Darkness Before Dawn (2 page)

Meg’s eyes darted back to the photo. He’d just celebrated his twenty-eighth birthday.
They were just beginning to get to know each other. There were so many things they
hadn’t done, so many dreams they had only spoken and not lived. Only last week they’d
gone house hunting and found one with a perfect little room for a nursery. They’d
laughed as they viewed it, wondering if they should repaint it blue or pink. They
were going to talk to the bank about a mortgage next week. Monday. But what did it
matter now? For Steve, there would be no Monday. Time had stopped and her husband
had been lost somewhere between the seconds.

As the reality of the horrible situation pushed beyond her mind and seeped into her
heart, she again heard the words bouncing off the walls, “ ’Til death do us part!
’Til death do us part! ’Til death do us part!”

“Mrs. Richards? Are you all right?”

The voice instantly stopped the mocking chant, and without that chorus employing a
wedding vow to rock the room and squeeze the life from her soul, Meg found she could
answer the cop’s question in such a calm voice that she even surprised herself. “Thank
you, officer. I’ll be fine.”

“If you need anything, we could notify your pastor or . . .”

“No,” Meg answered, her tone dry and emotionless, “that won’t be necessary, I’ll be
just fine.”

She hit the end call button, deliberately putting the phone down, letting the plastic
touch the table gently, almost as if she were handling a fine piece of crystal. As
it sat there, under the lamp’s stark light, she stared at it contemplating how this
night would have been different if she hadn’t answered. Why didn’t she just let the
call go straight to voice mail? Then she could have had a few more hours of security
and hope. But those
precious elements of her life were now gone, shattered like a broken plate.

Picking up the phone, she punched the button for recent calls. Steve’s name jumped
out. He’d called her just 304 minutes ago.

“Meg,” he’d explained, his voice full of life and exuberance. “Listen, Honey. If I
work just a few more hours, I can finish the books here at Wilson’s and drive back
tonight. That way we can start the weekend, and just as soon as you finish your shift
tomorrow, we can celebrate big time.”

She had told him to wait in Hilldale, that tomorrow would be soon enough to make that
drive, but she hadn’t voiced those thoughts with much conviction. She hadn’t sincerely
tried to sell him on waiting. So this happened because she’d selfishly wanted him
to come home just as quickly possible. Why had she allowed emotion to overrule logic?

“Steve, Steve, Steve,” she whispered. Yet no one heard her and
he
never would again.

Meg looked down at the blue, lace gown she had put on to surprise him. He loved her
in frilly blue things. Although she preferred sleeping in old T-shirts, she’d worn
alluring, sexy gowns just for him. Now she didn’t need them anymore. There were so
many things she no longer needed, too. Oh, why hadn’t she made him wait in Hilldale?
Why hadn’t she insisted he wait? Why didn’t she argue? How important could one day
be, even if that day was their anniversary? Now instead of one more day, there were
no more days. None at all!

The phone rang again and hope suddenly pushed its way back into the small apartment’s
suddenly cold, stale air. Meg grabbed the cell before the second ring, desperately
praying the police were calling back to tell her it had all been a mistake. Maybe
Steve had stayed in Hilldale and someone else
had been driving his car. Maybe someone else had died.
Please, Lord, let it be anyone else!

“Hello,” Meg whispered as she answered.

“Meg, this is Heather.”

Normally, Heather Rodgers’s voice would have brought with it good gossip or a great
joke. But tonight it would be something else. Tonight, it would be the voice that
fully assured Meg there was no awakening from this nightmare and that all hope had
evaporated into thin air.

“I don’t know what to say,” Heather whispered. “I-I-I was working the late shift when
the call on the accident came in. It’s just so terrible. No one as good as Steve should
die—ever—much less so young. I mean . . . I don’t know what to do. Your heart must
be breaking in a thousand pieces.”

Good old Heather, everybody’s friend, the nurse who kept them all smiling. How ironic
she’d heard it first. If only she could tell a joke and make all of this disappear.
Then a thought flashed through Meg’s mind, a thought so bizarre that maybe only a
medical professional or cop would consider it.

“Heather! Where’s his body?”

The voice on the other end of the call didn’t hesitate. “It’s here right now. They
brought it in a few minutes ago.”

