What A Way To Live

Four years ago, Carter and his wife Sarah were in the car headed to the hospital to have their first child. They were rushing to get to the hospital when Carter was driving in a hectic manner. The vehicle was swaying back and forth as he was going to fast in the snow and ice when suddenly, out of nowhere, a deer steps into the road and Carter strikes the deer. The car slides off the road and over the hill. The vehicle tumbled and fell into the icy river. As the car flows down the river, Sarah has passed out in the passenger side of the vehicle. Carter wakes up and looks around as he leans up and realizes he has been thrown from the car and is now lying on the side of the river in a pile of rocks. He looks around to find no car or Sarah anywhere. He panics and tries to jump up as he looks down in pain to realize that the perfect legs he had used to run marathons before are now in jumbles. He stands on one foot and determines that his other leg is broken. He rips his shirt into pieces and finds a stick on the edge of the water and wraps it around his broken leg. He had 6 years of medical school. He knew he had to find a way to heal his leg enough to find Sarah. A couple of hours later, Sarah wakes up to find herself hanging in the seatbelt, in the car upside down. She hears a waterfall near her and panics. She looked up to see the car leaning on the side of the river. In a pile of rocks and sticks. The car sways in the water, and she feels panic come across her. She remembers vaguely how she was in labor, and they were headed to the hospital. As she tries to calm herself down and try to get out of the seat belt, Sarah screams for Carter but gets no reply. She manages to get the seatbelt off and falls to the ceiling of the car. As Sarah swims from the driver side door that’s swung open, she finds Carter’s suitcase in the river. She grabs the suitcase to hold on to something until she reaches the riverside, cold and frozen, she screams again for Carter. Sarah then pats herself down, realizing that she felt the head of her child in her hands, in between her legs. She gets so scared and starts to cry because she knows what she needs to do. She opens the suitcase, hoping to find a blanket. Carter manages to stand up and limp down the river, trying to stay warm and calling for Sarah. He comes across a loose piece of car and starts to become hopeless. An hour had gone by as he was still trying to walk the riverbanks. He comes across the car in the pile of rocks. Sarah screams “CARTER” from the other side of the river. Carter dives into the water before he thinks and manages to make it across while Sarah is screaming in pain from sitting on the bank trying to push. Carter hears more vehicles in the distance. He grabs Sarah in his arms and tells her that everything will be okay. He notices that she has blood all over her body, and her hands shaking in agony. As the sounds of vehicles are getting closer. He manages to get to the hill behind them. He notices a truck stuck in the ice on the side of the road. He starts to scream “HELP” “PLEASE HELP”. A big man comes around from the back of a tow truck, and yells back “mister what are you doing out in this weather”? Carter then replies, “Please come help my wife. We had a car wreck”. The man runs down the hill, not knowing what was going on. He notices Sarah covered in blood and immediately grabs his phone and calls for help. The man tells Carter and Sarah that his name is Billy, and that he would help get them to his tow truck to warm up, to wait for help. Carter limps up to Sarah to help her get up and Billy comes over and grabs her up and carries her to the truck. Carter manages to get up the hill and they all get in the truck. Billy finds a blanket behind the seat and he hands it to Sarah. Billy asks Carter if he is okay and makes a wondering statement about Sarah and her baby. Carter tells Billy that “Sarah was in labor and we were trying to make it to the hospital”. “I am okay, I just need for Sarah to be okay. She is carrying my little girl”. Billy understands and replies that if they need anything, to let him know. However, he must get the truck unstuck and loaded, and he steps out of the truck. About another hour goes by and they finally hear a helicopter in the distance. Sarah has been going in and out of consciousness as she knows that she may not be a mother by the time this is over. The helicopter is landing in front of the truck and they hear a woman say to them “Hello, I am Kelly and I am the doctor on call to help you guys, let's get you loaded up”! Carter gets strapped into the seat and Sarah is strapped to the gurney in the middle. The helicopter starts going up as Sarah panics because she doesn't like heights, Carter tells her everything will be okay. They get to the hospital and immediately take Sarah in to be helped. As they roll her away, Carter yells “I love you Sarah”. Sarah immediately yells “always" back at him. They take Carter into the emergency room to get ex-rays of his leg and to check him out. Kelly comes into the room and