by Annie Jocoby
There was no way that I could live without him.
“I, I, I have to call somebody,” I said in a monotone voice. I got out my phone, and proceeded to dial some numbers. They were random numbers. I had no idea about anybody’s phone numbers at this point. There was just no way that I could possibly call anybody.
“Excuse me,” I said. “I need to take this in the bathroom.”
The doctor nodded, and the police woman looked at me sympathetically and shook her head.
On the way to the bathroom, I was thinking about finding a razor somewhere and slashing my wrists. Or busting into a drug storage room and swallowing a handful of whatever I could find.
Dead. There was no way this was true. My mind couldn’t even start to comprehend it.
The image of Ryan lying on the floor, with blood squirting out from god-knows-where, was flashing through my mind like a neon sign that I just couldn’t shut off. I took several clumps of hair in my hands, and pulled. I got into the bathroom, and started banging my head against the mirror, over and over again, and started screaming at the top of my lungs.
Then I collapsed.
Chapter Two
I was woken up by a kindly gentleman who was gently nudging me in my chair. “Mrs. Gallagher. Mrs. Gallagher,” the voice said, shaking me gently.
I looked at him. He was the man who just informed me about my husband’s passing.
I just shook my head. Go away. I don’t want to talk to you. Leave me alone.
“Mrs. Gallagher, I wanted to keep you updated on your husband’s progress in surgery.”
“My husband’s progress in surgery? I don’t understand.”
“Your husband has been in surgery for the past 10 hours. You must have nodded off in your chair for a few minutes.”
I was still foggy. Was this a dream? Or was I dreaming before? I prayed that this was the real scene, and that the other was just a horrible, horrible, horrible nightmare.
“Surgery?” I put my head in my hands. Why was it so difficult to comprehend anything? I just shook my head. I felt the lady cop put her arm around my back.
“She’s still in shock,” she said. “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on with her husband, and I’ll tell her when she’s a bit more coherent?”
“Well, this has been a very delicate surgery, very touch and go. The bullet went through his abdomen and lodged near his spine. The spinal cord was not injured, but there is some swelling. Mr. Gallagher might be paralyzed for awhile, but hopefully that will only be temporary. He’s still not out of the woods, but we are making progress.”
“You hear that?” lady cop said. “Sounds like your husband is going to make it through surgery.”
I nodded and said nothing. I had an Indian blanket wrapped around my shoulders, and I wrapped it around me tighter, clutching it for dear life.
“Do you mind if I look at your cell phone?” lady cop asked.
I just shook my head mutely, then pointed to my bag.
Lady cop dug through my bag and found my cell phone. “Now, Mrs. Gallagher, if you don’t mind, I’d like to look through your contacts. Is there anybody on here that I can call to come and be with you?”
I nodded my head. “Nick. Call Nick.”
Then she dialed the phone. “Hello,” she said. “Is this Nick?...this is Officer Cecelia White….I’m sorry to wake you…Mrs. Gallagher is here at the Emergency Room at the hospital…she asked me to call you. Can you come and keep her company?..I’m sorry I didn’t call earlier. Mrs. Gallagher has been in too much shock to give me permission to use her phone until just now….the doctor will have to explain…ok, see you then.”
“He’s on his way now, Mrs. Gallagher. He said that he’ll be here in about 20 minutes or so.”
I said nothing, just stared at the floor and wrapped my blanket around me even tighter.
Sometime after police lady got off the phone with Nick, I heard his familiar voice. “Hi, I’m Nick O’Hara. You must be Officer White.”
“Good to meet you, Mr. O’Hara.”
“What’s going on?”
“The doctor will be out in a few more minutes.”
“No, tell me now. What’s going on?”
“Mr. Gallagher was shot. In front of Mrs. Gallagher. Mrs. Gallagher stabbed an intruder, but not before he shot Mr. Gallagher.”
“Holy Christ.” Then he was sitting right next to me, putting his arm around me. “Iris, Iris, are you there? Talk to me, Iris.”
