Necessary Heartbreak (34 page)

The rain started to fall harder, pounding the ground. Michael wandered aimlessly, lost in thought.

What have I done? What have I done?

He looked up, letting the rain pelt his face. It felt good. Immediately, Michael put his head down again.

He staggered into a vacant marketplace, seeking shelter from the storm. He flopped down against a wall, letting the rough surface scrape his back. He noticed that his right sandal had torn nearly in two, but he no longer cared.

“My Lord, I'm so sorry,”he repeated over and over.

His shoulders heaved deeply as he shook his head from side to side. “No, no. I can't believe it. What have I done? Lord, what have I done to you?”

Michael stood up. He slammed his fist into the unrelenting wall. He took off his torn sandal and hurled it across the street.

“Why does it always have to be me? Why did I have to carry that cross?”

He swung his bare foot against the wall but he barely felt the pain. “What have you ever done for me?”he shouted, looking up. “I've got no wife. Do you know that? Do you?”

Michael raced across the street and picked up his sandal. He threw it hard against the roof that covered the marketplace. “Your son died, my wife died. I guess we're even now, huh? Is that what you wanted? Is
that
what you wanted?
Did you? Answer me!
”

His screams echoed through the deserted streets.

“Why can't you answer me, Lord?”he wailed, dropping to his knees in the mud. “Look at me. Look at me! I'm pathetic. You've humbled me. Is that what you wanted?”

Bracing himself on his elbows in the middle of the street, his legs sprawled out to the side, Michael sobbed uncontrollably. He didn't care about the soldiers, his bruises, or his pain. All he knew was that he was alone, and Vicki was never coming back.

Michael stumbled to his feet and staggered over to his torn sandal. As he picked it up, he uttered the only words he had left.

“How can my daughter lift my burden, Lord? Please tell me. Why can't
you
lift it?”

The doorbell rang. Peering through the peephole, Michael saw the police officer looking down at his feet. When Michael opened the door, he heard him say, “Evening, sir. I'm Officer Stanton. Is it all right if I come in for a moment?”

Michael's stomach tightened. “Sure,”he replied, turning and yelling down the hallway, “Ken! Come in here!”

“I'm looking for Kenneth Fontana.”

“That's me!”called Ken, who raced in from the kitchen.

“I'm afraid there's been an accident.”Turning to Michael, the policeman asked, “Are you Michael Stewart?”

Michael felt his stomach drop. “Yes.”

“Your sister said you would be here.”

“Is Samantha all right?”Ken asked, moving closer to the officer.

“Yes. She'll be fine.”

“Thank God!”

“What about Vicki?”Michael asked. “What happened?”

Placing his hand on Michael's shoulder, the officer said, “You need to come with me to the hospital.”

Michael pushed the officer's hand away. “What happened? Is she okay? Is she hurt? Tell me. Please,
tell me!
”

“We need to go now, Mr. Stewart.”

Ken felt Michael look at him and nodded. “I'll be right behind you, Mike. Let me run the boys over to the Henrys'.”

Michael stayed silent on the ride to the hospital, holding the door handle tightly. The officer had nothing more to say, leaving Michael to his terrible thoughts.

I don't want to be alone. Oh, Vicki. Oh, Vicki . . . please be okay.

“Mr. Stewart, we're here,”the officer said, opening his door.

The car had barely pulled up to the emergency-room entrance
when Michael jumped out and bolted through the automatic doors. Sammie was standing in the corner. When she saw him, she raced over and fell into his arms crying.

“I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry,”she kept repeating through tears.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, I'm fine.”She pulled away to look at him.

“You've got blood on your face.”Michael hugged her again.

“I'm fine. Please, Mike. Please. I'm so sorry.”

Michael whispered, “Please tell me she's okay.”

Samantha cried harder, pulling away from him.

“I can't live without her, Sammie,”he begged. “You know that.”

Samantha was silent. After a moment, she whispered to him in a voice far deeper than normal, “She wasn't conscious when I saw her being taken in.”

“Oh, God, no.”The words seemed to escape him as he stood there, holding his little sister, trying to make her not say what he already knew in his heart. His head fell on her shoulder, and he became aware only of how her heaving sobs kept bobbing his head slowly up, then down. He took a deep breath, then let her go.

He walked over to the nurses' desk and announced to no one in particular, “My wife, my wife was brought in here a few moments ago. Please . . .”

All other words left him as he waited for someone to answer.

“What's her name?”one of the nurses asked.

“Vick. Vicki. Victoria Stewart.”

The nurse typed a few words into the computer in front of her before asking, finally, “Mr. Stewart?”

“Yes.”

“Please sit and wait for the doctor to come out.”

Michael turned and found Samantha and Ken directly behind him, holding each other.

