Past, Present

by A J Lange

  “Where’s your phone?” Tanner’s face was pinched, serious, and Zane’s gut dropped, dread sinking into his bones.

  “I forgot it at home this morning. What’s going on, Tanner?”

  Tanner shook his head, mouth opening and closing. He stepped forward to grip Zane’s arm. “Gray has been in an accident.”

  Zane’s ears buzzed, all of the sound leeching from the room until there was only the roar of the blood in his veins as it rushed to his head. He felt Tanner’s fingers tighten around his bicep and he winced. “Where is he?” Zane was shocked at how normal his voice sounded, steady, strong. He shook Tanner’s arm off, looking to the kitchen door when Lily stepped through. She whitened at their faces.

  “What is it?”

  Zane shook his head, unable to answer her, head reeling. His phone. His goddamn phone. He hadn’t spoken to Gray since that morning, when he had kissed him goodbye at the door, a slow, lazy play of lips, as if they had all the time in the world.

  They were supposed to have all the time in the world.

  Tanner stepped back into Zane’s vision, blocking him from the kitchen door. “He’s at Mercy Hospital. He was on the interstate, there was a ten-car pileup. A semi jackknifed. Harry called my office when he couldn’t get you on your cell,” Tanner paused, sorrow in his eyes. “Zane, it’s...it’s not good.”

  “I’m going,” Zane said, shoving past him, not wanting to hear more.

  “I’ll drive.” Lily reached for the keys and damn Zane’s rotten life but they were both blocking the kitchen door now, and he was desperate, frantic to get to Gray. He thrust the keys at her.

  “Close the bar, Tanner.” Zane was out of the kitchen and across the bar in seconds, finally in motion, propelled forward by fear.

  Tanner pulled Lily into a quick embrace. “Drive careful. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  ◆◆◆

  Zane was gritting his teeth so hard, his jaw ached. He knew Lily was driving as fast as she could safely do so, but nothing was fast enough. The minutes ticked by and with each passing one, Zane wondered if it was the last, if this was Gray’s last breath, his last heartbeat. Was he awake? Did he call for Zane? What if this really was it? And why was Zane so shocked? When had anything good in his life ever stuck, ever?

  What if Zane had missed the chance to say goodbye, to tell Gray one more time that he loved him. His stomach lurched, hard. “I’m going to be sick,” he mumbled, bending over at the waist.

  Lily pulled over quickly and Zane scrambled to open the door, retching into the ditch. He felt her warm hand in the center of his back, rubbing. Wiping his mouth, disgusted that he had wasted yet another precious minute, he slammed back into the car. “Go, I’m fine.”

  Lily nodded, a tear dropping off of her chin. “Zane-”

  “Go, Lily. Just drive.”

  They were held up when they arrived at the hospital because of lack of information, and Zane’s shirt was damp with a cold sweat by the time the front desk was able to direct them to the ICU. They got no further than the waiting area, but Harry was there and he stood when Zane pushed through the door.

  “Take a breath,” Harry said low, gripping Zane’s elbows.

  “How is he?” Zane wanted to fling Harry aside and barrel through the vacuum-sealed doors in front of him, but another part of him, a part he hated, wanted to go home and hide from this, pretend he wasn’t here and this wasn’t happening. His vision swam and he swiped at his eyes, fingers coming away wet.

  “He’s in surgery.” Harry squeezed Zane’s arms one more time and then stepped back, seemingly satisfied that Zane could take whatever it was he needed to tell him. “He’s in critical condition, a head injury. They needed to relieve some of the pressure, swelling, on his brain.”

  “Did you get to talk to him?” Zane asked.

  But Harry was already shaking his head. “He never regained consciousness. They had to cut him out of his car.”

  Zane winced and the room tilted. He felt their hands on him, Lily’s and Harry's, directing him to a chair. The waiting room was tiny; two hard, pleather-covered side chairs and a small couch the only seating available. Zane dropped onto the seat and held his head in his hands, willing his stomach to stop rolling before he was sick again.

  The hours passed excruciatingly slow. Tanner came as soon as he got the bar closed down, his soothing, calm presence comforting Zane’s nerves. Lily pressed Styrofoam cups of coffee into Zane’s hand at regular intervals, and it was late when Tanner told her she should go home, get some rest.

