Unbroken Connection (29 page)

B
OTTOM
T
IME
: don’t know

C
OMMENTS
:

I stumble off the plane at LAX and try to call Leesie. I’ve got my phone, and my wallet and the clothes on my back. My scuba gear, my computer, and all that crap is back in my cabin on the Queen Nautica. Again.

No answer.

Nothing new there.

I don’t remember Leesie’s home phone number, so I call Gram.

“Hey, Gram. It’s me.”

“Michael?” She sounds horrible. “I’m so glad”—her voice breaks—“you called.” Sounds like she’s crying.

“What’s going on? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, But—”

“Freak. You scared me. I’m trying to find Leesie. Is she home? Have you seen her?”

“No. She isn’t home yet. There’s—” Gram breaks down and can’t continue.

“What is it?” I’m filled up with real dread now, not just that uneasy haunting. “Listen, I’m in LA. I can be home in a few hours. I’m checking the flights now.”

Gram coughs and sniffs. “No. Don’t come down here. You better go to the hospital. She’ll need you.”

I stop walking down the airport hall. “Hospital?” Fear twists in my guts. “What’s happened?”

“Leesie drove that pickup off the side of Lookout Pass.”

I close my eyes, huddle over the phone. “No. She’s the best driver I know.”

“The Hunts left this morning for Kellogg. She’s in the hospital there. I have Stephie.”

“Is Leesie—” I can’t say it. “How bad, Gram?”

“She’s banged up—but she’s not critical.”

I crumple to my knees. The tears run down my face. People shove past me.

“There’s more.” She’s okay, what else matters? “It’s not good. Phil was with her. He didn’t make it.”

“Oh, my gosh. Poor, Leesie.” I’m on my feet, moving again, thinking like a robot. “How’s Stephie?”

“She doesn’t know yet.”

“What about Leesie’s mom?”

“She didn’t get out of the car. She was distraught.”

“And her dad?”

“Calm—in shock I guess. Red-rims around his eyes.”

“Phil’s dead?” I remember him planning eighty years with Krystal back in that wild graveyard on their farm. “I can’t believe it.”

“I’m praying for them.”

“Thanks, Gram. You do that. Where did you say they took her?”

“Kellogg—head east on I-90. You can’t miss it.”

“From Spokane? Head east?”

“Yeah.” Gram sniffs and manages to croak. “They were almost home.”

LEESIE’S MOST PRIVATE CHAPBOOK
POEM # 67, BROKEN

Light.

Colors moving.

Voices.

Pain blurring everything.

Nothing focuses.

Someone’s moaning.

Me? Maybe.

“Here, honey.”

A strange face.

A needle in my hand.

Then a voice I know.

Hands warm on my head.

Dad?

He strokes my cheek.

“Sleep, Leesie-girl. Sleep.”

“We love you, Leesie.

We love you.”

I struggle to speak.

Phil?

The sound doesn’t escape.

I’m drifting, drifting.

Pain recedes with the voices.

No faces return.

I move my head.

The moan gets louder.

“Lie still. Rest.”

Phil?

“Everything’s all right, now.”

Even Phil?

MICHAEL’S DIVE LOG—VOLUME #10

D
IVE
B
UDDY
: Leesie

D
ATE
: 4/25

D
IVE
#:—

L
OCATION
: Kellogg, ID

D
IVE
S
ITE
: Shoshone Medical Center

W
EATHER
C
ONDITION
: misty

W
ATER
C
ONDITION
: none

D
EPTH
: overboard

V
ISIBILITY
: clearer than I thought

W
ATER
T
EMP
.: okay

B
OTTOM
T
IME
: all night

C
OMMENTS
:

It’s midnight when I deplane in Spokane. The only way I could get here was through Seattle. Better than going through SLC or Vegas, but it took close to six hours. I could be halfway back to Hong Kong. I’m dead on my feet, haven’t seen a bed for two days. Maybe longer. I lost track. I’m too tired to rent a car and drive to Kellogg, but I’m standing in line at Avis anyway. I don’t even know the name of the hospital. But the place is almost Tekoa small.

“Kellogg?” The dude at the counter hands me keys and a bad map. “I-90 east. Probably take you an hour and a half.” He stares at my red eyes and haggard face. I wouldn’t blame him if he took the keys back.

I drive through Spokane, Coeur d’Alene, get lost in the inky night and effusion of stars overhead, pull into Kellogg around 2 AM. The only place open is a bar. I go in, ask a skinny waitress for directions to a hospital.

“You’ll be wanting Shoshone Medical Center.” She assesses me. “I heard there was a bad crash up on the pass. You know them?”

I don’t answer.

“It’s just up the road. Didn’t you see it when you came off the highway?”

I backtrack, find the place, park, tip back my head and close my eyes to gather myself for what waits for me inside this small, one story building with a heart-shaped stone fountain out front.

I must look pretty rough. They’ll take me for a patient. I get out and go in the front door. A girl in pale yellow scrubs sits at a desk in the lobby. “Can I help you?”

I’m still in shorts, T-shirt, and sandals. It’s below freezing out there. She’ll admit me as a nutcase.

“Leesie Hunt. They brought her in yesterday.”

She types keys. “Family only.”

