3. Grady
CHAPTER THREE
Grady
The nurse stops me from entering through the wide double doors leading to the surgical department. Marina’s hand slips from mine like warm water.
“Are you family?” the nurse asks, drawing my eyes away from the glass slits in the doors as Marina’s red hair vanishes around a corner. The nurse wears a headband with extended springing hearts—an annoying nod to Valentine’s Day.
“Yes,” I lie, knowing how this works.
The petite brunette reaches out in a consoling gesture, but seeing my dirty, blood-covered arm, rethinks it. “Come with me. You should clean up and start her paperwork.”
She leads me through nondescript corridors and stations, all typical of hospital decor, bland and sterile. But flashes of red from Valentine’s gifts catch my attention everywhere. Roses. Carnations. Balloons. It’s weird, mixing celebratory tokens with sick and injured people. But it is a workplace.
It reminds me of how awkward it feels to lead clients into the clinic’s cheery waiting room after losing a pet. But Aunt Elena always smiles and offers consoling words for them, a kind distraction.
The nurse pushes me into a unisex bathroom. “You’ll want to look presentable when she wakes up,” she says, closing the door.
I hold my bloody hands out in front of me. They’re shaking… fucking shaking as adrenaline pulses through me. I move in front of the mirror and turn the water on. Running my hands and arms through the stream makes pink swirls in the drain. Her blood.
As it washes off me, tears run down my cheeks that I caused this, that I hurt her. Dealing with life’s inevitable agonies is one thing. Sometimes nothing can be done. But I did this. She could die because of me. Two other times in my life, I’ve felt this scared about losing someone, but I’ve never felt this overwhelming misery over what I’ve done.
God, please let her be okay.
Please, save her. I’ll do anything.
Marina, please be okay.
I’ve only prayed a handful of times—I don’t know what good it does. But I have to do something. The last time I prayed was a week after I returned home when I found my father having a heart attack in the barn. He survived, barely.
That was bad. This is worse.
With Marina on a stainless steel table, undergoing surgery, it’s like my heart’s being ripped from my chest. I’m open, exposed, gutted. I don’t even know this woman. And yet, her life suddenly matters more to me than anything.
I can’t lose her. Not because of my Godzilla-sized guilt, wreaking its havoc over my mental city—that’ll exist regardless. But simply because she doesn’t deserve to be lost. Not to my stupidity. Not to some twist of fate or unconscionable bad luck. And certainly not on a day when all her dreams were meant to come true.
Goddamnit!
Hot steam rising and dancing across the mirror, I lean against the porcelain sink, staring at my reflection. I look like shit. My eyes are shaded from lack of sleep, cheeks drawn in, like old, weather-beaten skin stretched tightly over my skull with nothing in between. Grime from horse stalls wedges under my fingernails, and dark blood stains my coveralls, mostly hers. My forehead and neck are smeared with muck, and my hair looks darker from embedded field dust.
With trembling hands, I wash my face, neck, head, everything. The nurse with the ridiculous headgear is right—I don’t want her to see me like this when she wakes.
If she wakes.
If she wants to see me.
If I’ll have the courage to see her.
All these ifs.
A stern knock breaks my thoughts. “Occupied,” I bark.
“I have some clean clothes, if you want them.”
A glance at my grungy, blood-stained coveralls confirms this is a good idea. Though ideal for tending to livestock on a farm, my dark blue and thick, mechanics-style work garb doesn’t fit here, and the smell radiates from me in this small room—a pungent mix of horse sweat, hay, and manure.
I open the door and accept her generous offering with a calmer “Thanks.”
The teal scrubs clash with my black-rubber paddock boots, not that it matters. I meet the nurse in the hall, and she leads me to a private waiting room.
She equips me with a clipboard and pen. “Fill this out as best you can. I’ll be back with updates.”
“Thank you,” I mutter, regretting how I snapped at her.
I stare at the forms, surprised when I start filling in the blanks with what I learned at the accident.
Full name of patient… Marina Ann Strange.
Age and birthdate… 25, February 14, 2000.
Allergies… None.
Medical conditions… None.
Employment… Sunny’s Beach Market.
My handwriting is jagged, with my hands still trembling. I drop the clipboard into the empty seat next to me and bury my face in my hands.
Marina, please be okay.
I don’t know how long I sit there. Maybe I drift off, repeating the same prayer. But I don’t look up until I feel a firm hand grip my shoulder.
“Son?” My father’s deep but gentle voice, his worn but friendly face, his large, sturdy frame all call to me at once.
I stand, falling into his outstretched arms. “Dad.”
“Wade called. Got here as soon as I could. It’s okay. It’s all okay.”
“No, it isn’t.” What’s left of my strength melts into him, like I can’t grip it any longer, and he’s all that’s holding me up.
