Chapter Five
There’s no question that I broke a few laws on my way to the hospital.
I was at the restaurant when I got the call.
“Go for Mac.”
“Is this Mac Andrews?” the voice on the other end of the line asked. I didn’t recognize the voice or the number from which the person was calling, so my suspicions were aroused. I know it’s paranoia that makes me react that way, but in my line of work I feel that extra caution or a healthy dose of paranoia can keep someone alive, so I’m not too hard on myself for it.
“Yeah, who is this?”
“My name is Dr. Eduardo Martinez,” the man said, and my heart sank. Something was terribly wrong.
“You were listed as an emergency contact in Alejandra Gonzalez’s phone.”
My mind struggled to process the words that I was hearing. My brain told me that this was serious, and I was about to hear a lot of bad news. My emotions were telling me that this was just a dream. That this wasn’t true. That I was going to wake up and realize that everything was just fine.
He continued.
“There’s been an accident, and Ms. Gonzalez has life-threatening injuries and is in a coma.”
I jumped back in my truck and peeled out of the parking lot, laying down two black rubber streaks in my wake. I could hear the doctor’s voice coming through the phone, but my mind had stopped listening to what he was saying. I heard my own voice reply to him a couple of times, but in reality, my entire body was on auto-pilot.
All I could think about was getting to the hospital and seeing Allee. If I could just get to her and see her with my own eyes, then everything would be alright.
At the same time, rage rose within me. I had no idea what happened, but I was pissed that it did. He said there was an accident, but that was all he’d given me. Part of me figured he wasn’t able to go into too many details while on the phone, but another part of me didn’t care.
I just had to get to the hospital.
I came to a screeching halt outside the ER and all but did a tuck and roll out of the car. Gunner was obviously confused about what was going on, but he’d be fine waiting for me outside the hospital. If this turned into a bigger issue, I’d figure out what I had to do to let him come inside with me, but for the time being, he’d be fine out there.
I ran inside, demanding information from anyone I saw who worked there. It didn’t take me too long to figure out which room to head toward, though I’m annoyed when I get there and I’m told to wait.
I pace the room for a moment, trying to clear my mind enough to think rationally. I know I’m still operating out of pure instinct, and I have to get a grip on that and figure out what’s going on with Allee in a rational, productive way.
Instead of a doctor walking into the room, however, it’s one of the nurses. She’s not smiling, but there’s something about her that I find familiar. Then, it hits me. She looks an awful lot like Allee. Perhaps a bit older, but not by much. The resemblance between the two is uncanny, and it doesn’t take me long to understand why.
“Hello Mr. Andrews, how are you?” she asks.
“I’ve been a hell of a lot better, thanks,” I snap. “Considering I just found out my fiancé is in a coma!”
Her eyes widen.
“Your fiancé?” she asks. “I suppose that would explain this then.”
She holds out her hand, and in it, I see the ring that I had given Allee earlier that afternoon. The sight of it is enough to break me, but I force myself to remain composed.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “But who are you?”
“My name is Camilla Gonzalez,” she tells me tartly. “I am one of the head nurses here, but I’m also Alejandra’s sister. I guess that must make you Mac.”
“You’re her sister?” I ask, raising an eyebrow. I relax slightly, but only slightly. It helps to know that the woman here is in fact related to Allee, and it stands to reason that she’s going to be doing everything she can to save her.
But, along with that thought comes the fear that there’s nothing that can be done to save her.
“What happened?” I ask. “I don’t understand. She was up in California just this afternoon and we were going to dinner tonight. How did she wind up like this? Was it a car accident? I didn’t see anything on my way down here, I don’t understand.”
I know I’m firing off the questions quickly, and Camilla seems visibly annoyed with me for doing it, but I also don’t care. My brain is trying to operate while my emotions are getting in the way, demanding answers and reassurance that she was going to be okay.
“We don’t know a lot right now, and there is an investigation being conducted,” Camilla tells me. “From what I understand it was a car bomb.”
“The fuck?” I snap. “How the fuck was there a car bomb?”
I try to piece together how Allee’s afternoon and evening went after she left me. She’d told me she was going home to shower and do a few things, then she would meet me at the restaurant for our reservations.
I’m no bomb expert, so I don’t know how long it takes to wire up something like that. Regardless, it feels fast. Someone must have known who she is, and they wanted her dead. And they waited for their opportunity to strike.
