Meagan's Marine (Halos & Horns) (21 page)

Chapter
25

The
Sad Man (Part Two)

“Hello?”

“Don’t be afraid.”

“I’m not.”

“That’s because you’re such a brave
little man.”

“Who
awe
you?”

“Don’t you recognize me?”

Buck stared hard at the man in front of
him, watching as his clothes changed from regular pants and a shirt to
something his mama called ‘dress blues’.  The man reached up, took off his
hat and held it in his hands.

“Awe you my daddy?”

The man knelt in front of him, and
smiled as he nodded. “Yes, Buck. My name is Christopher Buckley Martin, and I
am your daddy. Could I get a hug from you?”

Buck walked slowly into the man’s arms
and gave him a big hug.

“
Mmm
…it feels
so good to hold you, after all this time, son. Thank you.”

Buck stepped back and smiled at the man.
“You aw welcome.”

The man who said he was his daddy
laughed. “You know, I couldn’t say my R’s when I was little, either.”

“You couldn’t?”

“Nope. So don’t worry about that. You’ll
get the hang of it one day.”

“Okay.” Buck looked around. “
Whewe
awe we?”

His dad looked around the small room
they were in. “I’m not too sure, but I’m glad he gave us this time together. I
guess he has his reason for doing it.”

“Who does?”

His dad used his thumb to point above
them. “Him…the Big Guy…God.”

“Oh, I don’t know
him
.”

“Yes you do.”

“Well, I used to
pway
to him
evwy
night. But I
nevuh
did see him.”

“You don’t pray anymore?”

“No.” Buck raised his hands and dropped
them. “I
dunno
know why.”

“Well, that’s okay, because he sees you.
He watches over you all the time. That’s why I know you’re going to be
fine.” 

“Okay.”

“Listen, Buck. I wanted to tell you how
sorry I am, that I can’t be a part of your life. I really wanted to be. That’s
why I was so sad before.”

Buck frowned as he stared even harder at
his daddy. “Awe you the sad man?”

His daddy nodded. “Yeah, I hope I didn’t
scare you. I was lost for a long time. I had to wait until things fell into
place.”

“You didn’t. Mommy and Aunt
Nik
, but not me.”

“That’s because you’re brave like your
mom.”

Buck cocked his head as he considered
that. “She said
you
was
bwave
.”

“Nah. You don’t have to be brave in
order to die. But you have to be very brave to keep on living. Especially when
you’re raising a child without a dad.”

“But I have one now.”

“You mean me?”

Buck nodded. “Yes.
Awe
you
gonna
be a weal daddy now?”

“Well, I’ll always be your father, Buck,
but I can’t really be your daddy. A daddy should be there to throw a ball to
you, teach you to bat and catch, and how to ride a two-wheeler. Things like
that.”

“And fly a kite?”

His dad smiled and nodded. “Yes and fly
a
pterodactyl
kite.”

“That’s a
dinosawr
that looks like a
bewd
!”

“I know, buddy. It was always my
favorite, and you got that from me, too.”

The room started to grow fuzzy, like
smoke but Buck didn’t smell smoke. “What’s happening?”

His daddy frowned, and Buck could suddenly
see a little of the sad man in his face. “I think I’m about to leave. But
before I go, I wanted to meet you. And…I want you to give your mom a message
for me. Can you do that, Buck?”

Buck nodded. “Yeah, but I don’t want you
to go.”

“I have to, son.”

Buck got an idea that made him happy. “I
can go with you.”

“No, not this time. Your mom still needs
you with her. We
will
see each other again, but it won’t be for a long,
long time.”

“Okay then.”

“I’m not worried about you, though.
Because I know you’re going to have another daddy. A good daddy who can be
there for you to teach you all the things I couldn’t.”

“Is it
gonna
be Mitch?”

