Coast Road

by Barbara Delinsky

  “Not even for a good cause?” Charity fund-raisers were an integral part of social life in the Bay Area, particularly for someone like Jack. He needed to see and be seen. It was good for business.

  Sadly, she said, “I can’t paint here.”

  And painting was her world, which made him even more defensive and annoyed. “Every artist gets blocks.”

  “It’s more than that.” Those folded arms hugged her middle. “I’m dried up, creatively dead. I can’t see color here. I can’t feel subjects the way I used to. I don’t need a shrink to tell me the problem. Art imitates life. I’m not happy here. I’m not satisfied. I don’t feel complete. You and I are apart more than we’re together.”

  “Then travel with me,” he urged, shifting the responsibility to her.

  She rolled her eyes. “We’ve been through this.”

  “Right. You won’t leave the girls. You do it for your work, but not for mine. How do you think that makes me feel? Like a second banana, is how it makes me feel.”

  “Jack, they’re babies.”

  “They’re seven and nine. They can live without you for a handful of days here and there.”

  “Handfuls of days add up. And maybe it’s me. Maybe I can’t live without them. It’s different for mothers. Very different.”

  They had been through that before, too. He tossed more ties on the bed.

  “Look at those,” Rachel cried. “Look at those. They’re so conservative. We were going to be different. We were going to do our own thing, not get caught up in the rat race.”

  “We’ve done our own thing. You freelance, I have my own firm.”

  She pressed her lips together. After a minute, she bowed her head.

  “What?” he asked.

  The eyes she raised were hollow, her voice low. “I won’t be here when you get back.”

  “You said that last time.”

  “This time’s for real.”

  He sighed. “Come on, Rachel. Try to understand.”

  “You try to understand,” she cried, then quieted again. “If I have to be alone, there are other places I’d rather be. I’m moving to Big Sur.” Softly, she asked, “Come with me?”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Very.”

  He was frightened. More, he was furious. She knew he couldn’t move to Big Sur. Big Sur was three hours from San Francisco.

  “I’ve done fifteen years here for you,” she said, softly still. “Now it’s your turn to live somewhere else for me.”

  “Rachel.” Didn’t she get it? “My firm is here.”

  “You travel all the time. You don’t do much more than visit the city anyway. You can commute from Big Sur.”

  “That makes no sense.”

  She was hugging her middle again, seeming in pain. “I’m going. I need you to come with me.”

  Frustrated that she didn’t understand the pressure he felt, exasperated that she couldn’t give a little, angry that everything about her should suggest that … pain, he cried, “How can I do that, if I’m on my way to Providence?”

  “Dad!” Samantha’s shout brought him back to the present. “How is she?”

  He ran a hand over his face and took a steadying breath. When he was firmly back in the present, he told her about the leg, the ribs, and the hand. Then he reached out and touched Hope’s hair, wanting desperately to ease the blow but not knowing how. “The thing is that her head took a bad hit. She’s still unconscious.”

  Hope’s eyes flew to his. “Sleeping?” she asked on an indrawn breath.

  “In a manner. Only, nothing we do wakes her up. The doctors call it a coma.”

  “Coma!” Samantha cried.

  “No,” Jack hurried to say, “it’s not as bad as it sounds.” He gave them a shortened version of the doctor’s explanation, then improvised on a hopeful note. “Coma is what the brain does when it needs to focus all its energy on healing. Once enough of the healing’s done, the person wakes up.”

  “Not always,” Samantha challenged. “Sometimes people are comatose for years. Sometimes coma is just another word for vegetable.”

  “Not the case here,” Jack insisted. “Your mother will wake up.”

  “How do you know?”

  He didn’t, but the alternative was unthinkable. “The doctor had no reason to think she won’t. Listen,” he began, looking down to include Hope, but she was bent over her cat, shoulders hunched and quivering. He slid to the floor and put an arm around her. “We have to be optimistic. That’s the most important thing. We have to go in there and tell your mom that she’s going to get better. If we tell her enough, she will.”

