do not be overly concerned.”
Her heart’s naturally slow rhythm shifted like a souped-up Humvee. Her cardiac monitor beeped into high gear. Someone leaned past the bed and turned down the volume.
“There is nothing to fear,” the kindly doctor promised.
Fear? There was no way this pounding of her heart was a sign of fear. She’d been calm when she’d photographed the execution of Saddam Hussein. She’d never broken a sweat when her World View crew had come under guerrilla fire in Somalia, and not even a close encounter with Brad and Angelina in a Parisian restaurant had made Erin’s pulse quicken.
No, she’d survived the worst fear had to offer at nine years old, when her drunken father had beat her mother to death. Since then there hadn’t been a threat Erin couldn’t look in the eye while she kept a steady hand on the shutter release.
“May I have a sip of water?”
“I’ll do it,” Daniel’s daughter insisted, shuffling closer to the bed, rattling more ice into the cup and angling a straw into Erin’s mouth.
The liquid was a cool blessing. She curved her lips in a smile of gratitude.
“What was the last thing you recall seeing before your convoy was ambushed?” Dr. Agawa made conversation as he helped to gently raise her head away from the mattress.
“Actually, not much. We were in the middle of an Iraqi sandstorm. Our battalion had pulled to the side of the road outside of Kirkuk to wait for it to pass. The center of those storms is as black as any darkness you’ve ever encountered. So, we never saw it coming.”
Scissors snipped through thick tape and confident hands unwound the long strips that secured soft pads to her eyelids. As she waited for the pressure of the bandages to abate, a warm hand covered her fingers that had gone cold and trembling with anticipation.
Would her eyesight be the price she paid for the talent that had earned her a Pulitzer prize? Had her bizarre drive to validate her life’s purpose by capturing a miracle on film come to a fruitless end?
“Ms. Gray, please be patient and keep your eyes shut for a moment longer.”
The compresses fell away revealing a sense of light just beyond her closed lids. Then darkness covered her face as the florescent fixtures were extinguished.
“Open your eyes and look toward the ceiling, please,” he instructed.
Fluttering her eyelids was wonderful, like a good stretch after a long flight. But as a bright penlight was shone into first one eye and then the other, it was impossible to make out anything. The doctor agreeably mumbled to himself in Japanese before instructing the nurse to turn on the overhead lights one at a time. With the first flash, Erin squinted to adjust to the brightness, then looked in the direction of the person holding her hand.
The tall gentleman beside her was even more handsome than the skinny boy she remembered so well. The heart monitor began to beep loudly again. Daniel reminded her of a grinning but blurry George Strait. Quite something.
The second switch was snapped on and more light filled the room. Erin’s eyes cut left and right to find the fuzzy faces of the doctor and nurse who still supported her shoulders. When the final bank of bulbs glowed overhead, she turned her attention to the foot of the bed and focused hard on the girl dressed all in black, glints of silver dangling from her ears. Dana hugged herself with crossed arms that did nothing to disguise a body well-developed at a young age. As Erin found clear spots in her vision, she looked for signs of Daniel’s tanned good looks in his daughter. Instead she noted fair skin, a high forehead, a pointed chin and what looked like spikes of purple sprouting from her head.
As Erin’s squint locked on a dark gaze, her breathing stopped and her stomach quaked low in her abdomen. She knew those eyes. Up close there would be flecks of gold.
Erin was a little girl again, hiding with her sleeping baby brother in a dark pantry that smelled of rotting onions. Her mother’s screams had mercifully ended hours before but Erin had remained paralyzed, didn’t dare to make their presence known. Not even to the people who had finally come to help, the adults who were calling her name.
Suddenly the door swung open and amber eyes with glints of gold glared down from her big sister’s face. Her look was as accusing as her words.
“I knew you’d be in your hiding place, you little coward! You didn’t do anything to help Mama. Daddy finally killed her!”
Erin blinked, expecting her eyes and imagination were deceiving her addled brain. But the proof stood a few feet away and bore no resemblance to Daniel. From what Erin could make out, hair color was the only physical trait she’d passed on to her daughter. The rest of the girl was the mirror image of Erin’s older sister.
Alison.
“How soon can I get out of here?” Erin asked J.D. the moment Daniel and Dana left the room to give her some privacy with her boss.
Her Pillsbury Doughboy of a bureau chief was all smiles to see her sitting upright, her eyes unfettered by the bandages. But she was far from enjoying the blurry images around her. The very thought of being so needy and at the mercy of others, even in a hospital, made her insides shiver. Living with troops in Iraq was a whole lot easier than letting someone else call the shots or take control of her life.
“Take it easy, Wonder Woman. You’re still looking at another week here, then once they’re satisfied with your vitals and blood work, they’ll release you to a rehab facility.”
Rehab facility. The term conjured up dingy images of an institution filled with those who needed caregivers.
“Not if I can help it,” she murmured.
“There’s always the option of going to Texas with Daniel and Dana. They’re sincere about this, you know. It’s all that girl has talked about for days.”
Erin closed her eyes against the thought, reflecting instead on all the injuries she had to overcome.
“Let me make sure I got it all straight.” She began to recite her list of traumas. “My right arm was half blown off but thankfully reattached and though I’m going to survive my fingers may not. My pelvis is bruised, but not broken so that’s reason to be thankful. My corneas are healing but who knows whether or not I’ll be able to focus a camera lens again. The concussion from the IED generally produces long-term memory issues so I’m lucky I know my own name.” She paused to consider her circumstances, grateful to be alive but beginning to feel the anger of having lost control of her destiny.
“Oh, and the only viable option to my apartment is a nursing home.”
“It’s called a rehab facility,” J.D. countered.
“That’s code for smelly, depressing nursing home and we both know it.” Though it was shameful it felt amazingly good to gripe a little now that her voice was back.
“Erin, your frustration is understandable. Anyone in your condition would need to vent.” He squeezed her hand again. J.D. oozed calm and patience, traits he’d never displayed in the ten years she’d covered assignments for World View. His kindness didn’t make her feel any better. In fact, it made the few hair follicles that weren’t taped to her skin prickle with worry.
“Sooooo,”
