Better to Trust

by Frimmer, Heather

  “I’m really worried about her.” Sadie couldn’t help thinking about whether Emma would be able to compete in a few weeks.

  The elevator stopped at the fifth floor. Her father stepped out and turned toward the ICU. The other couple walked the opposite way, toward the pediatric ICU, making Sadie wonder what was wrong with their child. That was why the man seemed so nervous.

  Before they reached the pneumatic doors sealing the unit off from the rest of the hospital, her father pulled Sadie into an empty waiting room and shut the door behind them.

  “I think you owe me an explanation, young lady,” he said.

  “An explanation for what?” She didn’t want to offer more information than necessary.

  “For what really happened tonight,” he said. “You haven’t told me the whole story.”

  When Sadie had gotten in trouble in the past—stolen the Bratz doll from Lauren Fleming’s house in third grade, plagiarized her essay about Harriet Tubman for her sixth-grade social studies class, skipped skating practice last year to go to the mall to buy hair dye—his eyes always narrowed and the skin between them bunched together. Today, his eyes were wide open and his pupils looked like big black holes, red lines creeping across the white parts.

  “I told you what happened. Emma tripped and fell.”

  “Is there anything else you want to share?”

  “I’m not sure.” Usually, when Sadie made mistakes, she fessed up long before her parents figured anything out. The secret always started as a tiny spark, but over time, the flames increased in intensity, heating up her insides and threatening to engulf her if she didn’t set it free.

  “Where did you get those pills?”

  “It’s not what you think.”

  “I’ll decide what I think.”

  Sadie had two choices. She could cover for Piper, tell her dad that she’d been the one to take the pills, or she could tell him the truth. It was an easy decision. This night was already a disaster without piling lies on top of everything else.

  “It was Piper,” Sadie said. “I invited her over after school and she wanted to go through your things. I told her it wasn’t a good idea, but she wouldn’t listen. She kept opening drawers and taking stuff.” A tear slid down her cheek. “I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt.”

  “You let your sleazy friend have the run of my bedroom?”

  “She’s not sleazy, Dad.”

  Her father paced the room and ran his hands through his hair. “This is completely unacceptable. I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately.”

  “I couldn’t stop her. There was nothing I could do.”

  “You had no right to invade my privacy,” he said.

  “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t know what to do.”

  “That girl is no good,” he said. “I absolutely forbid you to see her again.”

  “That’s not fair,” Sadie said. Even though she was angry with Piper, she wasn’t about to let her father choose her friends.

  “I can’t think of anything more fair,” he said in a stern voice. “And by the way, you’re grounded. For real this time.”

  Sadie’s tears now turned to sobs. She wasn’t sure if she was crying because of her father’s tone of voice or because of what happened to Emma, but once she started she couldn’t make herself stop.

  “Don’t worry.” His face relaxed a bit. He’d always hated seeing her cry. “We’ll figure things out.”

  “Okay,” she said, trying to get herself under control.

  “Listen, your mom is already wound up about everything. She doesn’t need to know about this, okay?”

  “About Emma?”

  “We can tell her about the broken ankle, but that’s all she needs to know.”

  When they reached Aunt Alison’s room, Sadie’s mom was asleep in a chair next to the bed.

  Her father nudged her mom, and she opened her eyes, her dark hair a tangled mess.

  “Sadie? What’s going on?” Her mom squeezed her eyes together. “What time is it?”

  “Everything’s fine,” Grant said.

  Her mom picked up her phone to look at the time. “It’s the middle of the night.”

  “Emma had a little accident on the way home from the museum. Sadie came in with her.”

  “What kind of accident? Is she okay?”

  “She’ll be fine. Just a broken ankle.”

  Sadie approached the side of the bed, tuning out the sound of her parents’ voices. Aunt Alison looked like she was asleep, her eyes closed and her arms resting by her sides, but Sadie knew they were probably giving her medicine to knock her out. Bandages covered her head, a few strands of hair escaping out the bottom, and multiple tubes went into both arms and crossed her chest. A plastic tube came out of her mouth and attached to a noisy machine at the bedside.

