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Maggiewoketoa pounding head the next morning thanks to Dani’s visit with her friend, Jose Cuervo. She knew better than to have more than two of Dani’s margaritas, but she’d needed the escape. Though her head was paying for her lapse in judgement, she had to admit she had come up with a plan of how to right things with Zane. She decided to text him before everything got crazy at the cafe. Her anxiety started rising when she waited several beats and didn’t see the three little dots that would show he was responding to her. She texted him again. Still no answer. She stared at the screen, willing it to answer her but no response came. Her heart sank.
Zane felt his phone vibrate but whoever it was would have to wait. He stood at the bedside of a twenty-one-year old who had been injured at his job. The boy had been standing on the back of a logging truck bumper directing his buddy in backing the rig out of the woods when the truck hit a large hole in the ground and he had been bucked off the tailgate. The driver had backed over his head before he could even shout in alarm. Now his family surrounded the bed in shock and fear staring at him as if he had the miracle they wanted in his pocket. Zane tried his best to explain the boy’s current situation in terms they could understand.
“The tire made several cracks in his skull. He has some swelling of his brain which is likely why he hasn’t woken up yet.” He began.
“Will he be okay?” his mother asked tearfully. “He’s going to wake up and be okay, right?”
“It’s really hard to know, Mrs. Benetiz,” Zane explained. “The swelling isn’t severe, so far, so we are hoping that we can get it down with medications. Once the pressure gets closer to normal range, we’ll know more. I know it’s very scary right now, but, honestly, his injuries aren’t as severe as we might have expected given the nature of his injury.”
Zane didn’t want to give them false hope, but didn’t want to make them give up either. The boy actually could be much worse off. Zane glanced at some more results in his chart. “We’ll know more in another twenty four hours. In the meantime, my best advice is keep talking to him. Let him know you’re here. We’re not very strict about visiting hours in this unit. We think it’s more important that the families are here, so feel free to chose someone to stay overnights if you’d like.” Zane put a comforting hand on the mother’s shoulder. “But please remember to get some rest yourself. Let your family help you. Cody’s recovery is going to be a marathon, not a sprint, and you don’t want to make yourself sick. That won’t help anyone.”
The woman gave Zane a tremulous smile. “Thank you, Dr. Savage. Bless you.”
Zane smiled in acknowledgement. He figured he could use all the blessings he could get these days. As he left the room to head to radiology to look at the most recent scans, he remembered his phone vibrating in his pocket. He pulled it out and stopped in the middle of the hallway when he saw the sender.
“Shit!” he said, making more than one person cut him a side eye. Maggie had sent several texts over the span of half an hour.
Good morning.
Do you have a minute? I’d like to talk.
Zane? I hope everything is okay?
Will you call me when you get this?
Zane ducked his head in consternation. She probably thought he was ignoring her because of the fight. He rushed down the hall to the doctor’s lounge at the end of the unit. He was happy to fine the room empty for once. He needed to decompress. He glanced at his watch as he hit Maggie’s number. 11:30. She was probably right in the middle of her lunch rush. The phone rang five times before going to voicemail. Zane tried to quickly figure out what to say.
“Hi, Maggie. I’m so sorry I missed your call. Great dude you sound like a fucking answering machine message! Uh, I was in a long consult with a family.” He took a steadying breath before continuing. I feel like I’m in high school again, shit! “Anyway, I know you’re probably in the middle of the lunch rush so just...” He was interrupted by his phone beeping with an incoming call. Maggie. He immediately abandoned the voicemail and clicked over.
“Hi, Maggie. I was just leaving you a message.”
“Sorry!” She sounded out of breath. “I forgot my cell in my office and before I could get to it, it had stopped ringing. Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, I mean with me. I’m fine. I’m sorry I couldn’t answer. I was in a consult with a family whose son was in a bad work accident. It took quite a while.”
Maggie felt chagrined at the impatience she had been feeling when he didn’t pick up for her. “Oh, that’s terrible! For the family, I mean. And, it must be hard on you as well.”
Zane suddenly felt the weight of the family’s hope placed on him and he dropped into a chair. “Yeah, it’s one of those where I can only do the limited things available to me and hope the boy is strong enough to fight back on his own. He’s only twenty-one and the family is devastated.”
There was silence on the line for several long beats. “Maggie?”
“I’m sorry,” she answered, and he heard her blow out a breath. “That sounds just awful. I’m so sorry you’re having to deal with that. You can call me back later if you need to.”
“No, it’s ok. I was just going to catch up on some charting. I’d rather talk to you then do that,” he said honestly, a smile creeping into his voice.
“Um, I hate to ask, knowing what’s going on there but, do you think you can get away Saturday evening?” She paused. “I’d like to talk. I think it would be better in person instead of over the phone.”
Zane rubbed at the lump that had suddenly taken up residence in the middle of his chest. Nothing good had ever come after ‘we need to talk’ in his experience. “Uh, yeah, actually I can. Do you want me to come to your place?”
“No,” she responded, a little too quickly for Zane’s liking. “Why don’t you meet me at the cafe? We close early on Saturdays, so we’ll have privacy there. Say six o’clock?”
“Okay. I’ll see you then.” He hesitated, unsure of where they stood but needing to let her know how he was feeling. He didn’t want to give her any excuse to tell him goodbye. “It’s good to hear your voice, baby. I’ve missed you.”
He thought he heard a catch in her voice when she said, “I’ve missed you, too.”
