I don’t know what they gave me for pain, but it almost feels like it’s a long way away.”

“Well, that’s good, anyway.” She pulled over the desk chair she had brought out here because it would be easy to roll around and sat beside him. “Do you remember anything about what happened?”