An Empty Feeling

"Comfortable?"

"Not really, but there's nothing you can do about it."

I drove slowly and steered around every bump in the road. We talked, joked, and laughed when I said we would probably have to trade our new car in on a minivan after she got home from the hospital. Three blocks away from Walmart is where it happened.

I was waiting for the light to change from red to green, watching the cars and getting ready to make a left hand turn onto Twenty-Seventh Avenue when the light turned green. I pulled out to make my turn. Heather must have been looking to the right and saw that the dark blue Camry wasn't stopping. "Steve!" she yelled. I turned my head to the right just before the car struck ours.

I was halfway across the front seat reaching for her when the Camry impacted Heather's side of our car. I was instinctively trying to stop her from crashing into the dashboard when all the airbags went off almost simultaneously. She almost slammed into the door before the side airbag pushed her back towards me. All I know was that I was knocked out momentarily, probably from the impact of one of the two airbags hitting me. After that I couldn't comprehend anything going on around me.

They say time stands still when something like that happens, but only initially, then all hell breaks loose. I couldn't see or hear my wife even as I yelled out to her. Only later did I find out she was knocked-out on impact and never regained consciousness. I had at least one person working on me and when I wouldn't stop screaming for Heather only then did they say she was all right.

"Your wife is in good hands, now just lie back and let us take care of you," someone told me. I could feel needles in both arms, felt myself being put on a stretcher and loaded into an ambulance.

People were talking all at once, but besides asking me my name I don't think they were talking to me. I looked at the gray sheet metal roof on the ambulance and tried to sit up to see if Heather was in there with me.

"My wife?"

"She's in the other ambulance that left before us."

"She's pregnant..." I started to say before sitting up too quickly and blacking out again.

When I woke up I was in the hospital and a group of people were again working on me.

"He needs to go first to x-ray and then brought back here." I heard a voice shout. I felt myself being transferred to a different bed and moved down a corridor. Still dazed I watched the ceiling light fixtures go by before being hustled into another room.

I never lost consciousness again and kept my mouth shut unless they asked me something. I was hoping to hear something about my wife, but all I heard was how banged up I was. About an hour later I was in my own room with a green cast on my right arm, a wrapped up right ankle, and a headache that wouldn't go away.

"Mr. Moore," he said to me looking at my chart. "Looks like you've got a compound arm fracture, a sprained ankle, a few nasty cuts, and some bumps and bruises. You should be out of here sometime tomorrow or at the latest Sunday. They're just waiting for the results of some tests and then you can be discharged.

"My wife? How's my damn wife?" I asked for the tenth time since I was admitted.

"I'm not her doctor, but it is my understanding she had a lot of internal injuries. Beyond that I'm not too sure."

"She's pregnant and due in just under a month."

"Look, you stay here. I'll find the attending physician and have him stop in and talk to you. Get some rest, there's nothing you can do for your wife at this point." With that he walked out leaving me with way too many unanswered questions. Rest, who in the hell was he kidding?

It was close to eight o'clock Saturday morning before Heather's doctor made his way over to see me. I was about ready to slip out of my room and physically hunt down my wife when he walked through the door carrying what I thought was her chart.

"Mr. Moore?" he asked, checking to see if he was in the right room. "I'm Doctor Taylor, your wife's physician. How are you feeling?"

"Forget about me, how's my wife doing?" I said just short of screaming.

"She's now stable. There were a lot of internal injuries we had to deal with. She's lucky that your car had side airbags or it could have been much worse."

We talked for the next half hour about her injuries. He went into great detail on what I could expect, how long she'd be in the hospital, and approximately how long her recovery would be. He was avoiding what he and I both knew was the next big issue on my mind. I finally had to be painfully blunt and ask.

I'm not ashamed to say I lost it and cried for about ten minutes. He stood there patiently waiting for me to get a handle on my emotions. When he said that he was sorry I wanted to strangle him. I hated that fucking word because I knew I'd be hearing it over and over again.

"Can I see her?"

"She's in recovery right now. She developed some additional complications along with internal bleeding so we had to go back in earlier this morning. We're going to keep her sedated for the next eighteen hours just to be sure she's out of the woods, but you can see her when she gets back to her room in about an hour to an hour and a half. You'll probably be able to talk to your wife sometime late tonight or early tomorrow when she comes out of it. She's still going to be pretty doped up but at least she'll be awake. Is there anyone at home that will be able to help you with your wife?" he asked, looking at my injured arm and ankle.

