Sweet Blessings

He winced. Any thoughts of his old life brought up the beginnings of a pain so black, it would drown him. Or, maybe it already had, he reasoned as he looked away from the man in the mirror and slung the battered bag over his shoulder.

The stranger staring back at him didn’t resemble Dr. Heath Murdock, not in any way. He was no longer the vascular surgeon with a specialty in trauma medicine, who could handle any crisis, any unspeakable catastrophe with the calm steady confidence of a man born to save lives.

What he couldn’t stand to think about were the lives he’d failed to save.

So he headed out into the morning and welcomed the crisp bite to the early-spring air. The cheerful sun burned his eyes. Blinking hard, he ambled along the cracked sidewalk, uneven from the towering maples lining the parking lot, their roots exposed like old arthritic fingers digging into the dirt.

Head down, he dropped the room key off at the front desk where a tired woman in brown polyester mumbled thanks without looking up at him. He saw a home dye job and graying roots. The deep creases in the woman’s face were testimony of too many decades of hard living and heartbreak.

Yeah, he knew. He unlocked the passenger door of the old pickup. The truck used to be his granddad’s. Faint memories of sunny days riding around the Iowa farm with his grandpop washed through him.

Good times. Times he could tolerate thinking about. He dropped the duffel on the passenger floor, where decades of boots had worn scuffs. Tiny bits of straw and dried grass seed remained dug deep into the grooves around the door. The distant voices of long ago echoed for one brief moment—Grandpop, when I grow up I’m gonna be just like you!… Lord I hope so, son, ’cuz there ain’t nothin’ better than bein’ a cowboy.

The voices silenced as he slammed the door hard and breathed in the scented air.

There was hay and alfalfa growing next door in fields that rolled out of sight. The faint scent of irrigation made him feel like breathing in a little more deeply. When he pulled out his wallet, there were no pictures inside and no credit cards. There was nothing but a driver’s license and insurance card and, tucked between the two, his social security number.

Not that the jobs he’d been working lately had required legal ID.

He checked the thin bills—forty-six bucks left. That wouldn’t get him far. Looked like it was time to think about working for a while. This town with dust settling on the main drag through town—only one pickup had bothered to drive past this early in the morning—didn’t look like a hopping place…and that was just about his speed these days.

Across the parking lot he recognized an older model compact car, neat and clean and familiar. The waitress. He watched as she hopped out of the vehicle. She was wearing jeans and a red T-shirt that was baggy more than it was form-fitting. Her long blond hair was still damp from a shower and dancing on the breeze.

He watched her, unable to look away, as she took two steps toward the back door, skidded to a halt on black tennis shoes, and spun. She scurried back to her car, muttering to herself as if in great frustration. She hadn’t locked her car, so it took only a moment to yank it open. Then she bent down and he couldn’t see her beneath the door.

He leaned his forearms on the truck bed and watched as she bobbed up into sight. Her hair was more disheveled and she was muttering harder to herself as if she were having a very bad morning. This time she had a small tan purse in a death grip as she paced across the parking lot, looking as if she was working up a good head of steam. Yeah, he used to have mornings like that—

In a flash, it was right at the edge of his mind, the days of rushing out of the house, leaving too much behind him undone and two shadows in the doorway he couldn’t let himself see even in memory. Breaking into pieces, he slammed the door on the past and locked it well. Some things a man couldn’t live through.

Not that he was alive. Only his heart was beating, that was all.

He hung his head, hidden behind the pickup as he heard the waitress’s rapid gait stop in midstride. He peered through his lashes, not lifting his head, to see her hesitate, looking around as if she felt him there, felt him watching her. But she didn’t spot him. Was she remembering last night and feeling jumpy? Any woman would. He hadn’t meant to make her uneasy, he just didn’t want to talk to her. He didn’t want a lot of things.

Maybe there was another place to eat in town.

He followed the alley to the front street. On the far side of the empty two-lane road, a train rumbled along the tracks hauling a long string of box containers. The bright black-and-blue paint of inner-city graffiti marked the sides of the cars, heading west, probably to the ports of Seattle or Portland.

Portland. He wondered why he even let that word into his mind.

A lone pickup, vintage fifties model, perfectly restored in a grass-green and shining chrome rolled down the street and pulled into a spot directly in front of the diner. The Open sign in the front window and the door open wide to the morning was invitation enough.

