Fragile Dreams Read online

  Out of time, he picked up, said “Hello,” and listened to his grandfather’s calm voice explain to him the manner in which his best friend had died.

  In slow, gentle terms, he told Matthew how it had been the other guy’s fault, a truck driver cutting a turn on a particularly nasty switchback. Robbie’s car had driven straight into the rear wheels, which had drifted far into the oncoming lane, at forty miles an hour. He and his “friend”—as my grandfather put it—were both killed instantly. Coming around the turn like that, he had said, they probably never had time to register what was happening. Then it was over.

  Matthew didn’t remember the next few hours of his life, and it never came back. Those few hours, the ones where he had screamed, and cried, and sat down on the floor, hugging himself. Diane had held him while she also cried and soothed him in that frozen cabin, where they thought with such cleverness they had hidden from the horror of the world, and been proved wrong.

  A month or so later, Diane found out she was pregnant, and it helped him think forward instead of back. Slowly, he crawled out from under his depression. He started looking for work, started thinking about the big picture of their lives. They decided to name the baby Robbie, regardless of gender.

  They were married on Catalina Island. Matthew’s grandfather was his only family and only guest, but Diane’s large clan made up for it, bringing an air of vibrancy and joy to the event, filling the seats on both sides of the aisle.

  The ceremony took place on a pale stretch of beach behind a seafood restaurant on a breezy, but warm, spring day. Diane’s older sister stood beside her as the maid of honor. The space beside Matthew, while he held her hand and said his vows, was empty.

  Chapter 6

  Was it day? Or night?

  Matthew opened his eyes and saw nothing.

  Maybe I’m blind, he thought without emotion. Maybe... maybe there’s light all around me, but I was hurt, and now, without even realizing it, I’m totally blind.

  He lifted his one free hand as close to his eyes as possible without touching his face, wiggled his fingers.

  Nothing.

  He put his palm over his eyes, then removed it. On. Off. On. Off. No difference.

  He tried not to think about it. He had felt his head and there were no severe cuts, no tender bruising.

  It’s just dark, he thought, chiding himself for panicking over nothing. It’s just really, really, REALLY fucking dark.

  “Dee?” he called out, tenuously. “You there?” he said again, a little louder.

  No reply.

  He closed his eyes in exhaustion. He didn’t know how long he’d been sleeping. Didn’t know what time it was, or how long he’d been stuck amidst the rubble. He tried to think. Anything to take his mind off the weight crushing his back, his trapped, possibly broken, stuck limbs. Okay, think dummy, let’s figure out what time it is. Let’s keep it under control.

  His mouth felt like sawdust, his hobbled tongue fattened with swelling, an engorged leach stuffed between his cheeks. His broken nose was throbbing and clogged.

  C’mon, Matthew. Focus.

  He took a deep breath, let it out, and tried to think.

  The interview was Monday, 10 AM. He figured he’d been stuck in the rubble for at least twelve hours. Not knowing how long he’d been asleep, it might have been longer. His watch was on the arm which was jammed and trapped, and he wouldn’t be able to see it anyway, not in the dark. His phone had been in his attaché, and for all he knew it was sitting right next to him, but he didn’t think so. He thought it was buried elsewhere, his phone likely vibrating stupidly underneath a hundred pounds of rock and steel, the “smart” technology inside too stupid to know how useless it was.

  Okay, so let’s assume it’s midnight. That felt right to him. He was tired, and it was cold. He realized, with some surprise, that he wasn’t hungry. Likely because my stomach is being squeezed to the size of a grape, he thought, praying again that his organs weren’t permanently squished to jelly.

  “Dee?” he croaked, the word coming out as if he had a lisp, more like “Thee,” due to his swollen tongue and dry throat. He wondered why rescue crews hadn’t come yet. He strained to listen, but he heard... nothing. No alarmed voices. No sirens. No vehicles or bullhorns. No help.

  Nothing at all. It was as if he was deaf as well as blind. Complete and total sensory deprivation. Except for the pain, of course. There was that. The cramping of muscles stuck in the wrong configuration for too long, the spasms shooting up his spine, his broken mouth and bent nose, all reminders that he was alive.