  “I’m not leaving until the doctor comes out,” she said stubbornly, curling against Tanner’s side on the tiny couch.

  “Babe-”

  “No.” Lily’s voice was firm and Zane’s eyes flicked up, watching a silent conversation take place between them. She caught Zane’s eye. “I want to be here when Gray wakes up.”

  Zane smiled weakly and dropped his face into his palms, elbows resting on his knees. Please, God, he thought, but there was no other prayer available to him. He hadn’t prayed in years; he wouldn’t know how to start. So he repeated those two words, chanting them at intervals when he felt the weakest. He stood, when his muscles got stiff from sitting too long, and paced the small room. The wall-mounted television was playing a Christmas movie, the sound on mute. It would be Christmas soon, Zane realized.

  Harry had left to update his siblings, no one else having shown up at the hospital. Zane couldn’t imagine leaving Tanner lying in a hospital bed somewhere, not knowing from one moment to the next whether he would-

  Zane mentally crashed to a halt. He refocused instead, quickly, on Kenny and Bonnie, how Bonnie had fussed over Gray when they left after Thanksgiving, two days later than planned because of the blizzard; how she had insisted he come back with Zane in the spring so they could tinker in the garage. Kenny had gruffly insisted Gray at least look at one of the old classics he had waiting for restoration. “No sense you driving that foreign piece of crap if I have something dependable and American right here. Just needs a little TLC, that’s all.”

  Zane had already checked the calendar at work and picked a week that would work.

  The breaking seal of the vacuum snapped Zane to attention and he turned to the door. A white-coated figure pushed through the door. "Harrison Sloan?”

  “Here.” Harry stepped through the waiting room door, shoving his phone in his pocket. Tanner and Lily jumped up from the couch.

  Zane braced one hand on the wall and held his breath.

  The doctor glanced perfunctorily at Zane and leaned his head low to Harry's. “He’s stable. We’ll keep him sedated for the next several hours.”

  “How,” Harry's voice was shaky and he cleared his throat. Zane stepped forward, laying a steady hand on his shoulder. “How long before he wakes up?”

  The doctor was shaking his head, lowering Gray’s chart, eyes darting from Zane’s face to Tanner’s, then back to Harry's, his face closing off, mind moving to the next patient, the next surgery. “We won’t know until we wean him off of the sedation.” He backed up two steps and hit a large red call button on the wall by the door. Zane had never noticed it there. “You can have ten minutes with him.” His eyes flicked to Zane and held. “Family only.”

  ◆◆◆

  Harry listed Zane as “brother-in-law” on the visitor form. There were only four spots, and Zane stopped him before he could add Lily and Tanner’s names to the remaining lines.

  "Alanna, Luca," Zane said low. “They’ll come, they’ll want to see him.”

  Harry studied him with tired eyes but laid down the pen.

  The waiting nurse pursed her lips throughout the exchange. “Driver’s license.”

  Zane’s hands were trembling as he fumbled his license out of the plastic window in his wallet. He watched her record the number on the form beside his name. She tossed the pen aside when finished and he flinched at the loud sound it made when it clanged against a stainless steel coffee mug.


  She directed them to a sink on the wall. “Three minute handwash.” She pointed to the timer. “Start this as soon as you begin. Don’t stop until it goes off.” She handed each of them a sterile-wrapped rubber and foam brush. Zane’s hands were shaking hard as he tried to open the plastic cover, and her fingers, warm and soft covered his. He met her eyes and for the first time, her face softened. “You’ll have to gown up when you’re done,” she said, voice gentle. She moved away and retrieved two cotton coverups from a cabinet behind her.

  When they were both tied into the hospital gowns, she pushed another release button and the next set of doors whooshed open.

  “Second room on the left. You have ten minutes.”

  Zane let Harry lead, nauseous, nerves and worry seeping into his bones until they ached with tension.

  It was still, dark and quiet in the room and it took Zane’s eyes a moment to adjust, to focus on the bed. Gray’s dark head lay in stark contrast against the pale bedding. His hair had been partially shaved and white gauze padding covered the left side of his scalp. A collapsible tube was taped to his cheek, a coil of ribbed plastic pulling his mouth open at the corner where it pumped oxygen into his lungs in time to the beep of the machine beside him.

