Gabriel Audaz reveled in the deep and satisfying peace filling his heart. He felt Isabella’s forehead pressed against his own. The cool, salty air whipping off the waves softly crashing onto shore billowed and tousled their hair. He smiled, listening to the sweetness of her voice as she prayed. There was no sense of fear in that moment. There was no pain or overwhelming chaos. There was just two friends on a beach, embraced in the love that only friends can have for each other, and comforted by the presence of God surrounding them, protecting them from any harm that could deter them from saying goodbye.
Gabriel lifted his eyes from the sand at his feet to see Isabella smiling at him. “Feel better,” she asked.
Gabriel smiled. “Yes.”
“Good. Now, wake up.”
Gabriel looked at her with a start, her words confusing. “Huh?”
A loud, sudden crash of tin pans and equipment spilling across the floor made Gabriel jump, startling him awake in an instant. An attendant, even younger looking than himself, crouched nervously nearby to pick up the mess he had made. Gabriel watched him for a moment, his mind catching up to the present and his surroundings. He quickly realized he was in a field hospital somewhere. Other soldiers, with injuries of varying degrees of seriousness in varying stages of treatment and healing, laid in beds to his left and right.
“Corporal Audaz,” said a nurse walking closer to the firm, narrow bed he had been placed in. “It’s good to see you awake.”
“I guess it’s good to be awake,” Gabriel said groggily. “How long was I-”
“Three days,” she answered before Gabriel could finish asking. “And considering your heroics and how hard you pushed yourself, I’m surprised it wasn’t a week or more.”
Gabriel blinked, trying to put all of his thoughts back together. All at once, the events in the valley began to come forward out of the sleepy fog in his mind. He looked up at the nurse as he tried to sit up. His chest felt like it was weighed down with lead. Gabriel winced as he tried to breath deeper, every muscle and nerve in his chest stinging like mad.
“Easy, Corporal,” the nurse said, trying to help him. “Your broken ribs are not going to heal that fast. Not after the way you pushed yourself.”
“The sergeant,” Gabriel started to ask. “The sergeant I helped. I...I can’t remember his name.” Suddenly, Gabriel realized he had never learned what it was.
“Ives,” said a voice from behind the nurse. She shifted out of the way enough to reveal the private Gabriel had rescued in the village. His name was Austin Harley. He had insisted on being placed next to the crazy soldier that had saved his life. Private Harley smiled warmly at Gabriel. “His name is Sergeant Ives, sir.”
Gabriel stared thankfully at his peer for a long moment, returning the smile the bandaged soldier had plastered to his lightly stubbled cheeks. Gabriel looked up at the nurse expectantly a moment later. “Is he all right? Is he alive?”
“I believe so,” the nurse answered uncertainly. “I know he was in rough shape. The doctors managed to get him stable, but, I believe they had to airlift him to one of the main hospitals.”
Gabriel nodded slowly, comfortable with that little bit of news.
“You two rest. You’ve had quite the ordeals. I’ll be back to check on you soon,” the nurse said with a pleasant smile, patting both men lightly on the arm.
Gabriel watched her walk past their cots for only a moment, letting his attention wander around the awkward scene he found himself within. The walls were plain, the dirt and grime of the dry climate washed away. There was the smell of bleach and dust hanging in the air. It was pleasant and welcomed by Gabriel’s nostrils. He thought he would forever have the iron-rich scent of blood burned on the inside of his nose.
Gabriel’s thoughts drifted back to the quiet sergeant he had carried over the rocky, unforgiving terrain. The dry, packed dirt still thawing from long, harsh winter freezes could have been the thickest, boggiest mud in the world. Gabriel would not have changed his mind. Help could not get to them so Gabriel knew he had to get the wounded man to safety. The sergeant had saved Gabriel’s life. Gunmen stalking through the sparse brush, steep valleys, and devastating pain rolling inside his own body were no deterrents. Gabriel did what had to be done. He had to do what he could.