He pats my back, hanging on while I confess, “I fell asleep, hit her, she’s… she’s hurt, Dad.”
“It was an accident, Grady. Nothing more.”
“No, it’s my fault. She was supposed to get married today...”
My voice trails off. I haven’t cried like this in years, not since losing… I can’t think about that now. I feel small and devastated, wishing I could take her place, wishing I could rewind time and make better choices, go a different route, anything to have spared her this. Wearing comfortable scrubs against my father’s nearly invincible shoulder, I feel like a child in pajamas, being consoled after a nightmare.
Only the bad dream is real.
“It’s okay, Tripp,” another voice cuts through, splintering my moment with Dad. “Wade and I are here for you, too.”
“No, we’re not.” Wade shoves a paper bag at me. “Here’s what we could salvage from your truck.”
I eye the contents—a hoodie, my medical bag, odds and ends, and my phone. The screen is cracked, but it works.
“We brought Marnie’s things,” Christie chimes in. “Her phone. Her veil, though it’s… how is she?”
“She’s… I don’t know.”
“Cops’ll be here soon,” Wade says. “They’ll have questions.”
“They can wait,” my father insists as I plop back into the nearest chair and run my hands over my fuzzy head. I plant my elbows on my knees, staving off a rising panic. She has to be okay.
“They don’t take kindly to assholes who leave the scene of an accident,” Wade says gruffly.
“What are you implying?” Dad returns, hands going hip-side.
“Stating facts, Mack. That’s all.”
“Yeah, you’d know all about cops and accidents.”
“Look, I don’t need this,” Wade huffs.
“Stop fucking talking,” I order. “No bullshit today. Please.”
Dad glares at his wiry, unkempt brother like he wants to challenge him. His jaw twitches in a forced sigh. Then, he extends his hand. “Your help is appreciated, Wade.”
“Just doing my civic fucking duty,” he grunts, refusing the handshake. “Christie, let’s get out of here.”
“But, Wade, you promised we’d see how she is,” Christie whines.
Harsh heel-clicks storm through the corridor. Cora Sullivan appears in the waiting room’s large glass window, looking one way, then another, in privileged frustration as if the entire hospital should stop for her.
“Can someone tell us where to find Marnie Strange?” she calls out to no one in particular.
The nurse with the heart headband appears and directs her and the two tuxedoed men behind her into the waiting room. Our waiting room.
Cora enters wearing a long, dramatically sequined red evening gown that swishes and tinkles when she walks. Her husband, Wes, follows, head lowered and hands crossed at his waist. His red rose boutonnière hangs crookedly on his lapel. He looks bored like he’d rather be home with a crossword.
Finally, Ashe bumbles in. His hair has been shellacked into an immovable brick on his head, but otherwise, he looks like I’d expect—distraught, frustrated, worried.
He’s no longer the scrawny third baseman I vaguely remember from my brother, Marty’s, high school team. He’s still thin, lanky, like his Dad, but broader in the shoulders and his chin more defined. He flicks his hands at his wrists, anxious with energy he doesn’t know what to do with.
“When can I see her?” He bounds around the nurse like a kid, trying to get an adult’s attention.
“Soon. I’ll check on her status and return with an update.” She disappears down the hall.
Cora locks eyes on our group, narrowing her heavily made-up gaze. “Mack Tripp? What’s your family doing here?”
“Grady was involved in the accident,” my father answers.
I stand, cutting between the men around me. “I hit her. I fell asleep around a curve, and… I hit her.”
Ashe’s face goes from anxious to angry in a heartbeat. He looks unsurely at his mom before lunging in my direction. He bangs his knee against a chair, clearly hurting himself, but continues to his target.
I don’t react. I deserve whatever this kid throws at me.
Only Wade steps in, catching Ashe’s fist in his palm like a baseball. “You’re upset. I get it. The Tripps are notorious for pissing people off. But, son, this isn’t the time or place for that.”
“Ashe, calm down,” his mother chides. “Let the police handle him.”
“I’m sorry,” I offer weakly. “I didn’t mean to… I’m sorry.”
“If I might interject,” Christie cuts in, moving between the two groups. Cora eyes his long, stringy gray hair and purple-painted fingernails like she might hiss at his gender nonconformity. “Grady hit her, but also saved her life. If not for his quick thinking, she would’ve bled out on Lakeview Avenue.”
This news only makes Ashe more agitated. “Seriously? Bled out?”
“From the fancy knife in her lap. The impact drove it right into her. She almost died,” Christie reports softly.
Ashe crumbles against his mom’s bare shoulder in a fit of tears.
“Perhaps it’s best to remain silent as we await news about our dear Marnie,” Cora suggests.
“Christie, we’re leaving. This place reeks of entitlement,” Wade says, but neither moves.
