Blackberry Winter

by Maryanne Fischler

There was a lengthy pause while the detective pondered this request. He knew he was dealing with an educated, level-headed individual who had experience with crime victims. Hoffstedter knew that the newspapers would probably get hold of the story anyway, they always seemed to. But he still hesitated. It was one of the worst parts of his job to tell people about the horrible things that happened to the people they loved. Finally he said, “She was found in the woods outside of town in the north end of the county. She was naked and her hands were tied together with clothesline. It was very cold last night. The deputy that found her thought at first that she was dead, and it looks from where I’m sitting like her assailant probably thought the same thing. We think she was assaulted elsewhere and dumped there.” After another pause, he said with a hard edge in his voice, “We’re going to do everything we can to find the person responsible for this.” And with that, he was gone.

  Brian noticed the pay phone in the waiting room and went to call Paul. The psychiatrist was with a patient, so he had to leave a message simply saying that Emily had been found and was at the County Hospital.

  And again Brian waited. When Paul arrived, he found Brian staring at a wall as if the wisdom of the ages were inscribed upon it. It was only when he spoke to his friend that Brian even realized that Paul was there.

  “Where’s Emily?” the psychiatrist asked. “What happened?”

  It was with obvious effort that Brian spoke. “They found her in the woods outside of town, badly beaten.” He stopped to breathe deeply and then added, “She was raped. They’ve taken her to x-ray, she’s still unconscious.”

  Paul sank into the chair next to Brian and said in a dazed voice, “Oh, God, not Emily.”

  Dr. Michaels appeared and was introduced to Paul, who asked immediately, “How is she?”

  “She has a hairline fracture of the skull and a severe concussion, multiple fractures of the left arm, two broken ribs, a bruised spleen, and numerous other contusions. But her vital signs are stable, and she isn’t on life support. Our biggest worry at this point is the possibility of brain damage. We won’t really know much more until she regains consciousness. We’re moving her to intensive care, if you’d like to go to the waiting room up there. I’ll keep you posted.”

  “I want to see her.” Brian’s statement left little room for debate.

  “We’re running some tests and our chief of neurology, Dr. Vogler, is going to make an examination. I’m not sure when you’ll be able to see her. It seems unlikely that she’ll regain consciousness for several hours, at least.”

  “I want to be there when she wakes up. She’ll be scared.” It was plain that he wasn’t going to give in.

  “I’ll see what we can do.”

  It occurred to Brian after he had been sitting in the ICU waiting room for a couple of hours that time was still his enemy, and it was playing a cruel trick on him. It seemed that the weeks since Emily’s birthday had passed in a flash, a mere instant, and that the time since she had been missing was moving glacially slowly. It was as if time passed slower when there was something to be afraid of. He remembered being pinned down by sniper fire in a road outside of Baghdad. It only lasted a brief time, seemed to be for hours.”

  “And now I’m scared again, and time is crawling by. Oh, Emily, you must have been so scared. It must have seemed like forever.”

  The night came and the time for plaguing thoughts with it. “Brain damage,” Brian thought, “ranks right up there with ‘malignant tumor’ and ‘HIV positive’ for terms which inspire sensible people to fear.” It occurred to him that Emily could be left unable to speak, destined to empty silence. She could be unable to understand anything around her, which is to be made the equivalent of a child who will never grow up. There was the possibility of a persistent vegetative state, which is simply death a long time coming. To be brain damaged is to suffer some loss, a loss of ability, a loss of dignity, an injury to personhood. And what, he wondered to himself, if the brain damage resulted in a loss of memory. “What if she doesn’t know who I am? What if she doesn’t know who she is?” The horrifying possibilities were too numerous to count.

  The backdrop to all of his worries, the thread that ran throughout them was the question, “How is Emily going to live with what has happened to her? How will she deal with something so evil? There’s no way I can kiss this and make it better.”

