Unravel (Club V Book 1)

by Gisele St. Claire

  I had considered cutting him off and calling him a cab, but after hearing that I didn’t have the heart. I had no idea how recent the loss might have been.

  “This one is on me, Tommy.” I said, sliding another scotch his way. “Just take it easy, okay? I don’t want to have to worry about you getting home safely or not looking after yourself.”

  He looked like he was about to tear up and I fumbled to find some napkins in case he needed them.

  “Samara, sweetheart. Just promise me this: Do whatever it takes to keep your family together. I don’t care how hard it is, nothing is worse than being alone in this world. Things get ripped away from you and you might have no control over the situation, but when you do—for god’s sake do whatever you have to for your family.”

  I nodded quickly and moved down the bar to help another club member. It wasn’t often that I had these kinds of conversations at my bar. After all, we were a sex club. There was no mistaking that when you walked out on the floor. But the barstools tended to be filled by people who were sitting on the outside edge of all of this sex and excitement. It was as if they wanted to be a part of it, but somehow something in them kept them from being fully present and taking advantage of the situation. Which was a real shame considering the premium they were paying to walk through the door and sit and be served drinks by me.

  I was getting a little introspective where I stood drying some glasses behind the bar. Maybe all that stuff about standing on the outside and not participating was something I should think about in my own life. I was spending so much time on work and school that there was a lot I was missing out on. There was a chance I needed to heed my own words and start applying them to my life if I was going to be handing out this kind of advice from behind my bar.

  “How’s Tommy?” Suzy asked as she came to stand beside me. “That looked like it was about to go right down the toilet.”

  “Yeah, I think it’s okay now. I’m a little worried about him, but he seems to at least have a good handle on what’s important in life. I just had no idea he had been through that kind of trauma.”

  Suzy looked out across the room at our Friday night crowd. It was pretty tame for the moment but would undoubtedly get rowdier as the evening went on.

  “You just never know what people are carrying with them.”

  I nodded and suddenly felt my phone vibrate. I didn’t often receive calls while I was at work, so I reached for the phone and saw that it was my mom.

  “That’s weird,” I said under my breath. “Suzy, I’m going to take this. Be back in a second.”

  I rounded the corner and answered the call.

  “Hey Mom, what’s up?”

  “Honey, you need to get to the hospital. Your brother collapsed during his football game and they’ve rushed him to the emergency room. We’re here now and I’m…I’m not sure what they’re going to do…”

  “What?! Mom, I’ll be right there. Is Dad with you?”

  “He’s in the room with Josh right now. Your brother is conscious again, but they are going to take him back for some tests. Things are really up in the air right now and we don’t want to leave him alone. If you can get out of work I think it would be best if you could get here…soon, honey.”

  I ended the call and headed back around to the bar. My emotions must have been showing all over my face because Suzy realized immediately that something was very wrong.

  “What’s happened? Do you need to leave?” She asked, her voice full of concern.

  “Yeah,” my voice came out thick and cracking. I nodded my head. “Yes, I’ve got to go. It’s my brother. Don’t know what’s going on but he collapsed during his football game and now they’ve got him at the emergency room. My mom…my mom seems to think I need to be there so…”

  “Go, get out of here now. Get your purse and go.”

  In a daze I stumbled down the hallway to the dressing room and grabbed my things from my locker before rushing out of the club and out to my car.

  It all happened so quickly from there. I had no memory of the route I took to the hospital. It was all muscle memory from when I had driven every day to see my grandfather. All the way there the only thing I could think about was how much I loved my brother and how I would do anything in the world to make sure he was okay. He was such a strong, fun guy. Always in the middle of something, always making people laugh. People couldn’t help but smile whenever Josh was around and everyone loved him.

  The thought of him lying there in a hospital bed, prone and with tubes and wires connected to him terrified me. He was my little brother, although we weren’t that far apart in age. Sure we had fought like cats and dogs growing up, but the truth was that he was my closest family member. There wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do to try to make life easier for him.

  Tommy’s words came back to me and I shuddered. It was too eerie to have just had that conversation and then be faced with potential tragedy.

  “Please, let him be okay,” I said aloud to the air as I sped along the road to the hospital.

  I arrived, hardly knowing how I had gotten there at all, and parked in the emergency room parking area. Running up to the automatic doors I waited as they opened slowly and cursed them as I bolted into the waiting area of the emergency room.

  Neither of my parents were in sight so I made my way to the front desk.

  “Josh…Tanza,” I said, only then realizing I was out of breath.

  The nurse looked up from her computer. “Take a deep breath honey. Are you okay? Do you need to see a doctor?”

  I shook my head, exasperated and struggling to find the words I needed in the moment. It was all too much and I was overwhelmed, not knowing where my parents were or how Josh was doing.

  “My brother. An ambulance brought my brother here.” I took another deep breath. “He collapsed at his football game.”

  That seemed to ring a bell and she nodded and pointed down a hallway. “Football player, that’s right. Curtain three. It should be fine for you to go in there now.”

