Wrecked Read online

  Wrecked

  by AJ Harmon

  http://www.ajharmon.com

  First eBook Edition, August 2016

  Copyright 2016 by ABCs Legacy, LLC

  All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in any form, in whole or in part, without written permission from the author.

  Dedication

  If there is one thing that I know for sure, it’s that I will be with my family forever. Death will not separate us. The bonds of family will stay strong.

  Wrecked is the story of family. It is the story of belonging to something much greater than just yourself. It is a story of understanding where you came from, and where you are going, and with whom. It is a story of feeling connected to your heritage and helping your children feel and understand that connection.

  I have often thought about my ancestors and what kind of people they were; what did they look like; what were their hobbies, their likes and dislikes. Did they fall in love, or were they locked into an arranged marriage? These are questions I hope to one day ask them.

  This book is dedicated to families. All families. Everywhere. May we love them. May we be kind to them. May we cherish them. May we be with them forever. <3

  Table of Contents

  1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  5.

  6.

  7.

  8.

  9.

  10.

  11.

  12.

  13.

  14.

  15.

  16.

  17.

  18.

  19.

  20.

  21.

  22.

  23.

  24.

  25.

  26.

  27.

  EPILOGUE

  About the Author

  1.

  With fists clenched, teeth gritted, and eyes squeezed shut, the internal screams were deafening. The taste of bile in her throat was strong and despite her determined effort, traitorous tears leaked from her eyes and streamed down her face, dripping silently from her chin. The will to fight had finally left her and she succumbed to the weakness and hopelessness she’d been battling for the past three months. Bess Williams had been strong for so long, but there was no longer anything on which to lean. It was time to give up. She had no other choice. She was out of options.

  In a mere twenty-four hours she would be officially homeless. Unable to pay her rent for the past three months due to a virus that she couldn’t kick and had kept her home for more days than she actually made it to work, Bess had been given notice of eviction and her final seventy-two hours were up the following morning. To make matters even worse, which she hadn’t thought possible, she was terminated from her job as a day-care worker. She still wasn’t well, despite several visits to the local clinic. Her supervisor, although sympathetic, had told her that they needed someone to come to work every day. Reliability over the past several weeks had not been her strong point. Where she would go and where she could find employment was anybody’s guess.

  As Bess lay in bed that night attempting the impossible, to sleep, she tried to find something, anything that could be considered positive in her dire circumstances. Sadly, the only thing she came up with was the fact that she had very few possessions, and what she did own would fit in the back of her car, with the exception of the twin mattress that she slept on. She had two camp chairs in her living room and a lamp. She had an old laptop that she watched movies on, when she had free time, and a few dishes in the kitchen cabinets. Her clothes and toiletries fit into two large duffle bags, already packed, and she had one small box of keepsakes from her childhood. Yes, at least she had enough room in her sixteen-year-old Subaru to store her stuff… and perhaps sleep in, if it came to that, which she had resigned herself to accepting as more than just a possibility.

  The seconds and minutes ticked by on the alarm clock sitting on the floor near her head as she tossed and turned searching for sleep that refused to come. It was a pointless exercise and Bess eventually got up in the early hours of the morning, folded up her bedding and placed it in a black garbage bag. She walked it to the front door of the apartment that had been her home for the past two years and placed it next to a couple of boxes and her bags. She then sat on the floor, leaned against the wall and cried again.

  The sunlight streaming through the window woke her a few hours later. It was after eight o’clock and she’d decided she would be gone before the manager arrived with the Sheriff. She didn’t want to cause a scene and wanted no one in the complex to see her leave. She hadn’t made many friends, but there were a couple of people that she made small talk with on occasion if she saw them in the parking lot or the laundry. Bess hadn’t had many people she could rely on in her twenty-three years of life, and friends were not high on her need list. She’d worked hard to survive – to live. She didn’t have time to worry about anybody else.

  Quietly filling her car with her belongings, it took three trips to empty her apartment before leaving the keys on the small kitchen counter. Bess slipped into the driver’s seat of her trusty Subaru and pulled out of the parking lot, trying with great difficulty not to look in the rear view mirror as she closed another chapter in her life.

  There had been many chapters Bess Williams had closed and never planned on revisiting. Since she’d left home after her step-father had come into her room in the middle of the night and slipped into her bed, she’d come to learn that it didn’t do any good to dwell on the past. At the age of sixteen, she’d had to grow up overnight in order to make it on her own in the big world. She’d done okay for herself, and as Bess drove down the freeway having no idea where she was going, the waves of anxiety and uncertainty almost drowned her. Realizing she was in no state to drive, she pulled off at a small diner and gas station and parked her car. Apparently, she needed another good cry, or two, until there weren’t any tears left and she could venture back on the road.

