by Lisa Jackson
Frowning, she glanced at the clock, her mother’s, still mounted on the wall. Six twenty. She’d been home nearly half an hour, and Chris was late.
For the first time since arriving home, she was starting to worry. Again, she pulled out her phone, and this time she called, but when Chris’s voice answered as part of his voice mail message, she cut the connection.
He’d be here. He knew that it was time, and what she wanted.
Still . . .
Craning her neck, she looked past the yard and along the street to the corner and half expected to see familiar headlights turning toward the house. Instead, the darkness settled deeper. Nervously, she ran her fingers along the window frame.
She saw her pale reflection in the glass, an image she’d noticed before, though always before, at this time of year, there had been a sparkle in her eye, a smile upon her lips, and the watery image seeming young at heart. Odd, how things turned out, she thought now, standing in the house where the soft hum of the furnace was the only noise to break the silence of the coming night. Here, where there had been parties and laughter, and . . . Oh, God, now there was nothing.
And whose fault is that?
Walking to the fireplace where the grate was cold and the framed pictures on the mantel of her once-happy family stood at attention, every sunny smile seeming to mock her, she couldn’t help but wonder what would happen to the place. The thought that she would have to sell the family home bothered her, just as it nearly broke her heart to be considering divorce.
But there it was, in plain black-and-white, she thought, glancing down at the pages, all neatly typed, ready to be signed and filed, clutched in her hand.
Come on, come on, Chris. Let’s just get this over with.
Feeling a chill, she didn’t bother taking off her coat and walked to the hallway where she adjusted the thermostat up a few degrees. From the corner of her eye, she caught a glint of something silvery on the hardwood floor, just beneath the tree. Upon closer examination, she discovered that an ornament had fallen off a branch, and, as she picked it up, her throat tightened. The ornament was really a tiny silver picture frame that surrounded a picture of Chris and Megan at their wedding twenty-odd years earlier. How fitting that it had fallen, she thought sarcastically, but surprisingly the glass hadn’t cracked, and the etching along the silver frame, OUR FIRST CHRISTMAS, was still legible. Her heart grew heavy as she stared at the faded photograph. How long ago it seemed. She started to put the ornament onto a branch again, intent on tying the fraying red ribbon over an empty limb, but she hesitated and instead slipped the small frame into the pocket of her coat, all the while wondering if Hallmark or whomever ever came out with an ornament for OUR LAST CHRISTMAS.
“Sick,” she told herself, and sighed. She had to go through with the divorce and move forward with her life. It would be best for everyone, she rationalized, though a bit of melancholy burrowed deep into her soul and begged to differ. She’d told herself she would wait until after the first of the year, let the kids get back into their routine at their colleges, and—
Her cell phone jangled, and she slid her hand into the pocket of her slacks to retrieve it. Finally. About damned time. Still scanning the documents, she hazarded a quick glance at the screen, expecting to see Chris’s number and bracing herself for an excuse as to why he was running late. Instead she spied a number she didn’t recognize, but she figured it was a client who needed a little handholding after hours. She could do that.
“Megan Johnson,” she said automatically as she came to the page with the division of property.
Over background noise she couldn’t immediately identify a deep male voice said, “This is Officer Ben Sheldon, Connecticut state police, Mrs. Johnson.”
Her heart leapt to her throat. The police? This couldn’t be good. In a heartbeat, she thought of her kids.
“Are you the wife of Christopher Johnson?” he asked, then rattled off their street address.
Oh, dear God, what had happened? “Yes.” But Chris didn’t live here anymore, she thought, he’d moved out months ago. . . . Oh, God. He’d never changed his ID that she knew of; his driver’s license would still list her home as his residence. A sick feeling grasped her stomach. “Where’s Chris?” she asked, starting to panic. “What happened to him?”
“I’m sorry to tell you this, Mrs. Johnson, but your husband was involved in a multiple-car accident.”
