Part 3
Leah stayed beside the desk until Keene had disappeared into the elevator. When Tessa asked her a question, she had to ask to hear it again.
She finished the medication round. She checked Sadie, sleeping beneath the lounge blanket. Then she waited until the hallway had settled and the clock above the station showed one.
Owen was awake when she entered. She could have guessed that without opening the door.
She pulled the visitor’s chair close enough that he couldn’t look toward the window without seeing her.
“Tell me about Daniel.”
His hand tightened on the sheet.
“Please don’t make me keep guessing.”
Owen looked at her then, directly, with none of the careful politeness he had been using for days.
“He found me in a drainage ditch.”
He spoke slowly at first. His leg had been injured. He couldn’t get up the bank, and the ground above him was taking fire. The helicopter had come down where it had no business landing.
Daniel had jumped out.
“He was smiling,” Owen said. “I remember being mad about that. Thought he didn’t understand what was happening.”
Daniel understood. He got Owen onto his back and ran.
It was roughly fifty yards to the helicopter. Owen remembered the jolting of each step, the grip of Daniel’s arm across his legs, the open door getting closer.
“He was hit three steps away. I felt him stumble.” Owen swallowed. “He didn’t put me down.”
Leah’s hands were folded so tightly that her wedding band pressed into the next finger.
Once aboard, Daniel had worked on Owen’s wounded leg while his own strength failed. He had talked about the hospital, about his wife waiting there.
“He told me, ‘Leah’s there. You’ll be all right with her.’”
Owen stopped. She could hear him trying to take a breath that didn’t hurt his ribs.
“They put me in the other bay,” he said. “I heard you asking him to stay.”
Leah looked at the curtain beside Owen’s bed. Its little plastic hooks were evenly spaced along the track.
He reached for a notepad on his tray. It took him a moment to find the pen. He bent over the page, wrote a short line, and placed it in front of her.
In friendship, in Daniel’s memory.
She knew the rounded letters, the careful spacing, the way the final stroke lifted.
“The chaplain agreed to help me,” Owen said. “I didn’t know how to send anything without making you answer for it.”
“You’ve been doing this all that time?”
He nodded.
“Every month.”
She pressed her fingertips against the paper, then pulled them back.
“They’re all in a box. Every money order. I haven’t used any of them.”
He said nothing.
“I couldn’t bear some stranger deciding I needed his pity. Or needing me to make him feel better.” Her voice rose, and she fought to lower it. “I needed Daniel. Not this.”
Owen took that without turning away.
“You’re holding Daniel’s share.”
She stared at him.
“That’s how I’ve always counted it,” he said. “What he should’ve been bringing home. He brought me back instead. That money was never something I could keep.”
Leah stood abruptly. The chair scraped hard against the floor.
Owen’s hand moved toward her, then settled on the blanket.
She left the paper on his tray.
In the lounge, Sadie had rolled onto her side. One curl had caught around the toy stethoscope. Her fist held the tag beneath her chin.
Leah untangled the curl without waking her, then lowered herself to the floor beside the couch. The cushion smelled faintly of laundry soap and the crackers Sadie had eaten earlier.
She rested her cheek against it.
She could see Daniel leaning out of the helicopter, waiting for her to look up. She could see the shoebox beneath her bed. Somewhere down the hall, Owen was alone with a notepad she hadn’t known how to give back.
Beverly found her after two.
The older nurse sat with a small groan and stretched one leg in front of her. For a while she said nothing.
“The envelopes,” Leah whispered. “They’re his.”
Beverly looked toward the sleeping child.
“All this time?”
Leah nodded.
“Four years of silence is a long time to grieve somebody,” Beverly said.
Leah rubbed her palms over her eyes.
A detail from Owen’s chart kept intruding. During his first two days, he had refused the injections prescribed to prevent blood clots. He’d objected to being stuck in the belly, insisted that he didn’t need them. Leah had documented the refusals and notified the doctor each time.
They had finally persuaded him on the third day.
She could still hear his impatient voice dismissing the risk.
Down the corridor, Owen turned off the television he hadn’t been watching.
Beyond the window, lights blinked over the pine woods. His team was flying another night exercise. He knew the timing of those moving lights, knew what the men aboard would be doing as they approached the range.
He wanted a better view.
The call button rested beside his wrist. He looked at it, then reached for the crutches instead.
Getting upright took longer than he expected. His ribs protested. His ankle throbbed inside the postoperative splint. He waited, balanced on his good leg, until he could move safely toward the window.
Outside, the lights circled beyond the trees.
He leaned close to the glass.
The pain struck deep in his chest. He tried to inhale and got almost nothing. His fingers slipped on the crutch grips.
One crutch hit the bedrail. The other clattered across the floor as he went down.
Leah heard the crash from the lounge.
She was running before Beverly had risen from her chair.
Owen lay below the window, one hand pressed to his chest. His mouth was open, but he couldn’t pull in air. Leah dropped beside him and reached for his shoulder.
“Owen. Stay here.”
His eyes caught hers. Then they lost focus.
She felt for a pulse in his neck.
Nothing.
Leah struck the emergency button and shouted through the doorway.
“Code blue! Fourteen!”
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