back the duvet comforter, she swung both feet to the plush carpet. Her body trembled. The soft whoosh of the heating unit was the only sound in the quiet Southside villa. Weary and heartsick, she went into the bathroom and flicked on the light. After a moment of blindness she found a glass, ran it full of water and drank deeply. The reflection in the mirror looked wild, dark hair tangled around a pale face.
“Oh, Drew,” she whispered to the mirror. “What did I do? What happened?”
With grim determination, she swallowed hard against the ache in her throat, pushing back the tears. She couldn’t keep doing this. She had to get hold of her emotions long enough to think things through.
She’d had no idea anything was wrong until the phone call. She loved him. Six months ago when he was home, everything had been as good as ever. Before he left for Iraq, he’d held her such a long time and told her how much he loved and needed her.
And now this.
“Jesus. Dear Jesus.”
Hands braced on the sink, she squeezed her eyes tight and did the only thing she knew to do. She prayed. For Drew’s safety, first and always. For their bewilderingly troubled marriage. For her breaking heart.
But this time the usual sense of peace evaded her. Her emotions were too raw and confused.
She returned to the bedroom, certain she’d slept her last. As she slipped beneath the petal-soft sheets, the phone rang.
A frightful pounding in her temples started up. A call at this time of night could not be good news.
She picked up the receiver and said, “Hello?”
And the nightmare began again. Only this time, she was awake.
Chapter Two
Drew hurt everywhere. His head, his leg, his back, his guts. Even his hair hurt.
He tried to open his eyes but they were too heavy. The drugs, he supposed. Drugs were good, but they didn’t eliminate the pain. They only made him stupid, too groggy to form an intelligent sentence, too relaxed to care.
The first time he’d awakened after the blast, he’d been in a helicopter. The whump, whump, whump had sent him into violent tremors. Shock, the docs in Germany said.
Well yes, he was shocked. Getting blown up wasn’t on his list of fun things to do.
He wondered where his cameras were.
“Mr. Michaels.” A male voice penetrated the haze. Someone lifted his wrist and felt his pulse. Hard, strong fingers. He wanted the voice to go away but figured he’d slept his allotted quota for the day.
Around this place fifteen minutes was tops before someone else came along to poke, prod or wheel him off to radiology. He’d been scanned and x-rayed so much he probably glowed in the dark. A radioactive photographer.
Funny. He had a brief image of using the glow from his body as available light to snap photos. All good photographers experimented with different light sources. And he was good. Really good. Everybody said so. Especially Larissa. She thought he was wonderful.
Larissa. The sharpest pain yet hit him.
Did she know how much he loved her? Did she know he was hurt? He hoped not. She’d be upset. He’d already caused her enough trouble.
The floaty feeling came back and he leaned into it, ready to go where it led. Thinking of Larissa hurt too much to remain conscious.
“Mr. Michaels.”
With an inner sigh, Drew resurfaced and managed to raise his eyelids. Squinting at the bright light and too-white room, he saw his tormenter. A doctor. But he wasn’t sure which one. That was one of the problems he’d been having. His memory wasn’t as good as it used to be. Things were a little fuzzy. His head hurt. A lot.
“I’ve never been in a hospital,” he grumbled.
“So you told me.”
He had?
Eyes wider now, he focused on the physician’s name badge. Dr. Pascal. Neurology. “When can I get out of here?”
The doctor sidestepped the question with one of his own. “How’s the vision? Any more problems?”
Drew’s gut lurched. He didn’t like thinking about the hours of blackness that had surrounded him after the blast. “Twenty-twenty.”
“Let’s have a look.”
Drew wondered who let’s was. Doctors all seemed to speak as if they were polymorphic. The God complex, he supposed.
His own drug-twisted humor amused him, but in truth, if he looked at the doc too long, he saw more than one. He sobered instantly. There was nothing funny about that.
Two were better than none, but still…
Dr. Pascal’s thick fingers stretched Drew’s eyelids apart while shining a pin light back and forth. Back and forth. The doc smelled like mouthwash and antiseptic soap.
“No more episodes of blindness? Double vision? Blurriness?”
“Some,” he admitted, hating the truth but figuring the doc should know. “How long before it goes away for good?”
“No way to tell. You sustained a pretty nasty concussion, but the CAT scan didn’t indicate anything permanent. If you’re lucky, this will be gone by the time you are dismissed.”
He’d only been lucky once in his life. The day he’d found Larissa. And look how that turned out.
If luck was required to heal his vision, he was in deep trouble.
The jitters in his belly turned to earthquakes. His eyes were everything. A photographer had to see and see clearly.
“Anything you can do for it?”
“Time.” The doc fingered something on the bedside table. “And divine intervention, if you believe in such things.”
Drew raised his pounding head ever so slightly and saw the doctor holding the small pewter fish he usually wore on a leather string around his neck. His hand went to his throat. He never liked to be without it. Someone had been thoughtful enough to realize that.
“I’m not a religious man.”
He saw no point in explaining to the doc or anyone else that the ichthus was his only link to the past and to the brothers he hadn’t seen in more than twenty years. Other than this small reminder, he had nothing. He didn’t even know where they were.
Like Larissa, his brothers were gone.
Something deep inside him began to ache. He wished the morphine would kick in again.
The memory of his two brothers, of that last day in the school counselor’s office sometimes overwhelmed him, especially when he was weak or sick or overtired.
Times