  The Aunt Alison Sadie knew would never be so still. No matter how many times this week her parents had told her how bad things were—that Alison had a major complication, that the road to recovery would be very long, that she may never be the same person she once was—Sadie didn’t really get it until now.

  “Did you leave Emma alone down there?” Her mother’s voice interrupted Sadie’s thoughts.

  “Is that what you think of me?”

  “It was a simple question. Why do you insist on answering a question with a question?”

  “It’s the middle of the night. Can you give me a break for once?”

  Her mother stood up. “She can’t be by herself. I’m going down there.”

  “It’s fine, Cynthia,” her dad said. “We waited for Derrick to arrive before we came upstairs.”

  Sadie wished she had her earbuds so she wouldn’t have to listen to her parents arguing again. She pulled one of the chairs up to the bed and sat down. All she wanted to do was reach out and touch her aunt’s hand, to make sure it was warm and soft, but she couldn’t make herself do it. What if her hand felt cold? What if it was rough and scaly? The thing she was most afraid of was that she would grasp Alison’s hand and her aunt wouldn’t respond.

  “Derrick must be so upset.” Her mom sat back down. “I hope he doesn’t blame us for this mess.”

  “Why would he blame us?” Her father’s voice sounded unnecessarily loud.

  “Emma was with Sadie.” Her mom’s voice got louder, too. “How did it happen anyway?”

  “She tripped on the sidewalk.”

  “I feel like we can’t catch a break.”

  “It was a freak thing, Cynthia,” he said. “Don’t go getting all worked up about karma or some other shit. She twisted her ankle and it broke. Period. End of story.”

  “It was an accident, Mom.” Sadie wished her mother would drop the subject. The last thing Sadie needed was for her mother to find out about the pills.

  One of the nurses came in. “Everything okay in here?”

  “Sorry about that,” Cynthia said. “I know you like to keep it quiet.”

  The nurse hung a bag of fluid on the pole and pressed a few buttons on the monitor. “It’s time for her antibiotics.”

  Sadie took her phone out of her pocket to check the time. 4:14. Always in bed by eleven at the latest, Sadie couldn’t recall ever seeing 4 AM. After the nurse hooked the tubing up to Alison’s IV and used her thumb to start the antibiotic drip, she announced that she had one more test to do: an arterial blood gas. She remembered her father saying that it was one of the most painful of all medical tests. The nurse took a needle out of the pocket of her scrubs and peeled off the plastic wrapping. The crinkling of the plastic hurt Sadie’s ears.

  “Will she be able to feel this?” Sadie asked as the nurse swiped the pale skin of Alison’s wrist with an alcohol pad and felt for her pulse.

  “She shouldn’t feel anything,” she said. “The sedation keeps them in a nice twilight.”

  Sadie watched the needle plunge straight down into Alison’s flesh and wondered how it wasn’t doing some sort of permanent damage. She knew the wrist had all sorts of vesse
ls and ligaments and stuff, but when she looked at Alison’s face, she still looked calm, her eyes taped shut and her mouth relaxed. Sadie wondered if, somewhere behind the wall of sedation, her aunt was screaming in pain, begging for mercy. Bright red blood filled the tubing connected to the needle, pulsing up and down with every beep of the monitor.

  Sadie reached out and took Alison’s other hand. It felt warm and familiar and when she squeezed, she felt something. It was faint, but Sadie desperately needed it to be real, not a figment of her imagination. Aunt Alison definitely squeezed back.

  CHAPTER TWENTY - NINE

  Grant

  March 25, 2019

  GRANT OPENED HIS EYES and tried to orient himself. Everything in Alison’s hospital room felt the same—the beeping of the cardiac monitor, the whoosh of the ventilator and the chatter of the nurses changing shifts—but Grant now remembered today was different. Today, ten days after her surgery, Alison was scheduled to wake up.

  Cal entered the room for morning rounds, a team of residents and medical students following behind. “Let’s talk about the plan for Mrs. Jacobs,” he said, looking to the chief resident. “Matt, why don’t you do the honors.”

