Playing Jacks

xiv. Life- In Overtime

xiv. Life- In Overtime

I love you.

Watching Sophie’s oddly still figure inhale and exhale with mechanized precision, the three small words stick in Jacks throat until it swells shut.  Wires and tubes stretch between the soft, motionless woman and machinery that beeps and wheezes.  Hardly twelve short hours ago he’d held those fleshy curves in his hands and said good-bye.

This wasn’t the good-bye he’d intended.

“Mr. LeBeau, I understand that you’re worried, but you need to stay in your room,” the nurse tells him, yet again.

“Nurse,” the doctor calls from behind. “Maybe it would be better if we just set Mr. LeBeau up in a room with his wife.”

Wife- the word nearly shatters Jacks.  It doesn’t matter that it’s not true, that it was simply the identity that Callan had on him when he found Sophie shot, Jacks should have been able to protect her.  He should have done more, gotten to her faster, stopped her before she got into that cursed SUV, found a way to say those three words when she’d demanded them . . . Regrets blur his sight and not seeing his buxom brunette is inexcusable- God knows how much time he has left- so he reaches to touch her, only to fall short, afraid that even his gentlest touch will shatter her fragile hold on life.

The doctor pats Jacks’ good shoulder. “There’s growing research that shows that touch is healing, Mr. LeBeau,” she explains with a reassuring smile. “Patients whose hands were held during surgery, even though they were completely unconscious, statistically fared better than patients who were only touched in the course of their treatments.  Interesting, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Jacks agrees a bit absently.  His eyes returning to Sophie’s profile in the dim light, he watches her as if her next breath depended on his diligent attention; but he does not touch her.

If it were prudent, the doctor would promise that everything would be okay, but that’s not in her power to grant.  Instead, she says, “Heart surgery is always risky, but it went well,” and sinks into a chair close by.  “Her blood pressure is doing better.  We’ll be able to take the breathing tube out soon.  She’s not out of the woods yet, Mr. LeBeau, not by a long shot, but she’s stabilizing.”

Still he does not reach for her.  The doctor’s brow furrows, watching the man’s hand flex and reach for her patient’s- only to draw away again.  Finally, gently, she takes Jacks hand and places it over Sophie’s. His breath stutters with the feel of her cool fingertips. Automatically he covers them with both hands, trying to warm them.

The doctor rises and, from the door, she examines the couple in the middle of that hospital room one last time.  “We’ll do everything we can, Mr. LeBeau.  You just don’t let go of that hand.”

Shortly after removing Sophie’s breathing tube, Jacks and Sophie were moved to another room.  Uncharacteristically exhausted, Jacks lies on his side and holds Sophie’s hand as the nurse took his blood pressure and temperature. “How’s your pain, Mr. LeBeau?”

“Bearable,” Jacks grumbles. “I don’t want anything.”

The nurse shakes his head. “That’s balls, man.  Two gunshot wounds, a couple bags of blood, and stitches from here to eternity and you’re passing on something to help you sleep?”

“Had worse,” Jacks quietly notes without bragging.  “I’ll be alright.”

“Your call, man, but try to get some sleep.  Right now your blood pressure’s more erratic than the little lady’s.  The doc’ll take one look at this and order you ‘out.’”