Mirror Image

and worried, but you’re going to be all right. So is Mandy, thank God. She has a few broken bones and some superficial burns on her arms. Mom’s staying in the hospital room with her. She’s going to be fine. Hear me, Carole? You and Mandy survived, and that’s what’s important now.”
    There was a bright fluorescent light directly behind his head, so his features were indistinct, but she could piece together enough strong features to form a vague impression of what he looked like. She clung to each comforting word he spoke. And because he spoke them with such conviction, she believed them.
    She reached for his hand—or rather, tried to. He must have sensed her silent plea for human contact because he placed his hand lightly upon her shoulder.
    Her anxiety began to wane at his touch, or perhaps because the powerful sedative that had been injected into her IV began to take effect. She allowed herself to be lured, feeling safer somehow by having this stranger with the compelling voice beside her, within reach.
    “She’s drifting off. You can leave now, Mr. Rutledge.”
    “I’m staying.”
    She closed her eye, blotting out his blurred image. The drug was seductive. It gently rocked her like a small boat, lulling her into the safe harbor of uncaring.
    Who is Mandy?
she wondered.
    Was she supposed to know this man who referred to her as Carole?
    Why did everyone keep calling her Mrs. Rutledge?
    Did everybody think she was married to him?
    They were wrong, of course.
    She didn’t even know him.
    * * *
    He was there when she woke up again. Minutes, hours, days could have elapsed for all she knew. Since time had no relevance in an intensive care unit, her disorientation was augmented further.
    The moment she opened her eye, he leaned over her and said, “Hi.”
    It was nerve-racking, not being able to see him clearly. Only one of her eyes would open. She realized now that her head was swathed in bandages and that’s why she couldn’t move it. As the doctor had warned her, she couldn’t speak. The lower portion of her face seemed to have solidified.
    “Can you understand me, Carole? Do you know where you are? Blink if you can understand me.”
    She blinked.
    He made a motion with his hand. She thought he raked it through his hair, but she couldn’t be certain. “Good,” he said with a sigh. “They said you shouldn’t be upset by anything, but knowing you, you’ll want all the facts. Am I right?”
    She blinked.
    “Do you remember boarding the airplane? It was the day before yesterday. You and Mandy were going to shop in Dallas for a few days. Do you remember the crash?”
    She tried desperately to convey to him that she wasn’t Carole and didn’t know who Mandy was, but she blinked in response to his question about the crash.
    “Only fourteen of you survived.”
    She didn’t realize that her eye was shedding tears until he used a tissue to blot them away. His touch was gentle for a man with such strong-looking hands.
    “Somehow—God knows how—you were able to get out of the burning wreckage with Mandy. Do you remember that?”
    She didn’t blink.
    “Well, it doesn’t matter. However you managed it, you saved her life. She’s upset and frightened, naturally. I’m afraid her injuries are more emotional than physical, and therefore harder to deal with. Her broken arm has been set. No permanent damage was done. She won’t even need skin grafts for the burns. You,” and here he gave her a penetrating stare, “you protected her with your own body.”
    She didn’t comprehend his stare, but it was almost as though he doubted the facts as he knew them. He was the first to break the stare and continue with his explanation.
    “The NTSB’s investigating. They found the black recorder box. Everything seemed normal, then one of the engines just blew up. That ignited the fuel. The plane became a fireball. But before the fuselage was completely engulfed in flames, you managed to get out through an emergency exit onto the wing, carrying Mandy with you.
    “One of the other survivors said he saw you struggling to unlatch her seat belt. He said the three of you found your way to the door through the smoke. Your face was already covered with blood, he said, so the injuries to it must have happened on impact.”
    She remembered none of these details. All she recalled was the terror of thinking she was going to die the suffocating death of smoke inhalation, if she didn’t burn to death first. He was