Lucidity

by CJ Lyons

  The door beside them opened, and Kat returned to the sanctuary of the elevator lobby. She looked through the window. "She's gone, back to the Freak Show."

  Kat pushed Alex to the Annex door. He selected a key and twisted it in the lock. Despite the swelling of his fingertips, he moved with confident dexterity.

  Kat wheeled Alex through the door and looked back over her shoulder at Grace. "We don't have all day."

  Grace hurried through the door, shutting it behind her. The smell of stale bug spray hit her first, wrinkling her nose.

  She followed Kat and Alex down the narrow tile-walled hallway. Half of the overhead fluorescent lights were missing, the rest blinking in random intervals, casting the empty wing into an eerie half-light. The call room doors stood open, only a few still furnished with narrow steel framed beds naked except for plastic-covered mattresses. The windows were grimy. Dust covered the grey and brown linoleum as well as the few pieces of furniture that remained.

  "Don't the residents still use their call rooms?"

  "Not since the Tower opened," Kat told her with the voice of authority. "Now they have call rooms on every patient floor."

  Sounded convenient but a hell of a lot less fun. Grace remembered the impromptu parties and all night card games that broke the drudgery of every other night call. Not that any of them had a lot of free time, but it was nice to know you weren't alone as you waited for the pager to interrupt whatever small pleasure you'd immersed yourself in. Like sleep.

  "Oh," was all she said as she followed Kat and Alex into the largest call room, the one traditionally reserved for chief residents with its private bath and proximity to the kitchen. Here there was no dust, the bed was made with hospital linens and the desk and bookcase were brimming with tattered paperbacks and magazines.

  Photos torn from magazines, drawings, drug ads and deflated mylar balloons festooned the walls. A clubhouse, Grace realized. She looked at the two kids. "How long have you guys been here?"

  Kat jangled her electrodes. "Fourteen admissions over two years, this is my longest--ten weeks and counting."

  Alex was blushing. "I came when I was three weeks old."

  She blinked at that. "You've been a patient here since you were three weeks old? But your parents--"

  Kat shook her head, warning Grace from her position behind Alex. Grace shut up.

  "I've been out a few times, but no more than a week or two at a time," Alex went on. "My mom left me here when I was a baby. It's hard to find foster parents for sick babies." He shrugged philosophically.

  Grace looked again at the young boy. Alexander Weiss. Now she knew why the name rang a bell. He'd been a patient in the Peds ICU when she was a resident. She remembered one of the attendings had talked about maybe adopting him but something happened and it fell through.

  Cystic fibrosis, severe. He'd be, what, ten now? That was older than the experts had expected him to live. She smiled at the boy. He'd fooled them all.

  "We've got to go," Kat said. "Crayfish is waiting and the Wicked Witch makes her rounds in an hour."

  "You'll be safe here," Alex told the woman. Grace. He was reluctant to leave her but couldn't figure out if it was because he was frightened for her--or of her. Kat wheeled him out the door and into the hallway. "We'll be back."

  They hadn't gotten far when he felt his chair begin to jerk and buck. "Kat!"

  He craned his head to look over his shoulder just in time to see her body hit the floor with a sickening thud.

  CHAPTER 5

  Vital Signs

  Alex pushed at the wheels, struggling to pivot his chair in the narrow hallway. By the time he was turned around, Kat was in a full grand mal seizure. Her arms and legs banged against the empty lockers, creating a clashing crashing noise like dueling reggae drums.

  He sucked in his oxygen, tried to find the strength to leave his chair and help his friend. Then Grace was there. And, he saw with approval, she knew exactly what to do. She'd gathered Kat's bouncing head into her lap, letting the arms and legs go where they would. She didn't do anything stupid like put something in Kat's mouth. Instead, she merely turned Kat's head to one side, ignoring the drool that spilled onto her jeans.

  There was only one thing she hadn't done. Alex reached down, snagging the monitor from Kat's belt and turned it off.

  Grace looked up at that. "Don't they need that? They're recording her seizures, aren't they?"