  Shock made Zane lightheaded and he clenched his fists. Harry stood frozen in place, expression dazed. Zane swallowed a sudden urgency, the press of time looming, and he pushed Harry aside gently. He wouldn’t waste one moment. He crossed to the bed and lowered himself into the chair at the edge, hesitantly touching Gray’s hand where it lay against the sheet. A clamp was fastened to his index finger, a thin, tan tube snaking back to one of the sockets on the machine. Oxygen reading, Zane thought, remembering his dad in a similar bed.

  Gray’s hand was warm. He was so deathly still, Zane had had a crazy, irrational fear he would be cool to the touch, and it was reassuring, the heat of his skin. He squeezed the fingers in his and watched the pale face.

  Gray never moved, apart from the manual rise and fall of his chest. His eyelids were motionless; they didn’t flicker, dreams behind them, the way they did sometimes at night when Zane would like awake, watching him sleep. Each collapse of false breath mimicked the vacuum seal sound of the entry to ICU.

  Zane didn’t know why he noticed that.

  He knew he should move, step aside, let Harry take the seat, but it was ten minutes. Ten brief, short minutes before they had to leave and Zane, selfishly, wouldn’t give them up, not a single one. He held Gray’s hand, eyes never leaving his face, until a nurse stepped in and quietly murmured, “Time.”

  Zane stood, leaning over the bed, carefully avoiding the tangle of wires and tubes, brushing his lips across a slip of bare forehead. He hovered there, memorizing the curve of dark lashline against pale skin, willing those eyes to flutter open.

  “Zane,” Harry whispered from the doorway.

  Walking out of that room was the hardest thing Zane had ever done. When he stepped back through the double doors into the waiting room, he let Tanner drag him into his arms and held on tight, breathing his familiar scent until his violent shaking calmed.

  Chapter16

  Zane lived in ten minute increments. He could only breathe when he was at Gray’s bedside. When he wasn’t, his chest was too tight, his head hurt, and his heart ached with a throbbing fear so profound he was left staring senselessly at the mosaic pattern of the linoleum tiles lining the floor at his feet in the waiting room. In those brief moments he sat at Gray’s side, he imagined he could feel him, a tenuous thread, a filament of longing and love that still tethered them together. Zane clung to it.

  Gray slept.

  On the second day they removed the breathing tube. Gray’s lips were chapped and dry, but Zane brushed his own against them, as soon as the nurse left the room, greedily absorbing the air as it left Gray’s lungs on its own. He laid his forehead on the still chest, closing his eyes and willing his heart to sync with the steady, rhythmic beats underneath. There was a young nurse who watched him with sad eyes when she checked the monitors, who would let him stay longer than the allotted ten minutes if she was on shift. She pretended not to see him, tucked into the corner, when Alanna and Luca were led through the door, their hushed, sad expressions nearly more than Zane could bear.

  They held hands, clinging to each other as they stood at Gray’s bedside, staring down at him in silence. Luca nodded to Zane when he left, his only acknowledgement of Zane’s presence in the room. Alanna pulled the chair closer to the head of the bed and bowed her head over Gray, a beaded rosary hanging from her clasped hands, her lips moving in a silent prayer. Zane watched from the corner, uncomfortable to witness such a private moment, but unwilling to leave, every second he was allowed to have too precious to step away from.

  He hoped the God Alanna prayed to was listening.

  The shift change happened before Alanna's minutes were over and the older, more obstinate nurse came on duty. She was tall and broad with beautiful mahogany skin, and she wore a starched white dress, not the cheerful, relaxed scrubs of the younger nurses. Zane would be terrified of her, if he had the energy, but he was also grateful for her. He could tell she was the most competent, the most experienced; she bled efficiency. Staunch rule-follower or not, Zane wanted her on Gray’s team of caregivers. She spotted him in the corner immediately and told him in a low voice to return to the waiting room. “You’re time is up, Mr. Nolan,” she sniffed.