  Samantha made a sound. He looked up in time to see her roll her eyes, but those eyes were tear-lidded when they met his.

  “Do you have a better suggestion?” he asked.

  Mutely, she shook her head.

  “Okay. Then this is what I think we should do. I think we should have breakfast and drive up to Monterey.”

  Hope said something he didn’t hear. He put his ear down. “Hmm?”

  “Maybe I sh-should stay h-here.” She hugged the cat to her chest.

  “Don’t you want to see your mom?”

  “Yes, b-but—”

  “She’s scared,” Samantha said with disgust. “Well, so am I, Hope, but if we sit home, we’ll never know whether she really is alive.”

  “She’s alive,” Jack said.

  Hope raised a tear-streaked face to her sister. “What if Guinevere dies while I’m gone?”

  “She won’t. The vet said she had time.”

  “Not much.”

  “Hope, she’s not dying today.”

  “Am I missing something here?” Jack asked, looking from one to the other.

  “Guinevere has a tumor,” Samantha explained. “The vet wanted to put her to sleep, but Hope wouldn’t let him.”

  So the cat was terminally ill. Jack was wondering what else could go wrong when Hope looked up through her tears and said, “She’s not in pain. If she was, I’d let the vet do it. But I love Guinevere, and she knows it. I want her to keep knowing it a little longer. What’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing,” Jack said.

  Samantha disagreed. “Priorities,” she told her sister. “Mom’s always talking about them. The thing is that Guinevere isn’t dying today. If the accident hadn’t happened, you’d have left her home and gone to school. So if you leave her home now, she won’t know whether you’re going to school or to visit Mom. But Mom will.”

  Jack was thinking that she had put it well, and that maybe there was hope for his elder daughter yet, when she turned to him in distaste and said, “You’re gonna shave and stuff before we go, aren’t you, Dad? You look gross.”

  “Thank you,” he said. Patting Hope’s shoulder, he pushed up from the floor and, needing fortification after—what?—an hour of sleep, went to put on a pot of coffee.

  IT WAS EASIER said than done. He had explored the entire contents of both the fridge and the freezer in search of coffee beans before Samantha said, “In the canister.”

  He looked up. Both sisters were at the kitchen door, Hope a bit behind but watching as closely as Samantha. He tried to sound authoritative. “She always kept the beans in the fridge.”

  “Not anymore,” Samantha replied, not loudly but with even greater authority. Rachel always did the same thing.

  Knowing better than to question that tone, he pushed the fridge door shut. Rachel’s canisters were brightly painted ceramic vegetables, all in a line on the counter. He opened a tomato and found sugar, opened a cabbage and found macaroni, opened an eggplant and found little nibbles of something he couldn’t identify.

  “Cat treats,” Hope coached. “Try the cuke.”

  “The cuke has to hold spaghetti,” he said and opened a fat yellow pepper to reveal flour. The cuke was the only thing left. “This isn’t Rachel,” he argued, feeling a little dumb as he measured spoonfuls of beans into a coffee mill. “A cuke is made for spa
ghetti. It’s common sense. That’s its shape.”

  “Mom says you have to break out of the mold sometimes,” Samantha said. “When are we leaving?”

  “As soon as I have coffee and a shower.”

  “How long is that?”

  The kitchen clock—another ceramic thing that was no doubt also cast by Rachel’s hand—was a beaver with whiskers that said it was seven-forty. “Twenty minutes.” He arched a brow at Samantha. “Can you handle that?”

  “You don’t have to be snide. I was just asking. We have to shower and dress, too, y’know, and if I’m not going to school, I need someone to take notes and get papers and give messages for me, so I have calls to make.” She left, pulling her sister along with her.

  Jack had calls to make, too, but they would have to wait. He had a feeling it was going to be a long day.

  chapter four

  HAD JACK KNOWN of any other road to take back to Monterey, he would have, but there wasn’t a one. Samantha sat in the passenger’s seat, hair wet from the shower, mouth clamped shut, eyes riveted to the road. Hope was stuffed in what passed for the BMW’s backseat, staring out between the front buckets, her knuckles white on butter-soft black leather by her sister’s shoulder, her cowboy boots planted on either side of the hump.

