Just One Thing (24 page)

Sam returned to awareness slowly.

He breathed in air so dry it felt grainy in his nose.

Then he registered a smell. Something petroleum. And hot. No, heat didn’t smell. He felt heat. His body felt sticky with sweat in the heat.

He was Sam Corner.

Dr. Sam Corner.

Aware that he had a patient. They were transporting . . .

He couldn’t quite put his finger on where they were going, only that they were going and he had a patient. His head ached with a pressure that seemed to be growing by the minute.

He opened his eyes and tried to figure out what was going on. He was looking at what must be the sky, but it was pink and crackled.

It took time to figure out that he was staring through a
shattered windshield, and the pink hue was due to blood. Blood all over the windshield.

He raised his hand to his forehead and as he moved, pain hit, radiating from his leg. Excruciating.

“Ramsey? Grid? Lyle?”

No one answered. At least he thought no one answered. His voice had sounded odd to his own ear.

And, despite the unremitting pain, that’s when it all came together.

A bomb. An explosion. It’s why his leg hurt, why his ears were messed up.

It might be why no one else in the transport was answering.

He pulled himself from his seat, his leg screaming with each movement.

He saw Lennon, Smith, and Johnson. He didn’t need his medical degree to know they weren’t coming back.

Then he saw a body through the back of the vehicle, which was somewhere around where the middle of the vehicle had once been. He crawled through the wreckage and saw his patient, Ramsey. He saw his chest rise slightly.

Disregarding the pain, he flung himself down onto the ground and started CPR.

“It was too late. I couldn’t save him either. I don’t know how long I did compressions. I don’t remember the medics coming and prying me away from his body, though they tell me they did. I don’t remember much. The bleeding in my brain got worse and soon I was out. I didn’t wake up again until I was back in Pittsburgh. What haunted me when I woke up was that I couldn’t save them. Grid made it, but not because of anything I did.”

“You tried, Sam. Maybe that has to be enough.” He looked at me. We’d become close enough that I could read his expression. “Maybe it has to be enough for both of us.”

He wrapped me in his arms without saying anything.

I’m not sure how much time went by, but later, he said, “Thank you. I didn’t know how much I needed to hear someone say that until you said it.”

I repeated myself, more because I needed to hear myself say the words again. An audible musing. “Life is full of lines that you don’t know you’ve crossed until you’re on the other side. And once you’re there, you need to discover who you’re going to be. I think both of us made a great start at putting our past behind us, and we’re figuring out who we are now. All that’s left is deciding what we want for our future.”

“I know one thing about my future . . . I want you in it.”

I nodded against his chest. “Same here.”

“Well, then I guess that’s more than enough for one night.”

It was dark now. Western Pennsylvania gets dark early in December. Erie might not be a big city, but it was big enough that it gradually lit up across the bay as the sky got darker. As if on cue, a light flashed behind us and one of the park’s rangers got out and walked up to Sam’s window.

Sam unrolled it. “Sorry, Officer. I know it’s after hours. We were just leaving.”

The man took a flashlight and skimmed it along the inside of the truck. I don’t know what he saw, but he simply nodded. “Sometimes time gets away from all of us. Good night, folks.”

He got back in his car and waited until we pulled out and headed out of the park.

“Sam,” I said from my side of the truck. “Would you stay with me tonight?”

He reached across the expanse and took my hand in his. “I thought you’d never ask.”

I woke up the next morning sandwiched between Sam and Angus.

Both were bed-hogs.

I was debating about which one to climb over to get out of the bed, when Sam said, “Good morning.”

I kissed his cheek. “I’m sorry I woke you.”

“You didn’t. I’ve been awake for a while now, thinking.”

“About?”

“About Lee, about what you told me last night. I don’t think it matters if Lee’s accident wasn’t an accident.”

“Don’t you see; I don’t know if the accident was an accident, or if he—”

“It doesn’t matter,” he reiterated.

“It does. If he did it on purpose, it’s one thing that might break me.” And I’d never know. The uncertainty ate at me. “If it was an accident, I could mourn. I’d find my way back, but if it wasn’t . . .”

He reached up and stroked my cheek with his hand. “We’ve been wrong—you and I. All wrong.”

“I don’t understand.”

Sam sat up in bed, and the sheet dipped low, exposing his chest. And despite last night, I wanted him again. Making love to Sam was easier than talking. “One thing.”

I shook my head. I couldn’t share one-thing with him. I’d already given him the biggest one and he was telling me I was wrong. Suddenly I was pissed. “No more, Sam. Make love to me if you want. Have breakfast with me. Or go if you must. But I can’t share anything else with you now. You’ve never told me I was wrong before. You’ve never judged my feelings. And now you want me to share more with you? No.” I shook my head. “No.”

