Page 10 of A Merman's Tail
Ethan
It’d been two days since we got the stranger to the hospital, two days since I waited for news about him. I gave them my contact info, and when I finally got the call, I was on the boat with Joey. The crew had been let off for a few days with pay, and I kept them updated with what we were planning, but I didn’t want to leave until I knew the beautiful man was okay.
“Hello, is this Mr. Turmont?”
“It is.” I stretched and glanced at Joey, who’d stopped the cleaning he was doing to stare at me.
“Your John Doe is awake at Marina Hospital, sir.”
I nearly tripped over my feet trying to get off the boat. Joey clearly didn’t need to ask what was happening because he shook his head and grinned at me as I waved at him on my way down the jetty. Marina Hospital wasn’t far from the harbor, which is how it got its name, and all I had to do was run a few blocks before I got to the three-story red-bricked building that looked older than most of the other ones around town.
I was met by the receptionist, who knew me well by now, and she led me past the security doors.
“You know where to go. Nurse Cassidy is waiting for you,” she said helpfully.
I didn’t bother thanking her as I strode to the elevators and reached the second floor. Like the receptionist had explained, Nurse Cassidy was standing behind the nurses’ desk when I stepped out. She was the same lady who’d helped me with the stranger when I first walked into the emergency room with the paramedics. She was older and had her gray hair pinned at the back of her head. Silver cat-eye glasses perched on her upturned nose. It also wasn’t hard to recognize her as the nurse who had helped me after Amber found me.
She smiled when she saw me and ambled around the desk to stop in front of me. Her light blue uniform dress was pressed perfectly, same as every other time I saw her. “Hello, Ethan.”
“Nurse Cassidy.” I glanced down the hallway and then back to her. “Is he….”
“He’s awake.” She waved at me to follow her, and we started a slow journey down the ward. “Though he hasn’t spoken. He’s tried, but hecan’tspeak.”
“He’s a mute?” I frowned at her.
She nodded. “We believe so, yes, but it seems he’s also surprised by that fact. There could be a number of medical reasons why he can’t talk. His larynx could be damaged or he could still be in shock.”
“Have you seen this happen before?”
She hummed before shaking her head. “Not to this extent. We’ve never had an awake John Doe before. We asked him to write his name, but he couldn’t do that, either. Actually, he looked very confused when we gave him a pen and paper.” She stopped outside a room numbered 213 and turned to me. “But you did want to know when he woke up. Maybe you can help us with his recovery.”
I glanced toward the closed blue door and shrugged. “I’ll talk to him.”
She smiled and opened the door. Stepping inside first, I walked past the curtain which had been half pulled around the bed to give him some privacy. The moment I saw him, however, I held back a gasp. He was even more gorgeous now that he was dry and not looking like a drowned rat. His skin was healthier, his cheeks brighter, and his eyes were open and the color of the same ocean we’d fished him from—the bluest blue I’d ever seen.
He stared at me for a second. His mouth curled and he held up his palm in a wave. He moved his lips, almost like he was sayinghello, but when nothing came out, his dark blond eyebrows furrowed.
“Hi.” I stepped closer to the bed. “I’m Ethan. I found you floating in the water.”
He nodded and grabbed my hand, placing it on his chest, and then he made some dramatic hand gestures that I didn’t understand. I turned to Nurse Cassidy, but she shook her head. She pointed at the pen and paper on the small portable table that rested over his bed, the kind on wheels that most hospitals had.
I grabbed the paper and pen and wrote down my own name before I showed it to him. “That’s my name. What’s yours?”
He tilted his head, nose wrinkling, and looked up at me again. He didn’t move to touch the pen and paper, which made me wonder if he even knew his own name or if he knew how to write.
I sighed, and so did Nurse Cassidy. She squeezed my shoulder. “I’ll be outside if you need me.”
She left, and I watched her go, not quite sure what I was supposed to do now. I didn’t know this man and he didn’t know me. I couldn’t help someone like this, not that I wanted to. My life now revolved around finding the merpeople.
I sat my ass on the bed near his thigh and frowned down at him, and he stared back. There was something about the look in his eyes, though. I couldn’t decide if it made me uncomfortable or not. It felt like worship. Was that because he knew that I’d saved him?
“Do you understand me?”
He inclined his head, and I took that as a yes.
“I found you floating in the ocean on a piece of wood. Were you in a boat accident?”
He shook his head. At least he spoke English.