Why had she said
it
? Steve wasn’t an
it
.

“Heather,” Meg announced, “I need to see him.”

“Meg, I don’t think it would be a good idea for you to . . .”

Meg didn’t allow her friend to finish. “I’m going to come down! I’ll be there in a
few minutes. Don’t let anyone touch him.”

“Meg,” Heather was now pleading, “at least wait until they take him to the funeral
home. I mean, there’s nothing you can do for him now. You’d only be putting yourself
through . . .” Heather paused as if trying to find words that would help and
not hurt. Finally she blurted out, “I just don’t want to see you torturing yourself.”

“Heather, I’ll be there in a little while. Don’t let them do anything to Steve.”

Cutting the call off, Meg marched resolutely to the bedroom. There was something to
be done and only she could do it!

S
TEPPING INTO THE BEDROOM
, M
EG TORE THROUGH THE SMALL WALK
-in closet she shared with Steve. She considered a half dozen ensembles before picking
out a new blue sweater and a pair of jeans. She dressed quickly but carefully, putting
on full makeup and fixing her hair almost as if getting ready for a very special date.
Before leaving the apartment, she stared into the mirror one last time. Her reflection
proved she looked her best. As Steve would have said, “Heads will turn when they see
you tonight, Honey.” And for reasons she didn’t fully understand, she needed them
to turn. She needed to look like a woman of strength in control of her world. If not
to fool her friends, then to fool herself. And she needed to look like the woman Steve
always bragged on.

It was just two miles to the hospital, but the short drive seemed to take forever.
Although there was no traffic, Meg missed every light. Ten minutes after leaving her
apartment and an hour after receiving the call from Officer Johnson, she finally arrived
at the staff lot. Trying to act as though it was just another day at work, Meg got
out of her yellow Mustang coupe and turned toward the building she knew so well. As
she stared at the white brick building’s six floors, a cool, damp
breeze hit her face. It was the same kind of breeze that hit her when she had first
met Steve, an early fall evening of her freshman year in college. She had blown a
tire on a trip back from the library to her dorm and he had stopped to fix it for
her. He’d been able to fix everything since then. Except for this. He couldn’t fix
death. No one could.

Turning her face into the wind, she briskly strolled the forty yards across the parking
lot. As she walked through the automatic door into the emergency room, she noticed
a young man sitting to her right. Even in the midst of this horrible personal trauma,
her training automatically kicked in. In an almost detached fashion, she made her
assessment—not too serious, probably just bumped his head in a fall or traffic accident.
A few stitches and he’d be told to use ice and take some aspirin. Routine ER stuff.
The kind of thing she dealt with everyday of the year.

As she continued her trek across the ER, she heard Dr. Jake Jones, a small, portly
man in his forties. “And if you feel any throbbing, just take a couple aspirin. There’s
nothing broken and except for some pain from those stitches in your forehead, I don’t
think that . . .” The doctor’s words trailed off as Meg rounded a corner and made
her way to the emergency room nurses’ station.

“Meg,” a shocked Judy Lincoln exclaimed. “How are you?”

Meg didn’t respond to the fifty-year-old nurse’s concerned question. She didn’t even
acknowledge the older woman’s presence. Yet, a voice down the hall did catch her attention.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Heather asked, her words spilling out like water
pouring from a glass. “Listen, Meg, there’s no easy way for me to say this, Steve’s
car must have been totaled and it caught fire. I was in ER when they brought him in
and I don’t really think you want or need to see him this way. Why don’t you just
talk to the hospital chaplain
instead? He’s right down the hall. I can get him in a flash.” While Heather searched
Meg’s eyes for some sign of understanding, her pleas fell on deaf ears. Meg had become
a force that pushed her beyond logic or understanding. She needed to be with Steve.

“Where is he?” Meg’s words were delivered in a firm, demanding, and almost mechanical
rhythm.

“But . . .” Heather began.

“Heather, shut it down. I don’t need your sympathies or empathy. I’m a big girl and
I’m a trained nurse. And I have a right to do what I want to do. Now where is he?”

Heather gestured toward a small room across the hall.