“From our understanding, there have been several attacks throughout the city,” Camilla tells me. “We don’t know who is behind them necessarily, but Allee was one of four who were victims of explosions. While she’s in a coma, she is one of the lucky ones considering two of the other three were killed by either the explosive or the impact.”
My gut ties itself into a knot. This was the exact reason why I had tried to convince Allee to move to the States, and I hate that I now feel like I was too late. If I had said something to her before now, she might have made the move before now, and this wouldn’t have happened.
“How long have you been seeing her?” Camilla asks me, and I stiffen.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“As her sister, I think I have the right to know how long she’s been engaged. I find it odd she didn’t tell me, and I’m wondering if she had her reasons for it.”
“She was going to tell you when she was ready,” I reply.
“When she was ready?”
Camilla folds her arms over her chest and raises her eyebrows, and I quickly clarify.
“I asked her to marry me this afternoon,” I inform Allee’s sister. “We literally just got engaged. But to answer your other question, she and I have been seeing each other for about a year and a half.”
“I know she’s mentioned you a few times,” Camilla says, “But I had no idea that it was this serious.”
She may not mean to sound skeptical, but her tone and body language is chapping my ass.
“Look,” I say, trying to keep my temper in check. “We met eighteen months ago, and we’ve been growing closer since then. This afternoon I asked her to marry me, and she said yes, and now thanks to some unforeseen event, she’s in a coma fighting for her life. I don’t know what the exact relationship is between the two of you, but I don’t feel like now is a good time for me to be put on trial for being in a relationship with your sister.”
“I’m not putting you on trial,” she snaps back. She looks like she’s going to say something else, but instead, she takes a deep breath.
“I don’t mean to come off like I’m attacking you,” she says after a pause. “But I do know a thing or two about American military men. I know how you are.”
“I’m going to stop you right there,” I say, holding up my hand as I interrupt. “I don’t know who you’ve known or what your experience is, but I’m not going to let you talk down to me or categorize me like someone you dealt with in the past. You don’t know me, I don’t know you, and what we do share is a love for Allee, so let’s focus on that.”
Camilla seems a bit taken aback by my statement, and though there still seems to be some conflict in her features, she lets the subject go. Instead, she nods toward the ring I’m now holding tightly in a fist I didn’t know I’d made.
“And what about that?” she asks. “You’re military, so I’m sure you’re no stranger to casualties of war, tragic accidents, disease, and more.”
As she spoke, she waved her hand in the air to gesture to the rest of the hospital. “People die. People go into comas for months or even years. Some wake up, some don’t. And there are plenty of times when the person wakes up, they have no idea who they are or what their lives were like before they went comatose.”
“What are you saying?” I ask, narrowing my eyes.
“I’m asking you how long you’re willing to wait this out,” she says. “We have no idea the extent of Allee’s brain injuries. We don’t know how long it’s going to be before she wakes up. We don’t even know if she’s going to wake up at all.”
I don’t say anything, hating the reality of what I’m facing. I wish there was some way I could turn back the clock. I would ask Allee to stay with me up in the States. I would convince her that we had plenty to do in Coronado, and we could start looking for a place of our own together that was closer to the border.
Fuck, if I had my way, I would change places with her in a heartbeat. I would be the one in the hospital bed hooked up to those machines, and she would be okay. I would give my life in exchange for her safety all day, every day.
“You were with her a year and a half you said,” Camilla continues.
“Progressively,” I reply.
“So how long does that translate when the person you are with is now in a coma?” she asks. “What do I tell her when she wakes up?”
“First of all, if you think I’m going to take this as a way out, you better understand that I don’t want a way out,” I tell her. I asked that woman to marry me this afternoon. I want to spend the rest of my life with her.”
“That was before she went into a coma.”
“Look, I’m trying to give you the benefit of the doubt in what is a very traumatic situation for both of us, but you’re not making it easy. Today was the happiest day of my life…and then it wasn’t,” I say evenly, using every ounce of self-control I have. “I don’t know if you’re trying to get me to walk away, but that’s not going to happen. I love Allee, I want Allee, and I’m going to stand by her. I don’t care how long I have to wait.”
My words hang in the air, and if I wasn’t so angry about this whole situation, and was assessing this exchange with Camilla objectively, I’d be halfway impressed with the way she’s standing up to me. But it’s offensive as fuck to be judged this way when this literally just happened and I’m devastated.