  Alex nodded, his hand fisted on the monitor in case Grace decided to turn it back on. Not that he could fight her if she did.

  "How long?" Her gaze darted to the clock on the wall. "How long do they usually last? Maybe I should call--"

  Kat stopped seizing. Her arms and legs slowly ceased their flailing. Her body went slack in Grace's arms. Grace leaned forward, monitoring Kat's breathing, then nodded in satisfaction and turned her attention back to Alex.

  "She has Rasmussen's Syndrome," he said. "They want to remove part of her brain--almost half of it." He handed the monitor to her.

  "They need the recording to know exactly what parts of her brain have been affected," Grace finished for him. "Otherwise the surgery will leave her just as bad off as before. Rasmussen's is triggered by a virus, but once begun it's progressive. If she doesn't have the surgery soon, it might be too late."

  "She only wants to stall it by a day or two," Alex said. "It's her choice."

  "So you sabotage the recording." Grace was quiet, her eyes on Kat. "She wants to wait until after her birthday?"

  He nodded, both surprised and pleased. Most grownups wouldn't understand. "Her parents promised they'd be here for her birthday. They have a farm and six other kids, they can't come very often. She's afraid she won't wake up after the surgery, that she'll be a vegetable or a different person..."

  What would Kat think of his sharing her secrets with a stranger? Then he looked at Grace, her fingers soothing Kat's bald forehead, her voice crooning the nonsense syllables of a lullaby as Kat's exhausted body writhed in the confusion that hit after a full body seizure.

  Maybe Grace wasn't a stranger after all. Maybe she was one of them.

  Kat's eyes fluttered, then opened.

  "Shit," the girl snarled, struggling to sit up. She wiped drool from her face. "Goddamn it, not again."

  Eve and Jonas Helman left the conference room and Vincent was alone. He could hear Eve laughing at something the neurosurgeon said as she shut the door behind them. Jealous stirrings rumbled through his gut.

  He barely knew the woman. Not like that had ever stopped him before. And she'd made it perfectly clear she was interested in Vincent.

  So what was the problem?

  Helman. Vincent needed the Chief's support to get his staff appointment. As Chairman of the hospital's Executive Committee, Helman could make that happen for him. With the malpractice suit hanging over his head that was probably the only way Vincent would be staying at Angels of Mercy. He grimaced. To be indebted to Helman--he'd rather sell his soul to the devil.

  His gaze fell upon the CAT scan images of Helman's brain tumor patient, Grace Moran. Only thirty-two years old, the neurosurgeon had said. Shitty way to go. He wondered if Helman's new procedure really could save her. Helman certainly had no doubts. But it was a damned ugly tumor in a precarious place.

  Even if the patient lived, she might never wake up, might emerge from surgery worse than before, still alive but existing in a limbo filled with feeding tubes and bedsores and constant pain.

  All Vincent had to worry about was facing a bunch of lawyers who held his future in their hands. He considered that, his fingers idly tracing the tumor mass on one of the scans. He'd almost rather trust Helman.

  To be facing a tumor like that...wouldn't it give you some kind of release? Freedom to do whatever you really desired, one last fling for the tomorrow that may never come. And this woman had been trapped inside her house for what, four years? Maybe her tumor would come as some kind of blessing. A chance to escape, to live again, even if only for a s
hort while.

  He smiled, thinking of the opportunities revealed if you took that attitude. Possibilities. The unimaginable might suddenly seem attainable. Exploration. Discovering new pleasures, joys.

  His fingers tingled as if they stroked the woman's skin rather than sterile X-ray film. He wondered how Helman's patient was using the time until her surgery.

  The thought intrigued him. He was thirty-five and still uncertain what he wanted to do with his chosen career. But here was a young woman with only a few days to do enough living to sustain her for the rest of her life.

  Carpe diem indeed.

  The conference room door opened and his attorney entered, followed by another man in an identical charcoal grey designer silk suit, and a stenographer.

  Vincent bet Helman's tumor patient wouldn't be wasting her time with a bunch of lawyers. He felt his hands clench into fists and almost wished he could change places with her.

