True North

by Robin Huber

  “Don’t worry, I would have stopped you if you started talking dirty.” She laughs and elbows me playfully.

  By the time we make it to the waiting room, we’re both laughing, and I feel okay. I’m ready to start counting down the hours and minutes until I can see Gabe again.

  Chapter 24

  Liv

  Four hours have passed since they took Gabe back for surgery. Since I felt the warmth of his hand, since I heard his deep voice call my name, since I kissed his cupid’s bow lips. And every second that passes now, feels like an eternity.

  I keep looking at the door, waiting for Dr. Franklin, or somebody, anybody, to come in and tell us that the surgery is over and that it went well.

  Four hours.

  I check the time on my phone for the hundredth time.

  Four hours and five minutes.

  They probably spent the first hour prepping him, and it will most likely be another hour of post-op once the three hour surgery is over, so I’m trying not to let the worry get to me just yet.

  I send Trisha a text to let her know we’re still waiting. I’ve been keeping her in the loop all day. Audrey too.

  Audrey was so sweet to bring us lunch from the diner, and then she sat with me for an hour until she had to go back. She left me with a stack of magazines to help keep me occupied, but I’ve already thumbed through them all.

  I glance across the waiting room at my mom and dad. My mom smiles reassuringly and my dad gives me a thumbs up. They arrived shortly after Gabe was taken back. They look tired. So do Jackie and Danny. I’m guessing that means I probably do too. How can four hours of doing absolutely nothing be so exhausting?

  Maybe it’s the four hours of angst, anxiety, and fear we’ve been masking behind forced smiles and light conversation that has exhausted us all.

  I sigh and close my eyes, and pray—something I’ve done a hundred times today.

  Please let Gabe be okay. Let Dr. Franklin be standing behind that door, ready to tell us that Gabe is fine.

  To my utter shock, Dr. Franklin pushes through the door.

  I jump to my feet and so does everyone else, but none of us say anything.

  “The surgery went great,” Dr. Franklin says with a satisfied smile.

  My breath rushes out with a huge sigh of relief. Thank God.

  I don’t know if I’m doing it on purpose or not, but I’ve managed to tune out everyone else in the room besides Dr. Franklin. I think someone is hugging me, but all I can do is focus on him and ask, “Really? He’s really okay?”

  He crosses his arms over his chest and gives me a confident smile. “He’s great, Liv. He’s not awake yet, but his vitals look good, his brain activity is good. Everything looks good.”

  “Thank you,” I say with more gratitude than I have ever felt before.

  I turn to Jackie and Danny and my mom and my dad, taking turns hugging each of them. When we’ve finished rejoicing in Gabe’s successful surgery, I ask, “When can we see him? How long until he wakes up?”

  “Not long. Maybe another hour.”

  My heart flutters and I smile with nervous excitement. I can’t wait to see him. In fact, it’s taking everything in me not to burst through the door and run down the hall to find him. But I know that when he wakes up, we’ll have another obstacle to overcome.

  “Do you think he’ll be the same? Will he remember?” I ask, knowing good and well that Dr. Franklin can’t possibly know. But I have to ask. I have to try to prepare myself somehow.

  “There’s no reason to believe Gabe will have any negative side effects from the surgery. We were able to make a nice clean cut to remove the scar tissue. We won’t know for sure until he wakes up, but I don’t think you need to worry about that.”

  “Okay. Will someone come and get us as soon as he’s awake?”

  “Of course. Just sit tight for a little longer, okay?”

  * * *

  Six hours have passed since they took Gabe back. Almost two have passed since Dr. Franklin came to tell us he was out of surgery.

  “Something’s wrong,” I say, pacing around the room.

  “Now, come on, Liv, don’t start doing that,” my dad says, watching me.

  “Gabe should be awake by now. Why haven’t they come back to get us yet?”

  “Calm down, bébé,” Jackie says, touching my arm.

  “No, I’m not going to calm down. I’m going to find out what’s going on.”

  I go to the nurse’s station for the third time in the last hour, asking for information. Begging. “Please. Just tell me if something’s wrong.”