  And don’t forget about the rats, Matthew, a small, high-pitched voice said inside his head. The rats are REAL, oh yes, boy-o, they’re very real, and very, very hungry.

  He shook his head, dispelling the voice, and began to whimper, fear and panic surging up his body again. He tried to tamp it down, to think of something else, anything.

  Robbie, said another voice from deep inside his head, a different voice this time. A kind voice. Think about Robbie and Diane. They’re home, they’re worried about you. They’re coming for you.

  “Yes, of course,” he croaked. “They’re coming.”

  He thought about little Robbie. It wasn’t that long ago he first learned to smile, then to laugh. His sweet baby’s laugh that sounded like angel wings, that gave you chills and let you believe the world was good, that life was good.

  Life is good, he heard the other Robbie’s voice the dead Robbie saying in his ear. Don’t forget that you’re a very lucky guy. Now why don’t you stop bitching and try to help yourself out of here, eh boy-o?

  Matthew nodded to the voice, took two deep breaths, steeling himself. His confidence growing, and knowing he would be losing more and more strength as his body tired, he felt a renewed determination to do something, anything, to better his situation. To fight against this twist of fate he’d been so savagely dropped into.

  He decided to free his arm.

  He held his breath, allowed his mind to feel its way down the length of his trapped arm. He began the process by wiggling his fingers, just to see how much room there was. Only his pointing finger could move at all. He let out the breath he’d been holding, nodded to himself.

  “All right, all right,” he said, and started to rotate his shoulder, first to the left, then to the right. If only I could see, he thought angrily, but kept at it. Left, then right. Left, then right. The pieces of the demolished building moved like dry gristle, and he blew away the puffs of dust and grit that fell onto his face, into his eyes and panting mouth.

  After working his shoulder around a few minutes, he really didn’t know if the arm was any more loose or not.

  Damn.

  Time to try pulling.

  So he pulled, and twisted, and wiggled his finger. Sweat broke out on his forehead and he began to breathe more heavily. He could smell his own foul breath, tainted with blood and bacteria. He closed his eyes, trying to feel the debris loosening throughout his stiff shoulder and down the length of his arm. It’s not MOVING!

  He growled in frustration and was enveloped in a red-hot, crashing rage. He suddenly wasn’t gently twisting and pulling, but yanking his shoulder toward him, his fingers twitching in spasms at the end of his blind limb. He spat and cursed and tears fell from his eyes and he yanked harder, then harder. He was panting too quickly, could feel saliva mixed with old blood leak down his chin. His nose throbbed and his eyes were squeezed shut as he pulled with everything he had.

  He felt the seam of his suit coat rip above his shoulder blade, and his arm, miraculously, felt a little less restricted. With renewed hope and vigor, he began to try and yank his bare arm through his coat, letting the fabric catch on whatever rock and metal were restricting him. Two of his fingers were moving, and then three. He could rotate his wrist and he felt that if he could slide it backward, into his coat sleeve, he might be able to slip it through.

  “C’mon, c’mon!” he snarled through gritted teeth, because his arm f
elt just as stuck, as wedged, as it had been only moments before.

  He stopped, breathing heavily, the frustration boiling over him like a heat rash.

  “No... no... NO!” he yelled. “NO! NO! NO!”

  He yanked, just about as hard as he could.

  The jacket ripped completely at the shoulder. There was a sharp—crack—and something slid, and something broke, like a pane of glass smashed with a hammer. Scared, he jerked frantically and, to his surprise, his arm slid back freely. Hysterical, he pulled it toward him as if bitten. In his quick jerking movement, his hand caught on a thick dagger of protruding glass, sharp as a razor, which caught the crease of his hand just beneath his wedding ring and punched through the finger, tearing it halfway through just above the knuckle. Shocked, he froze. He could feel the finger dangling, the blood pulsing from the wound like a garden hose that had been stopped up by a crick, then suddenly loosened.