  She’d been heading southeast, for no reason other than it was the right turn she made at the traffic light a few blocks from her old home. After driving for a few hours, Bess assumed that she’d eventually drive into the ocean, but so far she was still very much on land. She got out of her car, stretched her arms and legs, and decided to take the opportunity to use the restroom and get a drink. Ah, there was another positive outcome of not being able to pay her rent. She had a little bit of money in her purse that should keep gasoline in her car and buy food until she could find another job. She almost didn’t feel guilty about ordering a grilled cheese sandwich off the children’s menu and an ice water for lunch.

  With her plate empty, except for a few crumbs, and her water glass refilled twice by the sullen teenager who’d taken her order, Bess wondered if she should keep going in the same direction she’d been heading. As if on cue, the surly old cook walked past her table and stopped, looking at her with curiosity.

  “Where ya headed?” he inquired.

  “Not actually sure,” Bess confessed.

  “Where do ya wanna go?” he asked.

  “Some place I’ve never been before,” she replied with a sigh.

  “Then that should be easy to find,” he shrugged and continued walking.

  If only it were that easy.

  The sullen teenager returned and placed Bess’s check on the table and took the empty dishes away. Figuring exactly ten percent, Bess placed the money she owed in the middle of the table and stood up, but she never quite made it.

  *****

  “Miss? Miss!”

  Bess blinked her eyes a few times and then wondered where the hell she was. A strange man knelt next to her. Apparently, she was lying on the floor.

  “What? What happened?” she asked in a daze.
>
  “You fainted, I think,” a young voice said.

  She recognized him. Yes. She knew him. He’d been her waiter. He’d brought her a sandwich. She was still in the diner. It was all slowly coming back.

  “Don’t try to get up,” the man insisted. “We’ve called 911. Just stay there.”

  “I’m fine,” Bess replied.

  “No. You’re not. You hit your head when you fell and there’s a lot of blood. Just lie still.”

  The faint sirens could be heard in the distance and Bess knew there was no point in arguing; the man’s large hand was pinning her shoulder to the ground - she couldn’t move even if she wanted to. And then she heard the tires crunch on gravel and could see the flashing lights through the large windows above her and she lay still, no longer fighting the large hand, her eyes no longer able to stay open.

  It was two days before Bess Williams regained consciousness. Tucked into a warm bed in a dark room, her eyes fluttered open and she immediately felt the agonizing pain in her head. As she pulled her arm out from under the blankets, the throbbing began in earnest. Her eyes blinked as she touched her hand to a bandage that covered the right side of her scalp above her ear and she winced in pain.

  Suddenly there was someone next to her, placing a blood pressure cuff on her arm and sticking a thermometer in her mouth. A new IV bag was placed on the hook beside her and a kind voice asked her if she wanted a drink. With a definite nod of her head, Bess welcomed the cool liquid as she sucked from the straw placed between her parched lips.

  “Elizabeth,” the voice said. “You’ve got a nasty gash on your head. Does it hurt?”

  Bess nodded, her eyes closed once more. She heard some clicking and some rustling in drawers and then the voice told her to sleep. She was already almost there.

  She didn’t know how long it had been since the nurse had been in her room but it was light outside as Bess opened her eyes. There was still pain when she moved her head but the intense throbbing had subsided and for that she was grateful.

  “Good morning,” came the voice.

  Bess knew it was the same voice she’d heard before and glanced to the right of her bed. There stood a nurse with a new IV bag in her hand and a jug of what Bess hoped was ice water. Her lips and mouth were as dry as the desert and a drink would be wonderful.

  “Thirsty?” she asked.

  Bess attempted a smile and replied in the affirmative. After a few delightful sips, Regina – Bess read her name badge on the lanyard around her neck – took the cup and placed it on the table.

  “Not too much,” Regina stated. “Just small sips for the next little while until Dr. James comes in to see you.”

  “Okay,” Bess agreed, although she felt like she could drink a river at that point. “Where am I?”

  “In the hospital, silly,” Regina teased with a chuckle that made Bess smile. “You’re in Port Lincoln.”

  “What happened?”

  “You were at Devin’s Diner and fell, hitting your head on the floor underneath the counter. There was a nail sticking up that got you pretty good.”

  “That would explain the headache,” Bess grimaced.

  “But don’t worry about the hospital bill because the owner of the diner is taking care of it. As he should,” she added with her hands placed firmly on her hips. “There’s always someone getting hurt there,” she frowned.

  Bess had a vague recollection of being at the diner. “How long have I been here?”

  “This is your third day,” Regina said.

  “Wow. So when will I get to go…” Go where? Bess didn’t have an answer for that.

  “Let’s not even think about that until after Dr. James takes a look at you.”

  *****

  Dr. Ethan James had worked at Port Lincoln Hospital for nearly three years as an Emergency Room physician. He loved the small town and its people. He’d come to the coastal community every summer as a child to visit his grandparents and had spent countless hours playing on the beach, and even a few hours in the ER after accidents typical for young adventurous boys. After medical school and doing his residency in Chicago, he knew he wanted to settle down in a place that could offer him a life outside of his job. His grandfather had talked to the hospital’s chief of staff, a close friend, and Ethan began working there a short time later. It was practically perfect. He got to treat patients, young and old, and spend a little extra time and attention on his cases, as the ER wasn’t slammed very often. The summers were busier than the rest of the year, when the tourists arrived, but the other months were an enjoyable balance of work and play.