  I hurried down the hall and read the numbers that were posted above the different curtained sections of the emergency room area. I reached Curtain three and to my surprise, it was empty and there were fresh new sheets on this bed. I whirled around, shocked and scared at what this might mean, but thankfully a nurse standing nearby read the situation and rushed over to me.

  “Looking for the football player?”

  I nodded affirmatively at her.

  “It’s okay, they’ve moved him up to the third floor. If you’ll just head up there and check at the nurse’s station they’ll be able to send you to him.

  I felt like it was all taking too long. I just wanted to get to Josh’s side and make sure everything was going to be okay. At this point I had no idea what was going on, what had really happened, or if he was in any immediate danger. The fact that he had been moved to a real room didn’t give me any comfort and I wondered what on earth it could all be about as I raced back down the hall and into one of the elevators.

  The third floor was a flurry of activity and I was deposited right outside of the nurse’s station.

  “Excuse me, my brother is Josh Tanza. I was told he’s up here.” I looked around at the nurses behind the desk and waited for one of them to show me a little mercy.

  One of the male nurses nodded. “Yeah, the football player. He’s in 308.”

  Now certain where my brother was, I was in less of a hurry because I wasn’t sure what I was walking into. My mom hadn’t had the time to explain everything on the phone and now I had to face the fact that Josh was really, truly ill.

  The door was open and a doctor was exiting the room as I approached it. My parents were standing on either side of Josh’s bed and my brother was lying there, hooked up to several different monitors, looking so pale you would have thought he had either seen a ghost or somehow morphed into a Casper-like version of himself.

  “Oh my god, Josh.” I rushed to my mother’s side but hesitat
ed before leaning in to hug my brother, opting instead to squeeze his hand. He made a strong fist, but not nearly as strong as I knew he was capable of and that concerned me.

  “Honey, I’m so glad you’re here,” my mom said as she embraced me. My dad came around to hug us both tightly while Josh looked up from his hospital bed with a slight grin on his face.

  “You guys having fun?” He asked.

  I rolled my eyes at him. “Hey dude, you be nice. You’ve got us all worried. What’s going on with you?” I posed the question to my mom and dad as much as to Josh.

  “We’re still waiting to hear a few results from the doctor,” my dad said calmly. He looked rough, like whatever he had watched happen to my brother on the football field had taken some years off of his life. For all I knew it might have.

  Josh didn’t look well. He was pale and his skin was clammy and although I knew he hated it, I kept checking his temperature with the back of my hand.

  “You’re too cold, Josh.”

  “You’re telling me,” he shot back. “And they won’t let me wear a shirt yet. I’ve got to stay hooked up to all of these things for a while.”

  “Well, they’ve got to find out what’s going on. My guess is that a cheeseburger is to blame for it. Somehow, someway, it’s a cheeseburger.”

  “Ha-ha,” Josh said, not finding the remark humorous in the least. “For your information I have been eating a healthy, protein-filled diet. Trying to keep myself lean.”

  He didn’t look lean though. He looked puffy, like he had consumed just a little too much sodium. I was worried, less so than I had been on the way over, but still enough that I made a conscious effort to hide the emotion from my face as much as possible.

  “Mom, Dad, do you guys need anything? I could go get you some snacks or a coffee or something. Whatever you need.”

  My mom shook her head. “Gerry and I want to stay here so that we don’t miss the doctor. There’s no need for you to go to any trouble for us.”

  “It’s no trouble at all, Mom. Really, I would be happy to do something for you.” I paused then, listening to myself, taking a moment to understand that what I was truly doing was making an attempt to rescue myself from the proceedings going on right now with my family. It was hard to be in the room, to see my little brother hooked up to these machines and absolutely helpless. This wasn’t the way that things were supposed to be, not for someone his age with so much promise in his life. Josh had a future in front of him, one that was looking bright. How was it possible for him to be facing something of this magnitude, whatever it was?

  I felt the tears welling in my eyes and I moved away from the bed to sit in one of the chairs in the room, burying my face in my hands. It was ignorant and silly to be questioning all of this. Of course something like this could be happening to my family—people encountered these things every day and we were no different. It was only that it had been so long since we had seen any kind of tragedy and none of it had ever been in my immediate family. What I was dealing with was ignorance and a sort of privilege—I had never had to witness a health crisis like this and now that one was right in the middle of my family, it was like a bomb had gone off. It was only that now I was close enough to feel the impact of such a thing.

  My dad came over and put his arm around my shoulder and comforted me while I cried. This wasn’t about me, but I had to get the emotions out. I wanted the same thing my parents wanted—to find out what was going on with Josh and to make sure we did whatever it took to see him well again.

  Chapter 6

  It felt like ages waiting for one of the doctors to come back in with some test results to discuss with us. For a moment we started to wonder if it would be during the next morning’s rounds, but all of us knew we weren’t going anywhere until we had some word about Josh’s condition.

  One of the doctor’s had come in during the middle of the night to go over the event that happened to Josh on the football field.

