What’s His Name?

“The cops came in to get my statement this morning,” Jackie said with forced nonchalance as Nurse Hansen popped her head in the room the following afternoon. Stirring her cup of ice-cream, Jackie seemed to be waiting for the other woman to say something.

Unfortunately for Nurse Hansen, she’d only come in to see if Jackie had finished her tray of supper, but at the searching look, she walked further inside the dimly lit space. “Yeah. I figured as much.” And, at Jackie’s curious look, the nurse shrugged. “Saw them walk up to your door earlier.”

“Oh.”

“You okay?”

Jackie smiled faintly. “Yeah. I mean, I guess.” At least she’d started to remember things. After that first rough awakening, Jackie had lost most of her confusion, her body growing accustomed to her newfound situation: the stark grey bedrails surrounding her, the white pillow cases and sheets; light blue panel blinds, and that damn turquoise chair. The thing was hideous, really. She’d even gotten used to the perpetual soreness.

So when she’d spoken to the policemen, she’d been able to vividly put herself back on that bus, that moment when she’d tried to squeeze past the feuding couple standing in her way. She’d been able to recall their angry, raised voices, see clearly again their arms and fists flying about as they pushed and grabbed at one another.

It hadn’t been a pretty memory.

“It can be hard. Reliving bad moments,” the nurse said absently, coming to check one of the computer monitors now.

Jackie shifted carefully on the bed. “Yeah. Well, I’m still a little foggy on all the details.” She still could only vaguely recollect the actual stabbing. That still sort of felt like a dream—the sequence of things discombobulated, disconnected.

“That’s only to be expected.”

“Yeah.” Jackie took another small bite of ice-cream. Letting the thick cream slowly disintegrate in her mouth, she let her mind flash back to that afternoon. When she spoke next it was with a hesitant air. “But, as I was talking to them, I-I thought I remembered something.”

The nurse gave Jackie a long look; she had a rather sinking feeling about this…. “Oh?”

“Actually, it was someone. Or rather, it was their voice.”

Nurse Hansen sighed silently. Yeah. Definitely a bad feeling.

“A man’s voice,” Jackie clarified. “He was there with me after, you know. After I was stabbed. At least, I think so…” Jackie bit her lip, peeking up at the nurse hopefully.

Nurse Hansen nodded briskly. “Yes. There was a man.” She spoke almost against her will.

“So I didn’t dream him up?” Jackie murmured quietly to herself. For some reason that mattered to her.

“No. You didn’t dream him up.”

Jackie felt her throat constrict. Her eyes stared down at her hands, which were clutching the sides of her ice-cream cup with unnecessary vigor. “He was nice to me. He kept talking, although I’m not sure what he said.”

“It’s not really what he said that counts,” Nurse Hansen muttered. “It’s what he did.”

That caught Jackie’s attention. “Did? What did he do?”

“Honey, he saved your life.”

Jackie swallowed, but truth be told, she wasn’t sure she was surprised to hear that.

“He did?”

“Honey, you were thirteen blocks from the hospital in rush-hour when it happened. And you were bleeding pretty badly. If he hadn’t been there…” the nurse shook her head insistently.

Jackie felt her face go white.

“Whoa. Hey now, don’t go fainting on me,” Nurse Hansen ordered, stepping forward to take a closer look at Jackie’s sudden paleness. “I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t mean to upset you. Only, you did survive. It all worked out.” She patted Jackie’s shoulder with a rough sort of comfort. “No use crying over something that didn’t even happen, am I right?”

Jackie laughed weakly. Things were becoming foggy again. “I thought. He was holding my hand. I thought he was just offering comfort,” Jackie closed her eyes. “—but he was probably just checking my pulse.”

The nurse lifted her shoulders helpfully. “Blood flow can be denied to certain parts of the body in situations like this…he was probably assessing your circulation level…”

“I would have died?”

Nurse Hansen sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. Try not to dwell on it.”

“But, I don’t understand. He saved my life? I mean. I just assumed I made it to the hospital on time.”

“And so you did.”

“But only because of him?”

Nurse Hansen made a face as though she didn’t want to continue this conversation. Which was fair enough, because she didn’t. She had other rooms to check yet tonight; and this story was surely none of her business. But she held her impatience in check. Barely. “Yes.”