I offer the Sullivans the clipboard and pen. “I didn’t get very far with this.”
Cora’s head snaps toward her husband, already seated. “Wes, make yourself useful. Fill out Marnie’s paperwork.”
Her tone tenses my shoulders, but Wes doesn’t seem bothered. He accepts the task and almost looks glad for the distraction.
A uniformed police officer enters the room, with Detective Jim Watson behind. He’s my uncle, married to my Aunt Elena. Jim’s all-business demeanor silences the room.
“Make him take a breathalyzer,” Ashe orders. “And a drug test. He should be arrested.”
“Ashe’s day is ruined. Do you have any idea what this wedding cost? Treat him the same as any other menace,” Cora adds, wagging her red-tipped nails at me. “You cannot show him favoritism because he’s your nephew.”
Though confident that Uncle Jim will be fair, if not tougher on me, Cora’s hypocrisy fills the room like a bad smell. She doesn’t even try to hide her nepotism at Sunny’s Beach Market—her husband handles the books, her son runs the store, and he’s engaged to an employee working under him. It all feels wrong.
Or maybe I’m looking for somewhere to shift the blame.
With his typical blank-faced stoicism, Uncle Jim bypasses their requests with a simple, “I’m sorry for your distress. Any news on Marnie?”
“Not yet,” Cora says, her voice cracking.
“She’s in everyone’s thoughts and prayers.” He lays a gentle hand on Ashe’s back before moving toward us.
He eyes Wade and Dad with a cocked brow, probably surprised to see they haven’t come to blows yet. It’s the first time they’ve been in the same room together in years.
“Wade. Mack. Christie,” he lists, nodding to each before landing on me. “Grady, we need to talk.”
“Whatever you need.”
“Let’s talk down the hall,” he says, motioning toward the door.
Cora and Ashe watch from the window while the officer gives me a breathalyzer test. It’s negative. A nurse takes my blood, and I answer his questions until the nurse from earlier reappears, her bobbing heart headband gone. She goes to the waiting room doorway, clearing her throat for the room’s attention.
“Miss Strange is out of surgery,” she says, her voice monotone. “We’re moving her from recovery into a private room now. The doctor?—”
“She’s okay?” Ashe cuts in, relief sweeping over his face.
“She’s still recovering but lucid,” she says quickly, and the room lets out a collective sigh as if that’s an affirmative. All it means is that she survived surgery—a definite relief, but not a complete answer. My uneasy gut twists with more discomfort, especially when she says, “The doctor is speaking to her now, and she’s asking for Ashe?”
“That’s me,” Ashe says, like he’s surprised. “I want to see her.”
Cora lines up behind him, as if that means her, too. Then, Wes, looking unsure, rises from his chair, hugging the clipboard, and joins his wife, which I imagine is his usual modus operandi.
The nurse glances between the three faces. “You’re her family?”
“Yes, we’re her family,” Cora says with certainty, “and we need to see her.”
She motions for the threesome to follow.
“I need a bathroom,” I tell Jim, who nods before re-entering the waiting room.
Having navigated these corridors once before, when Dad had his emergency surgery after his heart attack, it comes back to me as I follow them at a distance. I’d gone with him in the ambulance, so I’d been there when he woke up, groggy and confused. But when his world made sense again, he gave me his widest smile, gripping my hand with his thick, calloused fingers.
“Son, I’m sorry I put you through that, but I’m glad you were there. You saved my life,” he said, tears budding in the corners of his heavy-lidded eyes. “It’s good having you home.”
Home. The word felt strange when he said it. Sure, Seagrove is where I grew up, and Tripp Family Farm is like a member of the family. But returning to it after my life blew up didn’t feel like coming home at all. It felt like a penance.
Then.
Now.
The nurse escorts them into a room with the word Strange scribbled on an exterior whiteboard. Wes enters last and doesn’t bother closing the door. I hover against the wall, just outside, desperate to see her and know she’s okay.
Please, let her be okay.
I peek through the opening, over their shoulders, and between their bodies.
I remember the crowded hospital room Dad was in after his surgery. Despite the traumatic circumstances that landed him there, the room was filled with laughter, love, and relief, and everyone felt happy seeing his smile and hearing him crack jokes.
There’s none of that here. There’s only tension and anxiety.
Another sickening feeling sweeps me when I see her—copper hair against the white pillow, her face pale, her arm and chest wired with tubes and monitors. Her wedding dress is gone, surely filling a biohazard bag by now, and the usual hospital garb swallows her like a fallen tent. Her make-up has been washed away, revealing a dusting of freckles under her eyes. She looks young, weak, and pained, but Ashe’s arrival brings a wide smile, lighting her up.
“Marnie,” he cries out, going to her side. “Are you okay?”
“Getting there. Sorry about the wedding.”
