One Tuesday Morning (25 page)

It was Thursday morning now, and Jamie had been awake for half an hour, long enough to know there were no changes in Jake. She crossed the room and stared out the window. The view was obscured by another building, and it was impossible to tell anything other than the fact that night had come and gone. Jamie turned back to Jake and gripped the bars on his hospital bed.
Wake up, baby … please …

She waited, studying him. But there was no change, nothing to indicate he was ever going to come out of the coma.

Her eyes caught the clock on the wall, and she moved around the bed toward the phone. Sierra would be awake now, and Jamie missed her badly. She sat on the chair by Jake's bed and dialed the number.

Sierra answered on the second ring. “Hello?”

Jamie closed her eyes and felt the corners of her mouth inch upward. “Hi, honey, how's it going with Papa?”

“Good.” She sounded small and worried. “When are you and Daddy coming home?”

“Very soon, baby. As soon as Daddy wakes up, we'll come home, okay?”

“I'm praying, Mommy. All the time. Papa says God's working on Daddy, making him a little bit better every day.”

Jamie ignored the comment. If Jake walked out of that hospital, it wasn't because God had allowed it. After all, what about Larry? Larry loved God, didn't he? Why hadn't God kept him out of the south tower that day? There had to be countless others in similar situations, many of them devoted to God, praying to Him faithfully. And for what? For the random chance to live or die, depending on where you stood at nine o'clock Tuesday morning?

“Mommy?”

“Yes, sweetie, I'm here.” She concentrated on her daughter's voice. “Are you being good for Papa?”

“Mmmhmm. Papa said he's gonna take me for ice cream tonight, okay? The 'nilla kind.”

“Yes, silly girl. You go have your ice cream with Papa. Me and Daddy will be home real soon.”

Jake's father came on, and they talked about Sierra for a while. When they were finished, Jamie fell silent. There were details about what had happened to Jake that didn't make sense. “Okay.” She sucked in a slow breath. “I have two questions.”

“Sure.” The man must've been sitting near Sierra, because Jamie could hear her giggling. “Ask me anything.”

“Why would Jake have left the group and gone back downstairs to the truck?” A frustrated huff slipped from between her lips. “That doesn't sound like Jake at all.”

“What's your second question?”

“Why wasn't he in his turnouts? I mean they were fighting the worst fire of their lives, and Jake wasn't in uniform? It doesn't make sense.”

Jamie heard Jake's father leave whatever room he'd been in and move to a quieter place.

“I've thought about that. I know Jake as well as I've ever known any firefighter in my life. I spent a few years on the job with him, remember, and you get a feel for these things. But with Jake, of course, it's even more because he's my son. He's a part of me. Not just his technique and skill, but the way he thinks, the way he moves on a call.”

“So tell me.” Jamie's entire being was focused on Jim Bryan's words. No matter how many ways she'd looked at the situation, it didn't add up.

“Okay, first … we know Jake went up into the tower on the main stairwell, Stairwell B. That's the only one of the three sets of stairs in the building that goes straight from the top to the bottom.”

“Right. Captain Hisel told me about that.” Clearly, Jake's father had thought this through. He didn't hesitate as he continued.

“The way I see it, the men from Engine 57 were probably halfway up to the sixty-first floor when someone going down the stairs got into trouble. Heart pains maybe, exhaustion, panic. Whatever it was, the person couldn't keep walking.”

“Jake would've been the first to help.” Jamie was beginning to understand. She'd never actually thought it through like this, because she couldn't get past the idea of Jake leaving Larry. It was something he'd never done before.

“Right. And immediately, Larry would've done the same. But at that point Jake wouldn't have known the building was in trouble, so what would he have done? He would've told Larry to go on without him.”

“But why? The two of them always stayed together.”

“Because, Jake would've intended to take the victim downstairs, and then catch up with the other men. There was no point putting Larry through the extra climb when they only had one victim to carry down the stairs.”

A dawning burst in Jamie's soul.

