She hadn’t trusted herself to drive on no sleep.
Back in the ICU, she found a new shift of nurses hard at work. Mitch lay just as he had when she’d left—still and silent, earbuds in his ears, recorder in playback mode beside him.
She approached the nurse’s station. “I’m Megs Hill, Mitch Ahearn’s partner. I got a message from Dr. Schwartz about the results of today’s MRI. I’d really like to talk with him. He said there was something he wanted to tell me.”
Jackie, the evening RN, nodded. “I think he’s gone home for the day, but I’ll check. He’s not usually here this late, as he has to be in the OR pretty early most days. If he’s not here, the neurosurgeon on call can talk with you.”
“Thanks.” Megs walked back to Mitch’s room, took his hand. “Hey, bud. I went to the hotel where Joe got me a room and slept for five hours. I didn’t even dream.”
Was Mitch dreaming? Did he have any perception of where he was? Did he have thoughts and images floating through his mind? Or was there only darkness?
A moment later, her phone buzzed.
Dr. Schwartz.
She answered. “Sorry I missed your call. I was asleep.”
“Good. I’m glad you got some rest.” He went over the MRI results, repeating what he’d said in the message. “The surgery accomplished what we hoped it would. The MRI showed no new bleeding and no clots. That’s good news.”
“I’m relieved to hear it. Thank you.”
“I ordered a functional MRI, as well. That’s one way we have to check brain function. He definitely has brain function. No doubt.”
“Thank God.”
Dr. Schwartz went on. “As a bit of an experiment, I decided to run the scan a second time, this time while he listened to the recording you’d made. The images of his brain showed a marked increase in activity in response to the sound of your voice.”
Megs’ throat went tight. “Really?”
“I’ll show you the images on my rounds tomorrow. In the meantime, keep talking to him. I can’t say for sure what the impact of hearing your voice will have in the final outcome, but anything that stimulates his brain is a good thing.”
“I will. Thank you.” She ended the call, looked down at the face of the man she loved. He was trapped inside this unconscious state, but he was there. “You really do hear me. I’ll fight to get in, while you keep fighting to get out, okay?”
She sat down with the digital recorder and the journal and began skimming, looking for a new favorite memory.
She laughed. “This is when you knuckleheads asked me to be slow about clearing the tables so that you could breeze through the cafeteria and grab the leftovers off of people’s dirty plates. You almost got me fired. Why couldn’t you just get jobs?”
She turned the pages, came across an entry that made her pause. “That’s the day the rangers raided the camp. Do you remember?”
Mitch floatedin a deep and gaping darkness, unbearably alone. His mind empty of thoughts, he knew only dread—except when he heard her voice. Without a name to go along with it, he knew that voice. Somehow, the sound of it chased away the dread and kept him from sinking deeper.
Mitch was awakenedfrom a sound sleep by shouting.
“Rise and shine, boys! Come out with your hands up!”
What the hell?
Wearing only his boxer briefs, he crawled out of his sleeping bag and stuck his head outside his tent.
Rangers.
“Shit.”
Another raid.
They came looking for illegal drugs and draft dodgers. Though the war was more or less over and the government had no plans to send anyone else to Vietnam, men who’d illegally avoided the draft could still be arrested.
“Come on out!”