  Maybe there were some things worse than a brain tumor.

  Lukas Redding pressed his hand against the wire-reinforced glass, his platinum wedding band absorbing the chill. Today was a bad day. A day where he couldn't outrun his memories, couldn't forget himself.

  Sheets of rain pelted the window. His breath fogged the glass with a grey haze matching the color of his soul. The only visible light came from the abandoned helipad across from his window in the Extended Care Unit. Bright red, the lights flashed obsolete warnings that only Lukas heeded.

  His palm began to sting with the cold, but he didn't move it. The pain helped to ward off despair, to prevent his falling back into the abyss. The darklands where sorrow and guilt clouded time sucked his marrow dry until he had no strength left. Until he wanted to die. Or kill.

  He clenched his fist, pounded it against the glass as he blinked back tears. No. He would not dishonor her memory by failing again. He was stronger than that. His love for her had made him stronger than that. Once upon a time he had sacrificed everything for love--only to have her stolen from him by a cruel and violent twist of fate.

  His wife's screams, the sickly-sweet stench of her blood, the criss-cross wounds of her shattered face filled his mind. Followed by the ugly countenance of the drunken monster who'd caused the wreck, condemning himself as well as Lukas and his bride.

  Warm tears streaked his face as he remembered, sobbing in frustration, wild-eyed with grief and hysteria, refusing to believe. His body shook now just as it had that night four years ago when he'd been consumed by rage.

  His memory blurred. One small part of Lukas' brain knew he now stood at his window, in his room, safe and whole on the seventh floor tower of Angels of Mercy Medical Center. But that knowledge soon faded as he tumbled into the past.

  Flashing red lights, stern-faced paramedics followed by sterner-faced policemen, pulling him off of the body of the drunk driver who had struck them, yelling at Lukas, pinning him to the pavement, their weight choking the breath from him as they wrenched his arms behind his back when he fought them, tried to stop them from taking his wife from him.

  Heavy chains weighing him down, the buzz of a courtroom, a dry, nasal voice reading charges of manslaughter and aggravated assault, describing how he'd brutally attacked and killed the man responsible for his wife's death. Itchy too-bright prisoner's jumpsuit reeking of sweat and fear, shoes without laces flapping with every step, scuffed linoleum the leg irons forced him to cross in an old man's shuffle.

  The chains vanished, wide, leather belts taking their place, men's faces staring down at him and the sharp pricking of needles.

  It was all a whirling haze, time and space consumed by his grief and anger.

  Not just anger. Fury. At the drunken piece of shit who caused the accident. At himself for being unable to prevent it. At his wife for leaving him, abandoning him in such a cruel fashion. At God for torturing him, giving him a taste of heaven, then yanking it away, leaving him bitter dregs.

  Fury at this world where no one understood great love. Love everlasting. A love so pure not even death could destroy it. That love had once healed Lukas, made him whole for the first time in his life.

  "Lukas?" A nurse's voice broke through the haze of memory. "I've got your lunch."

  He drew in his breath, reluctant to begin the painful journey back to reality. The clatter of utensils, the smell of corned beef and onions, the warmth of a woman's body near his, brought him back from the shadows.

  The nurse--what was her name again?--touched his arm.

  "Lukas, is everything all right?" she asked with genuine concern in her voice.

  He still couldn't see her face, hadn't left the shadows far enough behind to focus. Her hand stayed on his arm, stroking it, until he wrenched himself away from the hypnotic rhythm of the rain, landing back in the world of bright light, pain, tears, fears, and sharp edges. The world without love.

  Finally he looked at her. Her smile was tentative and he knew she cared for him more than just as a patient.

  She meant nothing to him. No woman could. Never again.

  It was part of his healing, of becoming human once more, so he tried his best to mirror her smile. It felt uncomfortable, his muscles unused to the motion. Her eyes gleamed in response, so it must have been a close approximation to the real thing.

