The Headache

The Headache

Sometimes the brightest medical minds shake their collective noggins, pat you on the knee, and hurry out before you ask questions they can’t answer. This was the second time they’d entombed me in the CT scanner. The bang bang banging was making my head implode.

I didn’t cotton to the idea of letting them poison me if they found cancer. If ice packs and aspirin couldn’t cure my constant headache, I’d totter up to heaven or wherever they send women who are plumb sick of being sick.

I punched the panic button. Before Keisha Jackson could slide the human serving tray all the way out, I bounced upright and whacked my forehead on the gantry. Moaning, I rolled off the table and landed on all fours.  

“Susannah Lee, what the devil?” she hollered, helping me up. “Why didn’t you tell me you’re claustrophobic? Damnit, you cut a gash over your eyebrow. And you pulled your IV out. It took me five sticks to start that thing.”

“Don’t I know it. I should’ve done it myself.”

“How about you stick to managing bank loans and safety deposit boxes and let me handle the needlecraft?”

Her dark face creased with worry, she slapped gauze on my bleeding wrist. “Hold pressure while I get a butterfly bandage for your forehead. And then I’ll call Doc Boudreaux for something for your nerves.”

I used the hem of my hospital gown to staunch the blood trickling into my left eye.  “Don’t bother, I’m not getting back in the barrel.”

“Oh yeah? Don’t even think about going home, girlfriend. Boudreaux will throw a hissy fit if I let you sashay out of here.”

“Tell her you tried to stop me, and I punched you in the nose.”

She snorted. “I ain’t worried about that stupid neurologist, but I’m losing sleep over my best friend. We’ve gotta figure out what’s causing your migraines.”

“I’m beginning to think that Dr. Boudreaux believes it’s all in my head. It’s in my head, all right. It feels like a farrier’s hammering a horseshoe nail into it.”

“Cut her some slack—she knows you’re not imagining things. She’s making sure it ain’t the Big C. Sometimes it takes a lot of diagnostic tests to rule it out.”

I sucked in a breath. “If it was cancer, she would’ve visualized it by now. She’s stuck enough needles in my hide to outfit a porcupine.”

Chewing her lip, my friend pushed aside my auburn bangs and butterflied my injured brow. I gently tugged one of her dreadlocks. “Listen, if by some remote chance it is a tumor, I’m not having chemo. Not after what Daddy went through.”

She pulled a rosary out of her pocket and fingered the beads. “What would ol’ Rocket Lee’s ghost think of you giving up before you crossed the finish line?”

I winced. Daddy drove stock cars until brain cancer made him trade his 700-horsepower Charger for a battery-powered wheelchair. He’d been dead nearly two years.

“Never mind Daddy. I’ve decided to head up to Shreveport.” There, I said it. No backing out.

Her eyes widened. “You’re actually gonna visit her?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow. But you’re not going tonight, are you? It’s nearly seven o’clock. And it’s Valentine’s Day.”

“Pssh, like I’ve got anybody chasing me around with chocolate hearts and flowers. See you in a few days.”

“If something busts loose in your stubborn Cajun pea brain, we won’t be seeing each other this side of Hades.”

                                                           **

It was after midnight when I left Baton Rouge. The countryside rolled past my white Toyota Camry like a foggy river as I raced up I-49. I was driving fast, like always.  

Mama deserved to know that I might be sick like Daddy. Or maybe she didn’t. Maybe she deserved to go on thinking that her girl was as durable as a four-barrel carburetor. We didn’t talk much, anyway. When we did, we bowed up like two she-cats. It had been a year since our last conversation. Your daddy’s gone, Susannah. You’ve got no reason to stay in the swamp amongst his hell-raisin’ kin. That Cajun scoundrel wasn’t worth two bits on the NASCAR circuit. He'd have done better running moonshine or robbing banks, and I ain’t so sure he didn’t do some of that on the side.

Massaging my aching temples, I entertained second thoughts about visiting her. It wasn’t like she would offer me any comfort. I was ten when she left me with Daddy and moved to Shreveport. Maybe I should turn around.

A car materialized out of the fog right in front of me. I yanked the wheel hard left and glimpsed a woman’s startled face as I whipped past her door. I pressed harder on the gas, hurling myself into the gloom. Maybe I could outrun my migraine. And my memories.

Blue lights appeared behind me. If I pulled over, would the State Troopers understand that my recklessness was due to a headache the size of Texas? Unlikely. I wasn’t like my daddy, who’d always been able to talk his way out of a ticket.

I estimated my distance from the pursuers. Half a mile, with lots of traffic between us. If Rocket Lee were here, he’d laugh and holler, “Boogity-boogity, let’s go racin’, chère!”

Laughter bubbled into my chest. I stomped the gas and began weaving between big rigs to hide my taillights. A second set of blue lights appeared in the mirror. The speedometer lurched to eighty-five, ninety, ninety-eight, and pegged at a hundred-and-five.