“No,” Camilla says. “I’m not trying to get you to walk away, as you put it. I’m trying to figure out what to expect from you in the coming days or weeks…or months.”
She pauses before she says the last two words, and I wince.
“What you can expect is that I’m going to be spending an awful lot of time here – and so will my dog.”
“Your dog?”
“Don’t worry,” I say. “You’ll meet him. But if there’s any issue with having him in and out of here, I’d like to know what I have to do to make sure that’s not a thing.”
“If he’s a service animal, it’s not a problem,” Camilla says evenly. “But where is he now, if he’s a service dog?”
“Yes, he’s a service dog and a working dog. He’s in the car,” I snap, feeling defensive. “And he’s enlisted just as much as I am.”
I don’t wait for her to argue. Instead, I turn the topic back to Allee.
“I’d like to see her.”
“She’s pretty beat up after the explosion. She’s already had one surgery for the left leg that was virtually shattered.”
“I don’t care.”
“Just giving you a warning,” she replies as she motions for me to follow.
I’m not sure what to expect, and I’m trying not to think the worst. But as soon as I see Allee, I can see what her sister was talking about.
She’s in a bed hooked up to a variety of monitors. Her head is bandaged, as is much of her body. Her eyes are swollen shut, and if I didn’t know that I was looking at my fiancé, I wouldn’t recognize her.
“What the fuck,” I choke out. “Allee, my beautiful, Allee!”
I feel the lump in my throat, and I don’t care about the tears that start falling. “Who did this to you? Who?”
I know there’s no direct answer, and I know she’s not going to wake up and tell me, either. Fuck. I’m sure she doesn’t even know who is responsible for this. I have no doubt that it was a Cartel hit. They are ruthless mother fuckers. They literally have no souls.
I want revenge. I want to find the person who did this to her and turn him into a Picasso painting with my bare hands. I want to throw my fist through the wall and scream. I want to break things.
“Take all the time you need,” Camilla tells me. “There will be nurses coming in and out of here to check on the monitors, but there’s no rush for you to leave.”
“Thanks,” I say.
She nods and leaves, and I’m struck with how odd it is that the first time I meet my fiancé’s sister is this way. Obviously, the earlier worry about making a good impression on her is a moot point now. It certainly wasn’t what I envisioned for a first meeting. But God knows there are far more important things to worry about right now than that.
The beeping of the monitors in the room are almost comforting in their rhythm, though my mind continues to spin as I try to process the evening. This isn’t at all how I thought any of this would go, and the fact that I’m now faced with Allee being comatose leaves me feeling so weak and despondent.
I hate not having control of a situation. Ever since my sister was kidnapped when I was a teenager, I have had the need to control the outcome of things as best as I can. But with this, I literally have zero control or influence over what happens next.
So many thoughts are racing through my head. She could die of her injuries. Or, she could simply never wake up. The thought makes me sick to my stomach, and I sink heavily into the chair that’s next to her bed.
My chest heaves with emotion, and I would do anything to talk to her. I just want to hear her voice. I don’t know what to do with all the different feelings I’m experiencing, and I know they’re culminating in a lot of fury.
“I’m going to get the people who did this,” I promise her. “I don’t know if you can hear me, baby, but please know that I love you. I’m not going anywhere, I promise. I don’t care how long I have to wait for you to wake up. I don’t care how much it costs to keep you here. You’re safe now, and I just need you to focus on getting yourself better and healthy again, alright?”
I reach for her hand but hesitate. I don’t know the full extent of her injuries, and I don’t want to do anything that could make any of them worse. I gently put my hand over hers, deciding that it’s better to do that than to lift her hand or move her in any other way.
I look over her lifeless body. I’m not a doctor, and I don’t know much in the field of medicine, but it’s not a stretch to think that there was extensive damage done. Both her legs are immobilized, one with metal things protruding, and I imagine that’s the leg that they operated on.Her neck is in a brace, and much of her head is covered in bandages. I don’t know how much of that is precaution, and how much of it is because she was so critically injured in the blast.
All I know is that the love of my life is lying in a hospital bed, and there’s nothing I can do to help her. I’ve never felt so powerless in my entire life, including when Libby was kidnapped.
And it pisses me off.