“I’m her fiancé.” The lie sounds more true than anything I know. “I was bringing her this.” I pull the ring out and flash it for the girl. My voice gets tight. “I’ve been flying for like two days. I got to see her now.”

The girl gets dewy eyed. “Go on down.” She motions with her head toward a hallway and writes Leesie’s room number on a scrap of paper for me. “I’ll call the night nurse.”

I wander down the hall to a nurses’ station. I’ve never been in a hospital this tiny. Another nurse waits for me, sizes me up. “We didn’t expect you until the morning.”

Expect me? Maybe Gram called.

“Don’t make me wait.”

“No, of course not.” She guides me down the hall. “Her parents left a few hours ago, but she’s stirring a little bit. The brain swelling’s gone down faster than we expected. We’ve eased off her meds. She might come around.” She looks sideways at me. “I’d want you there when I woke up.”

Yeah, but will Leesie? “Does she know anything?”

The nurse shakes her head. “She’s been unconscious since they brought her in.”

“Should I tell her about her brother?”

“If she asks. Can you handle that?”

I nod.

The woman gets professional. “She’s got a fractured collar bone on the right side and three cracked ribs. They got her into surgery for her hand and nose right away. Her ankles were just sprained. The wound on her head came together nicely. The rest of the cuts were small. She was badly concussed, but she’s turned a corner there.”

“Did they tell you anything about Phil?”

“Dead on the scene. Ejected from the vehicle. No seatbelt.”

And I have to tell her that?

The nurse escorts me to a private room filled with flashing machines and a hospital bed. The thin, pale girl lying in the bed doesn’t look much like my beautiful Leesie. There’s plaster and gauze across her nose—but it doesn’t cover the angry bruising around her eyes. Her hair is shaved away from the gash that creeps down her forehead. Freak, she’ll hate that.

“Forty-two stitches,” the nurse whispers.

I search for something familiar. My eyes go to her left hand. It’s in a cast. No fingernail prints branding her mine.

“She’s got to lie still.” The nurse goes to a closet and takes down a pillow and blanket. “You understand me? No movement. We wrapped up her ribs and she’s got that brace on for her collar bone, but every movement will be painful for the next several days.” She hands me the bedding. “Try to get some rest. Call me if things start beeping.”

“And if she wakes up?”

“You don’t need to call us unless she’s in pain.”

“What should I do?”

She stares at me like I’m an idiot. “Give her that ring.”

I look down at Leesie’s ring, uncovered and sparkling, still out in the open.

The nurse puts the pillow down on the left side of the bed. “If you promise to lie really still, you can sleep beside her.”

“Are you sure?”

“You’re her fiancé, aren’t you? You’re the first thing she’ll want to see.”

“But—”

“She’s fine. Just battered. Nothing we can’t fix up.” She looks at Leesie and then at me, sniffs, and leaves. I guess even nurses like a love story.

I stand there—frozen—too tired, too stunned to move. I breathe in and out—free dive cycles. Thirty times. Maybe more. Get all the way to packing.

Leesie stirs, and I’m by her side in a second. Sit on the bed and lean over close to her face. Her eyes move under their lids, but they don’t open. Her top lip is split and swollen, but her bottom lip is unscathed. Perfect. Mine. I bend down and kiss it. Maybe that will bring her back to life.

Her breath stays steady. She’s sound, sound asleep.

I’m dropping with exhaustion. I sit down in the chair, throw the blanket over me, doze a half hour. Wake up sore.

That pillow next to Leesie glows white in the streetlights shining through the window.

She’ll never know. I sit carefully on the bed’s edge, lie down on my side facing her and the machines. An IV runs out of her right hand. She’s got wires and stuff all over the place. I reach out to touch her hair—pull back my hand—prepare to stare at her all night.

A few hours later, her fingertips on my face wake me.

“Babe.”

“Michael.” Her fingers move to my lips. Awkward. It’s her broken hand. She can’t move them much.

I kiss them.

“This is way better than my last dream. You made me go diving and there was all this icky stuff on me weighing me down. I couldn’t get my buoyancy right.”

“Poor, Babe. I’m sorry.”

“But this—you beside me. I’ve dreamed this so many times. It’s my favorite.” She tries to smile, winces.

I lean over and very carefully suck on her bottom lip.

“Hmmm.” Her eyes close. “That feels so real. Like you’re here.”

“I am here.” I sit up and twist around so my face is full in her line of sight.

“No.” Her eyes open, but she stares straight through me. “You’re far away with that beautiful, beautiful girl.”

“That’s all a lie. I’m here.”

She tries to shake her head and gasps.

“Are you in pain?”

Tears escape her eyes. “Don’t go.”

“I’m just going to get the nurse.”

I sit down by Leesie again and cradle her broken hand as the nurse pulls the needle that leads to Leesie’s IV out of her hand, inserts another needle into a plastic port stuck there, and presses down on the syringe.

Leesie’s eyes close and struggle open. The nurse leaves.

“Kiss me again, please.”

I do, and she giggles.

“Rest now.”

“No. You’ll disappear on me.”

“I promise I won’t.” I vow to never let her out of my sight again.

Her eyelids get heavy. She fights to keep them open, keep eye contact with me.

I touch the side of her head that isn’t shaved. “Do you know where you are?”