“What? No!” She felt her knees buckle, and she fell against the back of their couch. There had to be some mistake. “Involved?” she repeated, trying to make sense of what the policeman was saying. “What do you mean? Is he all right?” Her heart was hammering; her usually steady voice barely a croak.
“He’s being life flighted to County General.”
Oh. God. “But . . . but he’s alive?” she said, fear and relief battling within her. “You’re telling me that he’s alive?” Otherwise they wouldn’t bother with life flight. In desperation, she clasped both hands over the phone. Her divorce papers fluttered to the floor, scattering under the forgotten Christmas tree.
“He was alive when the helicopter took off.”
“Thank God. I’m—I’m on my way to the hospital.”
A pause. “Mrs. Johnson?”
She’d already started searching for her keys as she walk-raced for the back door. “Yes?” she shouted, now running toward the back door.
“You’d better hurry.”
County General was a madhouse.
Ambulances and helicopters had brought the injured, and police and emergency workers were dealing with the ensuing chaos. Several news vans were parked near the front entrance of the hospital, reporters already standing outside the brick building, snow blowing around them as they spoke into microphones and looked steadily into the eyes of cameras held on the shoulders of crew members.
After circling the parking lot twice, Megan found a spot, slid into it, cut the engine, and sent up a quick prayer for Chris’s life. Then she locked her CR-V and dashed through the snow to the wide glass doors that opened automatically to a vestibule, where a second set of doors whispered open. She saw the information desk wedged between the emergency room and the admitting area and skirted a huge decorated tree as she made her way to the desk where, amazingly, there was only one man in a business suit standing in line. As she approached he was already walking away. “I’m looking for Chris Johnson,” she said to a harried-looking woman manning the phones behind the desk. A bit of a thing with kinky gray hair, she glanced at Meg and held up a finger, finishing a call that had come in to her headset.
Meg stood on one foot, then the other as another woman came up behind her to wait her turn. When the receptionist finally said, “Thank you for calling,” Megan said again, “Christopher Johnson. The police told me he was in an accident and brought in here via life flight . . . and . . . and I have to find him, to find out he’s okay.” Then realizing she hadn’t identified herself, she added, “I’m his wife. Megan Johnson.” She was frantic, her heart pounding in dread, fear that he might not make it sliding through her like a ghost.
“Just a second.” The woman, whose name tag read Betty Hilgaard, held up a finger again.
Meg wanted to scream as the tiny woman talked into her headset again, answering another person’s inquiry about a patient. It was all she could do to keep her cool. To distract herself, Meg scanned the room; every chair in the lobby was occupied, and people were standing in the hallways. The ER was filled to overflowing, patients wheezing and coughing, a toddler crying, a muted TV mounted high on the wall with pictures of the accident site visible.
Her heart nearly stopped.
On the way to the hospital, she’d listened to radio reports and found out there had been a twenty-three-car pileup on the interstate. According to the information she’d heard, a truck loaded with Christmas trees had hit a patch of ice, skidded across two lanes of traffic, and jack-knifed. The vehicles near the huge truck had either run off the shoulder or slammed
into each other or had been smashed by the falling bundled trees that had somehow been torn loose of their bindings and, like torpedoes, had sailed and dropped onto the icy pavement and any vehicle in their paths.
To her horror, now, as she stared at the screen, she thought she recognized Chris’s sedan, a white Ford with a crumpled front end, broken windshield, and mangled quarter panel. The roof had suffered horrid damage, collapsing deep into the interior, the entire interior caving in. Anyone riding in the car would have been seriously injured if he or she had survived. “Dear God,” she whispered, horrified. Not Chris, not Chris, not Chris.
But someone. Someone who is loved by someone.
Her heart twisted.
Chapter 2
“Johnson? Isn’t that what you said?” the woman behind the desk asked.
