“How many bags of intravenous fluid have you gotten into him?” I ask the attending nurse.
“This is the second bag,” she says, checking the bag to see what’s left.
I run my fingers through his hair, caked with dirt. He could never tolerate being dirty. Everett showered twice a day, most of the time. He never had an untrimmed nail or a hint of dirt on his hands. It must have been habits left over from the lifestyle he lived in Hollywood.
“Commander Laurel, do you mind if I sit with him for a while?” I ask, teetering on the edge of begging. “I’m off duty at the moment.” I haven’t spent much time with this commander. She came from a different unit when we moved to this location, but she has been in the Army a while and has earned respect with merit of her skills.
“Of course. He should be stable for the moment.”
Lewis finds a folding chair and places it down next to Everett’s side. “I’m going to go check in a few other tents,” he says, placing a kiss on the top of my head. “I’ll be back before I take off.”
I grab Lewis’s arm before he walks away. “Thank you,” I say.
“You don’t have to thank me, Elizabeth.”
The commanding nurse and Lewis have left the vicinity, leaving me alone with Everett, a time in which I would normally fill his ears with as many stories as I could come up with. I don’t want to stress him out though, so I trace my fingertips down the length of his arm.
“I saw a flying elephant in the sky earlier today. It was the first sign I saw that made me believe you were okay. I didn’t want to give up hope, but I didn’t know if I was trying to convince myself of something that might not be true.”
Everett’s eyelids flutter again, so I stand to make it easier for him to see me. “Tell me how you feel, sweetheart.”
His blinks are slow and sluggish as he struggles to pull in a breath. “It hurts.”
“What does? Your leg, ribs, or something else?”
“It hurts,” he says again. “In my head.”
Lewis said they weren’t sure about head trauma yet, but I’m not sure if Everett is speaking about mental or physical pain.
“The memories?” I ask.
“No.”
I slide my fingertips around his head, searching for bumps or wounds, but I don’t feel any abnormalities. But that doesn’t mean anything seeing as he was a prisoner for at least a couple months. I must think if he survived all this time, he would make it through this too, but that type of wishful thinking involves nothing more than hope.
I retrieve a clean cloth from the short stack on the rolling cart set off to the side and take a silver bowl to fill with some water. He’s so parched and I can only imagine how uncomfortable he must be. I dip the cloth into the water and dab the fabric along his lips.
“Lizzie,” he mumbles.
“I’m here,” I say again.
“Lizzie.”
If I could convince myself that he will improve and walk out of here someday, I would take comfort in that belief, but I’ve seen too many similar injuries end the other way. I want him to be the exception. I need him to be, but is it selfish to plead for such a thing at his expense? Maybe he wants to say goodbye so it will be over, and he can go home.
* * *
Two weeks have come and gone. We’re still here in the critical ward tent. Everett has gained a small amount of weight back, and his coloring has returned to a fair pale, but his cognitive state has changed little. He will mutter a few different combinations of words and my name here and there, so I know he’s still in there, but the medics and other nurses don’t have high hopes for a dramatic change since so much time has passed. His level of shock is likely due to the internal damage we have yet to find. We are all trying to remain optimistic but with so little improvement, it’s difficult to stay upbeat. I’ve spent every free minute during my off hours by his side, sometimes sleeping on the chair with my head resting on his arm. He knows I’m here, but I think he’s locked inside of his head without the keys to get out.
* * *
“Just one more bite, sweetie.” I spoon feed Everett the pureed fruits we’ve started giving in effort to take him off the intravenous fluid. It’s great he’s able to swallow the food on his own. We think it’s an improvement, but his words are still few and far between, though they seem to make a bit of sense at times. It’s been weeks and his bones have almost healed entirely. We should be seeing more progress than he is showing, but if there is one thing I have learned in my years of nursing school, it’s that patience is sometimes the only cure.
“Doll,” he mutters, turning his head to the side.
I place my hand in his. “Did you just call me doll?” He hasn’t referred to me by any other name than Lizzie and it’s never been in a way to call for my attention, more like just a word he mumbles.
“Doll,” he says again.
