Pain

The sounds of subdued beeps and very small motors that worked the hospital equipment echoed in my ears as I held the warm small hand of the woman that had given me the strength to get out of bed each day since I graduated high school. Typically distinctive hospital smells pervaded the air as I gripped her fragile fingers, as tightly as I dared, not wanting her to go.

I hadn't slept for three days and nights, not since the accident.

She was unconscious now, too exhausted to even try to stay awake. I knew she wasn't in pain, as morphine was pumped into her at the maximum rate that she could take and still live.

The doctors told me that it wouldn't take long, but it was up to her and God now. They had done everything they could.

Knowing that she was about to pass, caused me to re-live the last conversation I had with her.

~~~

"Are you in pain?"

"Yes, but my pain is for you. Honey, please, there are thousands of women that will give you what I can't. Don't sell yourself short. I don't want to leave you without an offspring."

"Please, dear. I need you to pull through. I don't want to live without you. You're the woman that has made it possible to get over my childhood."

She shook her head saying, "No, it is your good nature that made that possible. You never let it control your decisions. And all I had to do was love you. And you made that so easy for me to do."

I couldn't ever imagine myself with another woman, but I appeased her by saying, "Honey, I will do as you asked. But if you pull through, we can still adopt."

Reassured by my promise that I would move on, as she wanted, my wife shut her eyes, and I knew it was for the last time.

~~~

The hospital equipment made the only sounds in the room for the next few hours.

They let me stay with her in the intensive care unit, even though the rules stated that two hours had to elapse between each ten-minute visit. The nurses had noticed that all I did was stay beside her, holding her hand, and providing her comfort with my touch. They had also noticed that when I was there, she didn't thrash around nearly as much and generally slept soundly.

So, I was allowed to stay. And I did. For hours. Never letting go of her hand.

I didn't drink anything, though they offered. But I didn't want to need to use the bathroom. I didn't eat either, as I would have had to go to the cafeteria. And that would have taken precious seconds away from the only woman I had ever loved.

All the while I held her hand, I could feel her very weak pulse throbbing, letting me know she was still with us. But I could tell that it was getting progressively weaker.

Finally, I laid my head against her arm and drifted off into a nightmarish slumber.

~~~

I woke with an alarm going off in the room and could no longer feel her pulse. Panicked, I sat up and let go of her hand, seemingly for the first time in days. It was then that I saw the heart monitor had nothing but a straight line across it.

"Code Blue in ICU. Code Blue in ICU," sounded over the pager. Nurses rushed into the room telling me that I had to leave. But I knew they weren't going to do anything. Anything at all. Cheryl had made me sign a 'Do not resuscitate order,' not wanting to be kept alive with machines.

I went to the ICU waiting room where several other people sat. People who were in a similar situation to me. I had met some of them before beginning my lengthy vigil in Cheryl's room and, as I finally emerged, they all looked at me with compassion.

"Was that Cheryl?" asked a woman who had obviously overheard the Code Blue page.

I nodded 'yes' and several people stood to provide assistance. But no one was able to catch me, as I fell straight to the floor, landing face down.

~~~

It has now been eighteen months since I felt my wife's life slip through my fingers. I went through the stages of grief. Or so I thought. Denial, Bargaining, Depression, and then finally, Acceptance.

But I forgot about. Anger, Rage, Fury. Call it what you will, they are just other names for the same thing.

I wasn't allowed to be angry growing up. Every time I was, my stepdad would beat it out of me. It was his approach to almost everything.

"You just try it ... and I will beat it right out of you", he would say. People thought he was joking. But trust me, he wasn't.

After the grieving process, I went back to work. I didn't really have to work at all, since the two-million-dollar payout from Cheryl's life insurance policy (that she insisted we have), and the $850,000 settlement from the trucking company whose driver had killed her, was more than enough to sustain me. But I needed to do something. Even if it was just work. So, I threw myself into my job, working at least seventy hours a week.