  A second later, the pain caught up, ripping through his cushion of shock like a flamethrower, stabbing his mind with a thousand knives. He screamed, and the echo of his scream died in front of him, absorbed by the indifferent dark. His mind raged with pain and he feared he might be losing too much blood. He knew he had to free his arm, to somehow stop the pulsing blood from emptying through his torn finger. The glass was still caught in the webbing of his hand, part of his finger still hanging by a tendon. He could hear the dangling clink of his wedding band tapping the glass shard as his finger swung dumbly.

  He screamed again and, with a last mad burst and his eyes bugged out and his wet lips curled in preparation of doing what no man should ever have to do, he let his mind slip into momentary madness, and pulled.

  The finger caught, stretched, then ripped away.

  His hand was free.

  Sobbing through screams, he pulled his arm, gingerly now, through the ripped sleeve. He rolled his body as much as he could, desperately trying to get his arm out of the coat, the remainder of it thumb-tacked into his back, like a pin in a cushion, by the weight on top of him.

  Feeling slightly dizzy and very nauseous, as more and more blood pulsed out of his body with every passing second, Matthew slid his arm and hand from the torn sleeve.

  He brought the mangled hand to his face, as if hoping to see the damage. He could see nothing, not even a shadow. He moved his hand even closer, hoping to get at least a sense of how bad it was. A thick squirt of warm fluid shot from the jagged hole at the base of his non-existent ring finger and sprayed his lips.

  Spitting and crying, he reached around with his other hand, managed to pull the white square-folded handkerchief from his breast pocket. He flapped it open and pushed it against the wound where his gold wedding band had once rested. He lowered his head to the blood-drenched concrete and wailed, the pain nearly unbearable. The blood had soaked through the cloth and he knew it wasn’t nearly tight enough. He removed it, felt the chilled air coating the wound, and then re-wrapped the blood-soaked handkerchief around his hand again. He couldn’t tie a knot, but managed to tuck the loose end into the cloth to keep it tight.

  His hand pulsed and twitched, but he thought, perhaps, the flow was slowing. He pressed the wound hard against his chest, trying to apply as much pressure as he could.

  “Don’t let me die, please don’t let me die,” he whimpered, and saw twinkling lights frying at the edges of his vision. God, don’t let me die, he prayed, and then closed his eyes and dropped his forehead to the cool, slick concrete. With his injured hand clamped beneath him, his eyelids fluttered, and he passed out.

  * * *

  “Sir? Sir? You there?”

  Matthew stirred. His head felt like an anvil still vibrating from recent use.

  His eyelids were gummy. His mouth a thick, rough hollow in the bottom of his face that inhaled the oxygen his brain needed to let his body know how good and truly fucked it was.

  “Matthew?” the voice came again, more apologetic, questioning.

  Matthew groaned, turned his head, opened his useless eyes.

  “Dee?” he said, his voice a croak.

  “Yes, yes,” she said, sounding relieved. “I thought, well, I heard you screaming, and then you were quiet for so long, and you weren’t answering. I’m sorry, I thought...”

  “It’s okay,” he said, remembering the lost finger, the bleeding hand. He felt the majority of a clenched-fist balled up beneath him and had no desire to move it away from his body. There would be no way to inspect the damage, no way for him to know whether he would live or die.

  As he woke, he thought he could feel something down by his feet. Was something pulling at him? But there was no pain. His legs were completely numb, the weight settled into his spine cutting off the blood flow. He dismissed the loss of feeling as something currently out of his control and put it out of his mind.

  “Hey, Dee,” he said. “I think I screwed up pretty bad here.” He laughed, or thought about laughing. What came out was a soft hack followed by a groan. “It seems,” he continued, “I’ve lost a few bits of myself along the way.”

  “But you’re alive,” Dee said, strongly, confidently. Almost a rebuke. Matthew marveled that the woman could have so much energy. She sounded so close. So close.

  He reached his good hand toward the sound of her voice, started fingering the rubble.

  “What are you doing?” Dee said, the slightest tinge of fear in her voice once more.

  “Please,” he begged, holding back sobs as he picked apart the pieces of glass and concrete that formed a barrier between them. “Please, Dee,” he continued, “I think I’m going to die.”

