Chapter 3
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Naomi, already chilled, cried out in relief when she was finally led inside, and the cold wind suddenly stopped assaulting her. She was led to another medical bay, and she groaned as she stepped inside and looked over at Trent. “Do we need to stay in hospital beds again?”
“Yes,” he stated, “but mostly to check that you survived the trip okay. Plus to make sure that you’re still not running fevers,” he added.
She sighed, followed instructions, and very quickly was stretched out on a bed again.
Yet this time everything felt different, bigger.
It was such an odd feeling, and Trent was right there with her.
“You look like you could be anywhere else. Are you on babysitting duty?” She had mentioned it half-jokingly, but he smiled and nodded.
“Actually, I am.”
“Oh, ouch,” she muttered. “Sorry about that.” In all honesty, it was hard to be sorry.
She liked him, liked having him around. She found a sense of comfort that, as long as he were here, she had some continuity in the craziness of a world changing a little too much and too fast. He made her feel safe. Grounded.
His tone mild, he added, “It’s all good.”
She nodded, not expecting him to say much else. “So, it’s a job, and I guess you don’t really have too much control over it.”
He smiled at her. “Actually none of these people are my bosses. We’re just on the same boat. If you want to classify it, we’re all on the same side.”
She wasn’t sure to what extent that worked but understood what he was saying. “I do appreciate the rescue.”
“Me too,” Ricky piped up from not far away.
She slid off the bed, walked around the corner of her room, and smiled. “There you are, pipsqueak.”
He laughed. “We’re back in bed again. I wish we could be exploring instead. This thing is like huge!” He popped forward in his bed so he could see her and shared, “I can’t wait to play hide-and-seek in this place.”
She groaned. “Oh no, now you’ll give me nightmares.” He laughed and laughed, as if she’d said the best thing ever.
Trent’s gaze went from one to the other, with one eyebrow up.
She explained, “He is like the absolute worst at playing hide-and-seek.”
“Best, you mean,” Ricky clarified.
“Yeah, well, that depends on your perspective. What I mean is, he’s brutal about it because it’s almost impossible to find him when he goes missing.”
“He goes missing?” Trent asked.
She nodded. “That’s what it seems like, and I don’t know quite how he manages to do it. It’s awful, and, more times than not, he’s impossible to find.”
Trent frowned. “That happens a lot?”
She sighed. “I don’t know how many times we’ve had to give up and wait for him to hear us before giving in. Even then, he doesn’t like to come in very quickly, and we end up worried.”
“You wouldn’t make everybody worry, would you?” Trent asked the boy, turning in feigned astonishment to Ricky.
Ricky giggled.
Trent smiled and nodded. “That’s because you’re just making sure that they know you won.”
Ricky’s grin turned into a fat smile.
Trent just shook his head, smirking now, then turned to her.
She snorted. “He really is a character.”
“And a happy character now.” Trent gave Ricky a pat on the shoulder. “Maybe get a nap, and then I’ll try to find out whether we’re leaving here immediately or not.”
“Immediately?” she asked him. “Why?”
“We have to get within distance so the military helicopters can travel.”
“You mean, I’m going on a helicopter too?” Ricky cried out in excitement.
“That’s the plan, buddy,” Trent confirmed, “but we’ll see, so no promises.” Then he turned and left the room.
She looked over at Ricky and said, “I’m glad to see that you’re having so much fun.”
He turned to her, all the joy dropping from his face. “It helps.” Then he shivered. “After all those mean and nasty men, Trent’s nice. I like him.”
“I do too,” she said. “Trent has people out looking for those other people who went overboard.”
“You told me that they would be okay.”
“And I hope they are, but I don’t know for sure.”
“You told me that they were fine.”
“Yes, I did. The bad men didn’t shoot them, did they?”
“I don’t know, but there could have been sharks or something.”
“And maybe there were sharks, but that doesn’t mean that they were hungry sharks,” she stated in a matter-of-fact tone. “Sharks don’t eat continuously.”
He stared at her with a narrow gaze, and she stared right back at him. “Trent has people out looking to see if anybody is in the water, and they’re also checking to see if they already made it back home,” she shared.
Ricky laid back down, closed his eyes, and whispered, “At least I’m on an aircraft carrier.”
Such reverence filled his tone that she had to laugh. “I forgot how crazy you are about all kinds of military boats.”
“Not a boat,” he declared in disgust, opening his eyes to stare at her. “It’s a ship.”
“Right,” she muttered. “I forgot how crazy you are about military ships,” she clarified, with an eye roll, but he laughed at her. She shook her head.
“You do it on purpose. You think it’s funny,” Ricky declared.
“It is funny,” she confirmed, “but that’s okay. Pretty soon, we’ll be back with your family.”
His smile dropped away. “Do you think they know what happened?”
“I don’t think so,” she replied, trying hard not to think about it. “At least we didn’t hear anything about that.”
He went silent for a long moment, then whispered, “I worried that maybe they were taken too. I was afraid.”
“Well, let’s hope not,” she declared, frowning at him. “That’s not something we want to think about.”