  Late in the evening he was allowed to spend a few minutes with her. There was no way to know if she was aware of his presence, but on the chance that she might be, he murmured assurances about how everything was going to be all right. The saddest thing about these moments was that, in fact, Brian was not aware of Emily’s presence. “It’s the eyes that make her Emily, the voice, the countless little gestures unique to her. In the past, even when I’ve watched her sleep, I could watch the way she held her hands, the way she stirred when a breeze blew across her, and I would recognize my Emily.” For Brian, it was like going to the viewing before a funeral, this didn’t seem like Emily at all.

  Paul was still in the ICU waiting room when Brian emerged from the ward. The psychiatrist thought to himself, “He looks ten years older than he did yesterday.” Aloud he spoke firmly, “You’ve got to get some sleep. And when was the last time you ate?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t remember. I’m not hungry.” The voice was vague, and evidenced the toll the day had taken.

  “Let me take you home, Brian, you won’t do any good for Emily making yourself sick.”

  There was no fight left in him, and so Brian went along. Half way through the drive home, Paul asked, “How did she look?”

  Brian was sitting back in the seat with his eyes closed. Without opening them, he answered, “She looked dead.”

  Paul raised his voice slightly and there was a tone of anger when he snapped, “She’s not going to die. We’re not going to let her die.”

  Brain sat up and looked at his old friend directly, “How are we going to stop her? That’s the hardest part of all of this to take, there’s nothing we can do about it. If you don’t believe in God, then you explain it in terms of traumatic shock and body systems shutting down and brain damage. Once you’ve fixed everything you can fix, she could still die and you can’t do anything about it. If you do believe in God, which I thought I did, you fix all the things you can and you pray, and she could still die and you still can’t do anything about it.”

  “So you don’t believe in God any more?”

  “I don’t know. All I know is that I prayed all night last night that she would turn up safe and sound, and while I was praying, some degenerate animal was beating her with a club over and over again. I’m having trouble reconciling those two things.”

  Brian slept for a few hours and was back at the hospital shortly after dawn the next morning to find that nothing had changed substantially. The results of the tests showed no serious internal injuries. Her vital signs were strong and stable, her color was improved, and it was only a question of waiting for her to regain consciousness to determine how she might be affected by the head injuries she had sustained. Dr. Vogler, the neurologist in charge of Emily’s treatment, was encouraging in his talk with Brian. There was no reason he could foresee to expect any “significant, long-term impairment.”

  And so began another day of waiting. After the various morning talks involved in patient care were completed, they let Brian stay at Emily’s bedside for most of the time. When they needed to attend to her, he waited in the hall or wandered around the building. He had a meager breakfast and called Paul to give him the latest report. Paul chose to be encouraged and promised to be at the hospital that afternoon.

  Brian made the call to Vermont that he had been dreading. His parents reacted with predictable shock and concern. His mother assured him that she would do everything involved in putting the wedding on hold, and that he wasn’t to worry about it. He was touched by his mother’s crying, but even more moved by the shakiness in his father’s voice. They hadn’t had the c
hance to get to know Emily well after only one visit and some phone calls, but Brian knew that they were fond of her nonetheless. “That’s the effect she has on people,” he thought.

  Sitting again at the Emily’s side, he was amazed by how quiet it was in intensive care. There are different sorts of quiet. In huge office buildings, you can step into an elevator and be in a tiny, quiet refuge from the commotion of commerce. In the nursery of a sleeping infant, there is a whole different texture of quiet. It is imbued with awe, as if in recognition of the precious work of art sleeping in its cradle. In a cemetery the quiet is a mask which parades itself as a respect for the dead, but which is really a fear of death itself. When you sit at the bedside of someone you love in a sterile hospital ward, it is the quiet of a vigil. It is as if the whole world is reduced to this one place, and it is a scale. The quiet implies that any sound, any movement would upset the scale in favor of chaos or darkness. It is the sort of quiet that begets praying.

