Risking It All

by Nina Darnton

  He told Berta what happened to Danny and asked if she could please stay with Griffin for a day or two while he was gone. She agreed immediately and told him not to worry, however long it took, but he assured her he wouldn’t be long. He called Marcia’s hotel in Johannesburg, even though he knew she wouldn’t be back to it for a few more days. He left a message saying that it was urgent that she call him immediately. As an afterthought, he realized he should tell her the urgency wasn’t about Griffin, so he added an addendum to the message saying that Danny was very ill and she needed to come home. He wondered briefly if she would be relieved that it was Danny and not Griffin who was so ill. He knew he was.

  As he packed an overnight bag and changed from his jeans and T-shirt into slacks and an oxford shirt and jacket, he thought again about those years after the accident. He tried to remember how old he was at the time of the train crash and quickly did the math to figure it out. It surprised him to realize that he was just eleven when it happened—the same age as Danny was when his mother died and he came to live with them.

  As Jeff grabbed his bag and headed for the parking garage, he tried to dismiss this line of thought—he had managed not to think about it for the entire year Danny had been with them except in passing and never as a parallel situation. But now he couldn’t stop his thoughts from cascading over him, like a waterfall that held him under as he struggled to come up. Why hadn’t he had more sympathy for Danny, especially in the light of his own problems at his age? He didn’t know—maybe it was that Danny was so different from him, Jeff never saw a way of identifying with him. Following his father’s accident, Jeff had tried to compensate for his problems at home with frantic and productive activity at school. He was relentlessly, if only superficially, cheerful and competent, studious and cooperative, all the qualities that led to success and to a scholarship at Yale, which eventually gave him second and third chances at happiness. Danny, he thought, well, he was different. But who knows, he admitted to himself, maybe another reason he never identified with Danny was that he didn’t want to open that particular emotional door.

  Anyway, it was too late now. But it struck Jeff how so much of how people behave is layered in from childhood. He thought about Marcia. Her need for a baby and then her devotion to both children were not hard to trace. She had been groomed as a nurturer all her life. Her mother had suffered with various neurological complaints from the time Marcia was seven or eight, he recalled. Marcia had taken care of her and supported her father through her mother’s slow deterioration and death. Her father had remarried and moved to London, visiting once a year. From the beginning of their marriage, Jeff mused, Marcia had yearned to be a mother, the kind she had lost when her mother got sick: devoted, competent, protective. He thought it odd that she didn’t welcome her freedom for a while, but yearned to return to the nurturing role she’d known most of her life. He wished he could reach her now.

  He called his office and explained what happened and told them he had to be away for a day or two. He retrieved the car he had parked just a little while before, and, having looked up the hospital’s address, entered it into his GPS. The hospital was not far from the Children’s Village, which was on the outskirts of Danbury. It would take about two hours to get there. He put the radio on satellite and listened to R&B, turning up the volume to drown out his thoughts for the entire trip.

  He found the hospital easily, parked the car and entered. A receptionist on the ground floor called Dr. Bernstein and then directed Jeff to the elevator, which he took, as instructed, to the seventh floor neurological ICU. The receptionist there asked him to stop at the desk and sign in; the doctor would meet him shortly.

  The first thing he noticed about Dr. Bernstein was how young he looked. He was not tall, probably only about five-seven, a good four inches shorter than Jeff. He wore wire-rimmed glasses and had a round, soft face and stocky build. He approached Jeff right away and shook his hand. He seemed kind and sympathetic, yet professional. Jeff thought of himself as young at forty-one. But this guy, this expert in whose hands lay Danny’s life, couldn’t have been more than twenty-eight. Jeff knew it was a common experience for a person who has aged out of childhood and even young adulthood to be surprised by how young his doctor suddenly seems—your image of a doctor, Jeff thought, is formed in your childhood and, until experience teaches you any different, that image of an older, wiser, expert who knows so much more than you do will most likely remain. It’s the equivalent of visiting a house you lived in as a child and finding it so much smaller than you remember. But Jeff was still young enough, and healthy enough, to have not yet experienced that jarring farewell to his youth. Still, he knew enough about hospitals to understand that this young man was probably a resident, still in training, and not the attending physician, who would be more expert.

