Page 92 of Love Again

As I tread up the stairs, Luke’s voice reaches me. “Devon. Come here.”

Quickly sliding the box on the counter, I walk down the hall and open the bathroom door. Steam wafts, and the pungent smells of soap and shampoo hang in the air. Luke stands in nothing but a white towel, leaning over the sink with his hands on either side. His eyes are closed.

“You need to take me to the hospital,” is all he says. “Now.”

I look down into the toilet. His urine is blood-brown.

΅

The drive is a bad memory. I called ahead, and he lay in the back seat of my car. Every time I hit a bump, there was an intake of breath. At one point, I was sure he had passed out.

I should have called an ambulance because I drove like a maniac.

When we arrived, there was a team waiting and he was rushed inside.

My last look at him made my gut wrench. His face, drawn with pain, disappeared under an oxygen mask while his long body lay limp and unresponsive. I held his hand for as long as I could—until they wheeled him into a room for triage.

I told the lead ER doctor, a woman in her thirties, about the rhabdo, the fires, the smoke, his fever the night before—anything I could remember.

Now, it’s eleven o’clock that night, and I’ve been phoning Keller all evening with updates that there are no updates. Laurel calls. Cory is home. She wants to know if Mateus should come down. Everyone is staying at The Inn. I tell her no. When Dr. Weston enters the waiting room to talk to me, I tell Laurel I have to go and “Give my love to Cory.”

“You’re his wife?”

“Yes,” I say.

“We’ve done an MRI. Did he fall? Or did something fall on him? On his back?”

My mind races. I don’t know. I don’t know what happened in the cottage. I shake my head.

“This isn’t rhabdo, I’m almost sure,” she continues.

“But the bloddy urine?”

“His kidney is badly bruised, and he’s got a fever, but I’m pretty sure they’re unrelated.”

I flash on Kevin kicking Luke in the back and share this with her.

Dr. Weston is thoughtful. “That would do it. His system is somewhat compromised anyway, and a blow like that will make for bloody urine. And the fever? That’s just a virus.”

She turns to go and then sees my face. She lays a hand on my arm.

“He’s going to be fine, Mrs. Walker. I expect a full recovery. Maybe even faster if we can keep him from leaping into fires for a month.” She smiles.

“Can I see him?”

“He’s medicated, but yes, you can go. Check his room number with the nurses on the second floor.”

΅

He doesn’t wake that evening. It’s not until the next morning that I open my eyes and see him staring at me.

“Thanks forgettingmehere.” His eyes are bleary, and his speech is slurred. I pull my chair next to his bed and take his hand. His eyes flutter, closing and opening, rolling slightly as he struggles to stay conscious.

“Driving so fast,” he says, his voice deep and drugged. “I get it now. So hot.”

΅

They decide to keep Luke for a week to make certain he didn’t damage his lungs and that his kidney wasn’t permanently compromised.