When we reached his hospital room, Sean was lying on his back with his head tilted towards the door as if awaiting our arrival.
We paused in the doorway. Dina because this was the last thing she had expected, and I was mean enough – or pissed off enough – not to have warned her what to expect. And me because I had a sudden recall of Parker’s report on Sean’s last CT scan.
‘… his physical therapist has been growing kinda concerned about some of his responses … His brain activity … they think it may be slowing down …’
Dina had asked plenty of questions on the ride over, but I’d been non-committal, thoroughly regretting the impulse which had made me suggest this meeting in the first place. After all, what the hell did I hope to achieve? My stubborn silence had only served to intrigue her further.
Now, I took a breath and stepped into the room. ‘Sean, Dina. Dina – this is Sean,’ I said over my shoulder. We’d stopped briefly to pick up coffee on the way in and now I flipped off the lid and put the cup down on the cabinet near to his head. There was no reaction.
When I turned back I found Dina had remained frozen, startled, in the open doorway.
‘Maybe – if he’s sleeping – we, um, shouldn’t disturb him?’ she whispered, too awkward to know where to put her hands.
‘If you can do anything to wake him, Dina, be my guest,’ I said. I smoothed back the hair from his face, exposing the livid scar, and knew she still hadn’t moved. ‘It’s not contagious,’ I added roughly, aware I was being cruel to the girl and unable to stop myself. ‘He’s been in a coma for three months.’
She advanced a few steps, eyes huge and everywhere at once, and asked in a small voice, ‘What happened?’
I could have dressed it up for her, but I didn’t. ‘He was shot in the head.’
She flinched. ‘Did he … was it, um, while he was protecting someone?’
I nodded.
She swallowed. ‘And were they OK?’ She saw my face, went scarlet and then pale in waves. ‘I mean, did he succeed? Or was it … ?’ She stumbled to a halt, but I could finish that one for her.
Was it all for nothing?
‘Yes, Sean succeeded.’
She flicked me a quick nervous glance from under her lashes. ‘You sound like you resent that.’
‘No,’ I said, giving it thought before I answered. ‘It was part of the job. Sean was unlucky, that’s all. You can’t be a soldier and ignore the part luck plays. Half an inch one way and the bullet would have killed him stone dead. Half an inch the other and it would have missed him altogether.’ I shrugged. ‘Luck of the draw.’
Something trembled around the corner of her mouth. ‘You still sound like you resent it.’
‘I resent the circumstances that led up to it,’ I admitted, my eyes on Sean’s face. ‘They call us bullet catchers, but that is close protection in its crudest form. You get to the stage of having to put your own body between a principal and a bullet, it’s a last-ditch, desperate effort.’ I skimmed over her whitened features. ‘We spend our lives avoiding that moment.’
‘But you’re prepared to do it anyway,’ she said. ‘For a stranger. For someone you’ve only known a few hours, or a few days. Even though you’ve seen what might happen.’
I heard the strain splitting the edges of her voice. ‘Yes.’
She shook her head, bit her lower lip as if to keep from crying. ‘Why?’
It was a good question. I’d asked myself the same thing and never come up with an answer that didn’t sound trite. I glanced at Sean again. He hadn’t moved a muscle since we’d walked in, our voices rolling over him without eliciting any of the involuntary responses I’d come to hope for.
Would he rather have burnt hot and bright and fierce, and been snuffed out quick like a wet flame? Would he consider it good luck or bad, I wondered, the half an inch of life that he’d been left with? Survival was a long way from living.
I turned away, leaving the coffee on the bedside cabinet, putting up gentle sensory smoke signals into that sterile room. As I drew level with Dina she still hadn’t taken her eyes off Sean, hadn’t moved any closer.
‘Why don’t you want go to Europe to stay with your father?’ I asked in return. ‘Why be so stubborn? Why increase the risk?’
For both of us …
‘Because …’ she began, and her voice trailed away. She swallowed. ‘Because Mother wants me to go and hide until all this trouble is over, but how long will that take? Why should I put my life on hold and give up riding my horses every day, for something that might never happen?’
There was bravado in her words, but I caught the flare of fear in her voice, her face. Whatever she might say or do to prove otherwise, Dina was scared. She must have guessed that I’d seen it, because her chin lifted, defiant. ‘I guess running away just feels like cowardice.’
I nodded. ‘Then you understand how I feel.’
It wasn’t much of an answer, but I reckoned I’d bared my soul enough for one day.