“Shrapnel—above my knee.” He was breathing hard.
All of the surgeons were busy, but I called out to Dr. O’Neal. I didn’t want Zechariah to wait. Every minute mattered.
Dr. O’Neal quickly finished his procedure and then came to us. “Dr. Philips!”
“You’ll need to remove the shrapnel,” Zechariah said to Dr. O’Neal, his face grave. “But I want to walk again. Make sure I can use my leg.”
Dr. O’Neal placed his shaking hand on Zechariah’s shoulder. “I’ll do my best.”
He cut away the bloody pant leg and swallowed hard. When he looked back at Zechariah, concern and uncertainty clouded his gaze. I knew he wasn’t convinced he could save the leg. Dread filled me, but I couldn’t let Zechariah see it on my face.
As the doctor began to prepare for the surgery, I clung to Zechariah’s hand.
“Don’t leave me,” Zechariah said, his eyes pleading. I’d never seen him so defenseless before.
“I won’t,” I promised, though I wasn’t sure if I had it in me to watch Dr. O’Neal operate on him.
“You’re the best nurse I’ve ever worked with,” Zechariah said to me. “Don’t let him take off my leg.”
Tears filled my eyes, and I realized it was the first time I had cried all day. There simply hadn’t been time to respond emotionally to everything we’d endured. “I won’t,” I promised again. I would try my best, advising when and where I saw fit.
Zechariah tugged me down, and I lowered my ear close to his lips.
“I love you,” he whispered hoarsely. “Please don’t leave me.”
I placed a kiss on his forehead, though Dr. O’Neal was watching, and said, “I won’t leave you. I promise. And I’ll be praying for you.”
“Maybe God will listen to you.”
“God has always listened to you, Zechariah. But that doesn’tmean we always get what we want. Sometimes, in His infinite wisdom, He gives us what we need instead.” I was speaking to myself just as much as I was speaking to him.
“I need my leg, Maggie.”
I nodded as I wiped away my tears.
Moments later, Zechariah was given anesthesia, and Dr. O’Neal began the surgery. I was able to assist, though it was horrible. Zechariah’s leg was so mangled, I had to accept that he would never be able to use it as he had before.
After fifteen minutes, Dr. O’Neal looked up at me with an apology in his eyes. “I don’t think I can do it.”
“Please,” I begged him, holding Zechariah’s hand, though he was unconscious. “He cannot lose his leg. It would destroy him.”
Dr. O’Neal sighed and shook his head. “I’ll do what I can, but he’ll be lucky if he keeps it. The next few weeks will determine the future course of his life.”
No truer words had ever been spoken.
The next few weeks would be difficult for all of us—and somehow, somewhere, in the midst of it all, I would have to choose which path to take for the rest of my life.
I could no longer pretend the decision was not upon me.
32
DECEMBER 25, 1861
WASHINGTON, DC
It had been two weeks since the attack on Pearl Harbor—two weeks since I’d last seen Gray. Though I was physically exhausted in 1941, the fatigue poured over as mental and emotional weariness in 1861. It was all I could manage just to work at the Judiciary Square Hospital during the day and then come home and fall into a deep sleep in the evenings. But that meant I was soon awake in 1941 and the work would begin all over again. We had almost three hundred patients aboard theSolaceafter the attack, and many of them were still recovering.
As the days passed, we learned of the catastrophic losses we had endured on December 7,1941. The attack lasted one hour and fifteen minutes, though it had felt like an eternity. One hundred fifty-nine US aircrafts were damaged, one hundred sixty-nine were destroyed, sixteen ships were damaged, and three were destroyed. Eventually, all would be recovered, though the USSArizonawould stay beneath the water and become a memorial to all those who had died onboard that day.