His thoughts shifted to the man he caught staring at him expectantly. Gabriel wondered if he was suddenly being hero worshipped. He hoped this wasn’t the case. Gabriel glanced up and down the length of the prone soldier smiling,with patient thankfulness, across the narrow gap between their thin beds. Gabriel’s brief mental recounting of the wounded sergeant had reminded him of the wounded private laying in the bed to his left. “You all right,” Gabriel asked him. He quietly marveled at how suddenly grown-up he sounded in his own ears. He wondered if anyone else listening had noticed.
Private Harley nodded his head. “Yeah. I’m okay.”
Gabriel smiled encouragingly. “Good.” He noticed something protruding from under the soldier’s side. It was thin and metallic-looking. The sunlight bouncing off the white, sandstone walls from the square windows behind them made the smudged trim of the object gleam ever-so-slightly.
Gabriel gestured toward it with a nod of his head. “What’s that?”
Private Harley looked down at his side. “Oh! It’s my tablet,” he said, tugging the skinny, portable computer out from under himself. “I keep it in my bag so it’s a little roughed up.”
He touched the power button at the bottom corner of the streaked, scored black plastic frame. The rectangular touch screen flickered to life. “But, it still works.”
“Cool,” Gabriel said.
“Do you want to use it?”
Gabriel looked up at Private Harley. “You don’t mind?”
Austin Harley smiled. “Not at all. Go ahead!”
“Thanks,” Gabriel said, taking the computer roughly the size of his two hands put together as Private Harley offered it across the shallow gap separating them.
“No, sir,” Harley said. “Thank you.”
Gabriel took his eyes away from the borrowed device in his hands to look left at his new friend. “For what?”
“For saving my life, sir.”
Gabriel only watched him for a moment. Finally, he shook his head, saying quietly, “You don’t have to thank me. And you don’t have to call me ‘sir’.”
Private Harley grinned. It was a small gesture of how humbled he felt right at that moment. “Nevertheless, you still have it.”
Gabriel smiled and nodded his head.
Private Harley leaned back on his pillows. “Oh,” he suddenly remembered. “There’s probably not too much time left on the battery...five or ten minutes maybe. And, the network is awful here so the connection might be really slow.”
Gabriel nodded his head again. “Okay,” he said, already exploring the functions on the device.
It only took him a moment to find and open Private Harley’s web browser. But the soldier had been right about the near abysmal speed of the connection. Gabriel’s eyes kept peering wearily up the screen to the upper-most tool bar. There, the small battery icon was a solid red. He didn’t let it upset him. Gabriel took a slow, pained deep breath, aware of the need to be grateful for the means given.
It took a few minutes more to finally get logged all the way into his personal email box. There were a few random messages that didn’t demand immediate attention. Instead, Gabriel’s eyes widened with excitement when he saw an i.d. with a very familiar last name. It took Gabriel just another second to recognize the user tag as the name of Isabella’s mother. Gabriel thought it strange, but on the whole not completely unusual. Isabella’s mother had always seemed to like him and never hesitated to welcome him into their home.
The subject of the email gave no hit to whether the message awaiting him was good or bad. It simply said Hello Gabriel. Gabriel tapped the screen, opening the email already several days old. It had been sent the night of the brigade’s drop into the valley.
Dear Gabriel, I hope you are doing well and surviving. I know how strong and determined you are. I wish I could have you here instead of there. I, and everyone else here, could really use your strength and heart right now. I don’t have it in me to make this very long. I’m sorry. I wish I was writing you with better news. Please forgive me. Early this afternoon, there was an accident on the highway. It’s been raining really bad here the last two days. A car lost control and slammed head on into another. It slammed into Izzy’s car. As far as we can tell, she went peacefully. I’m sorry Gabriel. Izzy is dead. Please be safe and come home.
Gabriel stared at the end of the message for a long time. He was startled when the tablet hummed noticeably for a long second before the bright screen went suddenly dark. He could still see the email in his eyes though. It was all he could see as he stared down at the lifeless device. His heart felt like a lead weight plunging down through his chest. He started to feel sick. He closed his eyes, trying to calm himself down.
