Page 17 of Shattered Lives

Dr. Paxton’s staggeringly detailed information allows me to slide into my clinical mindset. The ability to separate ourselves from the pain and gore was drilled into us in medic training. Emotions are an unaffordable luxury on the battlefield. Empathy makes you emotional, but the wounded need you to be levelheaded. Emotions disrupt efficiency when seconds literally make the difference between life and death. Wounded soldiers need to be assessed quickly and objectively. If their injuries are unsurvivable, particularly in a mass casualty situation, ease their pain and move on to someone you may be able to save. It sounds cold, even brutal, and in a lot of ways, it is. Battlefield medicine requires you to shut down your compassionate side. It’s an acquired skill, one I’m positive will get me through this.

I discover how wrong I am when Monica leads me to Mark’s room. She halts outside his door, stopping me with a gentle hand. Her brown eyes are serious, her voice soft.

“Charlie, you and I have learned to detach our emotions from our patients. It’s how we cope with the all-too-frequent tragedies we see. But you won't be able to do that here. It isn't some stranger in that bed. It's someone you care for, and it's going to hit you hard. Take as much time as you need to prepare. When you're ready, we’ll go in together.”

I dismiss her well-meaning words and reach for the door handle. I've spent the majority of my adult life taking care of trauma patients in the field. By the time they get to Monica, they’re all tidied up. They don’t have intestines spilling out of gaping belly wounds, raw burnt flesh, raggedly-torn limbs, or spurting arteries. No matter what’s on the other side of that door, I’ve got this.

I should have listened to Monica.

I stand in the darkened room, staring, searching for some semblance of the man I know almost as well as I know myself, but the man in the bed in front of me is completely unfamiliar.

Maybe there’s been a mistake. Maybe Mark is fine, and this is someone else.

Anyone else.

Anyone but Mark.

The man’s dark blond hair has been shaved in spots, and two tubes crusted with dried blood drain excess fluid through small holes in his skull. A band of gauze encircles his head, leaving small tufts of hair poking out like sprigs of dry grass. His face is horribly swollen, blurring his features into one shapeless, unidentifiable mass covered in violent purple bruises and peppered with black sutures. Both eyes are swollen closed.

The hair color looks right, but the face is so deformed by swelling, this could be anyone.

Jesus. What if this is Mark? My heart skips a beat, then takes off at a gallop.

A breathing tube protrudes from his mouth, and the attached ventilator with its ribbed blue tubing hisses, pushing warmed air into his lungs. Monitors blink and beep quietly in the background. I turn away, studying the numbers and waves on the screens, fighting to regain control of my emotions by concentrating on clinical data, but it’s not working.

Monica watches unobtrusively from the foot of the bed. I take another deep breath, steeling myself before scrutinizing the man again.

The longer I look, the more certain I am this isn’t Mark. I start to say so but stop, knowing how ridiculous my words would sound. Instead, I examine the muscular chest and shoulders, bare above the blankets. My eyes travel down the bed, halting abruptly at the flattened area where his right lower leg should be.

Of course, it isn’t there.

The jarring realization makes my stomach roll, and I sway unsteadily.

Monica appears at my side, steering me with firm hands into a chair near the head of the bed. “Take his hand. Talk to him. He’ll know your voice. It will soothe him.”

I collapse into the chair, trembling. I study the stranger again, searching for even one recognizable detail while simultaneously praying this critically wounded man isn’t Mark.

When I see the pale Y-shaped sliver on his right shoulder, my racing heart slams to a stop.

I know that scar.

Mark got that scar when we were kids pretending to be cowboys. We snuck off to ride a neighbor’s cranky horse, and he bucked us off. Mark’s shirt and arm caught on the barbed wire fence, and he ended up with stitches while both of us got a very stern safety lecture.

That thin white sliver obliterates my wispy hopes, and my shallow breaths turn to rapid pants.

This isn’t a dream. This is real.

That’s Mark.

My soul shatters into a million pieces.

I squeeze my eyes tightly closed, drowning in panic. That’s when I start hearing voices.

Well, just one voice. Mark’s. It’s part memory, part meltdown.

It pops into my head as clear as day. We were alone in my hospital room at Walter Reed after a particularly traumatic therapy session. A panic attack hit me hard and fast. Iron bands clamped around my chest. I struggled to breathe, but the faster I gasped, the less air I seemed to get, and the tighter the bands grew. Mark had stepped directly in front of me, cupping his hands loosely around my face, tilting it up so all I could see were his pale blue eyes. “Breathe,” he’d said gently. “Slow and easy. I’m right here with you, Baby Girl. I’ve got you. Just breathe.”

The clarity of his voice inside my head stuns me, enough that I’d swear he’s speaking audibly. He can’t, though. He’s unconscious, with a machine helping him breathe. Still, I let the memory of his warm voice wrap around me, cocooning me like a blanket.

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