Startled out of her reverie, Megan caught her breath and blinked back tears of worry. “Yes, yes, Chris Johnson, the police said that he was life flighted from an accident scene and—”
“He’s in surgery,” Betty Hilgaard said, eyeing a computer screen in front of her. “Third floor. OR 7. There’s a waiting room for family members near the nurses’ station up there.”
Alive! He’s alive!
Tears gathered in her eyes. “Please, can you . . . can anyone tell me how he’s doing? What’re his injuries?” Dear God, this was a nightmare.
The little woman offered a patient, practiced smile. “There are volunteers on the third floor,” she said. “Someone there can help you. I’m sure there will be paperwork to fill out, and a doctor will talk to you.”
Damn the paperwork.
Megan just needed to know that her husband would survive, to be assured that he would survive and be all right. As another couple joined the woman behind her in the line to the information desk, Megan tried to get a grip. Ms. Hilgaard pointed to an alcove tucked near the admitting area. “The elevators are just over there.”
“I know,” Megan said a little more curtly than she’d intended. “Thank you.” Her nerves were strung tight, her heart a drum as she half ran to the bank of elevators, her boots clicking a sharp tattoo on the floor. She’d been in this hospital often enough. Both her children had been born here, she thought with a pang, remembering barely being able to get to the delivery room as Brody, true to his nature, had come fast, hurrying to be born, just as he’d barreled headlong into the rest of his life, moving quickly, with a high pain threshold that would make him a threat on the football field and a fearlessness that caused him to join the army barely after he’d turned eighteen.
How eagerly she and Chris had anticipated their son’s birth. Megan’s throat tightened as she remembered seeing Chris in the delivery room, his eyes shining with tears of happiness, his hands so large as they cradled a screaming, red Brody for the first time.
She nearly stumbled at the memory. Oh, God, Chris had to be all right.
At the elevators she slapped the call button and paced, seconds stretching endlessly before one of the elevators landed, doors opening, a hospital worker pushing an elderly man in a wheelchair, oxygen tank attached, into the hallway.
Once they passed, Meg slipped inside before the doors closed again and impatiently pounded the button for the third floor. The car was detained as two teenaged girls, both in skinny jeans, one holding a bouquet of pink roses and a helium balloon in the shape of a baby rattle, entered and pressed the button for the second floor, where the maternity ward was located. Megan thought she would go out of her mind as the balloon nearly got caught in the doors, the rattle floating back into the hallway, the teens thinking it was so damned funny they both giggled and laughed. Meg held her tongue and onto her rapidly fleeing patience as they reeled in the balloon and the car finally moved upward.
Pink roses. Pink balloon. A girl.
Megan’s heart nearly tore from her chest as she remembered Chris holding Lindy as he had their son, just after cutting the umbilical cord. How he’d said, “She’s perfect,” and had beamed, again tears sheening in his eyes. And now . . . now . . . She couldn’t even think the worst, wouldn’t let her mind go there.
And yet less than an hour ago, you were intent on divorce. Angry with him for being late to read over the papers.
She felt a jab of guilt, but buried it. Chris, after all, had been the one to move out, to initiate the separation.
The car stopped, doors whispering open, and the two girls, talking and joking, blissfully unaware of the crises happening in the ER and surgery rooms, stepped onto the second floor. The doors closed, and with a jolt the elevator car moved again. Within seconds, Megan was on the third floor, glancing at the signs mounted on the hallway walls, making her way quickly to the waiting area for patients in surgery and bracing herself for the worst.
She wasn’t alone. The room was filled, most chairs and one small couch occupied. A coffeepot stood empty, ready to be refilled, in one corner; magazines were strewn across tables. An oversized computer monitor mounted on one wall displayed an Excel-type program listing patients by numbers and colors, which indicated where each was in his treatment: Beige was pre-op; blue indicated the patient was in surgery; and green denoted that he’d been transferred to a recovery area. In each box, along with the ID number, was a tiny digital clock indicating how long the patient had been involved in his or her procedure. After speaking with the attendant, showing her ID, and filling out a release while handing over insurance information, Megan was handed a slip of paper with Chris’s hospital ID number.
