My heart is thudding in my chest and my ears are buzzing. I’m ready to pass out, but I have to hear the rest, and I’m too weak to even interrupt her.
“Her father did it. Just … tried to kill her. She’s got a couple of cracked ribs, but the worst of it was the internal bleeding. She has a lacerated liver and spleen, and they had to resect part of her abdominal aorta. She was in surgery for hours last night before they could get the bleeding under control. She had to have a blood transfusion, and they almost lost her a couple of times during the operation before they could control the bleeding. But Logan, she’s going to be okay.”
She’s going to be okay? She has to be okay!
“Now that she’s stable and her blood volume is good, they’re going to take her off sedation later tonight and let her wake up when she’s ready… Did you hear me? The doctors say that she’s going to make it. All of their tests show that the internal bleeding is now under control, and the cracked ribs didn’t shift, so her lungs are fine. She’s going to be hurting for a while though… But she’s going to make a full recovery.”
My mother has barely taken a breath since she started talking and neither have I. I’m holding my breath in stunned silence, my heart screaming in pain. I say the only thing I need to say before hanging up quickly. “I’ll be on the next flight. I’ll let you know when I land.”
And as I hang up, I catch her last comment. “I thought as much. We’ll see you soon.”
I walk hastily and numbly out the building without speaking to anyone. I speed to the airport without stopping at home to pack, and dump my Jeep in long-term parking. I stop at the ticket counter hoping God will cut me some slack. And he does. The next flight out is in an hour and will require only one fairly quick layover in Kansas City. I should be home by mid-evening. And as I slump into my seat on the airplane forty-five minutes later, the first tears start to prick my eyes.
Once in KC, I call my mom and let her know my flight number and arrival time. She hands the phone to Sara who is waiting with her at the hospital, and Sara spends the next couple of minutes sobbing into the phone as I try not to join her. I finally ask her to hand the phone back to mom, and when she does, I discover that my mom is now crying, too. I finally give up and tell her I’ll see her soon.
As I sit waiting to board in Kansas City, my mind starts to get away from me again. I can’t imagine what Rowan endured, but it must have been hell. What was she thinking going back there? What if she had died? I don’t think I could survive that. I’m in love with her, completely and utterly. How could I have ever left her? My life has been hell the past month and a half I’ve been away, and now I’ve nearly lost her. I’m not supposed to be apart from her, yet I live halfway across the country and am only returning because she nearly died. How truly fucked up has my life become?
The last leg of my flight is excruciatingly long, and my anxiety builds with each passing minute. I want to see her so desperately, but I’m terrified to see her, too. Seeing her hurt is hard. Seeing her when I don’t know if she’ll want to see me adds fear to my pain. And by the time I de-board in Grand Rapids, I’m trying to gulp down calming breaths of air to calm my body. My father picks me up at the curb, and in less than ten minutes we’re pulling in at the hospital. More calming breaths on the elevator ride up, and when we emerge Sara tackles me and the sob fest starts all over again. My mother eventually pulls her off of me, pulling me into a warm hug. She whispers that Rowan is sleeping, but I can go in and sit with her for a while. Sara immediately jumps up to go with me, but my mom quickly pulls her back and nods slightly at me to go on in. Thank God for my mom and her intuition.
I’m trembling as I approach her door, and as I make my way through and into the small room, I get my first glimpse of her, and I have to grasp the door frame of the bathroom door just to stay standing. She’s pale, her skin has the pallor of a dead person, ghostly white, and I have to remind myself she’s going to be okay. She looks so frail, and it adds to her terribly vulnerable appearance. This isn’t her. I fall apart and sink into the chair beside her bed.
I cry. I cry for her pain and what has been done to her. I cry for my own pain and the sadness of losing her. And as my tears slowly start to dry on my cheeks, I look to her again. I want to touch her so much, but I don’t want to disturb her. So I stare at her—taking in every last detail of her. Her hair has been chopped off, her left eye is swollen and bruised, and her right cheek is abraded. Her throat shows dark bruises where she’s obviously been choked. She’s gowned, but I know beneath her gown the beautiful body I used to worship so incessantly is covered in bruises where she was kicked and bandages and sutures where her body was opened up. Her slender fingers and frail hand are dwarfed by the tubes of the IV line attached to the top of it. She is breathing gently, and her face, though bruised and injured, is peaceful. She’s beautiful—broken and battered, still the most beautiful woman in the world to me—the only woman in the world for me.
I stare at her for what seems like forever. I study every bruise, every swollen spot of skin, every cut and abrasion, and as I look at every visible part of her body, I curse myself for ever leaving her. I want to wake her so desperately. I want to hear her voice and see her eyes. I want to kiss her and promise her I’ll never leave her again, but it would be a lie. My obligations are elsewhere… And I ache for her deeply and agonizingly. There is no denying I’m once again complete in her presence. This is my place. I belong to her and my place is by her side. And the absoluteness of that statement is profound, and it begs to rewrite my life.
Chapter 27
I didn’t expect to wake up. In fact, it actually comes as quite a surprise when I open my eyes and don’t see the pearly gates. Instead I’m looking at a terribly white and boring-looking ceiling. The stench of the trailer, though, is blessedly gone, replaced instead with the tell tale antiseptic smell of a hospital. This ceiling doesn’t match the dirty and faded ceiling of the trailer either. Bonus for me. But I feel numb, and I can’t understand why I’m alive. I shouldn’t be. I’m sure I should hurt, and I can feel where my body should hurt: my cheek, my eye, the area below my left breast that wraps around to my side. But the pain I know should be there is dull and faded. My brain is likewise dull. I feel lucid, but so incredibly and comfortably tired. It’s euphoric… It must be drugs. I like these drugs. But in addition to this blessedly content feeling, I also feel safe, and I feel warm. I try to move my hand, but my hand doesn’t respond to the signal that my brain is sending it. I wonder for a moment if perhaps I’m paralyzed, and then I decide I’m not sure I care enough to worry about it—drugs, good drugs.
The first face I see is Sara’s. She looks beautiful as always, though puffy and splotchy from crying. Wow, I must look like hell for her to be this upset. When she sees my open eyes, she starts sobbing and shrieking, and as the room fills with nurses I start to think perhaps I should have just kept my eyes closed for awhile longer. The doctor that enters ushers everyone out of the room, including the nurses, almost immediately before she takes a seat by the bed. She introduces herself as Dr. Ahmari, and she instantly has me at ease when she says that she’s “the only heavy set, middle aged, Indian Doctor in Michigan” so I should feel very privileged she’s my doctor. I do.