CHAPTER TWO:

Hailee Black drove up to her house after work. She was a little early. Normally she would get off work at five, but due to a pipe that had burst in the building she worked in, the 'powers that be' sent everyone home.

She smiled when she saw Sadie's car in the driveway. Hailee had always loved her older sister. They had been really close throughout their lives, even though Sadie made better grades and went on to college. Sadie earned her degree, found a good job and had made a promising start to her life. Meanwhile, Hailee had started life by a different path,

Hailee's husband, Allen Black, was almost four years older than she was. He had graduated college with financial support from his wife, who not only worked hard to keep her husband in college, but also managed to save enough money for the medical expenses that were coming with the birth of their first child.

She had lucked into a great job at Middendorf's, one of the nicer restaurants in the country, where she made good tips, and was able to support both her and her husband quite well, while Allen continued his college education.

But only a few weeks after Allen graduated college, disaster struck. On her way to work Hailee's car was struck by a truck when the driver negligently changed lanes, nearly pushing her off the Manchac Bridge. The driver didn't stop, but was caught sometime later, at a D O T inspection station in Mississippi.

It had been almost a year since the disaster, and she had only recently been able to get back to being herself, coming out of the depression caused by losing her child.

Today, when the pipes broke, everyone went home to their families. Knowing Allen was off that day, Hailee had hopes that they might be able to recapture some of the intimacy that had been missing since the accident and resulting miscarriage.

Though she was glad to see her sister's car in the driveway, Hailee started to think of how she could get her to leave, hoping to spend some quality time with Allen on the sofa and then in the bedroom.

Hailee parked on the curb, making sure not to block her sister's car from leaving. She locked her own car then went on into the house. She could hear music playing and guessed that her sister had the stereo blaring as always. It annoyed Hailee that her sister would treat the house as if she owned it, despite making none of the payments. Hailee had paid off her house with part of the settlement from the trucking company, but she still had other expenses like insurance and utilities.

Hailee made her way upstairs to the marital bedroom, to take a shower and change into some more comfortable clothes, when she heard voices coming from the room.

Trying to brighten her smile to greet her sister, and possibly her husband, Hailee walked into the bedroom and saw the two most important people in her life in the bed together, naked as the day they were born. Her sister was on top of her husband riding him cowgirl style. Allen's hands where groping Sadie's breasts as she ground down on him to the blaring music, trying to get each other off.

It took only a second for Hailee's temper to flare. She picked up a medium size lead crystal candy dish full of small polished decorative stones, then hurled it across the room with all her might. The dish crashed into the wall above their heads terrifying both the occupants. They turned in horror to face the woman at the door.

Hailee screamed incoherently and then growled at the shocked couple for a moment before she realized that she had to get out of the house IMMEDIATELY, or someone would get seriously hurt. So, she ran out of the house and back to her car.

After driving around in a daze, Hailee found herself at her mother's house. In her state of shock, Hailee tried to convey what she had just witnessed, hoping for some compassion and comfort. If she thought that her mother would be on her side, then Hailee was very much mistaken. With a cold heart, her mother told Hailee that she only had herself to blame, that she'd never had an actual marriage, working all the time and ignoring her husband and family responsibilities.

Hailee was in shock, but held back the tears, as her cold and callous mother degraded her and all her efforts helping her husband to get through college. With nowhere else to go, Hailee had to just sit at the kitchen table and take her mother's abuse.

After a time, her sister showed up. Hailee was still in shock, devastated by not only what had happened, but also the fact that her very own mother didn't seem to care, when Sadie made the situation even worse by announcing that Allen was going to file for divorce the following day. Then she twisted the knife further by proudly stating that she and Allen were going to be married as soon as the divorce was final.

With a last twist of the knife, and showing that she had completely lost the plot, she then asked Hailee if she would be maid of honor at the wedding!

That was the last straw. Hailee slapped Sadie across the cheek just as hard as she could. It was the first time that they had ever fought violently. Their stunned mother immediately ordered Hailee out of the house and concentrated all her attention on treating the reddening handprint on Sadie's cheek.

