Stranger is the Sail Ch. 01

I always trust you, my love.

BILL DOLE

The helicopter lands, but things do not rapidly improve. The men do get out with what I might call good speed, and they do remove a stretcher, but then everything seems to stop. They spend minute after incredible minute just standing there, hanging over it, not going inside. They don't rush to contact the doctors. They don't appear to worry about how long they're taking. They just move around the prostrated figure with a cold lizard's methodical slowness. On the other side of that door is a hospital full of equipment that can save lives, but these unaffected fools go nowhere at all.

Does that mean that it's already too late? Is Adrian dead? God, if he is...

Amanda is talking, and I realize that I'm not listening to her. But she's only trying Laura's cell phone again, leaving yet another message. I add that to the list of questions currently ruining my heart.

Where is my daughter at?

Amanda sighs as she hangs up the phone. "Still no answer," she says.

I keep my eyes on the paramedics. "Do you think her absence has something to do with Adrian showing up on a Tuesday, speeding like all get-out?"

"I don't know. I hope not." she looks over at me, and shakes her head. "But something has to be wrong."

Behind us, the nurse opens the door. Although I'm sure Amanda has more than gotten on her nerves, she has a look of soft pity to her now.

"I'm supposed to ask you if you'd like the chance to say goodbye," she says. I glance up at the helicopter, nod, and Amanda starts crying again.

Wednesday, March 16

RACHEL JOHNS

The truck driver is sitting with the Dole parents when I get to the waiting room. He looks awful. Sickly. Like he'd happily up and die, if it were as easy as all that. I'm not sure how much the Doles know about the accident, if they know that Adrian was at fault, but they don't appear to be shunning the scruffy man. That's good.

It's nine in the morning, and although the trauma center waiting room is divided up into a series of compartments that each have fold-out couches with pillows, I can see that none of these people slept last night. Amanda gets up, wobbly but smiling, and hugs me.

"Do you know anything?" I ask. "What have they said?"

Amanda nods, then swallows hard and looks to Bill. He stands up, weak with age, and shakes my hand. "Well," he says, "he's not dead. And if he does make it, then you probably saved his life. There ain't much for promises, right now. The surgeon came out and talked to us...when was that, Mandy?"

"Sometime after four."

"After four," he agrees. "They'd just finished up with him. He's got...let's see here...his skull is fractured right about here," he points to the space just under his nose, and then draws his finger around to the right side of his face. "It continues here," he traces just under his cheekbone on the other side up over the ear. "They put plates in to hold it together. The bone's cracked up quite a bit around the eye sockets, and his jaw's broke in two places. It'll be wired shut for a good while. His clavicle is broke as well, and he cracked a few ribs. Uh..." he looks to Amanda for help.

"The last thing they did was go in and take out all the glass," she says, more to him than to me, and he snaps his fingers.

"That's right. The glass. He had a lot of it buried in his face. They took it out and stitched him, though they say that he'll scar up quite a bit. They had to leave a big piece in his eye."

"The right eye?" I ask. "It looked terrible."

"Yeah, the right eye. It's gone."

I stare at him in horror, and he holds his hands up.

"I'm sorry. Not gone, gone. He just won't ever see out of it again, is what I mean to say. They're going to wait until the blood clears out and then try and remove the glass. If they can, and it doesn't shrink up or anything, it can at least stay in. Otherwise, if it does...shrink...he may need a prosthetic. They...they, uh...." He sighs. "I'm sorry. I'm very tired. We all are. It's hard to remember some of it."

"I understand," I say. "I understand completely. Has he...been awake at all?"

"No. No, and he won't be for some time. That's on purpose. I guess they have him in a...a chemical coma, is what it's called. They have him down until he's stabilized and healed some. They thought that, maybe in five or six days or so, they'll try bringing him out of it. If..." he trails off.

"They told us to be ready for the possibility that he may just pass on," Amanda said. "There was a great deal of swelling in his brain. They drilled a hole into his head to relieve it, but..."

I close my eyes at that. I had an uncle on my mother's side that was in a motorcycle accident. He survived, had some swelling in the brain, and was never the same afterward. His whole personality changed. It slowed him down. He struggled with simple motor skills and tasks, forgot things. It ruined his life.

