The Last Hour (Thompson Sisters) by Sheehan-Miles, Charles (reading well .txt) 📕

knew she was telling them that I’d skipped out on the CT scan and that I needed to see a doctor.

I stood, wrapping my arms across my stomach. Ray would be urging me to go to the doctor. He wasn’t one to avoid whatever was necessary. I needed to do the same. Slowly, I kissed him on the forehead and whispered, “I’ll be back in a little bit.” Then I walked back out.

A nurse approached my parents. “Mr. and Mrs. Thompson? Your daughter is awake, if you’d like to see her. She can have visitors, but only one at a time.”

My mother and father looked stricken, and he said, softly, “You go ahead, Adelina.” Dad looked lost, as the nurse led my mother down the hall to Sarah’s room.

Julia came back over to me. “Come on,” she said. “We’ve got an appointment downstairs.”

I was afraid. I looked up at Julia, and for the first time since I was a small child I just wanted to curl up and ask my mother for a hug. But I couldn’t do that. Instead, I took Julia’s outstretched hand. “Okay,” I said, my throat dry.

Somehow she found her way back down to the emergency department. I certainly wasn’t any help. I walked as if I had blinders on, not paying any attention, my mind still up in the ICU where I knew Ray was.

When we got downstairs, Julia said something to a man who sat behind a desk in the emergency room. A few minutes later, the same doctor as yesterday appeared. “Carrie? Doctor Chavez, I examined you yesterday.”

I nodded and mumbled something.

“Well ... let’s go get a look.” He led us to an examining room, and then said, “So you managed to avoid any labs yesterday? And didn’t get the CT scan?”

I nodded, and Julia said, “She thinks she may be pregnant.”

“Well, then. How is your head? Any more nausea?”

I nodded. “This morning. Every morning the last two weeks.”

“That wouldn’t be the concussion, then. Headaches? Any vision problems?” As he asked the question, he shined a light into one eye, then the other.

“No. Nothing,” I said.

“All right. We’re going to take some blood, just wait here.”

The moment Doctor Chavez was gone, Julia sat down next to me and said, “You’re going to be okay, Carrie.”

“I don’t see how,” I said.

She sighed and put an arm around my shoulder. We waited, and a little while later a nurse came and took a vial of blood from me.

I was numb. And we waited. The emergency room staff moved us out of the exam room, and then Doctor Chavez came back. He was holding a sheet of paper. I crossed my arms in front of me, afraid of the answer.

“Your pregnancy test came back positive.”

I leaned forward, just slightly, and tears started pouring down my face again. “Oh, God,” I said. “I need Ray. I need him. I can’t do this alone. I don’t want to be alone.”

Julia threw her arms around me and whispered, “Listen to me, Carrie. Whatever happens with Ray, you won’t be alone. I promise you that. No matter what.”

I just sobbed, pathetic, not hearing her words, not feeling anything but the gulf of pain where Ray Sherman should have been.

Including me (Ray)

“I’m calling this hearing to order,” Colonel Schwartz said. The reporters, jammed on one side of the room with little concession to needing air or anything else, quieted down.

The Article 32 hearing was nothing like what a lifetime of watching courtrooms on television would have led me to expect.

For one thing, it wasn’t held in a courtroom. Two weeks ago, Schwartz commandeered a conference room near the Hospital Commander’s office. Twenty or so plastic backed chairs filled in one side of the room, and that’s where the public and the reporters sat. At the conference table, across from me, was the prosecutor, an Army captain who looked to be about twenty years old, and his two assistants, both of them lieutenants. A court reporter took notes in a corner, and Schwartz sat at the head of the table. I’d spent the last two weeks on the other side of the table, between Dick Elmore, who had to be there, and Carrie, who didn’t, but came anyway.

Schwartz said, “I understand the defense has one more witness to call?”

“Yes, sir,” Dick said. “Staff Sergeant William Martin.”

“Is your witness present?”

“Yes, sir, he’s waiting outside.”

Schwartz waved a hand at Elmore, who stood, and walked to the door and opened it. He murmured something, and a moment later Staff Sergeant Martin followed him into the room.

I studied Martin. His face was red and sweaty. He didn’t look healthy, his uniform hanging as if it were a couple of sizes too big, or as if he hadn’t been eating well for a long time.

“Sergeant, please raise your right hand.” Martin did so, and Schwartz said, “Sergeant, do you swear, or affirm, to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?”

“I do,” Martin said.

“Staff Sergeant Martin, I’m Lieutenant Colonel Aaron Schwartz. I’ve been appointed as Investigating Officer in this Article 32 investigation. At this time I’m advising you on your right to remain silent. You may not be compelled to offer testimony which might tend to incriminate yourself. Do you understand this right?”

“I do, sir.”

“You also have the right to have counsel present for your testimony. It is my understanding that you are waiving that right. Is this the case?”

“Yes, sir. I don’t want a lawyer.”

“Then I will allow counsel for the defense to proceed with his questions.”

Schwartz didn’t like lawyers pacing around and pontificating, and he tended to cut them short if they got long-winded. So Dick just launched right into his questions.

“Staff Sergeant Martin, can you please tell me your whereabouts on the morning of March 24th, 2012?”

Martin grimaced. “Yes. I was assigned to Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 13th Infantry Regiment, 10th Mountain Division. We were deployed in Badakhshan Province, Afghanistan. That morning we were in the vicinity