Paradise Valley

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She bit her lip and nodded reluctantly; he could just imagine how crappy that made her feel, but Jack couldn’t be sure how Rick was going to take to either one of them being here. Logically, he should want his closest people near him. But getting blown up and waking up in a hospital ward could skew someone’s sense of logic something fierce.

It was a small ward, only six beds. But six where there should only be four. Hospitals catering to the war-wounded were crowded, even with the number of wounded decreased. He spotted Rick right off—a white bandage wrapped around his head, his face cut and scraped, a bandaged stump where there had been a right leg. He wore green scrub pants, the right leg cut off, no shirt and his sheet was kicked away. There was a surgical bandage on his side; the spleenectomy, Jack assumed. An IV dangled above him; Jack hoped there was plenty of morphine in it.

He looked around; green walls, white linoleum floors, that hospital smell of disinfectant and medicine. There was a guy in a circular bed with pins in his skull, a guy with a thigh-high cast on one leg, another sitting up in bed who looked for all the world to be uninjured, though there was a wheelchair beside his bed, a young man with his arm in an elevated cast level with his shoulder and a man flat on his back, in traction. And Rick. It was clearly an orthopedics ward. Jack nodded at the other patients as he entered and they returned the nod, grim-faced. Right away he knew, they weren’t angry—it was that Rick was the newest patient and they were waiting to see what happened next.

He stared down at the boy and saw the tears on his cheeks and his mouth parted in a dark slit as he took breaths slowly and deeply.

“Rick?” he said softly.

Rick’s eyes opened. “Jack,” he said in a whisper.

“You have a lot of pain, son?”

He winced and nodded, squeezing out another tear.

“Did they tell you about your condition?” Jack asked him.

He nodded. “When did it happen?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.

“’Bout a day ago. They got you right up here. You’re out of Iraq, you’re in Germany. You know where you are, son?”

Rick gritted his teeth and nodded.

“Remember anything?” Jack asked.

“I…Ah…I remember someone screaming at me. He kept saying don’t you give up, don’t you quit. Fucker. I ever see him again, I’m going to kill him.”

Jack felt himself almost laugh; at least he had fight in him.

“I brought Liz.”

Rick’s eyes came open instantly. “No,” he said in a breath. “No.”

“If I hadn’t brought her, she was going to try to make it on her own. She needs to see you’re okay, Rick.”

“I don’t want her here! Just get her out of here!”

“Listen,” Jack said, leaning over the bed. “I could no more leave her behind than—”

As Jack put a hand down on the mattress beside Rick, Rick let go a howl of pain that nearly shook the walls. Jack jumped back in shock and fear, but Rick just kept screaming and flailing around. The nurse was beside the bed instantly. “I didn’t touch anything,” Jack said apologetically.

The nurse ignored him and just talked to Rick. “Deep breaths, I’m upping the drip a little. Deep breaths, hang on, it’ll kick in right away. Come on now, just breathe.” Still, it took a moment for Rick to calm down. The howling ended with some soft whimpering that finally gave way to a couple of moans.

The nurse turned toward Jack. “Did you sit on the bed?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “I leaned a hand on the bed, but I wasn’t anywhere near him.”

“Phantom pain,” she said. “You probably leaned your hand where the leg used to be. It’s spooky, but it’s the real deal. He felt it and it hurt.”

“Jesus.”

“Better if you just don’t touch anything. The first forty-eight hours are real rocky, but it’s going to get better. Is this your first experience with an amputee?”

“Yeah,” Jack said weakly.

“I have some pamphlets. Why don’t you take a couple of hours to look through the literature. I think he’s going to rest for a while now. I just gave him a nice boost.”

Jack followed her to the nurses’ station, glad to see someone was willing to be helpful to him there. When Liz saw them leave the ward together, she was immediately tailing them. Jack turned and asked her to give him just a minute with the nurse and continued on, leaving her behind. The nurse handed him some pamphlets and he asked, “You take care of a lot of these guys?”

“Full-time,” she said with a little nod of her head.

“Help me out with something here,” Jack said. “I just told him I brought his girl and he freaked out. Told me to get her out of here. Right up to the injury, there was no problem between him and the girl.”