“He knew what to do?” Jackie spoke the words quietly. They were more statement than question.

“Yes.”

Jackie’s eyes were wide; and getting wider by the second.

Nurse Hansen’s face looked pinched. “Look, honey, don’t go getting all worshipful. Truth be told, he didn’t do all that much…” at least, not until he got her to the hospital. That’s when he really saved her life, but Nurse Hansen wasn’t such a big mouth to let that out.

“But you said—?”

Nurse Hansen flapped her hands about in agitation. “Oh, he put pressure on the wound to control the bleeding. He elevated your legs; stayed on the phone with the hospital, explaining…”

“Explaining?”

Nurse Hansen gave up. “Your symptoms and signs. Kept them aware of the situation…That kind of stuff.”

Jackie stirred her spoon in her melted cup of ice-cream slowly. “Oh. But,” she gnawed on her bottom lip. “If I didn’t make him up, what, ah, what happened to him?”

“To who?”

“The man! What happened to him?”

“What do you mean what happened to him? Nothing. He was just fine.” Nurse Hansen said with a huff.

Jackie felt her face flush; her fingers pinched the cheap cardboard rim of the ice-cream cup. “No, I know that. I just thought—” Jackie bit her lip. “Well, I guess it doesn’t matter what I thought.”

The room spun with an awful sort of silence. Tense, unnerved.

“I suppose I’d like to thank him,” Jackie said then, her voice small.

“I’m sure he knows how grateful you are.” Nurse Hansen seemed to be built out of stone, her face betraying none of her feelings.

Jackie nodded with a jerk, placing her cup down on her plastic tray. With a weary sigh, she pushed the cart it was sitting on off to the side of her bed. She blew out a hard breath. “I hope so.”

With quick steps, Nurse Hansen grabbed up her supper things, her fingers curling around the plastic tray as though it had become a lifeline of sorts. Holding it up meaningfully, she took a determined step backward. “Well. I’d best be getting back to it.”

“Right. Of course.” Jackie said gamely.

“Try not to think about it, will you?”

“About the mystery man who saved my life?” Jackie smiled. “Fat chance.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Nurse Hansen muttered under her breath, but luckily the sound didn’t reach Jackie’s ears. Only, on her second step backward, for the second time in as many minutes, she was waylaid from her attempt to leave when Jackie’s voice peppered the air once more.

“I’m just wondering, is it possible do you know, if he maybe come into the hospital with me?”

At the nurse’s frank stare, she felt a blush coating her cheeks. “Probably not, huh? Why would he? It’s not as if he knew me.”

Nurse Hansen spoke testily: “Goodness, how should I be expected to know such things? It’s not as if I stop every person wandering up and down these halls to ask them what they’re doing here, now do I? How would I possibly get anything done if I did?”

Jackie grimaced. “Right. Right.”

“Look, I only know what I heard. I wasn’t even here that evening.” Which was perhaps the only true thing she’d said during this whole exchange.

Jackie blew out her breath, and then, on the eve of a new thought, sat up a little straighter in her bed. “Do you think the police would know?”

“The police?”

“He would have been a witness, right?”

“Honey, I don’t think you need to be worrying about this—”

“He saved my life,” Jackie insisted. “I have to know.” She tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear determinedly. “I have to.”

Nurse Hansen nodded slowly, equal parts fear and frustration stealing over her body. This was not her story to tell. Indeed, she’d said far too much already.

Jackie didn’t seem to notice the nurse’s unease though. “If I could just get his name…”

Nurse Hansen shuffled the food tray against her hip. “Please, try not to fixate on this. What you need now is rest.”

“No, what I need are a few answers.”

Nurse Hansen closed her eyes. “I know, it’s just…”

“Max.”

At the sound of a new voice entering the conversation, two pairs of eyes jumped anxiously toward its speaker. And there, at the threshold of the doorway, stood none other than Dr. Thompson. With a barely perceptible glance, his eyes caught those of Nurse Hansen—and the look that passed between them was instantaneous and so quick it almost didn’t happen.

“His name is Max,” he reiterated into the growing silence.

With hopeful eyes, Jackie looked up at him, her voice eager, earnest in her address: “You know who he is?” Her blue eyes widened, her smile stretching fully across her face. “The man on the bus?”

Dr. Thompson gave her a wry smile. “Yeah, well, I guess you could say that.”