applies a cast on his leg. Carter asks, “is that all that I made it out with”? Kelly replies “Yes, your lucky”! They both share a comforting laugh and he asks Kelly “how is Sarah”? Sarah looks at the ceiling as they roll her back, she just lays on the bed, hoping she is not right. A doctor comes in to look at Sarah and she feels them tug on her. As she looks up to see the doctors pull a perfect baby girl from her. Sarah just stared as if the life of her child had been stolen from her perfect face. Sarah feels tears fall as she realizes her worst fear has come true. The doctors started to do everything they could do to find life for the child. She was gone. Sarah falls back on to the bed and feels a rush of sadness hit her all at once. She starts to sob. Then suddenly she feels like she can’t breathe. The doctors look at Sarah and all gather around her. She feels the words they say as they all give her blank stares of sadness and the doctor says to her “Ma’am, I’m afraid your baby girl did not make it”. Sarah feels tingles in her back, she starts to feel different. The doctors hear a strand of silence on the monitor. They rush Sarah into the operating room. It seems Sarah’s body has gone into cardiac arrest. Carter sees a familiar face, “Phillip”, as he walks into Carter's room. Phillip and Carter go back to kindergarten, high school, and nursing school. Phillip says, “I heard you and Sarah were here, I just wanted to stop in and check on you guys”. Carter tells Phillip that he is okay, and how they were in the car wreck on the way to have the baby! Carter tells Phillip that he hasn't heard anything about Sarah yet. The doctor that delivered the baby and was taking care of Sarah, made his way to Carter's room. A knock on his hospital door sent chills down Carter's spine! The doctor enters with a sorrowful face. He says to Carter “Sir, I’m sincerely sorry to tell you that we did all we could”. Carter just stared with a blank Look at his face. The doctor explains “we lost your baby girl due to her not being able to breathe for a long amount of time during birth”. “Your wife, Sarah, was doing okay from the accident, but when she lost so much blood being in labor for many hours and her heart had a lot of strain on it. We couldn’t get her back’. Carter went into a shocked state, and just sat staring into the air. About a week later, Carter gets discharged from the hospital. Phillip felt bad and went to Carters home and had shut off the nursery and put away some of Sarah’s things. He had started gathering photos and things for the funerals. Carter gets a taxi to take him home and he thinks to himself about how he doesn’t think he can ever drive again. He blames himself because he was driving so recklessly, and he feels that he has done this to himself. A few days went by as Carter was sitting in his home just wondering what would have happened had everything been okay. Funeral day has come around, as Phillip comes over to help Carter get the courage to go see his wife and daughter. Carter walks into the funeral house, to see all his family and friends gathered around the tiniest casket he had ever seen. His beautiful wife was in the next room. He walked into the room, looks at her and feels so many emotions come across him. He thinks to himself how one tragedy can make you feel so empty. He decides that he wants to see his baby girl before she’s gone completely. The hospital experience was so hard for Carter. He finally sees his baby girl and feels the need to name her Anne, which was Sarah’s middle name The funerals were so much for Carter that he went home afterwards to just sit and grieve. After months of sitting at home and just letting himself go, his friends have been worried about him. Phillip decided to show up one day, he tells Carter that he can’t sit around and wither away and convinces him to get a hobby and go back to work. On Carter's first day back to work 9 months after the accident, he walked into his office to see a picture of him and Sarah on their first wedding anniversary. It takes him back to when they had first started dating. They had been married for 6 years and had finally decided to start a family. He broke down after seeing her picture, he didn’t know what he could do. He decided he was going to leave this hospital and go to work somewhere else. Carter finds a nurse practitioner position available on the beach of Florida, and he thinks to himself, I can get away from these North Dakota snowstorms, I can get away and start over from here. He goes to the boss and tells them he is leaving. He went home to pack his things. By the next morning, he was catching the next flight to Florida. He arrives in Florida and meets a man named Frank; he works at the clinic that Carter was applying for. Carter meets with the boss and nails his interview. He started work immediately. He found a beautiful beach apartment. He spent a week moving a few things and getting used to warmer weather. He had asked Frank if he’d like to go deep sea fishing. That next weekend, Frank and him go out, rent a boat and go