  Grant stood up and shook Cynthia awake. She sat up in the chair and ran a hand through her hair.

  Matt tracked his finger down his patient list. “This is hospital day number ten for Alison Jacobs, age thirty-eight. She presented for resection of a large left parietal AVM with a postoperative hemorrhage requiring repeat operation and evacuation of the hematoma.”

  Grant squeezed his eyes closed. It was bad enough that he had caused the complication, but now he was forced to relive his mistake every single day on rounds. Sometimes he imagined the interns and medical students giving him accusing looks but maybe that was just his paranoia and exhaustion playing tricks on him. Now, a cute med student with a ponytail looked at him and quickly averted her eyes.

  “And what’s the current plan?” Cal asked.

  “The plan is to extubate today. And now that the brain has had time to rest, we can dial down the sedatives so we can assess her neurologic status.”

  Cynthia stood up. “What does that mean?”

  “Today’s the day we’ll really get a sense of how Alison’s doing,” Cal said. “We’ve kept her sedated to make sure she doesn’t bleed again. But now that it’s been over a week, it’s safe to bring her out of the coma and see how she really is.”

  Cynthia’s eyes welled with tears. “Today? Will she be able to talk to us?”

  “I’m not making any promises, but I certainly hope so,” Cal said. “We’ll start tapering the sedatives with a goal to take out the breathing tube in an hour or so. I hope she’ll be fully alert soon.”

  “I can’t believe it.” Cynthia wiped tears from her face. “I feel like it’s been forever since we’ve heard her voice. Right, Grant?”

  Grant nodded. With the whole team looking on, he tried to say as little as possible.

  “I think it’s better if you step out while we remove the breathing tube,” Cal said to Cynthia. “Many patients have a violent reaction to the procedure. This tends to make family members upset.”

  “Of course,” Grant said. “We’ll go downstairs for a bite to eat.”

  Grant waited for all of the team members to clear out before stopping Cal in the doorway. “I can’t thank you enough for doing this,” Grant said.

  “No need to thank me,” Cal said. “We have to watch each other’s backs in this crazy business.”

  After Cal left, Grant looked over at Cynthia, her eyes still shiny. He wrapped his arms around her and cradled her head to his chest. Dwelling on the mistakes he had made, things he should have done, how he could have prevented this mess, wasn’t going to help anyone now, himself included. He needed to be present for Alison right here and right now, to hold her hand and help her move forward from here, from their current reality.

  “What if she doesn’t wake up?” Cynthia asked, her voice muffled by the fabric of his shirt.

  “She will.” Memories of his patients who hadn’t done as well as he’d hoped, the ones who’d woken up altered in ways he hadn’t expected—their speech not quite as clear, their fingers clumsier, their gait not quite straight—came to his mind, but he pushed them away.

  Grant stepped back and tipped Cynthia’s chin up toward him. “We have to remain optimistic. Her scans look good and she’s so strong. She needs our positive thoughts.”

  “She’s coming back to us today,” Cynthia said.

  “Let’s go down to the cafeteria. Give Cal some space to do his job.” Grant said. All of a sudden, Grant was ravenous and he couldn’t bear talking in circles about hypotheticals any longer. He’d barely eaten all week, subsisting on coffee and the occasional snack from the vending machine in the family waiting room. “Michael will be here soon anyway.”

  Grant wasn’t sure why, but Michael had refused to stay over at the hospital. For whatever reason, he preferred to spend the night in his own bed, arriving back at the hospital around eight every morning.

  In the elevator, Grant noticed a picture of Vanessa Hidalgo, the ER doctor, beaming and holding a wood plaque over her chest, her name etched into a gold plate. The hospital president and chairman of the board stood on either side of her. “Congratulations to our physician of the month honoree,” the caption under the photo read. Grant wondered if she had really reported him to the administration or if that had been an empty threat.

  “Figures,” Grant mumbled.

  “I don’t remember you receiving that award,” Cynthia said.