  Zane thought of Beth, the younger nurse, who had encouraged him to touch Gray, to whisper to him, that he could still hear and feel, that he would know Zane was there. That his heart rate was steadier, his breathing smoother, when Zane was with him. “The monitors don’t lie, Zane,” she had whispered sweetly. But he let this one, Irene, her nametag read, shuffle him from the room, no strength left to argue, and he collapsed on the waiting room couch.

  His head was pounding and he couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten. Lily and Tanner were gone, temporarily, Harry too. Everyone had lives to put in order, jobs and people that depended on them.

  Zane couldn’t make himself care about the world outside these few rooms.

  There were no windows in the waiting room and Zane realized he had no idea what time it was, if it was day or night. The double doors swung open and Alanna crossed to the couch, sitting next to him. Zane could see her eyes were red, the tip of her nose pink, and her bright red hair hung in limp curls against her dark wool coat.

  “When we were little, he used to push me on the swing,” she said softly. “The others, they were always too busy, too bossy. Even Harry, he never had time for me. They thought I was useless because I was a girl.”

  Zane watched her shred a tissue, letting the pieces drift across her lap.

  “Grayson was, for a while anyway, closer to me than to any of them.”

  Zane could hear a bitter fierceness in her voice.

  “We had a secret place, where we would hide from the nanny, where she was never able to find us when it was time for baths or supper.” She laughed, a cold, sad sound that clenched Zane’s heart in his chest. “She didn’t look very hard, I’m sure, as it wasn’t terribly original. We were under the stairs, where a loose board could be pried away just enough for two small children to sneak under.” She leaned into Zane’s side, seeking warmth, or another body, another someone who loved Gray. “It was dirty and there were spiders, but I loved it. We would hide from the bigger boys, and he would tell me stories. I don’t know how they found us, but they did, eventually. Michael told father and he had our secret place nailed shut.” She smiled mournfully at Zane. “Grayson didn’t play with me after that.”

  Zane reached over and took her hand, holding it tight. They sat in silence until Luca returned for her. Zane could smell cigarettes on his clothes and it triggered an intense craving for the hit of soothing nicotine; Zane hadn’t smoked in years, not since he was a teenager.

  Alanna stood to leave, leaning over to kiss Zane on his temple, her breath hitching. “God be wi
th you, Zane. ”

  ◆◆◆

  Zane dutifully pressed the call button when it was time for his next visit. He had timed this one to fall precisely at 5:55 p.m., waiting, staring at the clock in the corner of a television news program, willing it to move faster.

  Beth had let slip earlier that if he happened to be in ICU at 6:00 p.m., it was possible he would be allowed to stay until 8:00 p.m., those two hours strictly reserved for a nurse’s meeting and paperwork filing. No other visitors were allowed into or out of the ICU during that timeframe. Sometimes, she had whispered, they would allow family to remain in the room, with the understanding they would not be able to leave.

  Zane didn’t want to ever leave.

  Irene was the nurse who dutifully checked his driver’s license against Gray’s visitor form. Zane bit his tongue, wanting to scream at her, You’ve seen me, for forty-eight hours straight, Irene, you don’t need to check my fucking ID! But he returned her stare unflinchingly, then scrubbed his hands viciously for the entire three minutes at the sink, knuckles raw and red. When she tied the neckties of his gown around his throat she bent close to his ear.

  “I know what you’re trying to do, Mr. Nolan, coming in right before staff meeting.”

  Zane slid his gaze to her stern face as she hit the door release, but she didn’t say anything more, just returned to her seat behind the desk and began to scratch across her paperwork with an old-fashioned fountain pen. “Well, go on with you then,” she said, not looking up.

  Zane’s eyebrows lifted in surprise, but he didn’t wait for her to change her mind. Maybe old Irene had a heart after all.

  He took his place next to Gray and held his hand, lacing their fingers. Beth, probably, had moved the O2 saturation monitor to the opposite side, to Gray’s left index finger. Zane used his free hand to trace the shape of Gray’s jaw, his eyebrows, feel the silky softness of his lashes. Other than a few pinprick cuts dotting his left cheekbone, Gray had been outwardly unscathed in the accident; all damage was confined to the inside. The surgery had apparently been a success, however, and the surgeon had stopped by earlier to report he might be able to remove the shunt by the weekend if Gray continued to improve.