Home Front

* * *

Michael argued with the nurse and lost.

“You should wait for Doctor Sands. But either way, you are not going in there without a mask and gloves,” the woman said firmly.

“Fine. ” He snatched the mask and gloves and walked away. Putting them on, he paused outside his wife’s door, took a deep breath, and went inside.

It occurred to him suddenly, sharply, that maybe he shouldn’t have come rushing in like this, maybe he should have waited to hear about Jolene’s prognosis …

There was a curtain around half of her bed; he couldn’t see her from here. “Jolene?”

He closed the door behind him. The first thing he noticed was the smell. There was a putrid stench in the air that made him almost sick to his stomach. Bile rose up in his throat, choked him.

He wet his lips nervously and moved forward, opening the curtain.

He hardly recognized his wife. The right side of her face was scored with bloody, oozing sores, and the left side was bruised and swollen. A deep gash along her jaw had been stitched. Her lips were dry and cracked. Lank hair hung lifelessly from a side part.

But it was the leg that startled him. If you could even call it a leg. Blackened, peeling, bent, and broken, it was twice its normal size; huge metal screws held it in place at the knee and ankle. A pale bone jutted out from blue-black flesh. And the smell …

For a terrible, humiliating second, he thought he was going to be sick.

He breathed shallowly, and only through his mouth, through the mask, but still the smell was there. He knew he needed to be stronger right now, to think of her, but it felt as if he were drowning. He couldn’t catch his breath, get steady.

“Jo,” he said softly, his voice creaky, his breathing accelerated. “I’m so sorry,” he said finally—finally—finding the strength to look at her. He knew pity and horror were in his eyes; there was nothing he could do about it. He shouldn’t have come in here, not so unprepared. She needed him to be strong and certain now, and he couldn’t do it. “I didn’t talk to the doctor … I didn’t know. I should have waited…” He started to reach for her hand and saw the bruising, then drew back. “I don’t want to hurt you. ”

“Too late for that,” she said quietly, tears glittering in her eyes.

“Jolene—”

She turned her bloody, swollen face away from him. “Tami was wrong,” she said softly, more to herself than to him.

“What? What about Tami?”

“It’s too late for us, Michael. You were right about that. ” Her voice broke on the sentence, made him feel even worse. She reached out and pushed the morphine button, and in no time, she was asleep.

Seventeen

He’d let her down, again. He’d seen her injured leg and panicked, just panicked. Why had no one warned him? If he’d known, maybe he would have been able to mask his initial reaction.

Maybe. But honestly, he doubted it. Her injuries had overwhelmed him. How was he supposed to help her?

“Mr. Zarkades?”

He turned, saw a tall, gray-haired man in a white coat walk into the room. Above a surgical mask, his gray eyes were serious.

“I’m sorry for the delay, Mr. Zarkades. Emergencies happen fast around here. I’m Captain Sands. Jim. I wanted to talk to you before you saw her. ”

Michael felt a rush of shame again, then anger—at himself, at the military, at this man who hadn’t shown up in time, at God. “That would have been nice. ”

“Come with me,” Sands said, leading him out into the busy hallway. There were nurses everywhere out here, running from room to room.

“As I’m sure you can tell,” Sands said as Jolene’s door clicked shut. “Your wife has sustained some serious injuries. There are a lot of concerns now but the biggest is infection. Blast wounds, such as hers, are particularly dangerous. You can’t imagine what finds its way into the wound. Bacteria is rampant. We’re debriding the leg daily—taking her into surgery and cleaning it—but to be honest, I’m not hopeful. ”

“What does that mean, not hopeful?”

“There’s a chance she’ll lose her leg. We don’t know about her right hand yet, whether she’ll regain use of it. ”

“How can I help her?”