His daddy smiled at him. “I can’t tell
you that.” Then he winked at him. “Tell your mom…”

Before Buck’s eyes, his dad faded
completely from sight. “Daddy?” He turned in a circle, searching the room, now
filled with a white smoke that didn’t smell like smoke. “Daddy?”  Buck
stood in the room, knowing he was alone, but then he heard it. It was like he
whispered the words in his ear, but he’d heard them loud and clear. He
knew
it was the message for his mom, from his very own daddy.

chapter
26

Houston Texans and #8

Meagan lay on her side, facing her son in
his hospital bed. Very softly, she hummed a tune to an older song, one that had
been a favorite of hers and Christopher’s. She passed her fingers through her
son’s hair repeatedly, combing it back and away from his eyes—waiting, wishing,
willing them to open…to see her, and to know her.

A possibility of brain trauma…some loss
of memory…cognitive powers…no way of telling how severe at this
point…possibility he wouldn’t wake up once he stopped the coma inducing meds.

Tanner’s words of warning looped in her
mind like a message running on one of those highway signs.

“Don’t you
dare
take him from
me.”

She spoke in a quiet but firm voice, the
words echoing in the otherwise silence of the hospital room. She’d asked the
nurse to mute the steady beep of the heart monitor.

But to whom did she speak the words?
Whom could she blame if her child didn’t wake up totally aware of his
surroundings, or worse, didn’t wake at all? Mitch? Definitely not. That left
only herself, since she no longer believed in God. If that were the case, her
dare wouldn’t make any sense, would it?

She thought how empty her life would be
without Buck. It suddenly hit her like a kick in the gut that if he didn’t wake
up, he’d be alone out there, wherever he’d be. He wouldn’t know a soul that he’d
met in his previous life. No grandparents or great-grandparents, or cousins, or
anyone
there to greet him in…where? In heaven? But, if there was no God,
then there would be no Heaven, and that…that…for the sake of her son…was an
inconceivable image.

“Okay.” She tried it on for size. “Okay,
God. You win. I believe in you. I do. I guess I always have, even when I tried
not to, but…I’m totally serious, here…” her breath hitched as she held back a
sob. “You already have his father. Don’t you dare take Buck from me, too.”

She lifted her son’s hand to her mouth,
kissed it, held it, until her tears tracked a path from her face down to his
small fingers. She held them close to dry the dampness from his hands, then
held her breath as she felt him twitch.

Meagan stared at her son’s face and
waited. There. His eyelid moved.

“Buck? Can you hear me?”

Mitch pushed open the door and spoke,
his voice vibrating with anxiousness. “Is he talking?”

Meagan’s gaze never left her son. “No,
but I think the drugs are wearing off. God, I hope he isn’t in any pain. Can
you tell the nurses, please?”

Mitch left for a minute, then poked his
head back inside. “Can I stay, Meagan? Or do you want to be alone? Or you want
me to call
Niki
in?”

Meagan gasped as Buck’s head jerked
toward Mitchell’s voice. “No! Yes! I mean stay! And talk to him, Mitch. I think
he hears you! Buck, can you open your eyes, baby?”

Mitch wet a paper towel and sat on the
opposite side of Buck’s bed. “Hey buddy, how you doing?” Very gently, he wiped
at Buck’s eyes with the towel, trying to wipe away any build-up. “Your mom sure
misses you, Buck, and so did
Nik
…and me too.” His
voice cracked, and he had to clear his throat to go on. “If you can hear our
voices, try to wake up and talk to us, okay Buck?”

Meagan bent closer. “Hey, my brave
little man, can you open your eyes for mama?”

They sat, taking turns talking and
cajoling, letting him hear their voices, working together, until his lids
finally fluttered opened.

Mitch stood aside, so that Meagan’s face
would be the first one he saw.

“Hey little man,” she cooed. “Can you
say something?”

“
Ptewodactyl
.”

Meagan beamed into her son’s eyes as
Mitch burst into laughter from the opposite side of the bed. “Hi baby boy.”

“Hi mama,” he said, before yawning
suddenly.

