The Last Hour (Thompson Sisters), Sheehan-Miles, Charles [reading an ebook .txt] 📗

getting out of that. Maybe they could do some kind of stem cell injection thingy and grow back the parts of my brain that got turned into mush. Or something. But I had to survive. I had to be there for Carrie. That’s what mattered.

Anyway, I figured having a smoke, even if secondhand, couldn’t hurt me while I was in this condition, so I followed Dylan out to the front of the hospital.

George Washington University Hospital is somewhere in downtown DC, an area I barely know. Carrie knows it like the back of her hand: she’d spent a couple years living here in high school, and had been back for a bunch of conferences and meetings and such. During our few months here together, she’d played the role of tour guide and taken me everywhere in the city.

Dylan hitched himself up on a four-foot high brick wall, which was quite a feat for a guy as short as he is, and then his phone beeped. He looked at it briefly ... reading a text message, I suppose, then put it away. I boosted myself up next to him as he fumbled in his pocket, looking for his cigarettes and lighter.

I wanted to bum one from him, but good luck with that.

Not a problem, though, for the fortyish-looking lady who asked him for one a moment later. She wore jeans and a t-shirt, and had a tired, stressed look to her face.

“No problem,” Dylan said, passing one to her.

She got her cigarette lit, puffing a cloud of smoke, then said, “You visiting someone here?”

He nodded. “Yeah,” he said, reluctantly.

“My daughter’s here, in labor and delivery. Stupid bitch got herself knocked up again.”

Dylan recoiled, wincing at her harsh words and tone. “You don’t sound happy about it.”

“Do I look happy about it?” the woman said. “No, I’m not happy. I can’t afford to raise another kid, and god knows she won’t take the responsibility to do it.”

Dylan looked flabbergasted. His mouth opened, then closed, and finally he looked away, taking a drag from his cigarette and not responding.

I took a deep breath, trying to catch just a whiff of the smoke. Nothing. I don’t think I was even actually breathing. That was not fair.

“So what are you gonna do?” Dylan asked.

I was startled. Startled that he asked the question, and more, that he seemed interested. But he looked at her like he knew her.

The woman shrugged. “I’ll deal with whatever gets handed to me. I’ll pray.”

He grunted. “My best friend’s in there, and from what it sounds like, he’s gonna die.”

I jerked as he said it. And he didn’t stop. “There were four of us. Two died in Afghanistan. Ray ... he was my sergeant, and now my brother-in-law. I love that guy. What the hell? Can’t we even catch a break?”

The woman shook her head. “The Lord don’t go around handing out breaks.”

Dylan snorted. “Guess not,” he said. He slid off the wall and then stamped out his cigarette on the ground. “Good luck to you and your daughter.”

“I’ll be praying for your friend.”

He turned and started walking back toward the entrance to the hospital, and then stopped, a confused expression on his face. He was staring at a parked car, an early 2000s Ford Taurus, and a crease formed between his eyebrows. What the hell was that about? He lit another cigarette, which was going to make me completely insane, and walked a full circle around the car.

The car had Virginia plates. Vanity plates, reading ARMY WIFE. Military parking stickers were attached to the rear windshield, for both Fort Stewart and Fort Drum, New York. And the thing was, it was familiar. I couldn’t place it. I’d seen this car before too. But where? Surely not at Fort Drum? I suppose it could have been somewhere in DC, but I’d only been here a few months, and to be honest, I’d been kind of preoccupied most of that time.

Dylan seemed to shrug it off, and I had bigger things to worry about, like was I going to live, so we moved on. I followed him back into the hospital, and ten minutes later we were in the intensive care unit. At the door, he texted Alex and we waited. A moment later, she came and opened it, letting him in. Us, I guess. Except getting in wasn’t going to be a problem for me, but I didn’t want to think about the implications of that.

As he slipped in, Alex said, “You really need to quit smoking.”

Dylan looked at her with a dour expression and said, “Today’s really not the day for that, okay?”

And that’s when I heard Sarah let out a piercing scream. I jerked, looking for her, then moved down the hall as quick as I could. Carrie stood outside a room with a glass door and window. Sarah was inside ... both of her, I guess. So was Jessica, sitting in a chair, face buried in her hands.

I walked right through the door, and immediately caught Jessica’s quiet, half-sobbed words. “I’m so sorry. I know it’s my fault. I wish ... I wish none of this had happened.” After she said it, she leaned her chin on her arms, and just sat, staring at her twin.

Sarah ... not the Sarah on the bed. Or ... whatever. She was standing there, next to the bed, and her face was red. Daniel was still with her ... either they hadn’t found his parents ... or ... the other alternatives didn’t bear thinking about.

Sarah looked up at me as I entered and shouted, “Did you know my sister was a lesbian? My twin?”

Daniel shrank a little at her shout.

I stopped in place. “Um ... no….”

“Neither did I. What the hell, Ray? It’s not like I would have judged her, or even cared. But why is it she wouldn’t tell me until she thought I was dying? Or unconscious or whatever? Can you believe that? I can’t. I can’t believe my own