“No.” Nora forced herself to join the conversation. “He didn’t call.”
The ensuing silence sounded like an indictment against Gordon. Maybe it should be. He should be here, she thought numbly.
“Do you have his flight number?”
“No, but he’s on United. He always flies United, even though this is a hub for Northwest. He just prefers United.” Now she was babbling, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. “They were delayed in New York. He’s returning from Germany, a business trip.”
“Mom.”
Nora turned to her daughter. Christi’s face seemed to go in and out in the shadows, like she was moving a spyglass around. Just like the one her father had that she’d played with as a little girl.
The male officer finished talking to his shoulder radio as they pulled to a stop in front of Riverbend General Hospital. “Officer Dennison will take you to your son. He’s already in ICU. I’ll check on your husband’s ETA.”
“Thank you.” Nora tried to open the rear door, but there was no handle. The panic she’d been swallowing burst up from her lungs. She banged on the door convulsively, until Officer Dennison swung it open and extended her hand.
Nora reached out with her left hand and the strength of the young woman flowed between them. She managed to get out of the car, Christi right behind her.
“Come with me.” Officer Dennison took Nora’s arm and guided them through the door and past the information desk to the elevator.
All the times I’ve been here as a volunteer and now it is my son. My only son. Lord God, what is going on here?
It was all a mistake anyway. She watched the numbers change above the door as the elevator rose to the sixth floor. This was all a bad dream, something newspaper articles were made of. It couldn’t be happening to them. After all, they went to church every Sunday and believed they were children of God. He promised to protect and care for them.
The door slid open and they stepped into another hall. Officer Dennison guided them to a waiting room, where several groups of people huddled. One woman was crying. They kept on walking through the room and down another hall to a door that said NO ADMITTANCE. Nora knew the routine. You had to push the button or pick up the phone and tell them you were there and whom you wanted to see.
The door swung open and the officer ushered them through.
A nurse, wearing burgundy pants and a white top that had stick-figure medical people drawn with crayon in greens and burgundies, waited as they moved into the ICU. “Come with me.” Her voice was soft, but she enunciated clearly, her eyes warm with compassion.
Nora looked swiftly around. Which room? Where was Charlie? “My son?”
“I need to mention a couple of things. Then we’ll see Charlie. I promise.” She motioned to a quiet space by the raised counter. “We have your son on a ventilator and IV, oxygen and a catheter. He seems to be resting comfortably.”
“Good, let me see him.”
“In a moment. But you have to know, he is unresponsive.”
“You mean he is in a coma?”
The woman nodded. “He has had a severe head injury.”
Surgery. They would do surgery. Oh, where is Gordon? “When will he go into surgery?”
“The doctor will be along soon, Mrs. Peterson. Right now, you do need to know that Charlie looks terrible.”
“All that matters is that he is alive.” Nora swung her gaze around the circular room. Which one was Charlie?
The nurse looked from Nora to Christi, who had been silent, her right hand locked in her mother’s left. “You are his sister?”
“Twin sister.” Christi gave her a level stare. “And I know he is alive.”
“I see.” With a brief nod, she said, “Come with me.”
Nora stared at the nurse’s back in front of her. She didn’t want to see the forms in the beds, plugged into all manner of machines. The room was dimly lit, which made her tunnel vision easier to maintain. She stopped and blinked when the nurse stopped, sucking in a deep breath to prepare herself.
The boy who lay in the middle of the bed did not look like Charlie. His head was bandaged down to his eyebrows, one side of his face so swollen that his eye was only a line dusted with eyelashes. How could he have shrunk so from the time he left this morning until now?
“Charlie?”
No response, not even a flicker. She glanced around at the monitors. She recognized the jagging line for the heart, the numbers for the blood pressure and oxygen levels. His chest rose and fell, his left hand was taped to a board with the IV line in the back of his hand. Nora curled her fingers around his right hand, which lay open on the sheet. “Charlie, it’s Mom. Can you hear me?” She shot a look at Christi, who had tears running down her cheeks. “They say that even in a coma, the patient can hear.” She squeezed his hand, but when there was no response, she rubbed the back of it with her thumb. The patient. This was Charlie, her firstborn, the joy of her days. Surely, he would be waking any minute and tell her he would be fine. And what was for supper?
The nurse returned with another chair. “You can talk to him, tell him about your day and getting ready for Christmas. Talk about the things he likes.”
Nora nodded. As if she didn’t know how to talk with her own son. “Thank you.” She knew she sounded stiff, but if she relaxed even the smallest bit, she might collapse on the floor and then they’d have two people in the hospital.
She sat down in the chair by the bed, still clinging to Charlie’s hand. Staring at his poor beat-up face, she remembered a time he’d fallen off his bicycle; he must have been five or six. One side of his face raked the gravel, leaving him looking like tenderized meat. Even though she had iced his face immediately, it swelled up then too. Nothing like this, but… and he’d been crying, the salty tears stinging in the open scrapes. She glanced up to see a doctor standing in the doorway. Had he said something?
“Yes?” The word came out in a croak. She tried again. “Yes.”