“It’s okay. We’ll figure it out.”
Then, he must kiss or embrace her because she says, “Easy, Ashe.”
“Oh, sorry, babe.”
“Doctor, this is my fiancé, Ashe.” Her voice sounds tired but still cheery somehow. “And his parents, Cora and Wes.”
“Miss Strange?—”
“Oh, call me Marnie, please.”
“Marnie, I want to review your surgery and the extent of your injuries— private medical information. It might be best for everyone to wait outside.”
“It’s fine. They’re the only family I’ve got,” she responds with forced cheer.
I peek around the corner to see the white-coated doctor sitting on a rolling stool beside her, tablet in hand. In my experience, doctors don’t hang out with patients after surgeries. They check in, read charts, and disappear.
Hell, that’s what I do.
Unless there’s a problem.
I practically plaster myself to the wall, listening by the door. It’s wrong, I know. But I must know she’s alright to minimize the agony over what I’ve done. If she’s fine, it’s a wrecked car and a wedding to reschedule—we all move on.
If she isn’t… well, I have to know that, too.
With a gentle breath, the doctor says, “Surgery went well. You suffered damage to your large and small intestines, but we patched those easily. Your iliac artery was nearly severed. The paramedic said that someone at the scene applied a clamp?”
“Um, yeah. Tripp. Grady Tripp.”
A pained smirk travels across my lips, and a tear slips down my cheek, hearing her say my name again, especially like that.
“He saved your life,” the doctor reports.
I hate hearing that—I’m the villain here.
“He’s also the asshole who hit her,” Ashe scoffs, reading my mind. “So, she’ll be okay?”
“The uterine artery was also damaged,” the doctor continues, “and your uterus. We repaired the arteries, of course, but there was too much damage to the uterus. Irreparable damage, unfortunately. A hysterectomy was our only viable option.”
No, no, no. My back slides against the wall until I crouch over the floor. My guilt compounds into a boulder on my shoulders, an imaginary world, heavy and untouchable—an existence that could’ve been hers and now never will be. I did this to her. I took away her choice. Her children, if she wanted them. Her family. The weight feels unbearable.
“I don’t get it,” Ashe says.
“Recovery from surgery will take several weeks. You have a nasty hip bruise to contend with. Barring any infection or complication, Marnie will make a full recovery. However?—”
“I can’t have kids,” she says in a wildly unemotional tone. “No uterus means no kids.”
“Oh, Ashe.” Cora’s voice trembles.
“What?” Ashe demands loudly. “Is this a sick joke? She comes in here for a car accident, and you’re telling me she can’t?—”
“I shouldn’t have had the knife in my lap,” she says. “It slid around the passenger seat on the curves, and I wanted to keep it from falling into the cracks or on the floor. It was a dumb mistake. An accident. It’s my fault.”
“No, it’s that asshole’s fault for hitting you,” Ashe corrects rightly.
“The hospital provides counseling services,” the doctor offers, “or a Chaplain, if needed. The important thing is that she’s going to be okay.”
“Okay? She’s not okay,” Ashe argues. “She’s…”
His voice trails like he can’t finish his sentence. I wonder, briefly, what he would’ve said. Broken. Defective. Unfixable.
I peer around the door’s edge to see him on his mother’s shoulder again. Even worse, I see Marina. She isn’t crying; she doesn’t even seem sad. With her delicate fingers looped together at her stomach, twisting her engagement ring, she looks strangely content as she stares up at Ashe and his mom, consoling each other. Her face hints at an almost wanton expression—I think. I don’t know this woman. Sure as hell don’t understand why she isn’t balling her eyes out or, at least, cursing, yelling, throwing shit across the room.
If this isn’t a life-is-shit-moment, I don’t know what it is.
But watching her watching them, I wonder if she feels left out of her own tragedy. She should be the one being consoled right now.
Not that I can offer her that. Or anything. I’m nothing but the man who did this to her.
Somehow, I find my legs and return to my father, nearly collapsing into his arms again. Wade and Christie are gone. Jim and his officer await their turn with Marina, dutifully holding the bag with her salvaged things—the shattered and torn remains of the devastation I caused.
Regret and guilt swirl in my head, making me dizzy. I don’t deserve to take comfort in my father while Marina lies there, no one holding her. Why is no one holding her?
Into Dad’s shoulder, I whisper, “She can’t have kids, Dad. She’ll recover, but she can’t have kids. Because of me.”
“It was an accident, son. Plain and simple,” he breathes against my head. “An accident.”
His words don’t ease my grief.
“There’s nothing more you can do here,” he says, an echoing reminder of last night’s stillborn colt—it seems like a lifetime ago. Nothing can be done.
“Let me take you home.”
The word sounds strange, like I don’t know where that is. “Not yet. I need… not yet.”