Mitch leaned over the opposite side of
the bed. “You’ve been sleeping for a while, buddy. How do you feel?”

“Sleepy.” He turned his head slowly in
Mitchell’s direction.  “Hi Mitch.”

“Hey buddy.”

Mitch crossed one arm over his chest and
slapped the opposite hand over his mouth. Meagan supposed it was to keep from
blubbering like a big ole baby. There was nothing quite like a kid coming out
of a coma, to turn a big, bad Marine to a blubbering mass of emotions.

Buck faced her again, tried to lift his
hand. “
Wheaw
am I?”

“You’re in a hospital, baby. Do you know
why?”

“No.”

Buck turned toward the door as
Dr’s
. Tanner Collins and Tiffany McAllister entered the
room. 

“Hey, look who’s awake!” Tanner said,
obviously pleased at what he saw. He took a penlight from his pocket and
checked Buck’s pupils and reflexes while Tiffany called out his vitals from the
monitor readings. “How many fingers am I holding up, Buck?”

“
Thwee
.”

“That’s right. Do you know who these
people are?”

“Mommy and Mitch,” Buck said, before
pointing to Tiffany. “And you
aw
Bwianna’s
mommy, and you…” he pointed to Tanner. “Aw
Dani
and
Sami’s daddy.”

“Look at you showing off!” Tanner said,
beaming down at his patient.

“Do you remember what happened Buck?”

A tremendous relief washed over Meagan
when he said he didn’t. Maybe it would save him from a little mental anguish.

“You don’t remember trick or treating?”
Tiffany asked.

His face lit up in a smile. “I was the
Hulk! And we had a hay wide, and Mitch
dwove
the
twuck
.”

“You are exactly right. And
that,
little
man, is all you need to remember about that night. Besides a couple of broken
bones, and a bump on the head, you are just about perfect!”

He turned to Meagan. “We’ll get him down
for a CT scan later today, but I want all those drugs out of his system first.”

He stepped aside to let Tiffany sit next
to him on the bed. “Hey Buck, how are you feeling?”

“Good. I’m
hungwy
.
Can I have some pizza?”

Tiffany grinned, having to talk over the
laughter in the room. “Well, how about some chicken noodle soup and
jello
for starters? We’ll work our way up to that pizza,
okay?”

“Okay.”

“Now Buck, you had an accident, so your
leg is in a brace. And you remember when you hurt your arm on the merry go
round?” She continued at his nod. “Well you hurt it again so I had to put this
cast on you so it heals better. The cool thing about a cast is that people can
draw on it! Like this…” She pulled a red pen from her pocket and drew a stick
man on his cast. “Pretty cool, huh?”

“Yeah!”

“So, are you hurting anywhere? Your leg
or your arm?” She nodded when he said he wasn’t. “Good, because we don’t want
you to hurt. So if either your leg or your arm starts to hurt, you let somebody
know, okay?”

The doctors walked out, asking Meagan to
join them. Reluctantly, she left Mitch with Buck so she could go talk to them,
immediately worried they were holding back.   

“He’s good, right?”

“He’s excellent from what I can see,”
Tiffany admitted.

“The CT scan will tell the entire story,
but from what I’ve seen and heard, I don’t think it will show any
abnormalities.” He sent Tiffany a cautious glance. “We did want to talk to you
about what some patients have experienced while under induced comas of this
type.”

Meagan felt her hackles rise. “What is
it?”

“Nightmares. He hasn’t mentioned
anything yet, has he?” Tiffany asked.

“No, and I’ve been with him since he
woke up.”

Tiffany nodded. “Good, let’s hope he
bypassed that little curve in the road. Some patients have said they were
extremely disturbing. We just wanted you to be aware that it was a
possibility.”

Meagan gave her a slow nod. “I’ll be
sure and let you know if he says anything.” She re-entered the room quietly,
watching Mitch interact with her son.