“No, I wasn’t asking for you to share; I was stating. Your feelings weren’t wrong. Our assumptions were. We’ve shared our lives with each other one thing at a time. We’ve shared week after week. One thing after one thing because we both intuitively knew that just one thing can never be the measure of someone’s life. One thing is . . . well, it’s just that. It’s one thing. Even if Lee did mean it—if he committed suicide—and it wasn’t an accident, it was his illness speaking and that’s just one part of who he was. His illness was just one part of Lee McCain. Maybe it’s significant that you told me so many other things about him first. He loved you. He loved the kids and was a good father. He knew how to laugh. He read to his children. I know him through your memories, through the family he left behind, but I know that he was more than just that last moment of his life. He was more than his illness.”

My anger evaporated and I sobbed. There were no silent tears, no crying leading up to it, just a swift, immediate sob.

And I remembered.

Lee on the quad, the day we met.

Singing so off-key to Gracie when she was young.

Bumming around the house in his awful red sweater.

Jokingly swatting my behind in Ireland.

Buying me a Guinness and comforting me.

Pictures of Lee flitted through my mind, like a slide show. One thing after another.

Lee was more than just one of them. He was more than any one of them. I could never really know what happened in that last moment, but if he did . . .

Well, if he did die on purpose, he was more than that.

His life was more than that.

I sat a moment by Sam and I suddenly knew what I needed to do next. “Sam, I’m going to church this morning. Want to come?”

He gave me a searching look, then nodded. “Sure. Although, I should warn you, I haven’t been to church in a long time.”

“Neither have I,” I told him. “Maybe that’s part of this side of that line we just crossed. We’re on the other side now and it’s time to go back.”

An hour later, we walked up the snow-covered road to the small church I’d gone to with my family when the kids were young—the church I’d passed so often. The music hadn’t started yet and cars were pulling into the parking lot. I stood there a minute, locked in indecision.

“Are you sure you want to do this, Lex?”

“I’m sure I do; I’m just not sure how God feels about that.”

“I’m obviously no expert, but I think that’s the one thing about God . . . the door’s always open. You just need to walk through it. I don’t think God needed either of us to figure out who we were on the other side of the line—he’s known all along and was just waiting.”

Sam took my hand and we went into the church. There was a woman at the back, greeting people as they came in. “You’re new,” she said with a quick smile of acceptance. “Welcome. I’m Jane.”

“Lexie,” I leaned toward Sam, “and Sam.”

Jane led us into the church, and as if sensing our nervousness, she found us a pew midway in. Not so far to the front as to call attention to ourselves, and not so far in the back to make us feel unwelcome.

An elderly man with wild white hair opened the service with a song and the congregation followed. Then he walked to the small pulpit and said, “Today’s reading is, Luke, chapter nine, verse eleven. ‘And the people, when they knew it, followed him: and he received them, and spake unto them of the kingdom of God, and healed them that had need of healing.’”

I squeezed Sam’s hand and he squeezed mine back. I felt as if the pastor spoke to me. I’d been in need of healing and hadn’t even known it, and then I’d wandered into The Corner Bar, not so much for a beer, but to connect with people. To feel part of something, even if I’d only planned on staying on the fringes.

Week after week, I’d sat there at the edges, until Sam asked, “One thing?” and that simple question had changed everything. At one point Sam had said something about healing despite himself. I realized that I’d healed despite myself, too.

“I believe,” the pastor was saying, “that people come into our lives for a reason. When we need them. They are gifts . . .”

I squeezed Sam’s hand again. He was a gift. He’d helped me find myself again. He’d helped me find my way back to here . . . to church.

I’d been so mad at God. I’d seen all the things I lost, not the things I had.

Gracie said that she’d rather have a few years with us than longer with anyone else. I thought of the people I’d lost. I wouldn’t give up a minute I had with any of them. And the journey I’d taken had led me here. Sitting next to Sam in church.

I was right. There were lines in life, and when Lee had died, I’d crossed another one. And now, on the other side, I finally found out who I was. I knew in my heart who I was, and where I was meant to be.

After the service, church members and the minister came over and greeted us, inviting us back. I smiled and thanked him as I assured him I’d be back.

When Sam and I walked back to the cottage, I told him, “I’m going to take Monday off. I have something I need to finish. But would you come to dinner Christmas Eve? Mom and the kids will be here. I have something I need to show everyone who matters to me.”

He kissed me. “I’ll be there. Lex, I need to tell you that—”

“Tell me after I show you one more thing on Christmas Eve. Once I’ve done that, I’ll have something to tell you as well.”

He nodded, accepting my choice, accepting me.

When he left, Angus and I went to the workshop. I started a fire, picked up the skein of red wool that had once been Lee’s sweater, and got down to work. I knew how the tapestry should be finished.