I looked at him, and then the tears started gushing. He wrapped his arms around me while I sobbed, my hands still clutching my blanket tightly. He gently put his hand in my hair, and I immediately felt comforted.
It felt just like Ryan’s touch.
Then I remembered that Ryan was in surgery, and he might not make it, and, even if he does make it, he might be paralyzed.
“Shhhhh, Iris, it’s going to be ok. Ryan’s tough. He’s survived this long, in the most messed up scenarios imaginable. Shhhhh, it’s ok. It’s going to be ok.”
I just shook my head. “Dalilah,” was all I said.
“Where is Dalilah?” he asked.
“Daniel. Daniel has her. Please call him, I need to see her.”
At that, he whipped out his phone. “Daniel, it’s Nick…I know what time it is…you have Dalilah there…could you bring her to the hospital?...Ryan was shot……….he’s in surgery…….good point.” At that he looked at me. “Uh, Daniel’s ok with watching her. I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to have her here in the waiting room.”
“Is she ok? I need to talk to her.”
“Is Dalilah ok?” Nick asked. “She’s sleeping? Of course, of course, it’s like 4:30 in the morning.”
I pleaded with Nick, tugging on his shirtsleeve “Dalilah doesn’t have anything there. No diapers, no toys, no breast milk, no nothing. I just gave her to him without anything at all. Please tell him to go by the house and get what she needs. Everything is in her room. There’s a diaper bag with everything she needs, and the fridge is full of bottled breast milk.”
I was amazed at how much just having Nick here was helping clear up my mental fog.
Nick said “Iris says to go by the house and get Dalilah’s things. A diaper bag in her room, bottled breast milk in the fridge and…” Then he looked at me. Addressing me he said “She got any favorite toys that Daniel should pick up?”
I nodded. “A Winnie the Pooh stuffed bear, her Etch-A-Sketch, and some puzzles. Everything’s in her room.”
Nick turned back to the phone “You get all that?....ok, great, thanks…bye.”
Addressing me again, Nick said “Daniel’s on his way back to the house, and he’ll call if anything is going wrong. Right now, he said that it’s not a problem to take care of her.”
I nodded. “Thanks.”
He sat down. “Now, do you feel like talking about what happened?”
I didn’t feel that I could talk without breaking down and crying, so I just shook my head.
“Ok, then, I’ll ask Cecelia.” Cecelia had stepped out, and was back in the waiting room with us. She talked into the receiver on her shoulder.
“So, Officer White, what happened?”
“We arrived at 6:07 PM to the Gallagher household. A neighbor who was walking his dog by the house called 911 after hearing a gunshot go off. We arrived and Mr. Gallagher was lying on the floor after having been shot. Mrs. Gallagher was with him. We rushed Mr. Gallagher to the hospital, and trailed behind them in a squad car. Mr. Gallagher was brought into surgery at 6:17, and has been in there ever since.”
“Crap,” Nick said. It was like the news just now hit him. He went pale, and sat down next to me. He was shaking. He put his head in his hands, his entire body visibly quivering.
I couldn’t comfort him the way that he comforted me. I still felt numb, like my limbs simply wouldn’t move. I cursed myself silently for my impotence.
We sat next to one another, silently, with Cecelia the lady cop still hanging
around and talking into her receiver. I wondered why she was still there. Probably she wants to talk to Ryan when he gets out of surgery, but I wouldn’t imagine that he would be in any shape to talk to anyone at that point.
Finally, Nick looked at me. “How are you holding up?”
I shrugged my shoulders and said nothing. I didn’t want to talk. Dalilah was safe, and Ryan was still in surgery. There wasn’t much more I could say at that point.
Then I was crying uncontrollably again. “Oh, Nick, what would happen if we lose him? I think that I would want to join him. I don’t see myself living without him.”
“Quit talking like that. We aren’t going to lose him, so you don’t have to worry about that. Now, stop. Just stop.” But I saw his face, and it was clear that he, too, was afraid of what would happen to both of us if Ryan, god forbid, didn’t make it out of surgery. He and Ryan had been friends since elementary school. His loss would be even more acutely felt than would mine.