“I’m Dr. Crawford.” He kept his clipboard in front of him, a barrier between them. “I admitted your son.”
What does one say in a situation like this? Being polite was always necessary. “Thank you.” She waited for him to continue, but he kept studying his clipboard as though all answers were contained there. If you can’t help, just go away. “Have you heard anything about my husband?” Her yearning for and anger at Gordon warred within her. Part of her wanted his arms around her. The other part wanted to strike at him and scream that once again he wasn’t around for the important things.
The doctor checked his clipboard. “No, was he in the accident too?”
“No. No, the police officer said he’d see if he could bring Gordon here from the airport.”
“No, I know nothing about that.” He cleared his throat and his shoulders rose and fell in a sigh. “I have to ask you some difficult questions. I’d prefer if you came with me. Perhaps…” He looked toward Christi.
“My daughter.”
“I see. Your daughter could stay here with your son. This won’t take long.”
“Can’t it wait until later? Surely, we could talk while he’s in surgery.”
Another glance at the clipboard. Then, slowly, in a gentle voice, “I think we’ve done all that we can.”
“You think he’s going to die, don’t you.” Christi didn’t ask a question. Her voice was flat like the statement.
Nora turned back to Charlie. She heard a voice rasp out, “Lord, please, I beg of You.” It was her own. “Heal my son. Spread Your healing hands over this room and reduce the swelling, knit the bones back together and restore my son. In Jesus’s precious name.” Where was the peace the Bible promised? The assurance that God would do as she asked? No, this was beyond asking, this was pleading.
“I wish Daddy was here.”
“Me too.” Interesting that Christi had reverted to the childhood name. She’d not heard her call her father “Daddy” for a long time. It was “Dad” now. Nora rea
ched up and stroked her son’s face. All his curls were hidden by the turban of white gauze.
Christi leaned over the bed and whispered into her brother’s ear.
Nora heard only the sounds, but not the words. The two of them had always whispered to each other, sometimes not even needing to do that. Somehow they had a method of communication all their own, perhaps from their time in the womb. She’d read that about twins.
The monitors continued their duty, blinking sentinels in a sea of despair.
The litany in her head continued. Please, God, please. Heal my son. Help him open his eyes and see us. Even the slightest squeeze from his fingers. Bring Gordon here. How long had they been here? It felt like days or hours stretched like the Silly Putty that the children used to play with.
She heard a throat clearing behind her. “Please, Mrs. Peterson, come with me for only a few minutes. We won’t be far away.”
Nora heaved a sigh. “All right.” But when she tried to stand, her legs and feet refused to hold her and she sat back down. “Sorry.”
“Take your time.”
She wiggled her feet and endured the pins and needles of returning circulation. When she felt more normal, she tried again and waited for the pain to cease. “Call me if—when—there is any change,” she said to her daughter.
“I will.”
“I’ll be right back, Charlie.” She followed the doctor to a small room that looked to be for conferences. When the doctor motioned for her to sit in one of the orange plastic chairs with metal legs, which made stacking easy, she shook her head. “If it is all right, I’ll stand.”
“Please.” He motioned to the chair again.
Nora heaved a sigh and did as asked. She locked her hands in her lap, then unlocked them and flexed her fingers. Staring at the table, she waited, but when he only cleared his throat, she looked up at him. He was young, looked hardly older than her own children. Maybe he wasn’t a doctor after all, but then he’d said he admitted Charlie.
“Mrs. Peterson, has anyone mentioned organ donation to you?”
It was a brutal slap from nowhere. “No, why would they? Charlie is strong, he’ll make it through this.”
“Your son has the organ donor dot on his driver’s license.” He pulled something from his clipboard and pushed it across the small round table toward her.
Charlie’s driver’s license. His picture. His signature. Leave it to Charlie to get a good picture taken for his license, not a mug shot like the rest of them.
“How old is he?”
“Seventeen. He’ll be eighteen in January.” Couldn’t he figure that out by looking at his birth date? His questions were beginning to irritate her. Let’s get this over with so I can return to my son.
He was still regarding her as though he were waiting for her to give the right answer. Well, he’d have to keep waiting. She had no clue what he wanted her to say.
“Mrs. Peterson, when your son came into—”
“His name is Charlie.”
“Yes, ma’am. When Charlie was admitted to our hospital, he was already comatose. The brain function is minimal. We thought at first he was gone.”
“But he is breathing and his heart is beating.”
“Yes, because he is on the ventilator. If we turn that off, he will not last long.”
“Then don’t turn it off. Give him a chance to recover.”
“Nora!”
“Gordon!” She flew out of the chair and across the small space to throw herself into his arms. “Oh, thank God you are finally here. He’s telling me Charlie is already dead.” With that, the tears broke loose and she sobbed into his chest.
Chapter Six
Jenna
Jenna watched the color returning to her daughter’s face. She had referred to hospital rooms as their second home more than once in the years since her daughter was born. That she was a nurse meant she spent more time at their second home than their real home. This particular room with the beach scene painted in tans and greens on the medical floor had been theirs more times than she wanted to count.
“An amazing thing, platelets.” The male voice from behind her made her look over her shoulder.