The man who climbed down from the pickup’s seat without bothering to lock up as he loped up onto the sidewalk looked to be a retired farmer. There was the look of a hard-working man to him, lean, trim and efficient. Gray-white hair fringed the blue cap he wore.

He pushed through the screen door that slapped behind him and voices rose from inside the restaurant.

“That’s what I like to see, coffee waiting….”

A woman’s lilting laughter answered.

It was all Heath could hear before a puff of wind changed direction, taking the words away. In the glint of the sparkling front window, Heath could see into the diner. He watched the man take a booth at the front window, his coffee cup full and already waiting for him. A regular customer? He probably showed up every morning now that he no longer had a farm to tend and ordered the same breakfast.

It was early yet, but the rest of the main street—which was what, only four blocks long?—was as dark as could be. The only other sign of life was the flash of a neon sign newly blazing on a quaint coffee shop on the corner. Drive-through Open, it announced in cheerful blue letters.

Heath’s stomach rumbled as he debated what to do.

The whisper of a car approaching on the road had him turning around. There was no mistaking the big gray cruiser with the mounted red and blue lights and the emblem on the doors. The local law had arrived. The passenger window whispered down as the car pulled up alongside the curb. Behind the wheel was a man in uniform, as fit and as steely as only a marine could be.

Recognizing his own kind, Heath gave a salute. “Is there a problem, sir?”

From inside the cruiser, the uniformed deputy gave him a cursory look and, finding him satisfactory, saluted him in return. “We don’t get a lot of out-of-towners this time of day. Need some help, soldier?”

“I can find my way, sir.” His years in the military—there was a time Heath didn’t mind remembering.

His service in the first Desert Storm had done more than change his life. It had made him know the true meaning of being a man. And what medicine was all about. Individuals. People. Not five years spent afterwards in one of the best hospitals in the country could change the integrity he’d learned in service to this country.

It was the only thing holding him together.

The deputy cracked a grin. “I was Marine Recon.”

“I was the doc that patched up your kind. You Special Forces guys seem to get into trouble on a regular basis.”

“I let a few of you sawbones work on me a time or two. I blame the ache in my arm on those docs. It couldn’t have been the two bullets and grenade shrapnel I caught. You wouldn’t happen to be the customer Amy McKaslin was tellin’ me about last night. You stopped her and her sister from bein’ hassled?”

“I didn’t do much. I just showed up. Did she get their license plate?”

“No. You didn’t happen to—”

Heath recited it from memory. “You look those boys up. The way they acted, it was no way to treat two real nice women.”

“Exactly.” The deputy reached for his radio. “You wouldn’t object to making a statement, would ya? I don’t take well to women being threatened in my town.”

“They skipped out on part of their bill, too.” Heath saw the lift of surprise of the officer’s brow, and knew the waitress hadn’t told the whole story. Probably because it was a matter of five dollars. “I’ll sign whatever you need me to.”

“Drop by the office after you’re done eating. It’s down past the hardware and keep going. You’ll see us.” With another salute, the deputy drove on.

Heath felt a ghost from the past—it was his own spirit. The man he used to be: whole and full of optimism and enthusiasm. Full of heart.

There wasn’t much left of that man. He didn’t recognize his reflection in the diner’s windows. He merely saw a man who looked more tired and aged instead of a vibrant, driven marine. He was like any man about to patronize a typical diner in a typical rural American town.

A bubbly waitress—not Amy—led him to the table in the back. It suited him. He had a view of the train still rolling by like an endless caravan. He ordered the special—whatever, he didn’t care—and thanked the waitress for handing him a local paper.

In his reflection in the window he caught sight of a man he used to know, just for one moment, and then it was gone like the train, the caboose slithering away and leaving a clear view of the park across the street. He stared for a long moment at the lush green grass waving in the wind.

The waitress returned with a carafe of steaming coffee, poured his cup full and dashed off with her sneakers squeaking on the clean tile. The coffee was black, had a bitter bite, and he drank it straight. He enjoyed the punch of caffeine.

He turned to the classified ads and browsed through them. The waitress returned with a huge plate stacked high with sunny-side-up eggs, sausage links, pancakes and hash browns. Just the sight of it brought back memories of his grandma’s kitchen, where the syrup was the real thing and the jam homemade.

“Do you need anything else?” the waitress asked, producing a bottle of—just as he’d predicted—real maple syrup and a canning jar of what looked like blueberry preserves.