To take my mind off of my horror, I decided to find out a little bit more about Ryan and Nick’s friendship. “How did you and Ryan meet?” I asked him.
“It was kinda funny,” he said. “It was in kindergarten. We didn’t have home room together, or nothing, so we didn’t see each other that much. But Ryan was on a tricycle, hogging it if I can recall, and I knocked him off it. He hit his head. I laughed at him, and he came after me. We got into a fight on the playground, and both of us ended up in the principal’s office. We became friends waiting there for the principal to come out and scold us.” He chuckled. “Both of us got in trouble at home, of course, him more than me. Goddamn, his dad sure was a bastard back then.”
“What happened to Ryan?”
“He got beat, of course. But that was nothing new. He was always being beat by Benjamin. Maggie was just too much of an ethereal hippy to stand up to Benjamin and his tyrannical ways.” He shook his head. “Poor Ryan. It seems that fate just never lets him catch a break. He meets you, the love of his life, but he can’t be happy because something is always waiting in the wings to snatch it away.”
“What about you? What’s going on in your life?”
“Eh, same old same old. I’m just about ready to give Rielle every piece of property I own, in exchange for her leaving me the hell alone. It’s not worth it. Love isn’t worth it. No offense.”
“Sometimes it is. Love. Sometimes it’s worth it.”
“Well, you guys got lucky in finding each other.”
“Yeah. I just hope that…” I trailed off, not wanting to finish that sentence. To think that Ryan wouldn’t make it through surgery was just too horrible.
“Listen, Ryan is a tough guy. He’s in amazing shape. He’s gonna pull through.”
I just nodded my head mutely, then stared at my hands. I felt awful. This was yet more agony. Everything that had happened up until this point felt like the end of the world – Rochelle’s attack, Andrew’s rape, Natalie’s pregnancy. It all chipped away at my soul, little by little. I bounced back after all of it, but there was a part of me that felt like I was permanently damaged.
Now this. This was far worse than anything else that had happened. Would I recover if he doesn’t make it? Would I want to? Would I be able to get out of bed in the morning without seeing his beautiful face? What would happen to Dalilah if I just fall apart? What would happen to Dalilah if I didn’t make it either?
She would be an orphan.
“Uh, Nick, I hate to bring this up. But, with Ryan in there, it is a reminder that life might be fleeting. If he doesn’t make it, god forbid, and something happens to me – would you take Dalilah?”
Nick just stared at me. “Don’t bring this up now. Nothing is going to happen to either one of you. Now stop it. Stop with the fatalistic bullshit.”
I sighed. Who would take Dalilah? My parents were way too old, my sister way too unstable. Nick was so good with her - he would be the obvious choice. But he was right, I shouldn’t be talking like this. It would just jinx everything.
We sat in silence some more, and were sitting there quietly like that when the doctor came out into the waiting room. His face was non-committal. My heart was in my throat, trying to read his expression.
“We’re through with surgery,” he said. “Your husband has been taken to the ICU.”
I started hyperventilating and shaking all over. I took Nick’s hand and gripped it tightly.
“However, there is still a great deal of swelling around the spinal cord. Hopefully when the swelling goes down, your husband will regain use of his lower extremities. But, for now, Mr. Gallagher is paralyzed from the waist down.”
“But he’s alive? He, he, he’s going to make it?” I gripped Nick’s hand even tighter.
“Barring any kind of further issue, such as infection or an embolism, there is a good chance that your husband will be able to go home in a matter of weeks.”
At that, Nick and I hugged each other tightly. We both were shaking, and I was crying uncontrollably again.
“When, when, when can I see him?” I asked.
“He’s in the ICU. You can see him now, but he’s not conscious.”
“Can Nick come too?”
“I’m terribly sorry. Only members of the immediate family can see him right now.”
I felt awful about that. If ever there was somebody who should be considered family to Ryan, it was Nick.
I looked at Nick, who looked pissed. But he nodded at me as I got up out of my chair to follow the doctor into the ICU.