  After greeting each other, Jeff asked if there was anything more he should know, any development in the last two hours since they’d spoken. “I’m afraid not,” Dr. Bernstein said, looking at Danny’s chart.

  “Should I speak to the attending doctor?” Jeff asked.

  “She has been to see him already today and we have been over his condition together,” the doctor said. “If you would like to talk to her, we can probably arrange it. But maybe you would like to see him first.”

  “Could you tell me a little more about his condition?” Jeff asked.

  “Of course. According to the teacher who brought him in, he had an upper respiratory infection that rapidly became worse. It turned into high fever with an acute headache and neck pain. This is consistent with bacterial meningitis. Unfortunately, they didn’t recognize that he needed hospitalization right away. He had already passed into the latter stages of the illness when he came in: he had photophobia—an inability to bear light, along with lethargy, confusion. He was still conscious when he arrived but shortly after he fell into a coma and is now unresponsive.”

  Jeff was silent. This was worse than he had thought. He felt a flash of anger at the people in the Children’s Village. Why didn’t they bring him in right away? When he expressed this to the doctor he was told it was a common problem with meningitis, that it progressed so quickly people often waited too long to come to the hospital.

  “We are doing everything we can for him,” Dr. Bernstein said. “Shall we go to him now?” Jeff nodded grimly.

  They walked down the hall together. Jeff could see that each patient was in a separate room consisting of three walls and a sliding glass door, which faced a central hub. This, he was told, was the nurses’ station and the doctor pointed out that the staff could view the patients from the hallway even before entering the room. Each room contained a separate bank of machines and wires. The doctor stopped in front of Room 721. He took a hospital gown and face mask from a shelf, and asked Jeff to put them on. “This is both to protect you from the infection and also to protect him from any germs you may be carrying,” he said. “Just be sure to wash your hands every time you enter and leave his bedside. There’s a sink and Purell in every room.” They stood outside the door and Jeff peered in. He had never seen anything like this before and at first all he could concentrate on was the technology, it looked to him the way he imagined a spaceship. The room was spotlessly clean, with shiny brown linoleum floors that looked freshly waxed and bright fluorescent lighting. He had avoided looking at the small figure in the bed, but he forced himself, and saw that he was attached to wires that led to monitors of every kind with machines that hummed or beeped steadily in the background. Those non-human sounds were the only noise he heard, otherwise it was deathly quiet. When Dr. Bernstein spoke, he lowered his voice to a hoarse whisper, “Before you see him you should prepare yourself. He is on intravenous antibiotics and steroids to reduce the swelling in the brain. You will also notice a tube that goes down his throat. This goes into his lungs and breathes for him. It delivers breath every few seconds.” His tone had changed from sympathetic to professorial. There was even a touch of pride as he explained th
e hospital’s equipment.

  Dr. Bernstein opened the door and they entered the room. The doctor used the Purell dispenser to disinfect his hands and Jeff did the same. Then Jeff forced himself to approach the bed. He closed his eyes for a second and shook his head. “The poor kid. How did this happen to him?” he mumbled. Danny looked so pale, so vulnerable, so much a very sick, very helpless child. Jeff felt a wave of sympathy, followed by remorse for having assumed Danny had done something wrong. Was this child the danger he was trying to protect Griffin from? What had he been thinking?

  He stared at him, then turned to the doctor.

  “Does he feel pain?”

  “No. He’s in a coma. Even if he were awake, he would be heavily sedated or he wouldn’t be able to tolerate the breathing tube.”

  Although at first Jeff had to force himself to look at Danny, once he did he couldn’t take his eyes off the boy. He looked away just long enough to notice a screen above Danny’s bed with graphs composed of different-colored lights. Seeing him looking at it, Dr. Bernstein said, again in that same odd tone of a teacher instructing his first-year medical students, “That is a monitor that tells us his vital statistics. There are electrodes on his chest and a blood pressure cuff that cycles every fifteen minutes. He also has a blood pressure monitor in the artery of his wrist. If there is a problem, if his heartbeat slows or changes, if his blood pressure is altered, an alarm will go off and the nurse will come over immediately. If it is serious, she will call for the code blue team.”

