“May I help you?”
“I’m here to see my husband, Robert Bowen. I’m Claire Bowen, his wife. I spoke on the phone to an E.R. nurse, Lilly Springer.”
The receptionist’s face registered recognition and she turned to the women behind her.
“Lil?”
One of the women stepped from the counter. She was fresh-scrubbed, with a ponytail and an upturned nose.
“Hello, Mrs. Bowen, I’m Lilly.” She nodded at the door to the right of the window and it buzzed. “Come through here, please.”
Antiseptic smells hung heavy in the air as they moved down the polished hallway. The nurse’s soft-soled shoes squeaked when they stopped at a small waiting room.
“Please have a seat, Mrs. Bowen. The doctor will be with you shortly.”
“How long before I see my husband? You said he was okay?”
“Yes, it should only be a few more minutes.”
“Can you tell me what happened?”
“The doctor should have more information.” The nurse smiled before leaving.
Claire took stock of the room-of its brown faux leather sofas and outdated copies of Time and People on wicker tables. Still tense from the drive and worry, she sat down and inhaled slowly. On the sofa facing her, a woman with a wrinkled face bowed her head to the rosary in her gnarled fingers. The beads clicked softly and her lips moved as she prayed. Sitting beside the woman was a younger man. His T-shirt, blue jeans and work boots were stained with blotches of paint. He looked as if he’d rushed here from a work site. He stared into the worn ball cap in his lap as if it held his past and his future.
They were the only people still in the room with Claire when a man arrived, wearing a white lab coat over blue scrubs and carrying a chart.
“Mrs. Bowen, here for Robert Bowen?”
“Yes.” Claire stood.
“Dr. Shaw.” He shook Claire’s hand. “We’ll talk in the room across the hall.” The room was smaller; the doctor left the door open indicating their conversation would be brief. Claire stood while he tapped a pen on the chart as he reviewed it.
“Your husband’s fine.” He kept reading.
“Can you tell me about his car accident?”
“As I understand it, he was not involved, but came upon it and helped rescue people. He was pulled away just as the wreckage exploded.”
“Dear God.”
“He’s lucky. He and the people he saved are fine. He’s got some abrasions and very mild shock, but he can go home. We’ll give you sedatives so he can rest at home. I’ll take you to him, then you can sign some papers for discharge.” He smiled.
“Thank you, Dr. Shaw.”
“And we understand there are some press folks who are interested in talking to him out front. That’s entirely up to him of course.”
They turned to leave but the doorway was blocked by the man who had been in the waiting room with Claire. He was holding his ball cap with both hands, slipping its rim through his paint-flecked fingers.
“Can I help you?” Dr. Shaw said.
“Please forgive me, but I overheard-” he nodded to Claire “-about your husband.” Claire shot a questioning glance to Dr. Shaw, but the man continued. His accented English was strong. “I am Ruben Montero. My son, Alex, he is eleven and he was in the accident with my wife and daughter. They were delivering donations to our church.”
“Yes,” Dr. Shaw said, recognizing the name. “Alex. He’s with Anne, Dr. Feldstein. Would you like me to see about him?”
“No, I’ve spoken to him. We’re going to see my wife and daughter soon. But Alex told me what this lady’s husband did for my wife, Maria, and our baby, Bonita.”
“Oh, yes. He must have helped get them to safety,” Claire said, surprised when Ruben Montero suddenly took her hand.
“He saved the lives of my family,” Claire felt Montero’s callused hand tighten on hers and looked into his face, close enough to notice his stubble. “For that, I thank him with every beat of my heart. Tell him for me.”
“I will, Mr. Montero.”
“You are blessed for having such a man for your husband. You are blessed because a man like this…a man like this, is rare.”
8
Los Angeles, California
Robert Bowen was alone.
He was sitting on the table of the examination room. The faint ringing in his ears had stopped. He stared at the large clock on the wall above the eye chart and scales. Outside the closed door he heard the loudspeaker’s muffled dispatches over the bustle in the hall while here, in the quiet, he listened to the whir of the clock’s movement.
It was only a moment ago that he’d held the baby…
…then hands grasp his legs, drag them from the car…clear, the explosion, lift the wreckage, rattle the debris, the flames, heat, hands drag them…the ensuing mayhem, the baby’s cries, the sirens, the paramedics: “Can you hear me, sir? We’re taking you to the hospital… The baby’s going to be okay!”
Everyone had survived, they’d told him, with no life-threatening injuries.
A miracle.
The clock’s minute hand swept time.
He was still shaky. His few scrapes had been cleaned and dressed. A nurse had said Claire was on her way.
The room smelled of rubbing alcohol and held a trace of gas. His white shirt, torn, streaked with road grime, along with his pants, was stuffed into a clear plastic bag in the corner. They’d given him a surgeon’s T-shirt and pants to get home in.
He stared at nothing, contemplating the last few moments. Adrenaline was still rippling through him. He massaged his temples, shut his eyes and again he was cast back to the accident.
An ominous wave rolled over him then suddenly…the hands that had grasped his legs became talons pulling him into the inferno, dragging him down, down, down, through the burning recesses, through the lava slime of every shame, to the breathing, heaving bubbling pit of every foul, cursed thought, every bestial urge. Every vile desire, until he came to… It calls to him now, demanding he answer: Why did you let the woman and her baby live?
Bowen said nothing.
No one knew the battle raging within him.
The soft buzzing of the clock’s movement filled the silence that passed.
He continued massaging his temples. For how long, he didn’t know. But he kept rubbing until his heart rate slowed, his breathing slowed, until he heard the clock, the subdued sounds of the loudspeaker and activity in the hallway as the door to his room swung open and Claire entered.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey.”
She hugged and kissed him.
“How are you doing?” She brushed his hair lightly, taking quick inventory of his scrapes.
“I’m fine, how about you?”
Tears filled her eyes as she nodded and smiled.
“Good. Let’s get you home.”
An administration staff member and a nurse helped Claire expedite Robert’s discharge. As they stepped out of the hospital, Claire saw Ruben Montero turn from talking with a half a dozen reporters.
“That’s him, with that lady, the man who saved my family.”
Microphones and bright TV lights collected around them.
“Sir, are you Robert Bowen?”
“Yes.”
“Carmen Chow, First Witness News,” said a woman in her twenties wearing heavy makeup. “Sir, this man says you saved his family. Do you consider yourself a hero?”
Bowen looked at Claire then at Carmen Chow.
“No, I just did what anyone would’ve done in the same situation.”
“We’re told a lot of people at the scene were afraid,” one reporter said.
“Not this man.” Ruben Montero beamed, taking Robert’s hand and shaking it. “This man is a good man, a great hero!”
A razor-thin line of unease cut behind Bowen’s smile.