Ryan was lying in the hospital bed, hooked up to a variety of scary-looking machines. His vitals seemed to be doing well, though, as I noticed that his heart rate was a steady 54 bpm, and his blood pressure was 105/64. He wasn’t on a ventilator. He appeared to be resting comfortably.
I went over to the bed, and took his hand. I smiled. “My turn now, huh? You were by my side 24/7 when I was recovering from Rochelle’s attack, now it’s my turn to be there for you. I hope that you can hear me. I love you more than I ever thought possible. I love you, Ryan Gallagher. You’re a part of me. And I’m going to help you get through this, just like you helped me get through Rochelle’s attack. We’re a team now.”
I smoothed back his dark hair, and touched his face. His skin felt cool and clammy, which somewhat startled me. He also looked deathly pale. I so wanted him to open those beautiful eyes and let me drown in their depths, as was usual. But he just laid there, breathing in and out laboriously. A nurse stood by with a chart, ready to come and take his vitals.
I sat there for as long as I could, just talking away to him. I couldn’t stop touching him. I thought that I would never again be able to touch him, never again be able to stroke him. Never again be able to run my fingers through his amazing mane. I was eternally grateful that I was given a second chance with him.
Finally, visiting hours were over. A nurse gently came up to me, putting her hands on my shoulders. “Mrs. Gallagher, visiting hours are over,” she said. “Let me help you back to the waiting room.”
I touched my fingers to my lips one last time, and placed them on his cheek. “I love you,” I told him. “I love you.”
I got back, and Nick was still there, reading something on his iPhone. He looked up at me. “How is he?”
“Resting comfortably,” I said. “Thank god. What time is it? I’m starving.”
“It’s just about 10 o’clock. Ryan was in surgery for some 14 hours.”
“Let’s get breakfast, huh?”
Chapter Three
Nick and I left the hospital and headed out to a local Denny’s. I dug into my scrambled eggs and bacon hungrily. I had no idea why I was so famished. I guess because I hadn’t eaten since…I couldn’t remember. I skipped lunch because of the stress of the deposition, then, of course, didn’t have dinner because, well, Andrew was there waiting for me when I got home from the courthouse.
Nick, for his part, got a Grand Slam with everything – bacon, eggs, hashed browns, pancakes and j
uice. Looking at his lean frame, I wondered where he put everything.
I didn’t feel like talking still. I was completely wrapped up in my own head.
“How are you holding up?” Nick asked.
“I don’t really know. I need to process everything, and it’s just impossible right now. Just impossible. It doesn’t even seem real. But Ryan made it through surgery, that’s what’s most important.” I didn’t want to think about Derrick Thomas, the defensive star for the Kansas City Chiefs, who made it through his surgery, was paralyzed, and died not a month later from an embolism, which was somewhat common in paralyzed patients. I also didn’t want to entertain the possibility that Ryan might acquire a drug resistant infection and not make it out of the hospital. Right now, I had to concentrate on the fact that he was alive. He wasn’t out of the woods, but he wasn’t dead, either.
“Do you want to tell me what happened?”
At first I shook my head, staring at my shaking hands that were gripping my glass of water. I wanted to throw up.
But Nick just stared at me, not talking. He didn’t try to fill the silence, so I hesitantly began my story.
“Andrew, he was uh, he was in my house. He was in my house, holding, holding, uh, Dalilah. He had, uh, a, a, g-g-g-un.” Now I was trembling wildly. “He had a gun, and he thought that I was his ex-wife, Cherry. Cherry. She-she-she’s dead, Cherry, she’s dead. Dead. He thought I was her, and he-he-he-he threatened me. As her. He threatened me, thinking I was her. And Ryan came in and s-s-sacrificed himself for me. He made it so that Andrew wanted to kill him, not me.”
“I’m not sure I’m following you.”
“Ryan came in, and he basically told A-A-A-ndrew th-th-at Andrew wanted him, not me. Cherry was cheating on A-A-An, the bad man, and the bad man wanted to kill me, because he thought I was Cherry. Ryan came in and told the bad man that he-he-he was the one who was cheating with Cherry, so the bad man wanted him, not me.”