She frowned. “Reactions like that usually come later, after the reality settles in. This soon after the injury, patients are just being stabilized, they’re struggling with the pain and trying to get a fix on what their condition is. His response might be connected to pain and drugs. But later…Not too unusual, I’m sorry to say. Some men and women adjust so well, it’s astonishing. Sometimes the new amputee is very needy, desperate for confirmation that he’s still worth loving. Sometimes he doesn’t even want to chance it, pushing loved ones away. There are a lot of psychological and emotional adjustments to go along with the physical. Everything from the pain and fear to self-esteem issues. You’re going to have to learn about all this, and be patient.”

“How long does that go on?” Jack asked. “The adjustment?”

“Purely individual. But you should see what you can learn about this for now. And maybe you can help get the young lady through it?”

“Aw crap, what am I going to tell her?”

“I always recommend you start with the truth. This isn’t an easy time for anyone. Try to watch those expectations. But you could tell her most of what the corporal is feeling is beyond his control. He’ll need help getting through it. And yet, he might resist help. It’s a contradictory process for some.”

“When are you going to get him up, out of bed?”

“We had him up, briefly. He didn’t like it. He’s still in a lot of pain.”

“God, I need my wife here.” In fact, he couldn’t remember a time he needed her quite this bad. “Thank you,” he said. “I’ll look through this stuff right away.”

He turned to go back to Liz. The second he noticed she didn’t seem to be where he’d left her, he heard the screaming. “Get out! Just get out of here! I don’t want you here! Go away! Get out!”

“Oh, Jesus,” he muttered, running for the ward. He stopped in the doorway and what he saw emptied him out inside. Liz stood beside Rick’s bed, her hands over her face, her beautiful long hair hanging down like a curtain, her shoulders quaking with her sobs while Rick nearly came off the bed, screaming at her. Jack moved quickly, put his arms around her and pulled her away. When they were back in the hall he held her against him protectively while she cried. He’d never felt so helpless in his life. It almost felt as though if he crouched down, he could scoop up the pieces of her broken heart off the floor.

The same nurse was beside them again. “I’m going to give him something to calm him down a little bit. And I’m going to tell him you’ve left the hospital for now. Let’s give him some space. Like I said, the first forty-eight hours are real rocky.”

“No shit,” Jack muttered. “Come on, honey,” he said, pulling Liz down the hall and away.

Jack took Liz as far as the main floor of the hospital where he found a quiet corner in the waiting room. He just held her hand while she cried. She whispered why why why breathlessly, sobbing almost uncontrollably. It was a long time before she could stop long enough to ask, “Why did he tell me to go away? Why?”

Jack squeezed her hand. “We’re not going to talk about what just happened until you calm down and we’re out of here. We need quiet. Privacy. Take your time.”

“I just don’t understand,” she whimpered.

“Lots of things are going to be hard to understand,” he said, giving her hair a stroke. “And if you think I have any inside track on this, you’re going to be disappointed.” He showed her the pamphlets the nurse had given him. “We have some reading to do, and some talking to do. Then we need food and sleep. Can’t stay on top of this emotional roller coaster without those two things.”

An hour later they were seated in a restaurant eating bratwurst, potatoes and kraut. Jack was having a very tall beer, and Liz, a glass of water with her meal. She picked at her food, her stomach upset. She seemed to be barely holding it together and every so often a tear would escape and roll pathetically down her cheek. Her fingers continually wandered to that diamond pendant necklace Rick had given her, the promise diamond.

“I’m not sure the best way to handle this,” Jack said. “Here’s my idea. See if you agree with it. I’ll go back tomorrow and spend some time with him. I won’t mention what happened until he turns the corner on the pain a little more. We can’t take too much personally while he’s on such heavy drugs. Might be he comes out of that drug haze and feels a little more in control.”

“And if he doesn’t? What if he won’t see me?” she asked, and as she spoke, her eyes filled up with tears again.

“Like I said, we’ll get through the influence of anesthesia and pain drugs before we revisit the issue. We can’t really judge his feelings while he’s on that morphine planet. But he’ll get used to the morphine pretty quick and it won’t make him insane anymore. Then he’ll see you. He will. The nurse said this sort of thing happens a lot, but usually later on. Some patients get real clingy, need a lot of reassurance that they’re still lovable, some actually have such an inferiority complex about their body image, they push loved ones away. Like they don’t deserve love even when it’s offered.”

“Why couldn’t he be a clingy one?” she said softly.

Jack actually laughed. “Rick? We both know why. Because he’s too damn proud for his own good, that’s why. Liz, honey, there’s no reason Rick can’t have a completely full, productive life. There’s almost nothing a guy with a prosthetic limb can’t do. I’ve seen news stories on guys with fake legs running marathons. And Rick will learn, he will. He’ll do whatever he wants…eventually. But if I know my boy, he’s going to be a giant pain in the ass getting there.”