Hailee left the house and, not knowing what else to do, she decided to wait a while before returning to her home, so she checked into a motel for the night.

After a fitful night of sleep, she returned home the next day to find the house as empty as her marriage had been and as lonely as her heart felt. She went into her room and packed a suitcase with clothes from her bedroom closet and dresser.

She thought about writing a note to her husband but decided that the cheating bastard didn't deserve any more of her time.

Hailee left the house without looking back. She stopped by the bank and withdrew a good part of her savings, but not nearly all of it, as it was too large of an amount to carry around. She knew that her settlement was safe from her husband as she had taken a friend's advice and kept it in a separate account that no one else knew about.

She had further protected the funds by never revealing to Allen just how much she had received in the settlement with the trucking company. He believed that, after paying off their home, she had very little left, as she didn't buy a new car, or any other extravagance.

Hailee got in her car and started heading north. She drove for hours stopping only for fuel. When she started encountering some snowy weather, she left the interstate and turned east on a highway that paralleled I-40, then continued on. The driving conditions steadily became worse, and she contemplated pulling over, but there was nowhere to safely stop and rest. So reluctantly, she drove on.

CHAPTER THREE:

Ashley Broke walked into a restaurant on the outskirts of a small farming community in Tennessee. She sat at an empty table pulling the wallet out of her purse. Opening it, she fumbled through the compartment that contained her cash. Twenty-three dollars in notes and some change was not going to be enough to pay for a motel room, so it looked to Ashley as if she would be spending another night in the car. But she was very grateful that this car had more room than the one in which she had started this long and unplanned trip.

Looking around the restaurant she saw that it was full of customers. Maybe fifteen or twenty of them. Then she noticed a 'help wanted' sign on the register.

Hoping to maybe get a job, she tried looking for restaurant staff, only to discover that there were no waitresses at all. The only person who seemed to be working, was the cook.

Paying close attention, she found he would come out to take an order, then he would run back and cook it. From there he would rush back out and deliver the meal. Then he would go to the next table in line and repeat the process.

As busy as they were, and as slow as this process seemed to be, she was surprised everyone didn't just get up and walk out.

After a few minutes, Ashley rose and walked to the register. She found a ticket book and put it in her pocket with a pen. Then she went to the table that she figured had been there the longest and took their order.

She wrote it out on the ticket, and then pinned it to the cook's wheel. "Order up!" she called out, then turned and proceeded to get their drinks, missing the stunned look of surprise on the cook's face.

After delivering the drinks, she picked up the most recently prepared order, delivered their meal, and went to start the process with the next table in line.

About thirty minutes later, she not only looked like she had been working there all her life, but the dismal feeling within the restaurant had evaporated and people were smiling and even laughing.

~~~

The cook had given her a bemused look when she first brought him an order, but soon accepted her help and just continued cooking.

She'd started about 7am that morning, and by 1pm the place was empty, and all but one of the tables were cleaned. Ashley was exhausted and finally had an opportunity to sit down and take a break.

She poured herself a hot cup of coffee with ice water, sat at a table that she had just finished cleaning, and tried NOT to think about why she was waiting tables a three-day drive from the only home she had ever known.

Something that she did realize, as she sat and rested, was that the last few hours were the only time she had felt good, important, and mostly needed, in a very long time.

~~~

Kyle Bender, watched the strange woman just show up at the cook's wheel and place a ticket on it, before calling out, "order up." He thought about running her off, but he really needed the help and admired the woman's initiative, tenacity and strength of character. It was amazing.

He watched her very closely and noticed she didn't ring any of the funds she had collected for the meals into the register, but she spent a lot of time on the calculator that was next to it. He briefly thought that she intended to keep the money, but then dismissed the idea as she didn't seem the type.

He didn't know her name or anything about her. In fact, he had never laid eyes on her in his life and, as he knew almost everyone in the small farming town he grew up in, he thought the only explanation was that 'She must be just passing through.'