The blue strobes receded into the distance, but I’d be a fool to think they’d given up the chase. Seeing an off-ramp, I jerked into the right lane and cut off a big silver SUV, sending it onto the shoulder. I roared up the ramp and shot onto a dark highway, barely missing a chicken truck. Its air horn blasting in my ears, I spooled down the road to the Cajun Café Truck Stop.

Breathing hard, I wove through the fuel pumps looking for a hiding spot. At pump 17, I braked and dropped my forehead to the steering wheel. My land, what was wrong with me? This wasn’t stock car racing. A headache was no excuse for nearly killing myself and half a dozen other drivers. If the highway patrol caught up with me, the only place I’d boogity would be jail.

The brilliant lights over the pumps shot knives into my skull. Squinting against the pain, I climbed out and looked back at the road. No cops, but I had to distance myself from the car. Throwing on a pink sweater, I crossed the plaza to the brightly lit café. More pain. Truck drivers and families crowded the booths and stand-up tables. A trucker eyed me and licked his lips. Ignoring him, I beelined to the ladies’ room and tried the handle. Locked. I rattled it again.

“Be out in a minute. It ain’t but a one-holer.”

Watching the plate-glass windows, I waited exactly one minute and then banged on the door.

“Hold your taters— I ain’t done!”

Enough waiting. I tumbled through the men’s room door and surprised an elderly gentleman at the urinal. Mumbling an apology, I popped into the stall and sat holding my head, wishing the farrier would either finish the horseshoe or shoot me. I should have listened to Keisha and hung around for testing. If I stroked out in the men’s room, Mama would likely blame the indignity on my upbringing at the motor speedway.

When I heard the bathroom door close, I went to the sink and checked my face in the mirror. The butterfly bandage had come off my eyebrow. The gash wasn’t bleeding, but an ugly bruise had blossomed around it. I flicked my bangs over it and walked out.

Their blue lights strobing through the café windows, a pair of Crown Vic police interceptors sat at the curb. Gunned up and scary, three State Troopers stood at the cash register by the door. I pivoted behind a rack of boiled peanuts and meat pies.   

“We clocked her at a hundred-and-eight,” one of the officers told the clerk. “The 911 caller said she was driving some kind of Toyota or Nissan. She’s a pretty brunette, maybe thirty or thirty-five. You seen a lone woman come in?”

Swallowing a bolus of terror, I slipped down an aisle and joined a man and two small boys surveying snack cakes and Valentine’s Day candy boxes. As the daddy knelt to tie one of the boys’ shoes, I accidentally bumped his wide shoulder with my hip.

He glanced up at me. I saw steel-blue eyes, a crooked smile, and tousled black hair with white wings at the temples. He was a dead ringer for Pierce Brosnan in The Thomas Crown Affair. My heart jumped. How could a man in a café full of disheveled travelers look this suave?

For some stupid reason, I dusted his shoulder with my fingertips to erase the phantom touch of my hip. Idiot. I locked my hands together. “Excuse me, sir.”

“No problem, I was in your way. Bad habit.” He stood and smiled down at me. He wore black jeans and a short-sleeved shirt exposing tanned, muscular arms. The top two buttons were undone, revealing a tuft of chest hair. He smelled like English Leather aftershave lotion.

“Which kind is your favorite?” His voice was as rich and deep as the Mississippi River. A woman could drown in it.

“Um, which kind of what?”

He nodded at a hand-lettered sign over the rack. “Chocolate. The lovers’ holiday ended at midnight. The Valentines are half price.”

I glanced at the State Troopers. Had they noticed me trying to hide behind this man and his children?

When I didn’t reply, Pierce Brosnan’s doppelgänger lifted his smaller son to reach the snack cakes. In an agony of indecision, the older boy pulled his lower lip down with both hands and rolled his eyes up at me.

“What do you think he’d like?” His blue eyes twinkling, Pierce was speaking to me again.

I leaned down and whispered, “Swiss Rolls are like an inside-out chocolate cake. They’re my favorite.” He let go of his lip and grabbed a two-pack.

Pierce pretended to mop his brow with relief. “Thanks for advising him while we’re still young. We’ve got a long drive to Memphis tonight, and an even longer one tomorrow. Okay, boys, let’s go pay.”

Oh no, you can’t leave yet. I swept my hand at the Valentines hearts. “Since you’re asking my advice, wouldn’t they like an extra treat? Y’all should check out the selection.”

“Don’t tempt me, darlin’,” he said in that deep river voice. “I mean, the cake is chockful of sugar. Feed them bon-bons, and they’ll be bouncing off the roof rack before we hit Shreveport.”

I twisted my fingers and stole a glance at the Troopers. Pierce cocked his head, grinned, and then selected a small Valentines heart. “You win. I can always duct-tape them to the seat. G’nite.”