  He’d bought a rundown house on a cliff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, just a couple of hundred yards from his grandparents’ house. For the first year he’d lived in Port Lincoln, Ethan had been able to care for them in their final days. It had been a blessing to be so close to them for those few months. They’d died within eight months of each other and he knew that they were together again… somewhere. They’d left him their house, a beautiful family home that they hoped he would one-day fill with a wife and children. Ethan hoped that too, although so far he hadn’t found a woman he was interested in. That had been the one downside to living in Port Lincoln. If there were any single ladies, they were old enough to be his grandmother, not the prospective mother of his children. As it was, he was in no hurry to settle down – he didn’t feel the need to marry the first woman he met that was under thirty-five. He had plenty of time to find the perfect woman.

  Ethan stood at the nurse’s station and reviewed the chart of the woman that had been brought into the ER just a couple of days earlier. She’d been unconscious and had a nasty hole in her head. The nail had ripped open the skin and flesh, and had even punctured the skull, but there was no evidence it had done any damage to her brain. It was a miracle for sure. Just one millimeter more and the outcome for this young woman could have been very different.

  She hadn’t woken up while she’d been in his care. All through the numerous tests they’d performed, her eyes had remained closed. It was probably a good thing. Women with silky long hair didn’t usually appreciate the razor being used to allow him to stitch up head wounds. He’d had more than his fair share of expletives shouted at him by women he was simply trying to help.

  As he reviewed the chart, an unsettling feeling came over him. There were some abnormalities in her bloodwork, numbers that were definitely not normal and needed to be looked into further. Once she was awake, he would need to fill in some blanks on her medical history and current condition, before the nail in her head brought her into his hospital.

  Regina walked out of her room with a smile just for him. “Good morning, Ethan. I’m liking that tie. Any particular reason you’re all dressed up today?”

  “Thanks,” he replied without looking up. “The tie is old. How was your weekend?”

  “I spent it here,” she said. “But that was great because it meant Gavin had to run the kids all over the place and watch three soccer games and buy two birthday presents,” she chuckled. “All I had to do was take some vitals and rewrap some surgical wounds.”

  Ethan laughed. “Gavin should have a newfound appreciation for all you do.”

  “That’s what I’m hoping,” Regina grinned.

  “How is the patient doing?” he asked and nodded in the direction of Bess’s room.

  “She’s awake. And a little fuzzy on the events that brought her here. I told her you’d be in to see her this morning.”

  Dr. James nodded, put on his doctor face and walked into Elizabeth Williams’ room.

  Her chart had listed an address a couple of states away. Ms. Williams wasn’t a local. Ethan would have known her if she was. She was under eighty and listed as single. Yes, he certainly would have known her if she’d lived in town.

  As he walked into her room, Ethan immediately noticed her staring out the window, a look of helplessness in her expression. The instant desire to wrap her in his arms made him stop dead in his track
s, a feeling so foreign to him he felt a sense of panic. He took several calming breaths and his professional doctor demeanor returned.

  “Good Morning, Ms. Williams. I am Dr. James. I treated you when you first arrived in the Emergency Department. Tell me, how are you feeling today?”

  She looked up at him with sad eyes and again, the feeling of wanting to envelope her in his embrace took over.

  “My head hurts.” She spoke softly as she lifted her hand to the bandages that wrapped her head. “But other than that I’m fine.”

  Ethan pulled the stool away from the wall and sat down next to the bed. “I have a few questions for you. Are you up to answering them?”

  Bess nodded.

  “May I call you Elizabeth?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “I go by Bess.”

  “Bess it is then,” he smiled. “What brought you to our neck of the woods?”

  “I…I just needed a change…to start fresh,” she stammered, her head down and her fingers fidgeting with the blanket.

  “This is a great place to get away from the hustle and bustle of the metro areas,” Ethan acknowledged. “So, how were you feeling before you fell?”

  “Fine,” Bess replied without any obvious thought.

  “No nausea? Fatigue? Anything out of the ordinary?” he persisted.

  “Well,” Bess shrugged. “I had some flu bug thing that wouldn’t go away.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. It kept me home from work a lot. I worked at a daycare facility and I couldn’t be there if I was sick.”

  “That makes sense,” Ethan agreed. “When did you start to feel better?”

  Bess looked up at him through her long lashes that did their best to hide her eyes. “I guess I never really have.”

  “You’re still experiencing symptoms?”

  With a nod, Bess looked back down at her hands.

  “Okay. I need to run a few more tests and we’ll get to the bottom of it,” he smiled and patted her hand in a gesture of support, but the searing spark of electricity that jolted up his arm forced him to yank his hand back. He glanced up to see Bess’s reaction, but she still looked down at the blanket, seemingly oblivious to him.