Wait a minute. It occurs to me that something's wrong. Something's missing.

I open my eyes, look around the room, and frown.

Where's Laura?" I ask.

They share a look with each other, and Amanda sighs.

Thursday, March 17

BILL DOLE

Doctor says the boy is definitely gonna make it. Now is the time for prayers to be answered, I guess. Wish I'd known. I've got a list I've built up over the years, full of names and guilt and sadness. Oh, well. I guess I should just be glad to know that He can sometimes be counted on to come through.

Still no news on whether or not he'll keep that eye. And they tell us that brain damage should be looked at as a certainty, but they won't tell us how severe. Well, I won't hear it anyway. I choose to hope against hope that someday we'll be able to look back at this thing and wonder. Wonder at how lucky we were, how such a close call somehow had no lingering effects. Wonder at the Good Lord's giving hand.

He has answered my prayers and made me greedy. This beggar's list has a new addition: that my daughter's chosen husband should both live and live well. This favor I do ask of my God, from whom I've never sought anything more than good crop-growing weather. For whom I have lived and for whom I will someday die.

Amanda is sitting at the computer, checking her e-mail. She slouches toward the screen and squints. I ran up to the house yesterday and grabbed some essentials, but I forgot her reading glasses and my heart medicine. Stupid old man.

She goes through her messages slowly, methodically. I can't imagine who they're all from. Probably not worth reading. Yeah, a letter used to be harder to send, but it also used to be something special, too. Like a lot of things, I guess.

I dunno what's stranger to me...the fact that they felt the need to place a computer in the trauma center waiting room, or the endless cycle of traffic that revolves around it. You'd think people had enough to worry about, in here, without trying to wrestle with one of those damn things. But they filter by it with the unrushed adoration of believers before a blessed relic. Don't seem to get too much pleasure out of the experience...seems more like an obligation, or a twitch, than anything. But they always go back for more.

The dumb things are everywhere, these days. I guess they even use 'em out on the farms now, for all sorts of stuff. Use 'em to keep track of...ahh shit, who am I kidding? I don't know what they use 'em for. I just know that Wayne Youngblood's always bitching about his whenever he comes into town. Now there's a man who managed to keep up with the times. Almost my age, and yet he can speak the same strange language as the new guys. Knows all the right words, nods at all the right moments. Absolutely nothing passed him by. And I suppose I envy him for that. I'm a time capsule waiting to get buried, and I know it. I couldn't go back to farming now, even if I had the money to try. Obsolete is my only remaining state of being. I am in it.

Still, that computer Amanda keeps taking her turn on is going to end up being just as obsolete, and it'll get there much quicker than I did. So I guess we'll call it a draw.

I finally talked Rachel and J.B. into going home. Rachel was clearly exhausted, and J.B. needs to get away from here if he's ever going to get over all that guilt. It's eating him up, hollowing him out. He quit his job over it. Said he couldn't drive those things ever again. Don't know what he'll do. Anyway, he's got kids to see. I promised to keep him updated.

He really seems like a nice guy. In some ways, he reminds me of the Logan child. What was his name? I forget. That's a sad story, too. The kid was supposed to be helping his father work the fields...oh, must have been thirty years ago. He begged off it and went out with friends, instead. Dad's tractor flipped, and by the time they found him he was gone. Asphyxiated. Just couldn't breathe under all that weight, though I guess it took him a while to go. Probably died hoping his son wouldn't blame himself for it all. But he did.

The elder Logan passed on the last Sunday in May. His son, showing a patience not usually associated with youth, waited a year for the day to be right again. And then he hung himself from the closest tree.

Phillip. The boy's name was Phillip.

Terrible. Mrs. Logan is still around, but she's a quiet old bird. There was a daughter, too. Wonder whatever happened to her?

Amanda gasps. I turn to her. She waves and calls out for me. I don't have it in me to run, but I do hurry.

"What is it?" I ask. "I something wrong?"

"Look," she says, pointing at the screen. "This e-mail. It's from Laura!"

"What's it say?"

"Just read it."

I start reading, leaning over her shoulder, and the world gets a little bit colder.

Oh, Laura. Oh, no.

AMANDA DOLE

What has my daughter done?

We're going to be needed, Bill. Even more than I thought we would.