fishing, Carter has started to feel real again. Frank tells Carter about how his wife had left him and taken their 3 kids from him. Carter had told Frank about Sarah and Anne. Frank made Carter feel better, that maybe one day, he could have a real life with a woman and have a family. Around 2 years went by, as Carter was working at the clinic and living in his what (seemed huge before. but now it is filled with trinkets) apartment, he has accumulated friends named Frank, Gilbert, and Tom. They always gathered to talk and drink beer at Bruno’s, the bar down the street. He watched as everyone just moved. on with their lives and he felt like no one understood what he was going through. Although he was with peace knowing that he could go sit at the beach and clear his mind. He noticed a girl every thursday for the past few weeks at the grocery store down the street from his apartment. Today, on his way to the beach, he noticed her at the same apartment he lived in. He is finally becoming the Nurse Practitioner he has always wanted to be. His boss, "Mr. Randall" decided to promote him to head nurse practitioner. Carter gets off work and decides to take a run to the beach. He sits in the sand to clear his mind. He looked around to see a kid run up to his aunt at the beach as he asks for more time to stay. Just five more minutes begs the child, as she exclaims NO Tyler, we need to be home by seven. As Carter gleams and decides to walk over as the boy runs to his friends to say his goodbyes. He walked over to the woman who had been staring him down for the past two hours while he sat in the sand staring into the waves crashing on the beach. He said hello. I noticed you from across the beach, and, having been seeing you around town, was just wondering if you would like to get dinner with me one evening? The woman, known as Laura, looks up at the man with her gazing brown eyes and long brown hair blowing in the wind and has no reply. She stared at the man with a longing look and, after a long pause, says my name is Laura, whats yours? Carters says my name is Carter. Laura smiles and says nice to meet you, but I must go. Carter just watches Laura as she runs away in the big bright sunset. Carter decides to call his best friend, frank and exclaims that he needs to talk to him. Carter tells him to meet him at Bruno’s. At Bruno's, Carter meets Frank and they sit and get a couple of beers. Carter exclaims to Frank that he doesn’t know what to do when it comes to the ladies anymore. Frank just tells him to take Laura on a date to dinner and a movie. After the reaction from Laura he got, he didn't want to ask her again and get rejected again. A week went by and he saw Laura out in the parking lot after she had just gotten home and decided to go talk to her. Carter walked out of his apartment and before he could turn around, he heard Tyler running behind him and yelling "I'll be glad when my dad gets home". Carter thinks to himself and wonders if she has any more kids. Laura storms up behind Carter as he turns to look behind him and she says that this child gets on her nerves so much, he is mad at him because he didn't stay in the park with his friends. Carter blurts out "I wasn't aware that you had a husband the other day, and I just wanted to apologize for asking you out to dinner". Laura starts to laugh and exclaims "MARRIED" "Oh Carter, I am not married, but I would love to go on a date with you. I'm just going through a loss in my life and I just didn't really know what to say the other day!" Carter stepped back and I said" Oh, Oh I heard the little boy say he couldn"t wait for his dad to get home. Laura leans in to Carter and says "OH NO, Tyler is my nephew, his dad is my big brother Henry". Carter takes a deep breath and starts to laugh and Laura looks at him and says "So what are you doing tonight?" Carter exclaims "I have rarely ever got anything going on if I'm not working, fishing, or at the beach". Laura says to Carter with a serious face "Would you like to take me out then?". Carter then takes Laura out to the nicest steak house in the area. They sit down in the restaurant and Carter asks Laura where she is from and what she does for a living. Laura replies that she is from California, but when her husband died she moved down to Florida. Carter almost chokes on his food, and manages to get "me to" out of his mouth. Laura looks at Carter, funny and says' your husband died too? As Carter laughs the joke off, he continues to tell Laura about Sarah and Anne. Laura tells Carter how maybe they were meant to find each other with both of their losses. They continued the date as they went to a movie and went home. Carter walks Laura up to her door and says he had a nice time. Laura kisses him, and he walks to his apartment door. Carter gets inside and shuts the door as he thinks of Sarah and realizes he wont ever get to kiss her again, but Laura was so great. About 6 months went by and Carter and Laura have gotten really close and have become a couple. Carter and Laura have been taking it slow and they have been thinking about