She laughed through some tears.

“Mel told me this story. She said it was too soon to tell Rick, and she didn’t know the half of that. She said she worked with a doctor in the emergency room back in L.A. for a year before she realized he had a prosthetic leg. She never did say how she found out. I don’t know what you know about big-city trauma centers, but those docs have to be fast and strong and steady. And I don’t know how well you know Mel, but she’s demanding as all hell. If she worked with a doc who didn’t pull his weight in any way, she’d be all over him.” He took a drink of his beer. “Yeah, she didn’t know about the guy’s leg for a year. What does that tell you?”

“There’s hope?”

“You bet. But, Liz, it isn’t going to be easy on Rick. He’s dealing with way more than just the leg—he’s been to war. And if it’s not easy on Rick, it’s not going to be easy on us. What do you think of my idea? We give him a little time to settle down? Get through the drug haze before we push on him? We don’t need another crazy outburst.”

“I guess that’s okay,” she said. “I’m sorry, Jack. I’m so disappointed.”

“Aw, honey, I know. Believe me, I never saw that coming.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t help by being here. I thought he’d be glad to know how much I love him.”

“I bet when we’re through the worst of this, he will be.”

She was shaking her head. “I don’t know.”

“My idea?” Jack pushed. “You’ll have some time on your hands. I don’t think you should try to see him until the timing is better. Not just for him, honey. For you, too.”

“But I want to go with you. I won’t go in his room until he says it’s okay, but I want to be there. In case.”

“You sure the temptation won’t be too strong?” he asked her. “Because I think until we get a little stability here, you shouldn’t even peek in the room.”

“I’ll stay in the waiting room downstairs. I brought my backpack with school stuff. And they have a TV—I saw an English news program on it. I’ll try to be patient. I promise.”

“Good for you. You done eating? We can share this reading material. And I want you to get some rest so you can deal with these ups and downs.”

“Okay,” she said with a small smile.

Two hours later, Jack stepped outside the hotel and used his cell phone to call Mel. It was nine hours earlier in California and she was at the clinic. When she answered, he just said, “Baby.”

“Jack! Did you see him?”

He took a breath. “Mel, he’s going to recover. But it was the worst experience of my life. I shouldn’t have brought Liz. He took her apart. Ripped her heart out.”

Over his thirty-five-year military career, Walt Booth had seen hundreds of injured soldiers. He’d made dozens and dozens of goodwill visits to hospitals; he’d attended many wheelchair-basketball games and races. He had nothing but respect and admiration for the men and women who turned their physical disabilities into productive lives.

But something about Rick Sudder’s injuries got to him. He didn’t even know Rick that well. It was probably all about the timing. Walt’s son was army now. Rick and Tom were only a year apart in age and had become friends. Sometimes when Walt thought about Rick coming home with one leg, he got confused in his mind and pictured Tom. He hated that. It cost him sleep. There was no logical reason for it. Tom was tucked away at West Point, working his butt off, studying day and night, not in a war zone.

He knew he was affected, that it showed on him. Vanni had asked him if he was all right and he admitted the truth—thinking about that strong and vital young man dealing with an injury like this was working on him, grieving him. Muriel had asked him what was wrong in one of their phone calls and he laid it out for her—Jack and Liz had gone to Germany to be there for Rick when he was waking up after surgery and he worried about all of them. “This war is a hellish business,” he had said. “And, Muriel, there’s always a war somewhere. That was my life’s work, staying on top of the wars. And Rick, he’s such a nice young man. So proud and dedicated. I hate to think of his suffering.”

She’d been so lovely in her response, consoling him, praising his sensitivity. But what he really wanted was to wrap his arms around her and hold her close. He had no idea how long it would be until he could do that again.

They didn’t even talk every day. When he called her, he almost always got her voice mail; when she called him, it was usually very early or very late. Sometimes she called him while she was on the treadmill, killing two birds with one stone, and the huffing and puffing was too annoying for him to listen to.

He soldiered on. It was what he was trained to do. The bar in Virgin River was a little sparse and quiet these days, but he dropped by to see if there was any news from Jack. Sometimes he had dinner with Vanni, Paul and Abby at their house. And he tended Muriel’s horses twice a day, letting them into the corral after feeding them, mucking their stalls, brushing them down, checking their hooves.