The explanation was perfect! Jake's father was right—the way Jake would've figured it was obvious. They hadn't been at the fire yet. They'd only been on their way up. If they'd been at the fire, Jake would never have left Larry. But if only one of them needed to carry a victim down, Jake would've been the first to volunteer, and he never would've asked Larry to come with him. What reason would there have been? Only one man would've been needed to carry a victim down. Jamie swallowed and tightened her grip on the receiver. “But what … what about his uniform? He'd completely lost his turnouts when they found him.”

“That got me at first, too.” Jim Bryan gave a soft chuckle. “Then I remembered something that happened back in 1993. Jake and I were two of the last firefighters who responded to the bombing at the World Trade Center. The fire was out, but as a precaution, we walked up the stairs, making sure people were handling the evacuation okay. We walked up fifty floors that day checking each stairwell, looking for stranded office workers who'd given up or collapsed. Jake said something on the way back down that I just remembered yesterday morning.”

Jamie waited, anxious for the rest of the story. She glanced at Jake. He was unmoved, unchanged. His chest fell in a gentle rhythm, but he showed no signs of waking up.

Jim Bryan chuckled again. “On the way back down, Jake kept wanting to take off his turnouts.”

“Why?” Jamie still didn't understand.

“Because once you've walked fifty flights in a suit that heavy, you're pretty well exhausted. On the way back down, we knew we were out of danger. All Jake wanted to do was take off the turnouts and bound down the stairs two at a time. In the uniform, we had to pace ourselves.”

“So you think …”

“I think Jake had a victim on his back, and after a few flights, he realized there was a better way to go about it. He probably slipped out of the stairwell at one of the floors, set the victim down, and took off his turnouts. Then he would've put the victim over his back again and continued down the rest of the way.”

The notion made perfect sense. “He could've found the turnouts again on the way back up so he'd be ready to fight the fire.”

“Exactly.” Jim's tone changed. “Only he never got the chance. He was probably out near the truck helping the victim when the building collapsed.”

“So … if that's the explanation, I wonder what happened to the person he saved.”

“Maybe he was taken away by ambulance.” Jim Bryan paused. “Or maybe he was buried in the rubble. I'm guessing that if Jake hadn't gone over to the truck, he might've been buried too. Jake's the only one who'll be able to tell us.”

“If he remembers.” Jamie had already shared the doctor's concerns with Jake's father.

“Yes … I guess we won't know until he wakes up.”

They ended the conversation and Jamie stared at Jake. It had been an hour since anyone had entered the room, and she was sleepy. Still, she kept her eyes on Jake, whispering to him, coaxing him to surface from the deep place where he was sleeping. She clutched tightly to the fingers on his right hand.

“Guess what? I just talked to Sierra. She wants you to come home. Your dad's with her right now, but the doctor says it won't be long. You're doing a lot better.” She studied him. His face was still bandaged because of the burns. Only now, what with the surgery, his short dark hair had been shaved, and his head was wrapped even bigger than before. She ran her tongue along her lower lip. “We're all pulling for you, Jake.”

She no sooner had his name out of her mouth when she felt his fingers move. “Jake?” This time she didn't whisper. The danger that too much stimulation might make his brain swell had long since passed, so she didn't need to keep her voice down. “Jake, honey, can you hear me?”

A moan came from deep in his chest, and then it stopped.
False alarm
, Jamie told herself. But what if it wasn't? “Jake … wake up! It's Jamie, honey. I'm right here waiting for you.”

Again he made a moaning sound, only this time his head moved an inch or two in each direction. Jamie jumped to her feet. It was happening, Jake was waking up! She rushed into the hallway and waved at a nearby nurse. “Quick … get Dr. Cleary. My husband's coming to!”

Jamie felt so wonderful she darted back into the room and barely felt her feet touch the ground. If Jake woke up now, if he had his memory and his health, the doctor would have to peel her off the ceiling. The idea was more than she could hope for.

She came up to Jake's side and took his hand again. He was still moaning, still moving about. First his head and shoulders, then his feet and legs. His injured left ankle was in a cast now, one that would stay on for six weeks. But otherwise, Jake's body was fairly healthy. The burns would heal quickly. Dr. Cleary had said so.

The only questions were about Jake's brain.

“Jake … can you hear me?”