I sit for over an hour next to Allee’s bed. I know I have to figure out some things, so I get up and kiss the bandages over her forehead.
“Get better, my love,” I tell her. “I’m going to be back first thing in the morning, don’t you worry. I love you.”
With that, I head out the door, refusing to look back. I don’t want the image of her like that stuck in my brain. I want to think about her as she was that afternoon. How beautiful and happy she was when I asked her to marry me.
That’s the Allee I know and love. That’s the Allee who is going to come back to me.
The Allee in the hospital bed needs me to take care of her, and I’m going to do that. But I’m not going to think of her as anything other than my strong Alejandra. She’s going to be okay. She has to be okay.
I head back out to the car and give Gunner a pat on the head. He knows something’s wrong, but he doesn’t have the ability to understand what it is.
“Allee’s going to be okay, buddy,” I tell him. “I’m gonna need your help to get through this though. Ok?” And of course, he wags his tail and does the happy dance that always makes me laugh.
I’m talking out loud, and I know I’m just running with my thoughts. It’s the way I flesh things out, and Gunner is used to it. We have conversations regularly—one-sided conversations, but therapeutic all the same.
It’s highly unlikely Cruz would have any solid intel on who did this. The Cartels are different from Islamic Jihadists in that they don’t claim responsibility for hits the way the Jihadists do when there is a terror attack. I mean, he could throw out a few names of who could have been behind the attacks, but that’s about it.
I already know the odds of finding the individual personally responsible are slim to none, but that doesn’t change the drive I feel to try.
I pull into Allee’s villa, and that’s when I see the destruction that came from the blast roped off with yellow tape. It appears as though the bomb was placed in the wrong car, but that doesn’t change the fact that the vehicles in the immediate vicinity were also decimated. The vehicle with the bomb wasn’t parked close enough to the buildings to damage them too much, so they’re inhabitable, but the sight in the parking lot itself is still eerie.
I have a key to Allee’s place, and I’d like to think that Camilla will not question my staying there. But that’s the least of my worries.
I give Gunner food and water in the dishes Allee keeps for him, then I shower and attempt to go to bed. I know there’s nothing else I can do for the time being, and I don’t have the mental energy to call my support and tell them what’s happened, either. I know I’ll need their outpouring of love and support, but that’s not going to do me much good right now.
Not when I’m in the thick of just trying to process what happened.
For now, it’s my faithful Gunner that I have to comfort me. I allow him to hop up on the bed with me and after nudging me for a scratch, he circles a few times and settles at the foot of the bed on Allee’s side. It’s almost as if he knows his other person is missing.
Not surprisingly, I find sleep elusive. I toss and turn in the bed, replaying the events of the day and torturing myself with the “what ifs” and “should haves”.
After tossing and turning for a couple of hours trying to fall asleep, I finally get up and head out to the kitchen. I scoff when I see the bottle of champagne on the counter. She must have grabbed that on her way back into town.
The plans we had that night would have been so grand. The fact that I’m now standing in her kitchen alone with the bottle of champagne is more fucked up than I can say. But, there are times in my life when alcohol is an elixir, and I know it’ll at least help me get some sleep.
Not surprisingly, even though he is sound asleep and quietly snoring when I get up, Gunner wakes and tags along to check on me.
I pop the top and lift the whole bottle to my lips, not bothering with a glass. I chug as much of the bubbly liquid as I can stand, and then after coming up for air, I do it again. I know it’s not the healthiest way to deal with the situation, but at the moment, it’s what I’ve got, and I’ve long since learned to embrace working with what resources I have at any given time.
It only takes a few minutes for the effects of the alcohol to start kicking in, and I take a couple more pulls from the bottle for good measure.
Gunner looks at me with what I decide is concern, and I pat him on the head once more.
“Just for some sleep, bud. Let’s go back to bed.”
He follows me to the bedroom and gets back in his spot, settling down with a satisfied and lengthy grunt and yawn.
I wrap my arms around Allee’s pillows to sleep. They smell like her, and the emotions that hit me are overwhelming.
I sob into the pillows, praying like I’ve never prayed before.
I hear Gunner whining with concern, and I realize I need to control myself. I try to ease his mind by saying, “It’s okay, buddy. We’re all going to be okay.”
Now if I can just believe my own words.
She just has to be okay. I need her in my life. She’s everything to me, and I can’t lose her—not like this, not now.