  “I’m sure nothing is wrong,” the nurse says calmly, “but I’ll page Dr. Franklin again. Someone should be out to get you soon, if you’ll just return to the waiting area.”

  I close my eyes and spin around, and reluctantly walk back to the waiting room. When I get there, I see Dr. Franklin standing by the door on the opposite side of the room where he stood before, flanked by my mom and dad, and Jackie and Danny. I close my eyes with a sigh of relief, but when I open them again, I notice that their faces aren’t right. Jackie’s hand is covering her mouth and she has tears in her eyes. Danny’s hand is on her shoulder and his face is pulled tight. He has the same little crease over his nose that Gabe gets whenever he’s upset.

  I gaze at them.

  The expressions on my parents’ faces are almost a mirror reflection of Jackie’s and Danny’s. They’re upset.

  Dr. Franklin looks at me. “Liv,” he says, but I don’t move. I don’t think I can. “Liv,” he says again, but I just stare at him.

  The next thing I know, someone is shaking my shoulders and calling my name. “Liv.”

  My eyes flash up to my dad. “No”—I shake my head and pull my arms away from my dad—“No!”

  Dr. Franklin puts his hand on my shoulder. “Liv—”

  “You said he would be fine! You said everything went perfectly.” Tears fall down my cheeks.

  “It did,” he says calmly, “the surgery went seamlessly and Gabe’s vitals are still good.”

  “What?” I say, bewildered. “Then why—”

  “He hasn’t woken up yet and we don’t know why.”

  “He...he hasn’t woken up?”

  Dr. Franklin shakes his head, and I see Jackie crying in my peripheral vision.

  “But he’s okay?” I ask hopefully.

  “It’s not that simple. Gabe should have woken up by now.”

  “Well, maybe it’s just taking longer than normal, maybe he’s just—”

  “He should have woken up by now,” Dr. Franklin repeats, and the gravity of his tone nearly takes me to my knees.

  The tears well in my eyes again. “Then why hasn’t he?”

  “We don’t know. We’ve gone over everything again and again. Nothing could have gone any better with the surgery. He sailed through it with flying colors.”

  “I don’t understand.” I close my eyes and try to see past the frustration and fear clouding my head.

  “We think that he might have had a stroke.”

  My stomach flips and twists into a sickening knot.

  “That could explain why he hasn’t woken up. We’ll need to run some more tests to be sure, but...”

  I’m on my knees.

  On the ground.

  Wrapped in my mother’s arms, crying against her shoulder.

  * * *

  Twelve hours have passed since they took Gabe back for surgery. Twelve hours have passed since I felt the warmth of his hand. Twelve hours have passed since I heard his deep voice call my name. And every second that passes now is agony. Not knowing why he won’t wake up, not knowing if he will wake up.

  “You can come in now,” a nurse says, stepping out into the hallway of the ICU. We’ve been lined up outside Gabe’s room, waiting to go in for the last ten minutes.

  “Go ahead, bébé,” Jackie says, giving my hand a squeeze. “We’ll give you a minute with him first.”

  I close my eyes and tr
y to mentally prepare myself to see him. I have no idea what he’s going to look like. And I have no idea what my reaction will be to seeing him unconscious.

  I inhale a tentative breath and follow the nurse into the room.

  My Gabriel. Lying in the bed, sleeping peacefully beneath the blanket draped over him.

  He’s perfect.

  His head is bandaged and I can see where it’s been shaved, but his face isn’t swollen and there’s no bruising that I can see.

  “There’s no breathing tube,” I say to the nurse. “I thought he would be on a ventilator.”

  “No, he’s breathing just fine on his own,” she says.

  I sit on the bed beside him and lean over him.

  “Careful of the monitors,” the nurse says.

  “Okay.” There are several wires attached to him and his IV is still connected.

  I stare at his beautiful face, lost in sleep. “Gabriel, it’s time to wake up. Wake up, baby.” I take his hand that doesn’t have tubes or wires attached to it and hold it in both of mine, savoring every ounce of warmth I can draw from it. I hold it to my cheek and cry. “Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.” But he doesn’t move.