  Jack knew what they were thinking. He was thinking it, too, hoping—praying—that Caltrans had finished its cleanup and left. Not knowing what else to do, he turned on the radio to create a distraction, and it did, for a minute.

  “Just what we want to hear,” Samantha remarked in response to an NPR report on starvation and death in another little African state. Between nervous glances at the road, she pressed another button, then another, then another. “Do you ever listen to music?”

  “What was that a second ago?” Jack asked.

  Samantha was working the manual controls. “Geek chords, and we won’t be able to get anything good here, the reception stinks.” She flicked off the radio, clutched the hand loop above her door, and fixed alert eyes on the road.

  Jack slowed the car to take the first of a series of turns. “What do you normally listen to?”

  “CDs,” Samantha snapped.

  Hope shot her a timid glance. “Mom listens to news.”

  “Not when one of us is lying half dead in a hospital room.”

  “Your mother isn’t half dead,” Jack told Samantha.

  “She’s in a coma. What would you call that? People in comas die just as easily as not. Lydia had an uncle who was in a coma for months until they finally took him off the machines, and then he was dead in five minutes.”

  “Your mother’s situation is entirely different. She isn’t even on life support. The only machines in the room are ones to monitor her vital signs so they’ll know if anything changes. She’s—”

  “Look!” Samantha pointed. “That’s where it happened. See where the guardrail’s gone, and all the mess of the dirt on the road where there isn’t supposed to be dirt? That is where it happened, isn’t it?” she charged, swiveling to watch as they passed the spot. “Slow down. I want to see.”

  Jack kept driving. “There’s nothing to see. The car’s been towed. It’s probably already in the shop.”

  Both girls were looking out the back window. “Katherine said she was hit,” Samantha said. “What happened to the other driver?”

  “I don’t know,” Jack lied.

  She flopped forward again. “You do, but you’re not saying. I can tell by your voice. Mom would want us to know.”

  Jack doubted that very strongly, but it was beside the point. Annoyed at being pitted against Rachel, he said, “Right now, your mother would want you to say good things or nothing at all.”

  “That’s what you’d say, not what she’d say. She’d want us to say what we think, and what I think is that this accident was more serious than you’re saying, which means we’re all in big trouble. What if she doesn’t wake up?”

  “She’ll wake up.”

  “I’m not going to live in San Francisco. My friends are all here. I’m not moving.”

  “Good God, you have your mother dead and buried,” Jack charged.

  “Daddy?” came a frightened cry from behind.

  He found Hope’s face in the rearview mirror. “She’s not dying, Hope. She’ll be okay. I told you that, and I mean it. She was in an accident barely twelve hours ago. This is the worst of it. From here on it’s about getting better. Let’s take it one step at a time. For all we know, by the time we get to the hospital, your mother will be awake and asking for breakfast.”

  RACHEL wasn’t asking for anything. She was as unresponsive when they arrived as she had been when Jack had seen her earlier. The tightness in his middle was back, the shock of seeing her this way, the fear that in the next breath she would be gone.

  “She’s sleeping,” Hope whispered, and for a minute he thought she might be right. Aside from the bruise, Rachel looked almost normal. She might well have emerged from the coma and fallen into an innocent sleep. The doctor might have tried to call him in the car and been unable to get through. Car phones were iffy that way.

  He approached the bed, hoping, hoping. He rubbed her cheek. When she didn’t respond, he gave her hand a squeeze. “Rachel?”

  “Don’t bother her,” Hope cried in a fearful tone.

  Samantha said nothing. Her eyes were wide, her face pale.

  Backing to the open half of the sliding glass door, Jack stood with the girls while they adjusted to the scene, and he readjusted to Rachel’s not having changed. When he had his disappointment in check, he said a quiet “See? No respirators, no life supports. She broke her leg. There’s the cast. She cut her hand, so that’s bandaged, and the bruises on her face are where she banged it against the car. Remember when you got a tennis ball in the eye, Sam? Black, blue, and purple for a week, then green, then yellow, then back to normal. But it took a while.”

