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I hate feeling powerless. She looks so beautiful and so broken at the same time. Her hair is singed off on one side, and parts of her dress. They’ve wrapped her arm and hooked her up to multiple monitors and fluids. She’s passed out over and over from shock, but they say her head seems fine.
“She’s lucky she was looking the other way.” The EMT says, jolting me out of my staring.
“What?”
“Well, looks like she was walking that direction,” He points towards the back area where the party was held. “And she must’ve turned her head away or else all these burns on her arm would be on her neck and face too.” I take in what he’s just said, looking over to where I found her. He’s right, she was walking forward, but she turned her face away, away from where she’d just seen me. Away from my car, my instructions.
Away from me.
My chest feels like it’s splitting open.
“Do you want to ride with her to Austin General?”
“Oh, she’s not going to the hospital. I have a family physician on his way to the house. I’m taking her home.”
“Sir, caring for burns is—“
I can’t help but sneer. “She will have the best care, I assure you.”
The tech shakes his head, then he starts to move her. He’s a built young Black guy, reminds me of Tyson. “Alright, well do you want us to—“
“No!” I snap at him, enraged at the thought of him and his counterparts holding her, taking care of her. Plus, her blue sparkling dress—to match my damn blue eyes…Fuck!— is barely hanging on, and it’s so short they’d be copping a feel just by picking her up. Then I remember myself. I breathe in and becomeThe Senator.“You’ve done great work here, guys. You have more people to see to. I’ll carry my wife to the car. Thank you.”
I take one of their foil blanket things and with painful gentleness, lift her bottom half so I can wrap it around her. I don’t want to be worrying about giving all thesesoldadosa show while I carry her. Once she’s wrapped and they’ve folded in her injured arm and unhooked everything, I put my hands under her. They’re shaking.
For the first time, I carry Eleanna, cradle her to my chest, like a bride. Like my bride. She whimpers and I stop. I know the pain she’s in. She’s medicated and sedated and still, that little sigh just stabbed me in the gut.
I want to murder someone. Slowly. Immediately.
With even more care, I continue my what feels like tiptoeing across the restaurant to the street. Ric has the passenger door open and the seat fully reclined, as instructed.
“I’ll drive her.” I say.
“Boss…” Ric says
“I’ll drive her!” I yell, before realizing we have an audience on the sidewalk. Ric shoves a water bottle into my hands, which are trembling badly now. He gives me a look that says I’m in no position to drive and he’s right.
Not because of Melody or bombs or threats or danger.
Because she’s hurting. Eleanna is hurting and there’s nothing I can do.
I sit behind Ric and watch her the whole way home. She grimaces and moans and it absolutely kills me. I gripe at Ric multiple times, as if his driving could be any less…drivey. Fuck, I’m a mess. My phone explodes with messages. I sign off on a press release on the ordeal and confirm with Renaldo that Eleanna is taken care of.
We get to the house and I gather my wife up into my arms. Carmen is in the entryway by the time we hit the front door. “I have supplies and Dr. Philips already in her room,” she gestures to the stairs.
“My room,” I say, carefully maneuvering around the entryway table. It feels like it takes eight years to make it through the house. Carmen runs ahead of me to turn down the sheets and adjust the pillows on my bed.
When I finally place Eleanna down on my bed, she looks tiny. She’s not a tiny woman. Which I like. There’s a grace about her, an elegance, even if I told her otherwise during one of my many dickhead moments. And when she wears her heels, she fits right into my side.
But right now, she looks small and fragile.
Also, it looks right. Her in my bed, on the far side nearer to the wall. Safe. Tucked in. Carmen leaves to get my doctor and I just stare down at my wife.
She’s hurting.
In more ways than one.
I know what she saw, what she probably thought as she walked away from me.
