Chapter 16 The Silver Spring Re
The cab dropped her at the main gate of Walter Reed at 6:47 a.m., the sky still bruised purple from the retreating night.
Marlene paid the driver with her last American cash.
Her bag felt heavier than it had in Germany.
Heavier than it had on the flight from Frankfurt, when she'd stared at the seat-back screen tracking their progress across the Atlantic and rehearsed what she'd say when she finally found him. I got your message. I came. I'm here.
The hospital complex was waking up. Staff in scrubs hurried along covered walkways. A man in a wheelchair rolled past, his legs wrapped in bandages, a young woman walking beside him with her hand on his shoulder. Marlene watched them until they disappeared through a set of sliding doors.
She found the patient information desk in the main lobby. A different receptionist from Germany. A different continent. The same practiced neutrality.
"Sergeant Marcus T. Gideon," Marlene said. The name was automatic now. "He was transferred here from Landstuhl four days ago."
The woman typed. Waited. Typed again. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead.
"I'm sorry. Sergeant Gideon was discharged yesterday morning."
Discharged.
The word landed wrong. Discharged meant better. Discharged meant walking. Discharged meant he'd left the hospital under his own power, and he hadn't called her, hadn't emailed her, hadn't let her know he was—
"Discharged to where?"
"I'm not able to release that information to anyone who isn't immediate family."
Marlene's hand found the dog tags. Pulled them out. Let them gleam under the hospital lights. "I'm his fiancée." The lie came easier this time. Easier than it should have. "These are his tags. He gave them to me before he deployed. I flew here from Germany. I flew to Germany from Oklahoma. Please."
The receptionist looked at the tags. Looked at Marlene's face—the unwashed hair, the wrinkled clothes, the eyes that hadn't slept more than two hours in the past three days. Something flickered in her expression.
"One moment."
She picked up a phone. Dialed. Muttered something Marlene couldn't hear. A long pause. The receptionist's brow furrowed. She hung up.
"I'm sorry. There seems to be an issue with his file."
"What kind of issue?"
The woman's lips pressed together. "His discharge paperwork was processed, but there's no forwarding address on record. No contact information. No next of kin." A pause. "His file has been flagged for administrative review."
Marlene gripped the edge of the desk. The laminate was cool beneath her palms. "What does that mean? Flagged for review?"
"It means the system shows him as discharged, but there's no record of where he went. It's unusual."
The receptionist's voice dropped, losing some of its professional sheen.
"Sometimes it happens when a patient leaves AMA—against medical advice. Or when there's a clerical error. I've put in a request for more information, but it could take a few days."
A few days.
Marlene didn't have a few days. Her savings were gone—the flights had eaten through everything except a hundred dollars she'd tucked into her passport for emergencies.
She didn't know anyone in Maryland. She didn't have a place to stay.
She'd crossed an ocean and a continent on the strength of a voicemail, and now Gideon had vanished like smoke through her fingers.
"Can you tell me anything?" Her voice cracked. "Anything at all? Was he walking when he left? Did someone pick him up? Was there—" She stopped. Swallowed. "Was there anyone with him?"
The receptionist glanced at her screen. Then at Marlene. Then back at the screen. The fluorescent lights flickered.
"He was discharged in a wheelchair," she said quietly. "The notes indicate he required assistance with mobility. But there's no record of who assisted him or where he was transported."
A wheelchair.
He couldn't walk. He'd said it on the voicemail—I can't walk, Marlene—and she'd known it was true, but hearing it confirmed, sitting in this sterile lobby with the sun climbing over Bethesda and the staff hurrying past with their coffee cups and their clipboards,
made it real in a way the voicemail hadn't.
Gideon was in a wheelchair. Gideon had left the hospital without telling anyone where he was going. Gideon had vanished.
"Ma'am?" The receptionist was holding out a piece of paper. "This is the number for patient affairs. They can help you with the administrative review. And this—" She slid a second paper across the desk. "This is a list of hotels near the hospital. If you need somewhere to stay."
Marlene took both. Folded them. Put them in her purse next to her brother's photograph and the last of her cash.
"Thank you."
She walked outside. The morning air was cold—colder than Germany, colder than Grady—and she stood on the hospital steps with her bag at her feet and her phone in her hand and no idea what to do next.
The phone buzzed.
Marlene's heart seized. She fumbled the screen, almost dropping it, and saw the notification—not a call, not a text, but an email. From Gideon's address.
Her fingers were shaking as she opened it.
Marlene—
I know you're looking for me. The hospital called. I told them not to tell you anything. I figured you'd come anyway.
You shouldn't have.
I'm not the man who left your apartment. I'm not the man who held you in that bed. I don't know who I am anymore, but I know I can't be what you need. Not like this.
Don't look for me. Please. Just go to California. Live your life. Forget about me.
—Gideon
She read it three times. Four. The words didn't change. The meaning didn't soften.
Don't look for me.
Forget about me.
Her hand tightened around the phone. The screen dimmed, and she tapped it back to life, reading the email again. And again. And something in her chest—something that had been fragile since the moment she'd heard his voice crack on that voicemail—hardened into certainty.
"No," she said aloud.
A woman passing on the sidewalk glanced at her. Marlene didn't notice.
She pulled up the email. Hit reply. Her thumbs moved across the screen, faster than her brain could edit, faster than the exhaustion and the fear and the three days of travel could dilute what she needed to say.
Gideon—
You don't get to decide that for me.
You called me from a hospital bed in Germany.
You left me a voicemail saying you couldn't walk and that I was probably already gone.
Did you listen to it before you sent it?
Did you hear yourself? Because I did. I heard every word.
I've listened to it a dozen times, and every time I hear the same thing—a man who thinks he's broken but still had the courage to call.
I flew to Germany. I flew to Maryland. I have no savings left and no idea where I'm sleeping tonight and I don't care.
I don't care that you're in a wheelchair.
I don't care that you think you're not the man who left my apartment.
You are. You're the man who kissed my spine and told me I was beautiful and said you'd find me when you came back.
So I'm finding you instead.
Tell me where you are. Or don't. I'll find you anyway. I've got your dog tags and a hundred dollars and a photograph of my brother who never came home, and I'm not losing another soldier I love.
I'm in Bethesda. I'm not leaving until I see you.
—Marlene
She hit send.
The email vanished. The sun climbed higher.
The hospital doors slid open and closed behind her, and Marlene Cross stood on the cold sidewalk with her bag at her feet and her jaw set and a fire in her chest that had been burning since the day she'd walked out of her father's hardware store and into a diner shift that changed everything.
The phone buzzed again.
Not an email this time. A text. From a number she didn't recognize. A Maryland area code.
You're stubborn. You know that?
Her breath caught. Another text followed, seconds later.
Veterans' housing complex. Silver Spring. Building C. Apartment 14.
Come if you want. But I'm warning you—it's not pretty.
Marlene's eyes burned. Her thumb hovered over the screen.
I don't need pretty, she typed. I just need you.
She flagged down a cab.