Adrian will need us the most. His whole life is blown apart. And Laura will want our support. Maybe our understanding, or at least forgiveness. And I'm not sure we have enough left in us to care for both of them.

Oh, Adrian. Is that why you ran? Why you came to us? Is there something you thought we could do? Some way we could undo what had already happened?

And what will we do? Tell me, Bill. What will Adrian do? What is even left to him, now? Here we were, hoping they could put him back together, and it turns out the biggest piece was yanked away before he even got into his car. My daughter took it right out of him.

Laura. What will you do, honey? Your decision-making record is not exactly looking stellar right now. Selfish, stupid girl!

Should I be mad at you? I am. Ashamed? Yes. Disappointed? Quite a bit.

But defensive? Sympathetic and sorrowful? I feel these things, too. Is it wrong for me to want to hold and help you through this nightmare you created? To try and make it all go away, so you can sleep peacefully when the sun disappears each night?

It doesn't matter. This whole thing is out of my hands. And it should be. I can't even pull myself together enough to answer my own questions. I ask and I ask and I know nothing at all.

I read the e-mail again:

Hey Mom.

Was wondering if you could do me a favor.

I had to go on a trip to Florida for work. There are some problems with our Tampa office, and I was asked to take care of it. It's supposed to take a couple of weeks. What a drag!

I've been gone for three days now, and I've called home several times, but Adrian never answers or returns my calls. Could you possibly try and get ahold of him? I'm sure nothing's wrong, but he was kinda moody all last week. When I tried to talk to him about it, he acted a little crazy.

Things are pretty hectic here, so I may not be able to check my cell or e-mail for the next week or so. If you talk to Adrian, tell him I said I love him.

You know I love you, too, Mom.

Laura.

Yes, Laura. I do know. I know quite a lot.

I know that Principal Financial is having a hard time. Everybody is, these days, of course. But your employer's difficulty is perhaps a little more pronounced because they recently closed several of their East Coast offices. I know about that.

See, when the biggest employer in Des Moines...one of the largest in the state...is hurting that badly, word gets around. People talk it to death. In this part of the country, a large company's survival becomes life and death for everybody. And you'd be surprised how many people in and around Castlewood have a cousin, or brother, or whatever working there.

So I know that your company's Tampa office has, in fact, been closed for several months.

I also know that Victor Casey was back in town last week for his brother's birthday party, talking about a cruise he'd booked for himself and a woman he was seeing. A cruise that left today, from Tampa. He was meeting her at the airport Monday evening, and they were going to spend several days in Tampa before the cruise left.

I know that Victor Casey still wants you. In fact he used to ask about you all the time...right up until about six months ago, Laura. He just stopped asking, quite suddenly, and until now I just hoped that he'd found someone else to desire.

I know that what I told you when you were in high school is still true: no matter how you feel about Victor Casey, he's trouble. And he's cruel. He plays games, and he takes no responsibility for the outcome. He never loved you, and he will always be wrong for you.

Laura, honey...I also know that adultery is a sin. A terrible and cruel one, at that.

And so do you.

Friday, March 25

AMANDA DOLE

Ten days since Adrian's crash shook my world apart.

Has it only been that long? It feels like forever.

I almost think that I was born into this body, exactly the way that it is now. A ravaged, ugly, old woman. The weight of motherhood already on me, with hips spread and breasts fat and tired. The lines etched in and varicose veins painted on by divine hands. Knuckles swelled upon bony fingers. A tiring sight, I'm sure.

And perhaps I've lived out my lifetime right here, in this hospital. All that I've ever really done is go from waiting room to Adrian's bed, and back again, for centuries without end. Except when I need to eat, or pee, nothing ever changes.

Ten days? Ha. Maybe a thousand. Maybe a hundred thousand. Surely not ten.

And I'm not sure how much longer I can stand it. I'm not made to be a martyr. I'm too selfish.

Hurry, now, Adrian. You need to wake up, so we can start to heal. All of us. You need to stop hiding, and come back to this world to deal with the problems that have been given you.