  There was no protest from her, no commands for him to cease and desist from his tunneling. So he went on. A lumpy chunk of brick tossed aside, the light tinkling of falling glass. He continued to pull away bits and pieces.

  He paused, listening. He could hear that she was also digging now. She was helping! He almost wept with relief and redoubled his efforts, the tunnel he’d created now deep enough for him to reach in up to his elbow. There was the light scratching from a few feet away, as if Dee were doing the same.

  “Thank you, Dee, thank you,” he said.

  “I can’t move much,” she said, almost shyly. Again with that tone of apology.

  “Can you reach your hand toward my voice?” he said, his arm now nearly fully extended toward her.

  “Yes, I’m trying,” she said.

  And then, then, as his fingers burrowed, he could sense an opening. A whisper of cool air brushed his fingertips, and then he had her. His fingers touched hers and they twined, groped for each other like horny teenagers in the backseat of a borrowed car. The coast is clear, he thought of saying, and gripped her fingers so tightly he had to make sure not to hurt her.

  Her hand was warm and dry. Her skin felt like dust.

  “Matthew,” was all she said, as he sobbed and held her hand tightly.

  “I’m dying, Dee,” he repeated, and the contact, that connection with another living being, opened a dam inside him and released all the fear and anxiety he had been holding back. “There’s a, a very large piece of concrete on top of me. It’s on my back. I think my back is broken, and I can’t feel my legs. I’ve bitten off a part of my tongue, and, please don’t ask me how, I’ve managed to lose a finger. And now I’m bleeding pretty bad here, yeah... and I’ve pissed myself, Dee. I’m sorry but I have and I think maybe I shit myself. I can’t feel anything but it’s pressing on me and it’s slowly crushing me to death.”

  “Matthew, please,” she pleaded, begging him to silence. “Please, Matthew, please...” was all she said, until his words slowed, then stopped. He was so tired. So thirsty.

  He wanted to die now. It was a horrible, empty feeling. He wanted to die.

  “Matthew,” her voice came, sharp once more. Her hand squeezed his own hard, causing him to wince despite everything. “You need to stop, you hear me? You need to correct your thinking.”

  Matthew, stunned at the scolding, like a slap in the face o
f someone hysterical, simply nodded in the darkness.

  “I...”

  “No,” she said, her words bullets to his brain. “You listen now. You’re going to get through this. You’re going to live. You’re going to be saved. That’s the words I want running through your head, you got that?”

  Matthew nodded again.

  “Say it.”

  Matthew thought for a moment, then mumbled, “I’m going to get through this. I’m going to live. I’m going to be saved.”

  “Good, good,” Dee cooed. “You just hold my hand, and you remember those words. You keep them running through your head like a cool river, understand? A bright blue stream of positive thoughts running right through you, refreshing you from the inside, okay?”

  “Yeah, Dee,” he said, trying his best. I’m going to get through this. I’m going to live. I’m going to be saved.

  He closed his eyes, imagined the words were soft water, running through him. He calmed, and, astonishingly, he seemed just a little less thirsty.

  “Dee?” he said, after a few minutes of silence. “Tell me something. Tell me about yourself.”

  Dee’s fingers twitched within his, as if panicked, but then she gripped him tightly once more.

  “Okaaay,” she said, drawing the word out with what sounded like an amused tone, “what do you want to know?”

  “Well,” he said, thinking, “what do you look like? How old are you? Do you have a family?”

  She chuckled at his eagerness, and he smiled, relieved beyond measure. “Let’s see. I’m thirty-seven. I’m married. I have a husband, Robert, and two kids. Ten and twelve. Margret is the older, and Betsy, who was named after my great-grandmother.”

  Matthew heard her stop, choking up a bit at the end. He didn’t want to make her sad, but he wanted her to keep talking. Needed her to keep talking.

  “And what do you look like?”

  She chuckled again.

  “I imagine right now I don’t look like much of anything, I...” she stopped, as if distracted. There was a silence. Then, after a few more moments, she said, “I’m so scared.”