Gabriel was surprised again. He found himself back on the beach. He was standing at the water’s edge instead of sitting in the sand. Gabriel turned with a start, looking up and down the deserted shore. Their friends were all gone. The glow of the small campfire was strangely absent from the nearby dunes. He spotted the place on the beach where he and Isabella had sat. The marks of their presence were still there. He saw the random shapes he had carved into the loose surface. His side of the sandy scene was messy compared to hers.
Gabriel crouched lower where Isabella had been sitting. A warm breeze brushed against his face and arms as he traced the outline of the shapes she had drawn into the damp grains of soil. It was a heart, only slightly smudged out when she had scooted closer to him to pray. Gabriel looked at the etching carefully, noticing letters in and around the heart: G & I FRIENDS FOREVER.
Gabriel smiled. He lifted his head to look at the sun hovering close above the ocean’s horizon. “Thank you, Izzy,” he said softly. “Thank you for being my friend.”
* * * *
It seemed to take a long time for the sounds echoing through the still darkness to become clear and make the slightest sense. But finally, Lucia Audaz recognized the monotone beeps of what could only be a hospital heart monitor. It meant she was still alive. Somehow she had survived what she had been certain was the closing hour of her life. She had been ready. There were no lingering doubts, no feeling like she had failed to complete some objective in her life. Lucia Audaz had made a life for herself she had been proud of, raising a family and serving the country she loved as the best citizen she could possibly be.
She took a deep breath of the chilly air being pushed through a narrow, plastic tube and into her nostril. As she opened her eyes, the rest of her body began to wake up with her. She could feel the small hose helping her breath laying on her cheek as it draped down onto the bed and away out of sight. She could feel the dry cloth of the thin gown clothing her pressed against her skin under the stiff sheets and blanket pulled up to just below her chest. Lucia took another breath, feeling a tautness on her scalp and across her torso that was unusual.
His mother’s shifting drew Carlos out of the bleary collage of thoughts circling in his mind. He turned away from the window. The view was simple and unimpressive. There were the concrete walls of the hospital’s opposing wing. A few windows dotted the otherwise featureless, off-white surfaces. A few floors below them, a small courtyard could be seen between the thin branches of young trees, their dry foliage rustling in the wind bowing the weak limbs. Each brittle leaf was almost perfectly silhouetted in the amber-yellow glow of a tall lamp hidden from the window.
“Mamma,” Carlos said quietly, approaching her bedside.
“What happened,” Lucia asked groggily. Her voice was dry and cracked.
Carlos helped her sip a small gulp of water from a little cup left beside her bed. “You’re alive. They saved you. The doctors saved you.”
Lucia Audaz stared at her son. For a moment that stretched longer and longer, she couldn’t understand what he had just said. Finally, she realized the confusion was not on her part. It was on his. “No,” she said, her voice still cracking. “Why?”
Carlos sat up straight. He was on the edge of her bed. He wanted to be close to his mother, now more than ever before. The doctors had told him the worst was over for now. They had won a severe and critical battle. They warned the war was far from settled, however. Carlos wanted to start things right when she woke up, to make up for the years he was absent from her world, where he was nothing but a name and old pictures in photo albums growing dusty. He wanted things to be right between them, for all the tension to finally be gone.
A dark and twisted sense of regret suddenly sank in his heart as he watched the look on his mother’s face. There was something unmistakable in her eyes. She could be so easy to read. Instead of the relief he had hoped she would awaken with, Carlos could only see a frustrated disappointment in the rich, brown eyes of Lucia Audaz.
“What...what do you mean, ‘why’?”
Lucia cleared her throat. “Why did they save me?”
Carlos stood up in shock. “Because they’re doctors, momma. That’s what they do.”
“Not this. Not like this. Carlos, please. I know what I’m saying.”
“Good! Because I don’t.”