  I kiss his mouth and whisper in his ear, “Come back to me, Gabriel, come back to me.” I sit up and wipe my eyes, and notice that the ink on my left hand is smeared.

  No! How could I be so careless? I’ve wiped away so many tears, his words are almost gone.

  I grab my phone and hold my hand up in front of the screen, and take a picture of the smudged words Gabe wrote. I squeeze my fist closed around them and lie across his chest. It’s warm beneath my cheek and slowly rises and falls with each quiet breath.

  I close my eyes and listen to his steady heartbeat. “Wake up, Gabriel,” I whisper, “please.”

  I hear the shuffling of footsteps entering the room, but I don’t move. If I lie here like this, with his warm skin under my cheek and his heartbeat against my ear, I can pretend that he’s here.

  * * *

  “She hasn’t moved,” my mother says.

  “The skin to skin contact is good for him,” Dr. Franklin says to her. “Any stimuli that might bring him back to consciousness is good.”

  I can still feel Gabe under me. I must have fallen asleep on him. I don’t open my eyes, but I can tell they’re swollen. They burn behind my closed eyelids and Gabe’s chest is damp under my cheek from where I was crying.

  “How long should we let her stay like that?”

  “She’s had a long day. You all have. Let her sleep. You should get some rest too.”

  My right arm is asleep, so I’m guessing I’ve been lying like this for a while. It must be late.

  “When will we get the test results from the CAT scan?” Jackie asks.

  “I actually expected them back by now. Let me go check on it and I’ll be back in a few minutes. But then I want you all to get some rest.”

  “Come on, Maggie,” my dad says, “let’s go home and get some sleep.”

  “I can’t leave her here like this.”

  “Momma, it’s okay,” I mumble against Gabe’s chest.

  She’s at my side instantly.

  I lift my head and realize they all are. My mom, my dad, Jackie, and Danny. They’re all hovered over me, hovered over Gabe.

  “Liv, honey—”

  “You can leave. I’m okay.” It’s a lie. I’m not okay. How could I be okay? How will I ever be okay? I sit up and shake my sleeping arm, and it pops and zaps all the way down to my fingertips. I look at Gabe. He still looks the same. My Gabriel. My sleeping Gabriel.

  “Liv, come home with us. You’ll feel so much better tomorrow if you sleep in a real bed.” The look in her eyes tells me she knows I’m not going to leave Gabe.

  “I won’t feel better until he wakes up. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “I’ll stay with her,” Jackie says. “If that’s okay with you, Liv. We can take turns staying up with him.” She smiles a gentle, sad smile. “You can sleep on the couch and I’ll take the chair. Then we can switch.”

  I nod. Jackie understands. She knows I won’t leave him. She knows I can’t leave him. She can’t leave him either.

  “Okay.”

  “Danny, you have to go check on Roxy.”

  Roxy! Oh my God, poor Roxy. I completely forgot about her. How could I forget about her? She’s probably so confused, wondering why no one’s come home yet. What if Gabe doesn’t wake up? What if he never comes home to her?

  I shake off the thought. That is not going to happen. It’s not going to happen.

  I wipe fresh tears that leak onto my cheek. “Please, Danny, you have to stay with her tonight.”

  Danny nods his head reluctantly. I know that he doesn’t want to leave Gabe, but the look on my face is enough to get him to go. “All right,” he says. “I’ll go. But I’ll be back first thing in the morning. Call me if anything changes.”

  “What time is it?” I ask anyone who will answer.

  “2:45...am,” my dad says. “It’s late, baby. I’ll see if the nurse can bring you a pillow.”

  “My stuff is in the car. I didn’t want to bring it up until Gabe was out of surgery.” My heart throbs, but I keep talking over it. “Would you mind bringing it up with you in the morning?”

  “Of course, baby. We’ll get it for you.”

  “We’ll bring you both breakfast in the morning,” my mom says.

  Jackie wraps her hand around my mom’s. “I don’t know what we would do without you and Duke.”

  “Call us if anything changes. Anything at all.”

  “I will.”

  Dr. Franklin walks back into the room just as the three of them are about to leave. He has a puzzled look on his face. “Gabe hasn’t had a stroke,” he says, shaking his head.