  “It was, technically speaking, a heart attack,” he said.

  I gripped my mom’s arm, steeling myself as much as making sure she wasn’t going to collapse right there beside Josh’s bed.

  “What? It can’t be.” My dad was beside himself. “He’s only 17…I’ve heard of that sort of thing, but isn’t that rare?”

  The doctor made a kind of pained face. “Well, it all depends on the sort of event that led to the heart attack. So that’s what we’re looking at now. While most of these things can be spotted easily after an event like this, Josh’s was a pretty minor thing—all things considered. It’s the sort of thing some people experience and are often able to go on about their day though in some terrible discomfort. In a way he was lucky that he lost consciousness, but that adds another element to it.”

  “So, when will we know something concrete?” My mom asked.

  “I’ve handed this over to one of my colleagues who has a little more experience with pediatric cardiac events such as this. Your son, while almost a grown man, is still technically a kid. What he has going on here is likely something that has been going on for a while. What we’re looking at now is the cause of the event and what we can do to prevent another one from happening.”

  I listened intently as the doctor spoke, not wanting to miss a word. Both of my parents were so caught up in all of this that I knew it could be valuable for me to be their ears in these situations. Sometimes it was easy to miss out on a word here or there or misinterpret what the doctors were saying.

  “For instance,” the doctor went on, “if Josh were a 45-year-old, beer-guzzling, pizza eating contest winning guy who looked like he was carrying around a keg in his gut, I would have a pretty clear guess as to what the cause of his issues were. However, Josh is 17 and that on its own makes this a significantly murkier case to look at. He’s healthy by all accounts, was playing football when this happened, and I’m guessing has been going to two-a-day practices since late summer?”

  Josh nodded, finally entering into the discussion about his health.

  “Ever had any chest pains during practice, Josh?”

  He shook his head. “Nah, I mean…nothing more than usual. Like, not my chest but in my stomach. But that’s just the normal thing. We run so much we puke in the early days of practice. I’m just like every other guy on my team as far as that goes.”

  The doctor marked something on a clip board. “Do you ever feel out of breath for no good reason?”

  Josh thought about it for a moment. “Well, I had asthma when I was little and sometimes I feel like that is flaring up.”

  That statement caught the doctor’s attention. “Okay, that right there is the sort of thing I’m looking for in a person’s medical history. It’s the kind of thing that people tend to forget. You don’t think about him having asthma when he was little and then when similar symptoms crop back up when he’s 17, he just thinks it’s a touch of the asthma coming back. The truth of that is—and this is just me hypothesizing and in no way a diagnosis—the way your bronchial tubes work and where they are placed, when there is stress on them and you’re having an asthma attack or something close to one it can feel like tightening along with the shortness of breath. Does that sound like what you’ve been experiencing?”

  Josh nodded and looked back and forth between my parents.

  “So the thing with that is—a lot of things can feel like an asthma attack. Now it’s usually the reverse happening, like someone coming in with tightness in their chest and shortness of breath, thinking they have had a heart attack. In those cases it’s usually something else—like a panic attack, asthma, costochondritis, or any number of conditions than can occur in the chest wall. In your situation, however, I believe we have a cardiac event or condition that has been masking itself as your asthma symptoms returning to haunt you.”

  It was all a lot to take in and the doctor left us with that information to digest for a few hours before his colleague followed up.

  At nearly dawn, the specialist came in and h
e was much more abrupt in tone than the other doctor had been.

  “Josh, Mr. and Mrs. Tanza, I’m Dr. Douglas and I’m going to cut right to the chase here.”

  None of us had gotten much sleep in the hospital room and bleary-eyed we looked at the doctor awaiting what he had to say about Josh’s prognosis and recovery.

  “I was able to look at the images we got of Josh’s heart and I have been monitoring all the information these machines have gathered throughout the night.” He tapped one of the machines that was connected to Josh with several different wires. “It took some real searching, but I was able to locate the source of the problem. Josh has got a very tiny hole in his heart.”

  My mother gasped audibly and held onto my father’s hand for dear life.

  “Typically that is the sort of thing that rights itself as the kid grows. In some cases it becomes a situation that needs to be rectified with surgery. In even rarer cases though we see situations where, because the issue has gone on so long unchecked—or because of other reasons in this case—that surgery doesn’t appear to be an option.”

  “What do you mean—you can’t perform surgery to fix this problem?” My dad asked, astonished.

  Dr. Douglas shook his head. “I’m afraid not. What was found near the hole was something more serious. Josh’s heart is severely malformed. One of the chambers is larger than it is supposed to be. It’s pumping blood in a way that is very difficult for the rest of his heart to keep up with. That, combined with the hole, has made a very serious situation indeed. I don’t want to alarm you, but the truth is that this is a very grave situation and you need to know it now so you are prepared to make the decisions that are going to happen in front of you in the coming days.”

  I sat there in shock, not entirely sure what the doctor was going to tell us next. What it sounded like from here was that there wasn’t anything he could do to help my brother and that thought was enough to knock me sideways.