He blinked, opening his eyes only the slightest bit. He looked like someone peering into the sun for the first time after spending a week underground. “Mmmmmm.” The moan was louder now, more distinct, and Jamie's heart soared. He was trying to talk!

“I'm here, Jake.” She was still standing, grasping his knee with her right hand and squeezing his fingers with the left. “You're doing great. Can you hear me, honey?”

He blinked wider this time and squinted, looking around the room until he found her. And the most terrifying realization hit Jamie. He was looking at her without even the slightest bit of recognition.

They were Jake's eyes, for sure. Same shade of blue, same eyelashes. But since Jake was a boy, his eyes had lit up when they found her, every single time they saw each other.

Until now.

Now, as Jamie stared at Jake, there was no love, no sparkle, no pool of shared memories. Nothing at all. What had the head injury done to him? What if he was different now, changed. She banished the thought as quickly as it came. He wasn't changed. He was dazed and hurt, and he needed to heal. He'd suffered a head injury, after all. What did she expect? “Jake? Honey, can you hear me?”

Footsteps echoed in the hallway, and Dr. Cleary's voice sounded above a handful of others. The doctors were coming. They needed to see him, of course, but not yet. She wanted to know for herself first just exactly what Jake remembered. And what he'd forgotten when the south tower slammed him beneath the fire truck.

He was still looking at her, the blank stare giving her a pain in her stomach. She tried one more time. “Jake … can you hear me?”

Her husband's lips parted and came together again. Then in a burst of determination he opened his mouth a fraction wider and said the thing that must have been troubling him since he woke up. The thing that brought her world down around her and made her wonder if life between them would ever be the same again.

“Who …” he said, his words slow and parched. “Who is Jake?”

S
EVENTEEN

S
EPTEMBER
13, 2001

Almost nothing made sense anymore.

Jake, if that was his name, had figured out he was in a hospital. But for the past few hours, the only thing he'd been able to hear was the unfamiliar voice of a woman. A pleasant voice he'd never heard before in his life.

She talked to him constantly, even though his eyes were closed and he couldn't move. There was no question the woman was worried about him, but then that was understandable. He was worried about himself. The thing that seemed strange was that she kept calling him Jake, and talking about their house, and his father, and their little girl.

Out of everything she'd said that day, only one name brought to mind a face. The name Sierra. He could picture her as clearly as … well, as anything.

And it was with that understanding that he knew something was very wrong. Now that he was finally able to make his mouth work, he'd voiced his single most frightening question to the pretty dark-haired woman standing beside him. Who was Jake? Her face went from hopeful to horrified. But that didn't help answer his question, so he tried again. “Who's Jake?”

A pair of doctors walked into the room, and the woman turned to them. Jake couldn't make out what she was saying, but whatever it was, she was upset. He wanted to shout at them.
Hey … what about me?
He had no idea who he was, and
they
were upset? He felt like a crazy person, as if he'd woken up on a planet he didn't recognize.

He had a terrible headache, but otherwise everything seemed to move all right. His left ankle was in a cast, and there were bandages on his arms. He lifted both hands over his head and used his uncovered fingers to feel his face and scalp. They were covered too. He must've been in an accident, a car accident maybe. That must be it. But why couldn't he remember his name? And why wouldn't anyone answer him about this Jake person? Was that supposed to be him? A name that wasn't in the least bit familiar?

The trio was still whispering halfway across the room. He raised his voice and spoke so they could hear him. “Will someone … answer me? Who's Jake?” His words were coming more easily now, but they were still painfully slow and raspy. “This … is a hospital?”

One of the doctors looked past the woman and smiled at him. The man nodded at his partner, and both of them made their way over to his bedside. The woman stepped aside and leaned against a wall. Her face was pale and her eyes looked red and watery.

“Yes, this is a hospital.” The younger doctor had taken the closest position. “I'm Dr. Cleary, and this is my partner, Dr. Hammond. You've been—”

“What happened?” His voice was suddenly loud and rude, but he didn't care. At first it felt like some kind of dream, as if maybe he was merely having trouble waking up. But now things were starting to feel weird. Really weird. He didn't know his name, didn't know Jake, and he'd never seen the woman at the back of the room. But clearly the woman knew him. It was the most unsettling feeling he'd ever had.