Political Science 101

Chapter Sixty-Five

THE TWO large automatic glass hospital doors which read "EMERGENCY" in big red letters zipped out of Mitch's path as they slid apart when Ana and he approached. A cold wall of air assaulted their senses, carrying that medicated disinfected sterilized hospital smell. The late-night Emergency Room was bustling, but Mitch saw nothing. The air in the entrance hallway was cool — even cold — but Mitch felt nothing. The sounds of crying babies, moans of pain, and hospital personnel barking orders created a jumbled tapestry of sound; but Mitch heard nothing.

Ana held Mitch's hand firmly, almost as though she was leading him (which she more-or-less was) as the two searched for any sort of "INFORMATION" sign. But as they walked — as they searched — Mitch didn't see a hallway. Mitch saw a tunnel — a seemingly endless cavern, and everything, including Mitch, moved in excruciatingly slow motion. Nothing was real — or, at least, nothing felt real. He felt like the experience — the sights, the sounds, the smells —were the setting of some sort of surreal drama he was watching, not living. It was a television show, and all he need to do was change the channel; it was a dream — a nightmare — and all he had to do was wake up.

Right?

But he couldn't. He didn't.

Suddenly, he realized he was standing alone. Mitch looked around slowly — or at least, that's how it felt — and he saw Ana across the Emergency Room talking to a man who looked like a doctor. The room was filled with all types of people with all types of ailments. There was noise and it was discomposed and beclouded, and Mitch ignored it. He wondered when he'd entered this room; wasn't this just a long hallway?

"Hun?" Ana said, now standing right in front of him, directly in his line of sight, but he didn't seem to see her until she spoke.

Mitch blinked hard and tight. "Yeah," he said in a quiet monotone.

"They—" Ana choked a little on what she was about to say. "They need us to identify Ashlynn's body. They said the car was on top of her when they found her and there was nothing they could do. But they couldn't find her purse with her driver's license, so we — we have to — we need to identify her body." Ana heard these words as she spoke them, bringing tears to her own eyes. She knew it would be difficult to see the lifeless body of such a vibrant person, the daughter of the man she loved; and what hurt equally was how much he was about to hurt as the reality of seeing his lifeless daughter on the other side of a window in the hospital's morgue.

Mitch inhaled deeply with no real plan to exhale (though he eventually did — loudly, filled with emotion). He blinked again. For the first time in his life, he didn't want to see his daughter. Until he saw her, she was still alive in his mind. This would not be real until it was made to be real, and the only way it could be made real was for him to cast his own eyes upon the dead body of his beloved daughter. For a brief moment, he thought of Schrödinger's Cat. "Why—" Mitch said, struggling to speak, "why can't they — why can't the just use her driver's license?"

"They can't find her purse," Ana said again, beginning to see how badly Mitch was struggling to even comprehend the reality in front of him.

"Just—" Mitch began, but stopping to inhale again, as though breathing was no longer a natural action, but rather a forced activity, "tell me — tell me how she — how did it happen?"

"The doctor said it was quick and she didn't suffer when she di—," Ana stopped, not wanting to use the words died or dead or anything even remotely similar, not just for Mitch's sake, but for her own as well. "He said it was severe head trauma and she didn't feel any pain."

Mitch inhaled deeply once again, this time closing his eyes as though the oxygen deep in his lungs provided some sort of self-condolence. "Okay," he said, letting out a bottomless exhale. "Let's go."

Led by the doctor, Mitch and Ana made the five-minute walk to the viewing and identification room outside the Morgue. But to Mitch, that five minutes lasted for hours, and when he finally noticed he'd that he'd stopped walking, he was standing in what looked like another waiting room, but this one had no chairs. A small window looked into a tan and white room full of gurneys, all of which were empty, except one. Mitch felt horrified upon seeing the human-like form under the white sheet; she looked cold and motionless, but was fully covered, including her face.

Mitch didn't notice his hand being tightly squeezed by Aa, who now silently wept by his side. Mitch didn't notice the hospital chaplain who'd joined them along their walk from the Emergency Room to the Morgue. Mitch didn't notice the man from the Missouri Highway Patrol who waited patiently to ask Mitch some questions, but was waiting for Mitch to identify his daughter when the sheet was pulled back to reveal her face. Mitch only noticed one thing, and it was the one thing he was terrified to see.

A nurse in scrubs and a surgical mask entered the room behind the glass and carefully wheeled the only occupied gurney closer to the window. Then, slowly, almost with compassion for those viewing, slightly lifted the corners of the white sheet at the head of the gurney and paused, waiting for the go-ahead from the chaplain, who gently nodded accordingly.

Mitch's eyes had not left he gurney since they'd approached the window, and now, with every fiber of his being, he dreaded the impending sight of his lifeless daughter.

The sheet was slowly lifted and a gray shadow slowly crept across her face, giving way to the dim light, light a plodding glum sunrise.

Ana audibly inhaled, just short of a gasp.

Mitch could not find it in himself to breathe; the blood-soaked hair, the contorted and bruised face, the empty eyes. Mitch stared silently at the broken and dead body of Kelli Linn, Ashlynn's best friend.

"That's not her," Ana said, quickly looking at Mitch, who still stood statuesque in front of the window, now filled with a mixture of relief and disbelief.

Everyone looked at Mitch.

The silence of anticipation held the room together.

"Where is my daughter?" Mitch asked with a stern sense of composure and authority.

"This was the driver of the car," the Highway Patrol officer said, "and the car was registered in your name, Mr. Bradley."

"Where is my daughter?" Mitch said again in an identical inflection.

"There was a survivor," the chaplain said.

"Where is my daughter?" Mitch said a third time, again maintaining an identical tone-of-voice.

"This way," the chaplain said, motioning to the hallway leading back to the Emergency Room area of the hospital.