I know it must be scary. It's been ninety-seven long hours since they started trying to bring you out of the coma. The saline-like drip that was keeping you under is long since gone, the drug flushed from your system, yet you still refuse to react. It's not because they don't try to force you out. I wince as they push down hard on your fingernails with the pen, pinching sensitive areas until it must hurt. But you don't show a sign of caring. You just lay indifferent, restful. They talk to you, ask you all sorts of questions. I talk to you, too, telling stories about your life. You never admit to hearing them.

"Can you grab my hand, Adrian?" they ask. Of course you can't.

"Do remember how beautiful it was outside, the day of your wedding?" I wonder. Of course you don't.

The night orderly tells me that's not uncommon for chemical coma patients to be slow in returning, especially head injury ones. He says that it's nothing to worry about. But even I can see that the people here are getting nervous. Don't you know, children, that you can't fool an old woman? If I haven't been here forever, then that means my memories are real. I've given birth, raised children, and weathered storms. I am incarcerated in the world of men. So I know what this life is.

When I think of those things, I miss my husband. They're going to keep me here, Bill. They're going to keep me here forever. I know it. They're going to keep saying tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow until I get so used to waiting for it to come that I stop asking altogether. Until I just accept that it never will. Come and save me. I know you can.

How I wish you had stayed.

No. that's not fair. I won't accuse you of abandonment. I had to force you to go home, to take care of things. That doesn't mean that I wanted it, or that you did. It just had to be done. We couldn't both stay here forever, insulated in our pain and ignoring the outside world.

And you ARE coming back for me. You'll be back tonight, staying for the weekend. You would never abandon your love.

Not the way Laura has.

Our daughter. I've got my nightly conversations with her to keep me company. The ones she never responds to. Endless e-mails and voice mail messages, each deposited into the bank account of my dwindling patience, and never a word from her in response.

In fact, it's that time now. Time to dial the number and hope against hope. I step out into the waiting room and turn on my cell phone. Are you ready, Laura? Will you answer, tonight? Surely your trip must have ended by now. So where are you? Are you sitting at home, nervously wondering after your absent husband, scared of what I might think of you if you ask me about him? Do you think he's left you?

Have you listened to my messages? Read my e-mails?

No. You can't have. Even if you're capable of the lies, of betraying your husband and home and parents, you still wouldn't be capable of that. You couldn't know that he was injured and just sit at home, hiding from the world to save face.

I rub my eyes and look down at the phone. I have six missed calls.

Immediately flipping to the call log, I rub my thumb across the screen.

From Laura! They're from Laura! And there are messages!

My fingers are shaking as I hit the redial. I can listen to the messages later. Right now I have to speak to my daughter. My lungs tell me that I'm holding my breath and I force a release.

Hold it together, Amanda. These are the moments that turn the story.

And it turns, as Laura answers her phone.

"Mom?!" She yells into my ear. "What's going on?!" She sounds frantic. Lost. It's easy to feel sympathy, to forget what brought her to this. But I don't.

"Laura, honey. You have to listen to me. Adrian was-"

"Is he awake yet?! Is he...does he know what I..." Laura's voice falls away. Of course. Of course she would know by now. If she read one e-mail, or listened to one voice mail, then she would have rushed through them all. Oh, my little baby, what a thing you face now.

"He's not awake. They had him in an induced coma, but they're having trouble bringing him out of it. Where are you right now?"

"I'm on the interstate. I'm coming, as fast as I can-"

"Don't get yourself hurt, honey. We're not going anywhere, and I couldn't handle you getting hurt, too."

"Mommy." She doesn't say any more, but I can hear that she's crying.

"I'm so sorry, baby," I tell her. And I guess that I mean it.

"You don't know," she says. "You don't know what I've done." And then she hangs up before I can tell her that I do know.

I dial the house phone. Bill answers, sounding tired. All the stress, driving, and loneliness is taking its toll on his health. And the next few days won't help with that.

"Bill!" I don't even try to stop myself from shouting. "I talked to Laura! She's back, and she knows everything! She knows about the accident! She's coming here now!"

There's a huffing breath. "I'm on my way," he says simply. And then the line goes dead.

Saturday, March 26

BILL DOLE

The two of them hang together like vines helping each other up the side of the barn, twisting and knotted. They cry it out, like women tend to do. There's a lotta noise, and some words, but nothing that makes any damn sense. With all the sobbing and whatever, I'm getting a headache, but I know enough to hold my peace.