“Can you tell me how he’s doing?” she asked, desperate. “All I know is that he was in an accident, a bad accident—the one on the interstate—and that he was life flighted and . . . and now he’s here.” Her voice faltered, and she fought tears again.
“I’m sorry. This is all the information I have,” the attendant, around sixty, with kind eyes behind rimless glasses, said. “I’ll try to find a doctor or a nurse, someone from ER who might have admitted him. In the meantime you can follow his progress.” She offered a smile, then motioned up to the computer screen mounted on the wall.
“Thank you.” Megan, shell shocked, found the colored rectangle on the screen dedicated to her husband, a glowing blue square. According to the glowing chart he was still in surgery, the timer indicating that so far the procedure had gone on for one hour and seven minutes. Since no one could give her any more information, Megan found a seat in the waiting room, clung to the paper with his number, and stared vacantly at the computer screen as the digital timer continued to add seconds to the length of his procedure. Or procedures, she reminded herself when she recalled the picture on the television, just a flash of the horrifying image, the mangled vehicle she thought belonged to her husband.
Sooner or later she would have to call her children. They had the right to know that their father was battling for his life. She’d only hesitated because she’d hoped before she made those calls that she’d have a more complete report on his condition, understand more what had happened to him, would be able to give them the extent of his injuries and, of course, be able to assure them that their father would be fine.
But that wasn’t going to happen for a long while, if at all.
Please let him be all right, she thought, sending up a prayer while a tight-lipped woman in her thirties said, “So what’s with the coffee? Hey! Does anyone care that we’re outta coffee over here?” The Thirty-Something was glaring at the woman at the desk where three people were waiting, and, ignoring them, held up the empty pot.
Everyone in the waiting room stopped what they were doing to stare at her, and she finally got the hint. “Hey! I’m just sayin’. They offer coffee in this place, then they’d better take care of it, you know what I mean? It’s not like we’re not payin’ for it. Ever seen a bill? Out-effin’-rageous!” She replaced the pot, looked up at the screen, then headed through the door. “I’m goin’ to effin’ Starbucks!” she proclaimed as if anyone cared, her high-heeled boots ringing sharply down the hallway.
“Bul
ly for you,” a man muttered. Slouched in one of the chairs near the doorway, a baseball cap covering his head, he was reading this morning’s sports section of the local paper and hadn’t even looked up at the woman’s dramatic exit.
Within seconds, it seemed, a hospital worker rolled a cart into the room and exchanged the empty pot for two carafes, then refilled all the baskets containing stir sticks, sweeteners, and creamers.
“So there is a God,” the guy in the cap said as he folded his paper and made his way to the counter with the fresh pots. “And he’s got an effin’ sense of humor.”
Meanwhile, Megan stared at Chris’s rectangle on the chart.
One hour. Sixteen minutes.
No change in status.
She couldn’t put it off any longer.
It was time to call the kids.
Bracing herself, she pulled the cell from her purse, ready to speed-dial Brody. Her phone jangled in her hand.
She looked down at the tiny screen, and her heart sank. The heart-wrenching situation took a turn for the worse as Adam Newell’s name and number flashed onto the display.
Chapter 3
“I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” Adam said after she’d stepped into the hallway and answered. A nurse pushing a rattling cart of medications walked by. Megan glanced up at a sign mounted on the wall. No Cell Phone Use had been posted in bold red letters, and a circle with a line drawn through it was painted over the image of a flip phone.
Perfect.
“I’m fine.” She was moving quickly, around a gurney where a man, covered in sheets and with an IV attached to him, was being wheeled along the wide, glistening hallway; the attendant rolling the cart glared at her. “I can’t talk now. Hold on a sec.”
She found a stairwell, hurried to the first floor, and walked through the lobby to the parking lot, where the temperature was far below freezing and falling snow was dancing in the bluish light from the security lamps.