No. Every thought, from my arm itches to what am I going to do now? was suspended on hooks over a dark sea. There was what was happening, then it got snagged on what happened.
What was happening: Thirty steel pins in my leg the previous afternoon. An indefinite stay. A view of the parking lot.
What happened: That morning Gomez showed the British officers that they were cleaning dishes wrong. They ended up squirting one another with bottles of soap.
I might walk, I might not. Two more people in scrubs had looked over the doctor’s clipboard when he said that yesterday, then to my leg, then back to the clipboard.
Our room with the crummy wood paneling, shaving mirror standing on the green table, the exposed pipes, blankets folded in the corner where we’d left them, would be empty.
Frankie was gone.
An army nurse in Germany had told me he was gone. There was a knock on the door frame.
Rooster was gone, too. The volleyball team would have to find new players.
The door was always open here. Just in case.
Ahmad, the eight-year-old who loved to serve and dive after wild hits, would be asking where we were today.
“Private Morrow?”
I turned my head on the pillow. A gray-haired man stood in the doorway. “Yes, sir.”
“Lieutenant Colonel Ray Yarvis, Medical Service Corps. Welcome to Brooke.”
I brought a stiff arm up to salute. He returned it. “Every new intake gets assigned a social worker, and I’m your guy.”
He sat, bending over a paunch, and took in the damage. He had deep lines around his mouth and eyes, which were a silvery, pool-water blue. He had a two-packs-a-day voice, just like the guy who ran the lotto booth at Mort’s, the corner shop in Buda. He was the first person here to look me in the eye.
“I do this job because I’ve been where you are. Served two tours in Vietnam, now walking on a titanium foot.” He pointed to his left shin. “Anything you feel you can’t ask your doctors, you tell me. You pissed at the army? You tell me. I’m your buffer.”
I tried to bring some moisture to my mouth. “Did they tell you if I’m going to walk again?”
“I think you are.”
“Yeah, but—”
He held up a chubby hand. “If they said maybe, they’re just covering their butts. Judging by other men I’ve seen with pins, I bet you’ll be up in a few weeks.”
For a minute, I came up out of the haze. “That’s good.”
“We’ll talk more, but there are people waiting outside to see you.”
“What people?” I grew a dim, stupid hope. Someone from my company. Captain Grayson. Frankie, not dead after all.
“Your people.” He nodded to the door. “Your kid brother and folks.”
“Oh. Yeah.”
“You sure? I can tell them you pressed the morphine button too hard.”
A laugh escaped. “No. Thank you, sir.”
He stood with a grunt. “Okay, Morrows,” he called. “You can come on in.”
The first to enter was Hailey, elephant-walking JJ, who was clinging to her leg, his light-up sneakers balanced on one of her sandaled feet. Then Jake, scooting past her holding a Dr Pepper and a Sports Illustrated.
I didn’t know whether to be elated or just pretend I was asleep. I wasn’t ready. I was still knee-deep in Afghan quicksand and Frankie’s dead eyes and the horde of woodpeckers that were hacking at my leg.
“Got you a DP,” Jake was saying. “They were out of everything except for that and orange soda.”
Jake had gotten me a DP. He’d not only driven from Buda to San Antonio with his wife and kid, he’d stopped at the vending machine. I wondered if it was out of pity, or the desire for reconciliation, or both. Either way I caught his eyes as I took the cold bottle, opening it to find it was the best Dr Pepper I’d ever tasted.
“Thank you, Jake,” I said, hoping whatever I was doing with my face resembled a smile. “It’s so good to see you.”
“You look like a stranger. Damn, they did a number on you, huh?” Jake replied.
“Just got out of another surgery yesterday,” I told him. The bullets had almost shattered my leg in two. It was saved by a metal plate, and five screws to hold my knee together.
Then I noticed Cassie slide in against the wall, eyes down, clutching her purse with white knuckles. She made a beeline for the bed, leaning over me for a light kiss on the cheek, her chest pressing mine.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
When she backed away from the bed, I noticed another body.