  “No,” Grant said. “It should be called the kiss-ass awards. Always goes to the most effective brown-nosers, not the best doctors.”

  “Really? Didn’t Vik receive that one a few years ago?”

  “Did he? I don’t remember.” Grant remembered all too well that Vik had indeed been given the same award. Grant had attended the ceremony in the hospital auditorium and put on his best smile, shaking Vik’s hand and spewing some canned words of congratulations, but he remembered thinking what a load of crap it was that Vik had received the award before him. Though Vik was by far the best anesthesiologist on staff, all he really did was stare at a computer screen and press a few buttons once in a while. Grant was the one who did the hard work that took practice, and skill, and mastery of technique.

  “I’m sure he did,” Cynthia said. “I remember Meera talking about it.”

  “It’s really not a big deal. Just an excuse for the hospital to spew out more bullshit on social media.”

  I’m sure you’ll get it one day,” Cynthia said, squeezing his arm. “It’s just a matter of time.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Alison

  October 27, 2019

  ALISON AWOKE with her pulse pounding in her ears. She wiped the sweat from her face with her pajama top and used her left arm to help her sit, her muscles quivering with the effort. Despite just waking up, she felt exhausted. The nightmare always robbed her of the feeling of rejuvenation from a night’s sleep.

  Since Michael had moved out, she’d been plagued by the same nightmare almost every night. In the dream, Calvin Shin stood over her and pulled out the breathing tube in one swift motion. As Alison watched him, there was always a delay before she felt the pain, a searing burn deep in her throat, as if she’d swallowed a big gulp of boiling water. The pain was just as intense as it had been in real life. All she wanted to do was reach her hands to her throat to make it stop. She always woke up drenched in sweat, her heart racing in her chest. When she had the dream, she experienced that same horrific day over again, like Bill Murray in that annoying movie about Groundhog Day, every time just as vivid as when it had happened in real life.

  She remembered Cal urging her to take a breath. Was she not breathing? And where the hell was Grant? Shouldn’t a surgeon be there when his patient woke up from anesthesia? The room seemed so quiet. The white-coated minions around the bed stared at her as Cal rubbed his knuc
kles back and forth over her breast bone, pain burrowing into the center of her chest. He kept rubbing, but when she tried to reach her right arm to make him stop, it wouldn’t follow her command. She heard a gurgled intake of air.

  When Cal said, “She’s breathing,” Alison realized the wet sound had come from her, the air flow broken up by trapped phlegm. Cal called for suction and a nurse put a clear tube in her mouth and moved it around. The tube made an aggressive burble and when she stuck it farther down her throat, Alison gagged, a rush of vomit spilling onto her chest, the warm pool collecting around her neck and dripping down her upper back. It smelled vile and strangely reassuring at the same time—an affirmation that she was still alive, still able to breathe, and gag and puke. The nurse lifted her head to put a dry pad behind her.

  “Welcome back,” Cal said, looking into Alison’s eyes. “We’ve missed your smile.”

  That was a strange thing to say. She remembered being wheeled into the operating room, Vik putting the oxygen mask over her face, the sting as he pierced the vein in her hand to put in the IV, a sour taste in her mouth as the milky medicine travelled up her arm. It seemed like only a few minutes ago, but she knew the surgery was supposed to take several hours.

  “You’ve been in a coma for over a week,” the nurse said, unsnapping the wet gown and replacing it with a dry one.

  What the hell was this woman talking about? Her surgery had been today. Alison tried to reach her right hand to feel her head, but she couldn’t make it move.

  “Today you were finally ready for the tube to come out,” Cal said. “How are you feeling?”

  If he really wanted to know, her body was listless, her eyelids were sticking to her eyeballs, and her throat felt like it had been run over by a lawn mower. Everyone in the room was staring at her and waiting for her to say something, but when Alison opened her mouth to speak, nothing came out. She wanted to say, “Okay,” a word she’d said so many times without a second thought, but the more she tried to say it, the less happened. With every ounce of her being focused on forming those two syllables, she managed a long moan that sounded vaguely like the letter O.