  Brian had wondered aloud to Emily once if he was praying right. He said he didn’t think his language was very prayer-like. She had assured him that there was no right or wrong way to talk to God. She said God knew what you meant. And so Brian’s prayer was direct and honest. “I don’t know why I’m talking to You, I’m mad at You. I asked You to bring her back safe, and You didn’t do it. You let a beast have his way with her and did nothing to stop him. I’m willing to admit that there may be aspects of this I don’t understand, but the only person I know who could explain it to me is Emily. So I’m asking You to take care of her and make her well. Help us both to get through this.”

  During one of the intervals when Brian was waiting outside in the hall, he was lost in thought when he heard someone call him by name. It was Jack Peterson, the pastor from Emily’s church whom Brian had met several times. He was a somber figure in his dark suit. His voice was soft in deference to the surroundings. “I read about Emily’s terrible misfortune in the newspaper, and I wanted to stop in and see how both of you are.”

  Brian was pondering the use of the word ‘misfortune,’ but collected himself enough to answer, “Emily’s still unconscious. She has a skull fracture and concussion. There are several broken bones. It’s hard to be sure how she really is until she comes to.”

  “And how are you holding up?” Jack’s concern seemed more personal than professional, and Brian appreciated it.

  “I’ve been better,” he said with a weak smile.

  The minister seemed to hesitate before speaking again. “You and I don’t know one another well, Brian, and it’s probably presumptuous for me even to be here, but I felt somehow compelled to come and see you. Ever since I read the newspaper this morning, I’ve been praying for the two of you and wondering if there was anything at all that I could do to help.”

  Brian suggested that they go and sit down in the waiting room. He was obviously collecting his thoughts. Finally he spoke. “You want to help? Tell me why this happened. Tell me why God let this happen to Emily.”

  The priest took a huge breath and let it out noisily. It seemed as if he had been expecting this question. He began his answer with a question. “You know that long ago, marriages were arranged. If your parents had arranged for you to meet Emily and told you that they had chosen her for you and you had to love her, would your feelings for her be as deep as they are? Would there be any joy in loving her?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Okay. If God had created you without the ability to choose whether or not you would love Him, would you get any joy out of loving Him? If you hadn’t any choice in the matter, would you get any joy out of following Him?”

  Brian considered the question carefully. “No, I don’t think I would. It would be like being a robot.”

  “So we’re not robots, we do have a choice, but having a choice comes with a price. The price is living in a world full of people who also have a choice, and sometimes they choose not to love God, not to follow Him, not to obey Him. Someone attacked Emily because he chose to, and if God had stopped that someone, the whole idea of humans having free will would be gone. Sin is the price we pay for having choices. Does that make any sense?”

  “I guess so, but it’s just that I wonder why it seems to be Emily who pays the price so often.” Brian’s frustration was obvious. He saw the point, but it didn’t make him feel any better. “And I’m so angry, but I don’t know who to be angry with, and God is an easy target.” After a moment’s thought, he added, “Emily would probably be mad if she heard me say that.”

  The priest smiled and said, “God is no doubt accustomed to people getting mad at Him. There’s no answer to the question of why any bad thing happens to anyone in particular. It’s not going to help her get better to expend a lot of energy trying to figure out why this particular criminal chose this particular victim, is it?”

  “No, I suppose not.” Brian shook his head, smiled slightly at a memory, then frowned. “That reminds me of something Emily said once. She said when bad things happen to you, that makes you a victim, but that you must not stay a victim, because victims are people who have no choice. When she wakes up, she’ll have to face the fact that she’s been a victim. I guess it will be up to her whether she stays one. Emily’s such a shy, sensitive person, I don’t know how she’ll ever get over this.”

  The priest nodded, and understood. “She’ll have to have help, certainly. All the while we’ve been talking, I’ve also been remembering something Emily said. ‘Life isn’t meant to be paradise, but God makes it possible to deal with it.’ She’ll undoubtedly have hard times ahead, but she’ll find a way to deal with it. She’ll have help.”