Lucia sighed, turning her head away from Carlos to stare ahead past the foot of the bed. “Carlos, son, I knew. I have known, for a long time, what this was. I have known for a long time what it meant. And, I have known for a long time that there was nothing the doctors could do...”
Carlos was looking at her when she finally peered at once more. “...Or, would do,” she continued. “There are rules now, laws and procedures that force doctors’ hands. Patients have to jump through hoops and I didn’t have the resources to do that. And, I’m not a trained dog about to do tricks for a treat...even if that means my life.”
Carlos’ gaze shifted. His mother, even after being unconscious for three days, noticed immediately. “What did you do,” Lucia asked, her eyes narrowing to a cold, piercing intensity.
Carlos looked at her uncertainly. He hated when when she did that, when her gaze seemed to be probing into his mind and soul. “What? I...I got them to save your life.”
“How?”
“Momma, you’re alive-”
“How, mijo,” she asked, her rasping voice easily overtaking his. “I wasn’t on pain pills and muscle relaxants instead of an actual treatment because I thought it would be better for my health. I’m over 50 years old. That alone makes me a low priority for procedures, medicines, even hospital stays. Add in the fact I sit close to the bottom of the income scale, now I’m even less desirable in this time of medicinal rationing.”
Carlos turned away from her. He bit the inside of his lip. It was nervousness and frustration. He was already uneasy about the decisions he had made, the new alliances he had seemed to set in stone. There was no denying it had begun to feel, almost immediately, like Carlos had sold his soul to the devil. Now, the situation seemed even worse. Now, his mother seemed to sense exactly what transpired. He stared down into the lamp-lit courtyard below the window. The sunlight in the sky had almost completely faded into the growing night.
“So the question is how? How did you manage to get this done for me? You are an incredibly talented artist and storyteller...but you haven’t done anything to make any serious money.” Lucia Audaz took a deep breath, the slightly chilled air channeled through the tube making her head spin a little.
She waited just another moment before continuing. “You haven’t made enough money for this.” Lucia looked at the back of her son. He had never been good at hiding things from her. “So how did you do it? Who are you doing tricks for, son?”
Carlos turned sharply, starting for the door. He stopped with several steps left to go. He stood hesitating, uncertain of what he should do. He pivoted around again, taking a few steps further into the room. It became a kind of pacing. Lucia watched him quietly. He stopped at the foot of her bed to address her.
“You know, instead of laying there and being judgmental and...and unappreciative, you might try seeing it from my perspective, Mom. You were dying. The woman I love most in the world was dying. Excuse me for trying to delay that for a little longer. Excuse me for finally trying to do something right in your eyes for a change!”
Lucia took another long, slow breath. She shook her head, “Oh, mijo...”
Carlos tensed. The cold, dark anger he had managed to store away inside of him exploded through his body. There were so many things he wanted to say, to shout and scream across the small room. How dare she, he thought bitterly. How dare she make me feel this way. She stared at him patiently, waiting for his internal tantrum to become external or fade away.
He took a deep breath, his back straightening with new confidence in the range of his mother’s scrutiny. “I’m a man, Mom. A man who did what he had to do, what he felt needed to be done. But you don’t have to like it. You can just lay there and accept it.”
Carlos didn’t say anything more after that. He didn’t stay in the room, either. Lucia turned her gaze toward the window. She didn’t watch her son leave. Neither looked back at each other before the heavy door clicked loudly closed. The metallic sound echoed around the quiet room, muting for a moment the electronic been of the bedside monitor. For the two of them, it wasn’t just the sound of a hospital room door closing tightly. For this mother and son, it was the door of their old world, the world they had always known and understood, closing for good.
Lucia knew, as Carlos did, there was no going back. One had made a decision for two, so they were trapped together. Lucia leaned back against the cool pillows behind her head. She closed her eyes, thinking of her husband and son in a time long ago, in a place that existed only in her memories.
Carlos stepped out of the hospital, thinking of the moment he wanted to get away from, and then, the world he was going to help remake.
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