"My mother-in-law will be available to do anything I won't be able to do." About two hours later someone came in, put me in a wheelchair, and brought me to my wife's room. That's where I spent the next fourteen hours.

She is my life. How am I going to tell her? Nurses and doctors came in on the hour like clockwork. Although they told me there was nothing I could do and should get some sleep I wasn't moving. There was no way I wanted my wife to wake up, realize what had happened, and me not be there to explain everything to her. If I were on my damn deathbed I would still be here.

My eyes lit up when she started coming out of her drug-induced sleep. She came in and out of consciousness a couple more times before she finally stayed with me. I could hear her breathing deeply and watched as she tried to wet her lips.

"Honey, you want some water?" She shook her head no and went back to trying to wake up. About five minutes later she opened her eyes once, closed them for a few seconds, then opened them again. Looking at me she smiled a little.

"Water," she mouthed. I got a glass with a straw and gave her a few swallows. Her eyes widened when she saw the cast on my arm. Next, came a puzzled expression, followed by a look of horror on her face.

"Shit," I whispered to myself. I knew she'd finally remembered and realized what happened. I came as close to her face as I was able, kissed her lips, and softly whispered in her ear that we'd lost our son.

She didn't make a noise on the outside, but I could tell she was screaming at the top of her lungs on the inside. I climbed onto the edge of her bed and held her as the skies opened up. The tears, the uncontrollable shaking, all took control of my wife. At one point I thought she had stopped so I pried her off my shoulder. She took one look at me and started again.

Over the next two hours a nurse and her doctor came in to check on her. I waved them off and told them in no uncertain terms to come back later. I'm not sure when, but sometime during those two hours Heather fell back asleep or passed out from grief. I never let go of her. I whispered to her that I loved her and that everything would be okay, knowing that was only wishful thinking on my part.

At some point later that evening the nurse came in to let me know that our families were here. I told her to tell them I'd be out later. There was no hurry--I had more important things on my mind. Finally with her out of it, I laid her back down on the bed and wheeled myself out of her room.

I told them everything I knew. Everyone cried and asked what they could do, all I could say was to just pray for her. I spent no more than five minutes with them when I said I had to get back to her room. Our parents told me that they were going to stick around.

"Why don't you go home and I'll let you know when she's awake and feeling better." Who was I kidding? It would be a long time before she felt better.

I sat next to her bed for the next four hours holding her hand. She was emotionally drained. Her body was doing the best thing it could at this moment in time—it was resting. I watched her sleep until I felt a hand on the top of my head, I must have dozed off. I jerked my head up and saw her watching me.

"I love you," I whispered. She mouthed the same back at me. How long we looked at one another I haven't a clue but I knew it was over ten minutes. She had this sad look on her face, the same one I'd seen the last time we'd gone through hell.

"I love you," she said, squeezing my hand and pulling me close. I ignored the pain caused by the sling on my right arm getting caught on her damn bed.

"The nurse said that we can see our daughter as soon as you're awake this morning," I told my wife. Heather's eyes grew wide and even though she tried to say something, nothing came out. Then it hit me...

Our son didn't make it, but our daughter had survived. You see, Heather was carrying twins. When I'd told her that our son had died I guess she assumed that our daughter had also. Our daughter was taken by C-section, and although she was three weeks early she was doing fine. She was just over four and a quarter pounds and would need to spend some extra time in the neonatal intensive care unit at the hospital. I was told she could home once she reached five pounds. The doctor said her position in the womb is what saved her. She had gotten knocked around inside when the force of the crash had broken my wife's amniotic sack, but the quick response of the paramedics and going right into surgery had saved her. We'd lost one of our babies and would have to deal with that sorrow, but our daughter would help us get through the hard times over the next couple of months.

I still the blame myself for Heather being in the car with me that day. She keeps telling me to let the guilt go, but it's hard. If I had waited a split second longer to turn, or if I'd been by myself, I'd be playing with both my daughter and her twin brother. I've gone over it in my mind a million times, however, in the real world there isn't such a thing as a do over especially when it comes to something like this. So, the next time I say to myself, 'if only' I'll think about our lucky Penny. You see, that's what we named our new little girl, and we do feel lucky to have her. It took a lot of soul searching and the love of my wife to show me I should be satisfied with what we have, not what we could have had.