Love, Zoey

Chapter Thirteen

Zoey's p.o.v.

          America had been gone for over two hours. Lilly had taken a nap, woke up demanding food and had eaten anything I had in the diaper bag.

          The doctor had come in, nurses checked machines, him and even us. They were kind enough to offer to get me a menu for food.

           Lilly had gotten excited for that one and begged for "Cookies!" as loud as possible until they were handed over. It amazed me how she always got what she wanted.

          After our meals, I had handed over my phone to Lilly in hopes she would use it as "quite time" allowing me to read my book for the first time in weeks.

          "Mommy. Help." Lilly hands me my phone out towards me. "Help."

           I took it from her and got back into the photos app so she could look at the photos, she always enjoyed that more than when I let her play the games. "Who's that?" I pointed to her face on the screen. "Is that you?"

           It was an early picture. She was just a baby, wrapped in a soft pink blanket in her crib. The sheets had flowers and the stuffed animals in the corners were a sharp contrast to the background of the photo where you could see Beck's room.

           "Me!" She pointed and giggled loudly. Her quick little thumb changed the pictures and as she did she would say who was in them. "Mommy, Daddy."

             "Yes baby. That is Daddy." I had found some old pictures from high school on my brother's computer and sent them to myself a few days ago and she would still get confused with them.

          The photo her swift fingers had settled on was from high school, before Lily, when Beck was just my brother's friend.

         We were standing at the counter in my parents kitchen, Beck in his practice jersey and me in an old baseball cap, a moment of laughter caught in the back of a picture where my parents were posing.

            As soon as I saw the picture it brought me back to the Saturday nights when the boys would go to practice and hurry back to our house for a bar-b-q. Half the team would show up and eat with us, but my parents didn't mind.

           They loved the excitement that it brought our yard whether it be us sitting down to eat or when the boys  would grab a ball and start pick up game of football.

          After a while the boys had come to realize that with each of them eating about three hamburgers a Saturday we wouldn't be able to keep our little tradition going so they went out and bought a piggy bank that had a football helmet on its head. Each time they came we would look over and see each of them dropping money in the slot to contribute and keep the tradition alive.

           As each player graduated from the school and went off my mom had them write their name on the little bank that had become a main decoration in our home and to this day it has never been opened. It had grown heavy as the boys tossed in coins and crumbled up dollar bills, any money they had in their pockets that day.

          "Mommy." Lily called my attention back to her place on the floor. I had thrown a blanket down for her to sit on and had placed the small toys that I had in the diaper bag around her in hopes that she would stay quite and out of any doctors or nurses way. "Daddy."

           She pointed her stubby little finger over to the bed where Beck was laying.

       "Zoey." His voice called out to me. His voice was raspy, kind of reminded me of a smoker or an older man.

       I jumped out of my chair, coming to the bed so I stood close to him and grasped my cold fingers around his warm ones. "Beck?" His eyelids fluttered, but remained closed. "Beck."

         A deep unsettling moan left his lips and his tongue flicked out to wet his dry lips. "Zoey."

        "I'm right here." My voice shook a little as I pulled my phone from Lilly's hands. "Can I have it for a second baby?"

        I pulled Lily up into my arm and dialed America, praying she wouldn't have it go to voicemail. "Hey Zoey, I was just-"

         "He's waking up!" Lily's arms reached out and clasped on to the cross around my neck and got distracted by moving it side to side.

           I heard things being dropped onto the floor and her frantically saying "I will be right there!" before the phone cut off.

          "Beck?" I walked close and clutched his hand in mine. It was colder than it usually was, but it was still rough from working. His eyes remained closed, but his fingers tightened slowly around mine. "Beck. Can you hear me?"

         "Mommy!" Lily scream and shoved her hand against my face in her excitement. "Mommy! Daddy!"

           She tried to lean out of my arms to get to him, not understanding why she couldn't lay with him.

           Beck's hand tightened around mine again and I ignored Lily's persistent shoving against my face, trying to pull my attention back to her. "Beck."

        Silence followed. He didn't even try to move around in the bed anymore.

        I stood there, frozen. Waiting for him to move or call out my name again. He laid there, not moving and definitely not speaking.

        The only sound in the room was his heart monitor keeping a steady beat. Even Lilly had calmed down and was resting her head on my shoulder.

        "Oh Beck. I don't know if you can hear me right now, but I need you to know that we need you. Whatever it is that is going on, you need to work through the pain. We need you. We need all of you." I leaned down and kissed his cheek, the tear from my eye landing on his face. "Beck, I need you."

          A loud knock at the door brought me back to reality. I stood up straight once more and backed away as if I was in trouble, for Beck and I don't act like that. We were just friends. 

          "I'm sorry. We were hoping to speak to Sargent James for a moment, but we can come back later." The man spoke quickly, he was older, but the women that followed behind him only looked to be about ten year my senior.

           "That's okay. It seemed like he was about to wake up a minute ago if you wanted to stick around." I whipped the tears from under my eyes and offered my hand out. "I'm Zoey. You are?"

        "The agents assigned to this case. You are the woman from the pictures. You are the one the men call "sexy". But it's really Zoey, or do you go by Zo?" The woman walked all the way in and squated next to Lilly on the floor. "And you beautiful little girl is Lilly."

         "Yes." I hesitated. 'Have you spoken to Beck before?"

         The men here call me sexy?

         "We were down here a few days ago to speak with Segeant James." The man walked closer to the bed. "He had a lot to say about you and his daughter."

          "Beck did?"

           Beck had a strict need to know policy. If he felt you needed to know something then he would tell you, but other than that, good luck trying to get information out of him.