  “Code blue?”

  “That is a group of doctors and nurses on emergency call to try to revive a patient whose heart stops.”

  Jeff nodded. Now he was staring with alarm at a piece of metal that seemed to be sticking through the top of Danny’s head. “What is that?” he asked, frowning.

  “It’s an ICP—an intercranial pressure monitor; it monitors the pressure so that the swelling in the head doesn’t crush the brain.”

  He had gone too far. “Crush the brain?” Jeff repeated, horrified, raising his voice above the hum of the machines and the doctor’s hushed tones. “Is that a possibility?”

  “Uh, no, probably not. I mean, that’s why we put the ICP in, to avoid that.”

  There was a chair next to Danny’s bed and Jeff lowered himself into it. “Look, this is a lot to take in. I’d like to stay with him for a while. Would that be all right?”

  “Yes, of course. You can stay with him as long as you like.”

  “At some point I’d like to speak to the attending physician.”

  Dr. Bernstein looked a little nervous but he said that of course Jeff could see her. He informed him that Dr. Gillian Flynn came in to see her ICU patients every morning. Jeff said he would be there to meet her.

  When the doctor left, Jeff turned again toward Danny. He saw his chest moving up and down as the breathing machine fed him air, and took in all the wires and machines that were keeping him alive. He couldn’t bear to keep looking at him so he took a deep breath and looked away, trying to process everything that had happened. He thought of Marcia and knew how devastated she would be to learn of this, how it would be even worse for her because she hadn’t been at his side. He turned his gaze again toward Danny, unchanged, so still. A nurse came to his side.

  “You can talk to him,” she said.

  “What?”

  “You can talk to him. Take his hand. Rub his arm. Speak to him.”

  Jeff was confused, tentative. “I thought he was in a coma; the doctor said he’s unresponsive.”

  “Well, yes, he is. But no one really knows what he can hear or not hear. Talk to him. It can’t hurt him and it might help you.”

  Jeff looked up at her. “I’m Maria Hernandez,” she said. “I’m one of the nurses here. I look after him.”

  “Thank you,” Jeff murmured. She smiled, reached out to squeeze his shoulder and moved on to another patient.

  Jeff’s eyes fastened again on Danny. He didn’t know what to say. The gulf between what he’d felt just a few hours ago and what he felt now was too great, and to him it seemed awkward, even self-indulgent, to acknowledge it. What good would that do now? He had missed his chance to do the right thing for this boy. But he knew he wouldn’t be going home that day, or any day, until whatever was going to happen, happened, or until Marcia arrived. He left the room and took the elevator to the main floor so he could use his phone. He called Berta and told her that he might not be able to come home for longer than he’d thought. “Can you manage?” he asked her.

  “Don’t worry, Mr. Jeff,” she said. “I can stay. I will take good care of Griffin. You take care of Danny till Mrs. Marcia gets there.”

  Jeff went back upstairs and returned to his place at Danny’s side. “I’m sorry, Danny,” he whispered, not wanting anyone to hear him. He couldn’t think of anything else to say so he leaned back in the chair, took Danny’s hand in his own and squeezed it lightly. He didn’t expect any reaction and didn’t get any. When he released it, it flopped down, as though lifeless. Then he reached over and with his fingertips, very gently rubbed Danny’s arm.

