Author's Note: This is a rewrite of the story I posted titled From The Heart just a week ago. A number of commenters felt it was too short, and I said I would rewrite it sooner or later. I decided on sooner, and incorporated several other criticisms into this rewrite. I hope you find this improved. I left the original in place, in case you choose to compare the before and after.
A repeat of the hat tip to member funnyalix for suggesting in a Lit chat one night that I should "write from the heart." I decided to take her suggestion literally as the basis for the title, then came up with a story to fit. So here we go...
Leenysman
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Disclaimer: All sexual activity described in this story is between fictional characters over the age of 18.
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I don't remember the crash. Maybe that's a good thing, to block out the pain, both physical and emotional. I don't want to remember the details. For a while, I didn't want to remember much of anything.
The first thing I do remember was coming to in the ambulance, as it raced to the hospital, and hearing one of the EMTs say, "He's awake. You're going to be okay, Henry. We're on the way to Mercy. You have a broken arm and a broken leg, and we've splinted both and given you something for the pain." I focused on him, and saw a name badge that said Ramirez, before I look up and saw a face that looked about my age of 29, with a moustache and one of those little soul patches under his lip.
"Hank, call me Hank... Missy! How's my wife?" We had been on our way home from our 5th anniversary dinner before leaving for Bermuda the next day when... Why couldn't I remember what happened next?
Ramirez said, "The first team of EMTs on the scene are doing everything they can for her. She should already be in surgery now. You're probably next, if that leg fracture is as bad as I think it is. Nothing they don't know how to deal with, though."
~~~~~
I must have passed out again, because the next thing I remember is waking up in a hospital bed, my bandaged left leg elevated in one of those traction rigs, my left arm in a cast. I had an IV and a blood pressure cuff and some other cabling wrapped around my right arm.
If the little white board next to the door was to be believed, I had skipped a whole day. Our anniversary was on the 22nd of April, but the board said it was the 24th. The window showed darkness outside, but whether that meant it was early on the 24th, or late, I didn't know.
I looked around, and found a call button on a cable wrapped around the bed frame where I could reach it with my right hand, and gave it a push.
It took five minutes, but someone finally answered. "Good morning Mr. Sherman. I'm Nurse Wilkins. You're at Mercy Hospital on the post-surgical floor. The doctors needed to open up your leg to insert some rods and screws to hold your tibia and fibula together until they heal, so try to keep still How are you feeling?"
"How is my wife?" I answered.
Nurse Wilkins hesitated. "I... Dr. Havers is on his way here, and he'll update you on your wife. It's policy here for the nurses to not discuss other cases. Dr. Simons is assigned to your case, and he will see you on rounds in a few hours. Meanwhile, I do need to assess your status. On a scale of 1 to 10, how much pain do you have?"
"A four, I suppose. I assume I'm getting pain meds through the IV already?"
"Yes, sir," she said, just as the door opened, and a grey-haired doctor came in. When he got close enough, I could see 'Dr. Ronald Havers' embroidered into his white coat. Which is a good thing, as he never actually introduced himself.
"Nurse, can you excuse us?" he said, pulling a rolling stool over to the bed, and sitting down on it. When Nurse Wilkins had stepped out, Dr. Havers turned back to me, and said, "I was your wife's surgeon, Mr. Sherman. Your wife Melissa presented with a major head trauma, and my team and I did everything we could to repair the damage, but it was too extensive. I had to declare her brain dead after three hours, and called in the transplant team. I am so sorry for your loss."
"Transplant team? You harvested her organs?" I asked.
Havers looked surprised by the question. "Yes. I thought you would have known that she had indicated on her driver's license that she registered as an organ donor, which amounts to her pre-consent for donation. Once a determination was made that she would not recover, the organ donation protocols went into effect. I know it doesn't make up for your loss, but be aware that her organs have already saved four lives in the past day, including a heart transplant that was performed right here at Mercy."
Missy is dead. The thought repeated in my head until I fell asleep again, leaving me with another hole in my memory, as I don't even remember Havers getting up and leaving.
I drifted through the next several days, barely remembering anything from that time. Nurses checked on me, got me to use a bedpan, meals got delivered that I don't remember eating, my leg was put into a cast from thighs downward after the incision was healed enough, but it was all swallowed up by the blankness of a life without my Missy in it.
It was on the 28th that a ray of sunshine appeared to break through the clouds. Nurse Wilkins was on shift again, and came into my room, saying, "Mr. Sherman, there is someone here who wants to see you."
A visitor? So far as I knew, nobody was even aware that I was there. Missy and I had just started a two week vacation the day of the accident, and were supposed to be in Bermuda, and to keep burglars away from the house we weren't going to post to social media about the vacation until we were home. Our friends and family would be expecting not to hear from us. Missy had lost her parents in her early 20s, but I hadn't even called my own family yet, that's how bad the fugue was.
"Who?" I asked. "Did the hospital call my family?"
"We would if we had a number, Mr. Sherman, but you haven't responded to several attempts to ask for one, and nobody has inquired about you. But this visitor isn't someone you would know. She... um... she's the woman who received your wife's heart a week ago. She just got transferred to this floor out of ICU and insisted she wants to speak with you, but you need to consent, first."
Missy's heart? The woman asking to see me had her heart? "I thought donations are supposed to be anonymous."
"They are," the nurse said. "Nobody here told her, I swear. She just knows, somehow. I'm told she actually asked about you the moment she came out of anaesthesia."
"Yes, I consent. Show her in, please."