  Samantha nodded. Her eyes didn’t leave Rachel.

  “The IV poles have medicine and food,” he went on for lack of anything better to say. “The TV screen behind her registers things like heart, pulse, and oxygen. There’s a person at the nurses’ station who sees all that and knows if there’s any change. They can also watch your mom through the glass. That’s why she’s here, instead of in a regular room.”

  Hope moved closer to his side.

  “See the top readout?” he tried. “The heartbeat, that little green up-and-down line? See how regular it is?” He felt Hope nod against his arm. “Want to go let her know you’re here?” The nod became a quick head shake. “Samantha?”

  Without defenses, Samantha looked as young and frightened as Hope. “Can she hear us?”

  “The doctor says so. It seems to me that if she can, she’d like to know you guys are here.”

  “What do we say?”

  “Whatever you want.”

  “Are you going to talk to her?”

  He knew a challenge when he heard it. Leaving them again, he approached the bed. Taking Rachel’s hand, he leaned over and kissed her forehead. He stayed close, with an elbow braced on the bed rail. “Hi, angel. How’re you doing? See, I said I’d be back, and here I am. Got the girls with me. They’re over by the door. They’re feeling a little intimidated by the machines and all.”

  “I am not intimidated,” Samantha said and was suddenly beside him. “Hi, Mom.” He heard her swallow, saw her fingers close around the bed rail. “It’s me. Sam. God, look at your face. What did you do?” From the corner of her mouth closest to Jack, she whispered, “This is dumb. She can’t hear.”

  “Do you know that for sure?”

  “No.”

  “Then don’t assume it.” He looked around for Hope, who was still at the door. When he invited her over with the hitch of his head, she shrank back.

  “What are they doing to wake her up?” Samantha asked.

  “See that drip?” He pointed to one of the bags that may or may not have been the one the doctor meant. “That keep
s the swelling in her head down, so that blood and oxygen can flow and heal the injured tissues.”

  “Why can’t they just give her a shot or something to wake her up?”

  “It doesn’t work that way.”

  “Did you ask?”

  “No.”

  “Did you ask for a specialist?”

  He gave her a stare. “That was the first thing I did. Give me a little credit, huh?” To Rachel, lightly, he said, “Where did this one get her mouth?”

  “Like you were perfect?” Samantha asked, not lightly at all.

  Jack preferred his daughter when she was too frightened to be a smartmouth. He didn’t know whether it was her age, or whether he just brought out the worst in her. In any case, he didn’t want things going further downhill, not within earshot of Rachel.

  “Tell you what,” he said. “I’m going to leave you here to talk with your mother. Don’t be bashful. Tell her how awful I am. Tell her that she’d better wake up, because you’re not moving to the city. Tell her that I don’t know anything. Get it all off your chest. I have some calls to make.” He turned to find that Katherine had arrived and was standing with an arm around Hope. “Hey. Katherine. I’ll be down the hall.” As he passed, he told Hope, “Right down the hall. I won’t be long.”

  He felt like a deserter leaving the room, but what was the point of staying? Samantha had nothing good to say with him there, Hope wouldn’t budge from the door, and Rachel wasn’t helping, not one bit.

  “Is Dr. Bauer around?” he asked at the nurses’ station.

  “Tuesday mornings, he teaches in the city,” said the nurse monitoring the screens.

  “Are you Mr. McGill?” asked a woman who was doing paperwork nearby. She wore a silk blouse under her lab coat, and pearl earrings. They were large. Power pearls. Jack suspected they were supposed to make her look older than the barely thirty that he guessed she was.

  “Yes. I’m Jack McGill.”

  She put down her pen, extended a hand, and said, “I’m Kara. Dr. Kara Bates. I’m in neurology, second under Dr. Bauer. He checked your wife before he left. She’s holding her own.”

  “But not awake yet. He mentioned cranial pressure. What’s happening there?”