When she stopped working to take the first break she had all day, Kyle stopped cleaning the kitchen, grabbed a cup of coffee for himself and joined her at the table.

"Hi, I'm Kyle."

"Hey... Ashley, Ashley Broke."

Kyle noticed the slight hesitation as she told him her name, but after a short silence, he spoke again.

"Thank you for the help. I really needed it."

She nodded as she looked up at him, and he couldn't help but see the extreme sadness in her eyes.

"I have all the receipts for you, as well as all the money for the food. I am not a thief, I promise, but I don't know how to use the register. I was just hungry and thought you might need some help. I'll pay for the coffee ..." she rambled on.

"Hush, hush Ashley. The coffee is on me, as well as anything you might want to eat. I very much appreciate your help."

"You're welcome. I liked working here for the day. Thank you for not running me off."

Kyle smiled at her again and asked, "Do you want a job?"

She flinched at that, and her heart raced. She hadn't found a branch of the bank she had all her funds in, so she would certainly need a job, and she couldn't use her real name.

"I could use the work."

"Great, you can start this morning," he said, trying to lighten the mood with humor, but she could only manage a wan smile.

"The lot next to the... well, the motel. Do you think I could park my car there for the night?"

"You can park it inside the motel's lot, just pick a place, the motel isn't that busy these days."

Ashley blushed, "I sort of need to sleep in it tonight. I don't..." she stopped talking when he vigorously started shaking his head.

"No, you're not sleeping in the car. I'll get you a room next door."

"I have no money to pay you."

"It's on me then."

Ashley took a moment, trying to calm her racing heart. It would be the first shower she had in several very long days. She nodded her head.

"Thank you so much."

"That being settled, do you feel up to working the afternoon shift. We don't close until seven tonight."

"Yes, I don't mind. But may I take a quick shower first. You know, before it gets busy?"

"I will get you a key."

Ashley smiled.

Kyle rose and walked to the register. He pulled out a key. It wasn't a key card, but a genuine door key attached to a plastic tab with the number fourteen on it. Then he brought it to her.

"Here you go Ashley. If you hurry, I can feed you before it gets busy, but they will start coming in about four this afternoon."

After thanking her benefactor, Ashley left the restaurant and went out to her car, moving it to the parking space in front of room fourteen. She then jumped out excitedly, grabbed her bags, and unlocked the door to her room.

It was clean, at least, though it smelled a bit musty. She made her way to the bathroom and turned on the shower, surprised when it started pumping out steaming hot water almost immediately. She quickly stripped off and stepped under the water. Between the hot water cascading down her soft skin and the day's work, she could feel some of her self-worth coming back.

~~~

Noting her hesitation when she introduced herself, Kyle suspected that Ashley Broke wasn't her real name and decided to adopt a 'trust but verify' approach. He quickly found the receipts for the day and tallied them, then counted out the money she had given him and found the receipts were off by about twenty percent. She had given him more money than she had made in sales.

He thought about it for a moment, then realized that she had not held out her tips. She included them in the funds she had given him. "Why?" he thought, remembering her telling him that she had no money for a motel.

He took the extra cash (a little over twenty percent) and put it in an envelope. He wrote Ashley's tips on it, then slid it into his shirt pocket. After taking care of that task, he went back to work, trying to contain his emotions. It was always difficult at this time of day because it was when he felt his loss the most!! He usually coped by losing himself in work, and tonight was steak night. It always drew a crowd, so he could normally put aside the self-pity and morbid reflections to get the restaurant ready.

He placed an exorbitant number of potatoes in the oven for baking. Then he peeled, cut, and dropped more of the tubers in boiling water. Many of his customers preferred real mashed potatoes rather than that instant rubbish.

As he continued his prep work, he couldn't help but think of the really cute young woman at his wheel earlier. She hadn't noticed that he kept an eye on the wheel, smiling every time she attached another order or collected plates of food for distribution. He noticed her eyes seemed so sad, so full of hurt. But she had a smile on her face that she wore well. What impressed him most was her ability to make people smile, and even laugh, each time she walked by a table.