  As the sun was setting Paul arrived, took one look at Brian, and announced, “You’ve got to get out of here for a while. You look terrible. Let’s go grab a bite somewhere and get some fresh air. They have your cell number, so they can reach you. No arguments.”

  Brian was in no shape to make any arguments. He was exhausted, his leg was killing him, and he hadn’t eaten since early morning and was growing weak. They drove to a near-by drive-in restaurant so they wouldn’t have to leave the car in case the hospital called. After a greasy hamburger and fries, Brian was ready to nap. He dozed off as they were driving and when he woke up, they were at his house.

  “What are we doing here?” he asked.

  “This is where you live, and more importantly, this is where your bed is. Go, get some sleep. I’ll wait at the hospital, and I’ll let you know if there’s any change at all. I can be back here for you in ten minutes if necessary. You can’t go on forever with no sleep.”

  “If she wakes up when I’m not there, tell her I’m coming,” Brian requested.

  “I’ll tell her. She’s going to be all right, Brian.”

  Chapter 5

  Brian slept soundly for eight hours, the sweet dreamless sleep that is more restful than any other. He took a cab back to the hospital at five. He found Paul stationed at his old post beside Emily’s bed. They spoke in whispers.

  “I think I saw her stir a little, but I’m not sure,” Paul commented. “Are you feeling better now that you’ve slept?”

  “Yes, thanks, I am. Now it’s your turn.”

  “Sounds good. Let me know if there’s any change. I’ll be back this afternoon.” And he was gone.

  Brian stood next to the bed and noticed that the bruise that had consumed much of the right side of Emily’s face was fading quickly. She looked more herself. When he leaned over to kiss her cheek, he was sure that she reacted, stirred a little. He kissed her again, and there was definitely a movement in her head. He pressed the button that summoned the nurse and told her to inform the doctor.

  “Emily,” he said softly, almost chanting it as he stroked her arm. “Emily, wake up.”

  Dr. Vogler entered the room silently and motioned Brian to go ahead and speak to her again.

  “Emily, it’s time to wake up, sweetheart. Emily...”

  Her eyes fluttered briefly and she looked
directly at Brian with a somewhat puzzled expression. Finally there came the sound that he had waited the three longest days of his life to hear.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi. I’m glad to see you.”

  Looking with her eyes moving rather than her head, she said simply, “Hospital?”

  “Yes. You’re at County Hospital. Everything’s going to be all right.”

  She smiled a little and said weakly, “You said that before, in the snow.”

  He returned her smile, “And I was right then too, wasn’t I?”

  She moved slightly as if trying to ascertain what all might be broken and in need of repair. A look of pain flashed across her face, and was gone. “What happened?”

  At this he looked at Dr. Vogler, who stepped forward to the side of the bed where Emily could see him. Brian said, “This is Dr. Vogler, he’s been taking care of you.”

  “Hello, Miss Stone. I need to ask you some questions, all right?” At her murmur, he continued, “Do you know your full name?”

  “Emily Frances Stone.”

  “Do you know this gentleman’s name?”

  “Brian Stuart McClellan.”

  “Who is the President of the United States?”

  “Barack Obama. Are you trying to figure whether or not I’ve got any marbles left?”

  The doctor smiled, “Something like that. What’s the last thing you remember?”

  Emily’s brow crinkled briefly as she concentrated, but she found the gesture painful, and closed her eyes instead, “I was at work. They had a wedding shower for me. It was nice. I worked and then...I don’t remember anything after that.” Opening her eyes, she asked again, “What happened?”

  Dr. Vogler answered quickly before Brian could get a word in, “Let’s don’t think about that right now. Let’s just concentrate on taking care of you. Why don’t we ask Dr. McClellan to step outside and we’ll see how you’re doing?”