“No,” he agreed, “but what if they were?”
“How about we don’t go there right now?” she stated. “Let’s believe that everything is okay and that, when we get back stateside, everything will be back to normal.”
He nodded and muttered, “I hope so.” He fell asleep soon afterward.
She drifted in and out herself, half expecting to be woken up and taken back into the cold, although she had no idea when that would happen. She just knew that it would at some point.
When she woke up again, Trent was at her side, stalwart and calm. She smiled at him and asked, “Hey, how is babysitting duty going?”
“Pretty well,” he said, with a quick smile. “It’s nice for the kiddo to just sleep his way through this.”
She smiled, appreciating his humor, and she asked, “Did you get an ETA?”
“Yeah, in the morning.”
She frowned and muttered, “I don’t even know what time it is.”
He grinned, checked the time. “It’s four … in the morning. So, you have another few hours of sleep, and then we’ll be leaving.”
“Okay.” She whispered, “Did you get any updates?”
“As in about his parents?”
“Yes, and the people put overboard.”
“The people who went overboard are fine,” he shared. “They were picked up soon afterward by a passing sailboat, so they are all good.”
“And his parents?”
He leaned forward and asked in a low tone, “How do you normally contact them?”
“I have a phone just for them,” she shared. “That’s how we contacted them all the time. They did text messages, phone calls, all that good stuff, but we didn’t have any other way to reach them.”
He stared at her and, after a long moment, asked, “How long have you worked for them?”
“Oh my, let me think. … Three years, I would say. Maybe a little more.”
He didn’t say anything but continued to stare at her as if thinking hard.
“Why?” she asked. “What are you getting at?”
“Remind me again how many times you’ve met them in person?” he asked, ignoring her questions.
She thought back. “I’ve never really been with them.
Like, I handed Ricky over.” Then she frowned, adding, “But I didn’t hand him over to his family.
I handed him over to a man of business, I think it’s called.
Anyway, I would get a photo to confirm he was who he was supposed to be.
Then he would pick up Ricky and take him to his parents.
However, once Ricky got really sick, his parents did fly in.
” She rambled on because she really wasn’t entirely sure how to answer most of his questions.
“So, I would know that they were nearby, but I wouldn’t really be with them, you know?
They’re the kind of people who don’t really see me as existing for them. ”
His eyebrows shot up.
She tried hard not to say it with any kind of resentment.
“I’m the hired help,” she stated bluntly, with a wince.
“So, yeah, it’ll be tough when I’m dismissed because I’ve grown quite close to Ricky.
Yet I also have a feeling that, if his mother knew we were as close as we are, she wouldn’t be happy. ”
He slowly nodded. “I imagine that’s a challenge for many families. If they aren’t closely involved, it’s probably also hard for them to get close to Ricky if you’re there too.”
“How am I not supposed to feel close to Ricky when we spend every day together?” she argued, raising her hands. “But I do know that they weren’t happy and frowned on the idea of us bonding.”
He laughed. “Well, they can frown on bonding, but you can’t stop it if you’re the only two people who exist in Ricky’s world.”
“See? That’s the thing.” She lowered her voice even more.
“They’ve never really been interested in participating in Ricky’s life,” she shared.
“They already have two healthy, strong, active children—adult children—and Ricky being weaker and not exactly robust, … I don’t want to say less than but kind of disregarded. ”
Trent didn’t say anything at first but finally nodded, as if he understood. “That would be sad if it’s true because Ricky’s very lively.”
“He’s getting stronger, but this event could set him back. I think he needs more time with his family, but it doesn’t seem that will happen, as I can’t do much about their interactions with Ricky.”
“Do you know why it won’t happen?”
“Because they live big, vibrant lives, with no room for somebody who needs as much care and attention as Ricky does at this point in time.” She was almost ashamed of saying it out loud, but that was the sad truth.
“If he gets stronger and if they ever slow down and don’t want to constantly jet-set around the world, where he wouldn’t be a hindrance to them, then it might change.
In the meantime, I just don’t see it happening. ”
“Good God,” he muttered.
“I’m just telling you how I feel,” she clarified.
“I could be wrong, but I don’t really know how it can be anything else.
Obviously I’m on his side and not on theirs, and that’s probably not fair on my part,” she conceded.
“I’m not trying to judge them, but it’s hard to when all Ricky wants is to spend time with them, and they just have a lot of excuses as to why that won’t work. ”
“And what are those excuses?” Trent turned to her and asked.
“Most of the time they’re off on business, but I know that sometimes they’re really off skiing or traveling, and there’s no reason he couldn’t go with them, except that health-wise he’s not as strong.
And when they have tried to take him the odd times, it was just for day trips.
I wasn’t allowed to join them but was told to be nearby.
Ricky ended up going to emergency rooms for something or he needed antibiotics, and it supposedly curtailed everybody’s fun.
” She shrugged. “So, he tends to get left behind a lot.”
“And yet they have the money to hire someone, like a nurse to travel with them,” he pointed out.
“Absolutely,” she declared, “so I don’t think it’s the fact that they can’t. I think it’s entirely the fact that … they won’t.”