Nice
, Michael thought.

It felt like only a few seconds later when Michael felt a hand on his sleeve.

“Mr. Stewart? I'm Dr. Brennan. Please come with me out into the hall.”

Without thinking, Michael stood up and followed him blindly to a spot near a water fountain.

The physician turned to him. He looked as if he would rather be anywhere else than in this hallway talking to Michael. “I'm sorry to tell you that we were unable to save your wife. Her injuries were far too grave. But we were able to deliver the baby. You have a girl. She's doing fine upstairs.”

The doctor said many other things, but Michael heard nothing else. He stood motionless, gazing at the bright ceiling lights. Again, it seemed only seconds before Samantha and Ken were next to him, asking what the doctor had said.

“Vicki . . .”He stopped, unable to continue.

Samantha fell into Michael, hugging him tightly.

After a few moments, he finally looked down at her. “I can't cry right now. There's just no time. The baby's okay. I have to go see my daughter.”

“They saved the baby?”Samantha asked through her tears.

He nodded. “Elizabeth's here now.”

Michael limped around on one sandal while holding the other torn one in his hand. He attempted several times to place the broken sandal back on his foot but it kept slipping off when he tried to take a step.

“Great,”he muttered under his breath.

He took the other sandal off as the rain continued to pound down. His feet felt relief as he waded through the puddles. The raindrops massaged his bruised shoulders while cooling off his head and neck. He looked skyward and opened his mouth, letting the water collect there. He swallowed gratefully.

“Thank you.”

He stopped near a large puddle, then stepped into it as if he were getting into a bathtub. He rinsed the mud off his feet and legs, thinking how he needed to get out of this rain and see Elizabeth.

Michael started back toward Leah's house, looking for familiar landmarks. The sky was still dark gray, making it difficult for him to determine the time.

When the rain let up, he began to shiver. He looked to his left—the aqueduct! His heart raced. Michael started to run hard, not caring that his feet were bare.

Soon Leah's house appeared in the distance. He could make out two figures standing near the front gate.

“Dad!”Elizabeth sprinted to meet him. She threw her arms around him and held on tightly. “Oh, Dad, did they . . . ?”

“They did . . . they did . . . and I helped . . . I carried the cross they nailed him to.”

Michael tried to push Elizabeth away but she clung to him. “Daddy, no,”she murmured. “You helped
him
. . . you helped him.”

“Come with me,”said the nurse at the desk. She led him down the corridor to a bank of elevators, then pressed 8 when they got inside. The elevator shook as it made its ascent.

“This way,”she said when the doors opened. They made a left turn and went down another series of hallways that led to a security door that read
no admittance without proper identification.
The nurse entered a code on the accompanying keypad, and the doors opened automatically.

Balloon paintings covered the walls as she led him toward the nursing station. A man and woman stood with their arms around each other, cooing and tapping on the glass. Michael stopped near them.

“Not here,”the nurse said, motioning him to continue walking.

She led him down a dimly lit hallway past a door that bore the
simple inscription
CHAPEL
. As he approached this other nursing station, Michael noticed the bare walls and the hushed tone of the staff.

“Wait here, please,”the nurse said kindly. She picked up a phone on the wall. “Mr. Stewart is ready to see his daughter. . . . Okay, okay. We'll go over there.”

She led him past the nursing station and around a corner to a small window. Michael peered through it into a large room with only four incubators. He noticed all the equipment inside: machines, tubes, monitors. A nurse came up to him on the other side of the glass and pointed at a baby lying in an incubator.

Oh, Vicki. Oh, Vicki.

She looked so small to him. She was only wearing a diaper and had an IV connected to her left heel. Where her belly button would be was now clamped off by a yellow tag. On her right ankle was a plastic band that read
STEWART, BABY GIRL
—
STEWART, VICTORIA (D)
.

Michael stared at the band. Vicki's middle name didn't start with a
D.

He paused and looked at Elizabeth moving her arms and stretching her legs.

“Vicki's middle name doesn't start with
D
,”he said, turning to the nurse next to him. “It's Evelyn.”

When the nurse only looked at Michael, he knew immediately what it meant.

“Oh my God.
D
for ‘deceased'?”

The nurse stood silent.

“Answer me, please.”

Michael began fervently tapping on the window, trying to get the attention of the nurse inside the room. “Take that off,”he said, pointing to the ankle band.

“Take it off
now
!”

The nurse inside couldn't hear him. He slammed his hands against the glass again.

“Mr. Stewart, please,”the nurse next to him said. “Stop. Please.”

“No!”Michael looked down the hall for the door to the nursery. He didn't see any entrance.

Turning back to the window he tried again to get the nurse inside to understand him. “Take it off!”he said, pointing angrily at the ankle band.