Afraid to be left alone, I dogged them to the register. The handsome stranger glanced at the Troopers and then back at me. Quirking a brow, he casually took my arm and pulled me into his space. The lawmen gave us the once-over. I averted my face. I didn’t need them accusing my “husband” of beating me.

Once we were safely outside, he said, “Let’s walk this nice lady to her car.”

The little family and their associate member wove through the crowded plaza to my Toyota Camry. The man pointed at a silvery gray Tahoe standing on the opposite side of the pump, screening my car from the store windows. “I’ll be danged, that’s us. What’re the odds?”   

He helped the boys into the Tahoe and buckled them into their car seats. Sweeping his dark hair back, he stepped over the fuel pump’s concrete divider and looked down at me. I saw flecks of gold in his blue irises. He stopped smiling. “Be careful, love, it’s fixing to rain.”

Love? I felt my heart turn over. I saw a muscle flex in his lean cheek. His Adam’s apple rose and fell on a hard swallow.

“Watch your speed, okay? It’s not a race.”

If you only knew. I broke eye contact and slid into the Camry. He caught the door before it closed and squatted beside me. Smelling his leathery aftershave, I fought an urge to grip his hair and pull him into the car.

Grinning roguishly, he laid the Valentines heart box on my lap. “The boys noticed you didn’t get a snack, so the little tyrants ordered me to fork over their candy.”

Astonished, I looked over his head and mouthed “thank you” to the boys, who laughed and drummed their shoes on the seat.

His expression unreadable, their daddy said, “I haven’t asked your name.”

“Susannah. Like the song. You know, ‘O Susannah, don’t you—’”

“Don’t you cry for me.” He repeated my name, rolling it across his tongue like wine.

I blushed. “And yours is?”

“Chase Hendrick. Not like the song.” He pulled a business card out of his wallet. Our fingers touched. Warmth permeated my nerves. My headache receded.

“Not to seem forward, Susannah, but I’ve been wondering about that gash. It looks painful.”

“It’s nothing. Just a misunderstanding with a CT scanner.”

“Misunderstanding?” He dropped his gaze to my arms.

My sweater sleeves had ridden up, exposing my patient ID band and the needle punctures and bruises. Frowning, he touched my arm band. “Should you be driving, Susannah?”

“I’m fine, really.”

“Daddy!” one of the boys called.

Sighing, he rose to his feet. “Curtain call. Say, we’ll be in Nashville for a car show next month. If you happen to be up that way, why not test drive the new Corvette Z06? It’s a real hotrod.”

So are you. 

As if reading my mind, he stared into my eyes with an intensity that made me tremble. Unexpectedly, he leaned down, cupped my chin, and brushed my lips with his thumb. “I’m glad we met, even for a moment.”

 Before I could react, he went to the Tahoe and swung into the driver’s seat. I abruptly recognized the SUV I’d cut off in my wild dash for the exit.

He powered down the window and grinned.  “About that Corvette— 670 horsepower is just what the doctor ordered for outrunning Louisiana lawmen.”

He’d known it was me all along. Flushing from head to toe, I said, “Chase, I apologize for my horrible driving. I’m ashamed of myself.”

He sighed and passed his hand over his eyes. “No harm done, thank God. We’ve been visiting the boys’ grandma in Natchitoches. Their mother, well, she passed away last Christmas.”

He looked so sad that I didn’t know what to say. “Sorry” is a word that loses its meaning in the face of real sorrow. I knew nothing of this man and his sons, but their pain resonated in my heart. How dreadful to lose a wife and mother.

He forced a smile. “This may sound maudlin, but I’d advise you not to ignore the shining moments of life. They can dim in the blink of an eye. The day she died, my wife told me to embrace life without fear. She would tell you the same thing. O Susannah, she’d tell you not to cry.”

Tears burned my eyes. I thought of my mama driving out of my life all those years ago. I needed to tell her that the past didn’t matter. I needed to tell her that I loved her. That I wouldn’t let her leave again.  

Too choked up to bid goodbye, I lifted my hand and drove off. A minute later, I merged into the traffic. The Tahoe shone like quicksilver in my rearview mirror. I set the cruise control on sixty-eight and switched on the dome light.  

Chase Hendrick, Production Manager, Chevrolet, Detroit MI. I didn’t read the phone number on the card. Plenty of time for that later.

Recollecting blue eyes and a kind, open face, I drove into the rainy night. For the first time in weeks, I pushed my fear of the future into a back room. Maybe I’d take a trip to Nashville and drive the Corvette.

But first, I’d hug Mama. And then I’d return to Baton Rouge. I’d finish the diagnostic tests and confer with Dr. Boudreaux on my treatment. Opening the Valentines heart, I took out a chocolate and slowly savored it. Life is sweet.

The End