  Lukas looked down at the Primanti Brothers' reuben that awaited him. "Your mother sent lunch for the entire staff," the nurse said, her voice thin, barely able to compete with the rain drumming against the window behind him. "She wanted to thank us for the terrific progress you're making. I told her that you were the one doing all the work."

  "Did she stay?" Lukas felt his mood brighten at the thought of his oh-so-busy and important mother taking the time to visit. She almost never did, not unless one of her clients required his services.

  Now that he was stumbling his way back into a life outside his memories, Lukas needed the distraction of the assignments his mother gave him almost as much as she needed his unique talents to further her ambitions.

  "No. She called to tell us the food was coming."

  He tried not to be too disappointed. After all, as one of the most powerful lobbyists on Capital Hill, Renee Redding had the ear of everyone from Congress to the White House. Lukas was proud to be able to help her mold the future of the country. He could take raw data, analyze it for marketing trends, accurately predict what everyday voters would respond to and more importantly, what they would rebel at, ousting their duly elected officials.

  Baby steps are what it takes to change the world, Renee would say, scaling back a campaign or dumping one politician in favor of another based on Lukas's predictions.

  Baby steps were about all he could handle right now. Lukas sat down to enjoy the hearty sandwich. Reubens were his favorite. But today the greasy concoction tasted like ashes.

  Outside his window, the wind whispered his wife's name, calling him back to the abyss like a siren's song. He shuddered, wondering if even baby steps were too much.

  "You don't find yourself treating immigrant families any differently, Dr. Emberek?" the plaintiff's lawyer asked in his irritatingly condescending tones.

  "No, of course not. My parents both come from immigrant families."

  "Tell me about your parents and their families."

  Vincent caught himself rolling his eyes and forced himself to meet the attorney's gaze. Didn't matter anyway, the lawyer was shuffling through his papers with one hand while tapping on his Palm Pilot with the other. "My mother's parents fled Italy in 1936. By the time they left Ellis Island they had nothing but the clothes on their backs. My grandfather worked on the Pennsylvania Railroad six days a week and my grandmother cleaned houses and took in laundry."

  "And on your father's side?"

  "Hungarian. Part of the cheap labor brought in by Carnegie to break the unions. Three generations worked the coal mines and steel mills."

  "What do your parents do for a living, Dr. Emberek?"

  Vincent looked over at his lawyer who nodded for him to con
tinue. "My father is a brick mason and my mother is a nurse."

  "You grew up in Warrior's Mark, Pennsylvania, correct?"

  "Yes."

  "Not many Asian families live around there, I expect."

  "No." Vincent was tempted to add more, but his lawyer gave him a quick look that signaled him to answer only the question asked.

  "You went to school at Penn State?"

  "Undergrad, yes."

  "Did you have any classes where Asian graduate students were responsible for most of the teaching?"

  Vincent nodded. "Is that an affirmative?" the stenographer paused in her typing to ask.

  "Yes." Vincent rubbed his sweaty palms along his thighs, embarrassed by the rookie mistake. This was more nerve wracking than running a Code Blue. Of course, this was his life at stake, not some stranger's.

  "Did you ever have the occasion to complain that they were hard to understand or that they should improve their English skills before being given a job teaching a subject?" the lawyer asked. Vincent was silent. "May I remind you that you're under oath, Doctor."

  "Yes," he admitted reluctantly. "There were several who did not speak English well enough to teach their subjects."

  "In fact, didn't you write a letter to the editor of the Collegian newspaper decrying this fact?"

  "I signed it. It was written by a group of us who were basically forced to teach ourselves physics because of an incompetent TA."

  "I see, so not being fluent in English is the equivalent of being incompetent?"

  "No, of course not." This time Vincent ignored the scowl sent his way by his attorney. "But this TA was. At teaching--not necessarily in his field of study. I was on a scholarship, my college tuition paid for by my father's union. These guys come here from their country, get free medical care for themselves and their families, don't pay any taxes and get paid by the university--out of my tuition--to teach hapless undergrads who can't understand a word out of their mouths. It didn't seem right, so I signed the letter of protest."