  36

  After a while Jeff got used to the eerie quiet punctuated by the steady hum and rhythmic beeps of the machines. He must have dozed because the nurse who had spoken to him earlier had been replaced by an older woman he hadn’t seen before, and he hadn’t noticed the change of shifts. He rubbed his eyes, stretched in his chair and looked over at Danny. He appeared the same. Jeff’s stomach rumbled and he realized he was hungry. He looked at his watch and saw that it was a little after six in the morning. He hadn’t had anything to eat since brunch the day before. He introduced himself to the new nurse, asked her where the hospital cafeteria was and thanked her when she directed him to it. It was on the fifth floor so he took the elevator down two flights. It was an average institutional cafeteria, Formica tables, unappetizing food including hot dishes that looked overcooked and were smothered in some generic tomato-based sauce, and cauldrons of thick, creamy soup. He decided on a cheese sandwich on whole wheat bread, then picked up a donut and a cup of coffee. He wanted to check on Griffin, but it was too early so he killed time by picking up the business section of yesterday’s New York Times, which he spotted on a nearby table. He glanced at it while he ate and, after another half hour, called home to check on Griffin. All was well, Berta said. She was full of questions about Danny, and Jeff just reiterated that he was very sick and it wasn’t clear what would happen next. He asked if Marcia had called and was disappointed, though not surprised, to hear that she hadn’t—he knew she’d be out of contact. They had discussed it over and over, and he had convinced her that nothing bad would happen, that she could feel confident he would take care of everything. He had believed that, but only up to a point. This was something they had never even imagined—just as they had never imagined that Eve might die on the delivery table. How could they have had such bad luck again? He felt like they were cursed.

  He thought he should make a hotel reservation and checked hotels.com on his phone, looking for a place as close as possible to the hospital. There was a Hilton just a few blocks away and he drove there, registered and brought his bag to his room. He was tired, but he didn’t lie down, though he was tempted, because he wanted to go back to see Danny again and catch the attending physician on her morning rounds.

  Back at the hospital, he took his place once again at Danny’s bedside. Nothing had changed. Looking at him so still and unresponsive, he wondered if he would suffer brain damage if he lived. This was one of the questions he wanted to put to the doctor. He had picked up a newspaper at the hotel and taken his iPad from his overnight bag so he was equipped to pass the time while he waited. He looked at the top stories in his New York Times but found he couldn’t concentrate. He stared again at Danny. He remembered what the nurse had advised so, awkwardly, self-consciously, he leaned over to talk to him. He didn’t know what to say so he just started narrating what was happening. “Hey, Danny,” he began, “s
o I’m here because Marcia is in South Africa and she’s in the bush in a kind of retreat with one of her writers so I can’t reach her to tell her about you. You know if she knew, she’d fly right back as soon as she could get on a plane, right? I mean, that’s the only reason she’s not here, you know that, don’t you?” He looked closely at Danny’s face to see if any of his words seemed to register, but it looked as blank and still as it had before he spoke. I don’t think he can hear me, Jeff thought, but the nurse was right, I can’t know for sure. He continued to talk. It made him feel a little better. She was right about that too.

  Another hour passed and still the doctor hadn’t appeared so he left the room and asked the nurse when she might arrive. She had already come and gone, he was told, while he was away. Surprised she had come so early, and disappointed, he sat down again at Danny’s bedside. He didn’t know what else to say to him, so he read the paper out loud, commenting on the different stories that he thought Danny would find interesting, telling him about movies he’d seen and a new television series he might like. He promised to take him to see Hamilton on Broadway when he recovered, saying whatever came into his head just to talk.

  Several hours went by and he was beginning to feel hungry again. He thought he’d return to the cafeteria, grab a bite, then return one last time to see Danny before going back to the hotel. He was tired and needed to sleep, he thought, though he wanted to be sure he’d return early enough the next morning to see the attending physician. As he was gathering his things, a new nurse came over to Danny. She nodded at Jeff but wasn’t friendly, though she did seem efficient, which was what he cared about. He asked what she was doing as she checked Danny’s chart hanging above his bed. She explained that it was time to add medicine—more antibiotics and steroidal anti-inflammatories—to the fluid and nourishment that were flowing into Danny’s veins. Jeff nodded, watching her bustle about, injecting something into a tube that was attached to the IV bag on a stand next to Danny’s bed. Just as she finished they could hear another patient call out in pain and the nurse left Danny’s room and rushed to his side. Jeff got up to go and was glad to leave—the cries of distress from the other room were unnerving.