The attentive Marine had pulled a chair
close to the bed and sat up with his hand touching Buck’s head, as though
afraid to let go of him.  “Hey Buck, can you tell me why the first word
out of your mouth was ‘pterodactyl’?”

Buck’s next words, spoken in a reverent
whisper, had her immediate attention.

“Because my daddy said his
favwite
dinosauw
was the
ptewodactyl
, too.”

Mitch looked up, letting his gaze land
on Meagan as she approached the bed slowly.

“Your daddy?” she asked, as a cold sweat
swept over her body. “Buck, did you have a bad dream about your daddy?”

“Nu-uh. But I saw him and he said the
ptewodactyl
was his
favowite
one…just like me. And mama, you know what else he said?”  He turned to
her, his eyes wide and wondrous.

“What’s that Buckaroo?”

“He said when he was little he couldn’t
say his ‘
aw’s
either.”

“Really? Well, I sure didn’t know either
of those things.” Her heart pounded as she sat on the bed next to her son.
“It’s nice that you had a good dream about your daddy while you slept.”

“I didn’t
dweam
it, mama. I saw him, but I didn’t know who he was at
fiwst
.”

“Why not?” Meagan was imagining all
kinds of horrific circumstances in her mind. Did the sad man’s face appear
first on the body of a monster?

“He didn’t look like he did in the
pictuw
in my
woom
. He was
dwessed
,” he looked at Mitch and pointed. “He was
dwessed
just like Mitch…in blue jeans and one like that.”
He pointed to the black and gold number 9 New Orleans Saints jersey Mitch wore.
“
Assept
daddy’s was blue and it had a big cow on it.”

Meagan covered her mouth suddenly.

Mitch chuckled. “A cow?”

Meagan wasn’t laughing. “Buck, did it
have a number on it?”

“Uh huh…it was a number 8. It did this.”
With his good arm, he drew two circles in the air, one below the other. “He had
one
heah
and
heah
.” He
pointed to both his arms.

Meagan swallowed. “A number 8, are you
sure?”

“Yeah. One, two, three, four, five, six,
seven and
eight!”

“Oh my God.” She stared at Mitch, then
her son, then Mitch again.

Mitch walked around to meet her. “What’s
wrong?”

“It’s his Texans jersey. Navy blue with
the bull mascot on the front and number 8 for
Schaub
,
he liked
Schaub
. Said 8 was his lucky number. I sent
it to him his very last Christmas. Never even got to see him wear it in person,
accept for once during our Skype calls. I…hang on…” She slipped her wallet from
her backpack and thumbed through a stack of cards and photos until she found
something. “He emailed this image to me and I cropped him out and printed it.
It’s kind of low resolution so it didn’t enlarge very well.” She held out the
image of Chris in a pair of jeans wearing his jersey proudly. “It was a group
shot of several of the guys all wearing their different team jerseys.”

She turned slowly, held the photo up so
that Buck could see it. “Sweetie, is this the shirt you saw?”

Buck’s brows drew together as he
concentrated on the picture. “Hey, that’s my daddy.” He reached out to touch
the picture, its laminated surface a little scuffed and cloudy. “That’s what he
was
wawing
, mama. You see the cow?” He gave Meagan a
toothy grin. “And he was smiling, just like that. He was
vewy
happy to see me. I gave him a hug and
evwything
.”

The breath left Mitchell’s lungs in a
rush. He stared at Meagan and whispered, “Oh, man.”

“Mama?”

Meagan turned to him, attempting to wipe
the tears from her face. “Uh huh?” she managed before biting back the onslaught
of fresh ones waiting to overwhelm her.

“I
hafta
tell
you
somethin
’…
fwom
daddy.”

Meagan choked back a sob as Mitch
slipped his hand into hers. She latched onto it, lacing her fingers through
his, using his strength to pick herself up. “What is it, Buck?”

“He said to tell you…he knows, and he’s
glad you gave me his name…and that he’s home now.”