Meg nodded. Her need to see Steve was seated in more than just the love she had for
her husband. It was also attached to a previous family tragedy. Her aunt had lost
her husband in Vietnam. They never found the body. For years, the woman waited with
the illogical hope that he might be a prisoner someplace and would someday return
to her. That looking out the window, waiting for a call, searching each day’s mail
had gone on for decades. Not seeing his body had created such a deep void, the woman
never accepted her husband’s death. She was still looking or at least wishing for
his return when she died forty years later. Meg had long believed that things would
have been different if her aunt had just seen the body. Because of witnessing that
woman’s progressive decline into a kind of silent madness, Meg sensed that only by
seeing her Steve now, at this very moment, not waiting even a few hours much less
a day, could she really accept all of this as something other than a nightmare.

“I’ll go with you,” Heather offered. “You don’t need to do this alone.”

Meg had never liked being treated like a child, even back when she had been one, and
she didn’t want any help now.
“Heather,” Meg shot back, “I’m a nurse, have been for a while now, and I’ve seen it
all. I don’t need you to hold my hand.” Reaching forward, she gently pushed her friend
to the side.

“Don’t do this,” Heather whispered, putting her hand on Meg’s shoulder. “You’re in
shock. You need to take a while and absorb what has happened.”

Meg had seen shock put others on autopilot. Shock could twist a person and force them
into unwise decisions. Maybe Heather was right. Maybe she was in a bad place now.
After all, wouldn’t a normal reaction come with a flood tears? Yet she felt very little
emotion. Is that how it should be?

Meg looked up and caught her reflection in a window. Yes, that was her face complete
with the dark brown eyes, the arched eyebrows, the high cheekbones, and the bee-stung
lips. But now she wore an expression that projected a cold, solitary, and hard person.
It was a look she didn’t recognize. Could that be her?

For a moment she looked back to her friend. She teetered on reaching out and asking
for help. Her lips quivered and she felt a bit faint. Then she remembered her aunt.
No, shock or not, she had to do this. Pushing Heather’s hand from her shoulder, she
moved forward. Wise or not, she had to be with Steve. After all, he had made this
last trip to be with her. He couldn’t rest until his trip was actually completed with
her at his side. And that was what this was all about. They both needed to complete
the trip.

After taking a deep breath, she walked into the room and flipped on the overhead light.
There on a hospital gurney, in a room normally used to save lives, lay a still form
covered by a white sheet. The figure under that covering remained rigid. There was
no hint of life.

Suddenly, her strength gone, terror gripping her by the throat, she backed up until
she felt a cool wall against her
shoulders. Her knees rubbery, her stomach churning, and her head spinning, she turned
toward the door wanting to run as far as she could from this room. But she couldn’t
move. Even as she began to hyperventilate, something forced her gaze back to the gurney.
She still had to know. She had to see this with her own eyes.

The door pushed slowly open and Heather walked in. “Meg, you don’t have to do this
and you don’t need to do it. But if you’re determined to see him, please let me be
with you.” She opened her arms as if begging to draw Meg in for a hug, but Meg didn’t
accept the gesture.

“Please leave,” the grieving woman asked. “Just wait on the other side of the door.
I’ve got to do this, Heather. Maybe someday you’ll understand.”

“Meg.”

“I still feel his presence,” Meg whispered. “I can’t accept he’s gone. I’ll never
accept it unless . . .”

“So,” Heather softly pleaded, “just let me stay.”

“No, please go. I’ll be out in a second. I need one more moment alone with Steve.”

As her friend sadly pushed the door open and left, Meg closed her eyes and called
upon a higher power. “Dear Lord, please wake me up. Please make all of this a bad
dream.”

As she opened her eyes, she discovered there would be no wake-up call. The body remained
on the gurney just as her prayer remained unanswered. There would be no reprieve or
escape.

Meg focused once more on the gurney. She’d seen enough dead people under sheets to
be able to recognize if the body was a man or woman, a child or an adult. Those experiences
now told her something was wrong, very wrong. This couldn’t be Steve. The body wasn’t
big enough. Maybe this had all been a mistake. Clasping her hands together, sweat
beading down
her forehead, she took the first unsteady steps toward the gurney. As she grew closer,
her heart galloped and the room began to spin. For a moment, she felt as she would
pass out.