their first time being with each other and Laura says their 6 month anniversary is the perfect night to give themselves to one another. Carter gets so agitated and starts to wonder if he will still be any good at it. Carter goes to the bar after work and tells frank. Frank thinks it will be good for him. Frank exclaims "Carter, you have to move on, this is something that needs to happen". Carter gets ready and goes home. When he pulls in, he goes down to her apartment to find the door wide open. The looks of no one living there anymore. Carter calls Laura"s cell phone and doesn't get an answer. Carter starts to worry and asks his friend Tom what to do. Tom tells him that he thought she got scared and ran. Carter had a bad feeling about it. Weeks went by without Carter knowing anything, then suddenly, out of the blue, Carter gets a letter in the mail. The letter is from a man named Luke Harris, from the international deporting agency. The letter states that he has found Laura but she has no identification of who she is, and she is in distraught. After 2 days, the police show up at the apartment and ask Carter if he knows her. He exclaims "Yes, that's my girlfriend". The man in the police suit looks at Carter and asks if she lived there. Carter tells them that she lived in apartment 14. The police find security footage down in the lobby and see that she was kidnapped that day, but they took all of her stuff to make it look like she had moved out. The police asked Carter a couple more questions and then left. Carter, stunned, just wonders where Laura is now and what's going on. Laura calls him the next day and explains that she was kidnapped but certain circumstances made her get away from them. She was scared and said she would explain but they had to meet somewhere private. Carter suggested an old building on the other side of town. They both show up around the same time and Carter asks Laura what's going on? Laura replies that she was leaving the day of her kidnapping to go pick Tyler up from school. She was locking her door when suddenly two white males approached her and asked if she had a lighter. She replied no, but I have one inside. As she opened the front door again to grab the men a lighter, the men attacked her from behind and stole all of her things. She explains how she woke up in a dark room full of other women chained to the wall. The other women were howling as if they were wolves. Carter raises his eyebrows and asks how she escaped from there? As Laura started to cry, she replied that she didn't know, someone came in the room and blind folded me and told me to act like I was remembering something. When I woke up again, I was at a place called the international deporting agency. Carter looks at Laura with distrust and tells Laura that everything will be okay now. Laura states that nothing will ever be okay. She said she couldn't go back to the apartment. Carter said to Laura in a caring manner, please" Please find somewhere you feel safe. Carter finds a home close to New York in Morristown and says let's just get away. It seemed to help me before. Laura agrees and they start to pack their apartment up and decide to tell no one but Laura's brothers, Henry and Tyler. After a long drive, the two finally make it to New York. The city had a sense of being busy and bright. Laura fell in love with the sight and feel of somewhere new that reminded her of home. Carter just remembers how moving feels like a new beginning. They both decided to move into a beautiful four-bedroom and three-bath home. Carter says it reminds him of his childhood home, and maybe will one day be the home he can raise his children in, glancing over at Laura. As Laura smirks, she says that she would still like to take things slow, considering the night she went missing was supposed to be a special night. As they walked into the garage to pull more things out of Carters' tall truck he had just bought last year, it was the first vehicle he had owned since Sarah had died. Laura says that she just wants to be happy and to be with Carter. Carter looks at Laura with a sense of passion, and kisses Laura deeply. Laura kisses him back and they make their way to the bedroom. In the bedroom, Carter gives all of himself to Laura. He makes sweet love to her the way she had only dreamed of. The next morning, Carter wakes up to Laura cooking breakfast downstairs with the smell of bacon in the air. How did you find time to go to the store and buy groceries and get back here to cook them? Carter exclaims while he smirks, walking into the kitchen. Laura laughs and says" Oh I got up super early and didn't want to wake you. Carter grins and tells her that there is no morning he wouldn't love waking up to her. She smiles at Carter as he walks over to her and hugs her so deeply. Laura blurts out, maybe this is a good place to have our children. As the two fall in love, someone knocks on the door. Carter jumps out of Laura's arms and sprints to the door, wondering who even knows anyone lives here. He gets to the door to find Mr. Luke Harris holding a stack