  Oh, thank God.

  “We’ll continue to run more tests, but nothing abnormal showed on the CAT scan.”

  A strange mix of relief and worry surges through me, adding to my exhaustion.

  He shakes his head and rubs his hand over the white-and-gray stubble that now covers his cheeks and chin. He’s been up all day too. “We’re not going to get any answers tonight, so I want you all to get some rest now.”

  We all nod with silent understanding.

  Dr. Franklin leaves the room and my parents and Danny follow.

  Jackie dims the lights and gestures to the couch. “Go on, bébé. Get some sleep. I’ll stay up with him. I’ll wake you if anything happens.”

  I press my lips to the back of his hand, giving it a firm squeeze, then I lay it gently on his stomach and stand for the first time in hours. My head spins and Jackie catches my arm as I stumble.

  “Careful.”

  I inhale a deep breath and blink until the white spots leave my vision, then I force my heavy legs to carry me to the small couch across the room. I lie down and close my eyes and after a few seconds, or minutes, or maybe hours, I fall asleep.

  Chapter 25

  Liv

  Three days have passed since they took Gabe back for surgery.

  Three days since I’ve heard his voice, since I looked into his familiar eyes.

  “Wake up, baby...please, wake up,” I whisper in his ear. I sit up and look at him, unmoving and still. I reach for his face and rub my thumb over his scruffy cheek. “I know you’re in there. Just open your eyes. Open your eyes, Gabe.” I stare at him, feeling helpless. I stare at the wall above his bed, feeling helpless. I look around the empty room, feeling helpless.

  I am completely helpless.

  My parents left for the night and Danny convinced Jackie to go home and sleep in her own bed. I couldn’t be convinced. I won’t leave this room until Gabe wakes up. And even then, I won’t leave this hospital until he does. I have my clothes, my pillow, my toiletries. There’s a bathroom with a shower and a couch for me to sleep on, when I’m not lying in the bed beside him. There’s absolutely nothing that I need that isn’t in this room.

  Except for Roxy. I mi
ss her.

  The doctors still don’t know why Gabe hasn’t woken up. One theory is that he did suffer a stroke, but they can’t see it on the CAT scan. Another theory is that this is just his body’s way of healing from the surgery.

  I’m going with the latter.

  “I have a surprise for you,” I say to him, reaching into his get-well bag. One of the nurses told me that coma patients can sometimes still hear what’s going on around them. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I pull the photo book out and lay it across his chest. I know he can’t see the pictures, but maybe if he hears me talking about them, he’ll open his eyes.

  I flip to the first page and point to a picture of me, him, and Brandon from when we were ten. Brandon’s arm is in a cast. “You remember this, Gabe? When you tackled Brandon in the backyard playing football and broke his arm?” I smile and shake my head. “Brandon was so mad because he couldn’t play pee-wee football that fall.” I drag my hand to the opposite page and point to one of just me and Gabe around the same age. It’s one of my favorites. Gabe had probably just done something ridiculous, like use Cheetos to make a walrus face—one of his many childhood talents—because he’s smiling smugly at me and I’m laughing with my eyes closed tight and my head thrown back.

  “I thought you were the funniest boy I’d ever met,” I say softly. “I was so jealous that Brandon got to spend so much time with you.”

  I flip a few pages and point to a picture from when we were sixteen. All three of us made this one. “This was spring formal. This was the night you asked me to be your girlfriend. Remember?” Gabe and Brandon are both wearing black suits and I’m wearing a blue dress, standing between them on my parents’ sidewalk. “God, I was so in love with you. At sixteen, before you ever kissed me or even held my hand, I already loved you.” I lean over and kiss his forehead. “Where are you?” I whisper.

  “It’s good to keep talking to him,” Nina says from the doorway.

  I look up and give a half-hearted smile.

  Dr. Franklin follows her in. “How ya doin’, Liv?”

  I shrug. “Okay.”

  “Liv, we need to talk to you about something.” His tone is serious and I immediately tense upon hearing it. I’m so raw right now, the slightest shift in the atmosphere of the room feels like sandpaper rubbing against my skin.