Paradise Valley (Virgin River #7)(32)

“Nah, you’re not on your own. Not while I’m around. Not while Mel’s around. I’ll mention to Mel that you’re not getting any support. If anyone has ideas, it’s Mel.” He didn’t feel it was his job to get them together. But if there was anything he could do to get them through this dark patch so each of them could carry on without terrible damage, he’d damn sure try.

Jack and Liz flew from Frankfurt to Kennedy International to Denver to Redding. Before heading out of Redding to Eureka, they visited a cell-phone store where Jack bought a phone. There was no reception in the mountains; they relied on pagers and landlines. But there was plenty of reception in San Diego. He FedExed the phone to Rick, to Lance Corporal Richard Sudder. He scrawled a note:

Just so I can reach you. So you can reach me.

And anyone else you want to talk to. Jack.

Then he took Liz home to Eureka. He carried her suitcase up to the porch for her and it was there that she wrapped her arms around him, laid her head on his chest and cried. “Thank you for everything you did for me. For Rick. I’ll pay you back somehow.”

He lifted her chin. “Liz, I did it because I thought it was an important thing to do. It wasn’t a loan. Forget it.”

“But I think you wasted your money.”

“Hey. We needed to see him alive. Think about it—alive and pissed off is so much better than what it could’ve been. Let’s stick with that. And move ahead the best we can.” He paused. “He needs time.”

Then he drove the rest of the way to Virgin River.

Normally, when he had dealt with something confusing or emotional, the one person he wanted to talk to, be with, would be Mel. She had this uncanny knack for zeroing in on a problem, cutting through the flab and attacking the situation with reality, honesty, wisdom.

This time he went to his bar and looked for Preacher. They’d been to Iraq together twice and had been through some ugly stuff. Preacher had been wounded pretty bad the first time and Jack had carried him about a mile to get him to medical transport, but Preacher had come away with all his parts.

The bar was quiet; a couple of guys were sharing a pitcher and playing cribbage, so Jack went back to the kitchen where Preach was slicing and dicing. “Hey,” he said.

“Jack! Whoa, man. When did you get back?”

“Seconds ago. I need to go over to the clinic, see Mel and the kids.”

“How is he?”

Jack shook his head. “He’s a goddamn mess. Hurt, pissed, so angry, isolating, doesn’t want a friend, doesn’t want help, barely acknowledged that Liz and I flew across the f**king Atlantic to carry his body home.”

Unbelievably, Preacher smiled. “Good. He’s getting stage one covered.”

“Stage one?”

“Yeah, maybe one and two. Anger and denial. He’s gonna have to grieve the leg, the war wounds, the time he lost from his young life. There’s probably going to be five stages.”

Jack leaned on the worktable, his brow wrinkled. “How do you know this shit?”

“I looked it up on the computer. You know, after you figure out e-mail, there are other things you can do on that computer.”

“So what’s next for him?” Jack asked.

“I’ll have to get my cheat sheet, but it could be bargaining—I’ll never commit another sin if you just let me live. That kind of thing. We’ve all done that. All that’s really important is—it ends in acceptance.”

Jack straightened. “How long does it take?”

“Well, there’s the thing,” Preacher said. “It depends on the person. Rick? He’s pretty tough. It could stretch out. He doesn’t let go easy.”

“Christ,” Jack said, running a hand along the back of his neck. “Why do I always think I know you?”

“I dunno, Jack,” he answered with a shrug. “But Rick—we’re just at angry? And his body, his health—that’s under control?”

“He’s still in a lot of pain, on drugs for it, shipping to San Diego as we speak. Balboa. NMCSD. He’ll heal up the stump and start physical therapy. They could keep him until he gets his leg or farm him out to some smaller facility.”

“It has to heal and shrink. They can’t fit him until it’s ready—no swelling, no redness, no tenderness. They’ll get that stump in a shrinker, looks like a skull cap kind of. It’s real important, before they fit the prosthesis, that it’s not swollen or anything. They’ll work with him in PT to avoid muscle contractures and desensitize that stump to get beyond the phantom pain. A lot of physical therapists will put a healthy, healed stump in a bowl of crunchy dry cornflakes and grind it around to kind of teach the nerves that the leg ends there.”

Jack’s eyes grew wide. “How do you know this shit?” Preacher just tilted his head and smirked. “You looked it up, I know.”

“Well, I wanted to understand the news you brought home.”

“And how is the news?” Jack asked.

Preacher shrugged. “Pretty much on target.”

Rick began his stay in San Diego in the Naval Medical Center orthopedics ward, which he shared with other young men recovering from recent injuries. While there, he was evaluated for his pain management and physical therapy program. Before the end of the week, he was having PT every day and had been issued both a walker and wheelchair, but he had little interest in leaving the ward.