of papers. Carter says, can I help you?" As Luke starts to introduce himself, Laura overhears and runs upstairs. Carter asks Luke why he is here and Luke explains he needs Laura to fill out some paper work to make sure he can find her American residency. Carter tells Luke to hold on one minute as he runs upstairs to get Laura. Laura is scared and says he knows where we are, when he was just in Florida two days ago. Carter and Laura start contemplating it and wonder what their next move is. Carter says to stay upstairs as he runs downstairs to tell Luke that Laura isn't feeling well right now and maybe he should come back later. Luke doesn't buy the story and pushes his way into the house as Carter stands in front of him. Luke smiles and says we will be back and storms out of the door. Laura comes down the stairs after hearing the commotion and asks Carter. What is going on? Carter tells Laura that everything will be okay. The next day, Laura hears a police siren outside of her window and asks Carter to wake up. Carter wakes up and stumbles over to the window to see cops everywhere surrounding the neighbors across the street. Carter gets dressed and goes to see what's going on. The police tell Carter that there was a murder in the house and no one had seen or heard anything. Carter goes home and tells Laura everything. The two decide to get out of the house and Carter has to get out and find a new job somewhere. They head out the door to Carter's truck. The two live an hour and thirty minutes from New York now, so they decide to drive into town. Laura is looking out the window and tells Carter that she thinks its time to open up to him. Carter is a little nervous. He says, whats wrong? Laura says Carter, I have an extremely dangerous family and I needed this move. However, they will find me. In shock, Carter pulls to the side of the road into the Nautilus diner and says let's get out, have lunch and go from there and you can explain this to me. Laura says okay, as they climb out of the truck and go inside and find a back booth to sit in. Laura says to Carter that whatever she tells him that he can not tell anyone else, it's her life on the line. Carter agrees and says Please just tell me what's going on." Laura tells Carter that she is part of the Ambani family. Carter looked at her with confusion. Laura says my family is very rich, my father owns the mafia. My father is very angry at me and my brother Henry. We walked out on him to come to America to make family names for ourselves. I had to get out. I was the only daughter with six brothers until four years ago. My mother had a baby girl and I decided to leave, and Henry came with me because my father was worried about me. Now he is mad because I haven't been back to visit them since my husband passed away. He now has a set of men out looking for me, to take me home. I think Luke Harris works for him, and was trying to get me yesterday. Carter, stunned, asks Laura why she doesn't want to go back? Laura says that if she goes back she will be deemed unworthy because she hasn't become anything worthy of her family name. Carter just sits as he eats the bacon and fries in front of him and says that, no matter what, he will do everything in his power to keep her safe. Laura just smiles and says that she knows that. However, Laura says "no matter what we do, they will always be a step in front of us". Carter asks Laura about the kidnappings the other day. Was that your father's crew of people too? Laura says yes, but I managed to get away from them. Though I got away, it doesn't mean we are safe. It just means that we have to continue to run, and I don't want to keep running. I'm tired of my father taking my joy. I think we ought to go visit my father, and tell him that we are married. Carter stares at Laura and asks, is that really what you want? Laura says i want to stop running, and, eventually, I hope you'd like to marry me? Carter gives an expression of relief and comfort. Carter gets down on one knee and pulls a small black box out of his pocket and looks up at Laura. Laura gasps as Carter tells her that this ring he has been carrying around for the past three months. Carter tells Laura that he would be honored to be her husband and to stand by her side as her husband when they both go to meet her father. Laura cries, stands up and yells "OH YES". Carter, excited, stands up and puts the ring on her finger. To her surprise, the ring fitted perfectly. Laura says thank you so much. Carter stares at her and says let's get out of here and go get married. Laura says "NOW"? Laughing, Carter says yes! Why not? Both of them decide to go to the courthouse and make it official. Laura and Carter stand in front of the judge, and the judge passes the case over to the assistant and tells them that, since she is pregnant, to push it through today. Confused, Laura says I am not pregnant? The judge said Ms. Ambani, didn't you do blood samples at the beginning of walking in here? They are mandatory, states the judge. Laura, dazed, says well yes, me and Carter both had blood drawn.