“Hi, Doc.”
“Each time gets shorter, doesn’t it?” Dr. Avery Cranston, called Dr. Avery by his long-time patients and friends, walked around the bed to check Heather’s vitals. He noted something on his pad and looked over the top of his half-glasses. “You look like you could use some rest, young lady.”
“Yeah, right. Young. Somehow I feel about a hundred or so tonight.”
“Won’t help her any if you get sick.”
“I know that, but, well, you know what the ER was like last night. And today I had promised Heather we would decorate the tree. I figured early this afternoon that we needed to run in here, but she wanted to finish decorating first. And so we did.”
“An hour or two wouldn’t make much difference. Her temp is down again.”
“It didn’t get very high. I’d have been in here sooner if it had.”
“So, let’s see, you worked a twelve-hour ER shift with major casualties, went home, made breakfast—”
“No, I slept a couple of hours in there.”
“I see. And then you made breakfast—”
“Homemade waffles, no mix. They’re really very good. You should come over sometime and join us.”
“Sounds good to me. And then you decorated the tree and some other things and strolled in here.”
“Well, not strolled. The carolers were doing that. I put her in a wheelchair and zoomed her in. Helps when you know who’s in charge.”
“Remind me where you are on the list, Jenna,” he said.
“Who knows? It all depends on the matches at this point.” Jenna paused. “I feel so guilty praying for a donor, when I know someone else is going to lose someone they love.” She chewed on the knuckle of the index finger on her right hand. She’d had a nick there and the skin had grown tough. She needed to use some Bag Balm on it. Too bad there wasn’t Bag Balm for her heart to ease the constant underlying ache.
He nodded. “I understand that. If only more people would register as donors. Accidents happen and…” He stopped. “But you know all that.” He turned to smile at Heather when her eyes opened. “Hey there.”
“Hi, Doc.”
“Feeling better?”
“I think so.”
“I hear you got your tree up.”
“And the presents under it. Elmer found the one for him. You think he could smell the catnip?” Heather yawned and glanced up at the hanging bag. “Still some to go, huh?”
“Yeah, you’ll be here about another hour. Unless you want to stay the night?”
She rolled her eyes. “Like really.”
“Like I hope you have a good Christmas and I don’t want to see you back in here for a while.”
“Like I’ll do my best.”
“I know.” He patted Jenna’s shoulder as he passed by. “And you get some rest.”
“I will. Thanks.” She knew he hadn’t needed to stop by, but he’d been one of her main cheerleaders ever since they had moved to North Platte. Her mother had been upset that they were leaving the better hospitals of the Los Angeles area, but Omaha wasn’t that far away and they had a good heart center there. And Dr. Avery Cranston practiced here. He’d been a major heart surgeon until a heart attack of his own forced him to leave the stress of a big practice, and here he could work part-time and fish when he wanted. He and his wife had taken Heather under their wings and had become more like grandparents than her own were.
She and Heather along with Uncle Randy were invited to their house on Christmas Day, if Heather was strong enough. He’d promised no crowds, a delicious dinner and Rummikub until they dropped. Heather loved the game as much as her mother did. Two could play as easily as three or four.
“Did you sleep?” Heather asked.
“Sort of.” Jenna leaned back in her pseudorecliner, which made into
a bed when necessary. She’d spent many nights on that kind of bed at Heather’s bedside. She knew that she’d passed the need of sleep and now it would take a sledgehammer to put her out. Or sleeping pills, which she refused to take in case she wouldn’t hear Heather call, or a glass of port. The last was the easiest, but she hesitated. Last time…
“Is Uncle Randy still coming for Christmas?” Heather’s voice was foggy.
“Far as I know.”
“Good.”
When no more was forthcoming, Jenna watched as her daughter slipped back into sleep. Was her breathing easier too?
What if this was the year God decided to do a miracle and heal this child of his? What if this Christmas was the miracle Christmas and not the last? He didn’t need another heart; He could fix the one she had. Jenna knew that she couldn’t count the number of times she’d prayed for that answer. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe in miracles, because she did. She’d seen them happen. One time a group of women surrounded the bed of a sick friend, and when they finished praying, the cancer was gone. The docs had a hard time believing it, but Jenna grew up on the song about the blind seeing and the lame walking. He’d brought Lazarus back to life—what about an easy thing like fixing a heart?
Sometimes faith was hard to hang on to.
Especially when it was your only child. Wasn’t one death in her family enough? She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. In the dark of the night like this, maudlin came easy.
But when she got home again, and Heather and Elmer were tucked into bed, Jenna climbed into her own and prepared to lay awake. Perhaps she should just go clean the bathroom or something. But the next thing she knew, sun was sparkling on the snow. She got up, checked on Heather, who was sleeping peacefully, and crawled back into bed. Since today was her second day off, she’d take the good doc’s advice and grab some extra shut-eye.
She woke hours later, with Heather sitting cross-legged on her bed, stroking the purring fur muff in her lap and staring at her mother. “You used to do this when you were little.”
“I know. And it still works. You didn’t call Grammie.”
One Perfect Day Page 5