by Lou Cadle
“She’s still unconscious,” the man said. “I’m Dr. Arons, a neurologist specializing in peds.” He led Greg through a hall with rooms that had glass windows, so that the patients were all visible from the hall. He passed a baby in a crib with two parents, a child alone, hooked up to machines, a pre-teen sitting up in bed, reading a comic book while a woman sat next to him knitting.
The doctor turned into the next room and Greg took a deep breath, trying to prepare himself for whatever.
Holly was lying on a hospital bed, looking tiny in comparison to the bed, on a ventilator. An IV went in her hand. She was hooked up with leads to one large machine, and with others to a portable machine on a wheeled cart.
Greg said, “Can I touch her?”
“Of course.”
He stepped to the bedside and bent over her, whispering in her ear. “Daddy’s here, sweetie. I’m right here. Everything’s going to be all right.” He hoped it was so. He found a spot on her head where no wires were attached and gave her a soft kiss.
“You cleaned her up,” he said.
“Yes. So she was in the tornado, I hear.”
Greg told him, haltingly, of the moments in the basement, the roof getting ripped off, the wind lifting her, losing his grip. He could feel it, in his palm, the feeling of her skin being pulled along, losing her. By the time he was done with the story, tears were pooled in his eyes and he couldn’t see for them. “I should have held on tighter. My damned hand wouldn’t hold.” He held up his bandaged hand.
“Don’t blame yourself,” the doctor said. “Sounds like if you would have let go sooner, she might not have made it.”
“Will she make it?” Greg asked, afraid to hear the answer.
“Her vital signs are stable. She has some bruises, a few minor cuts, but apart from her head injury, she’s fine. She’s not seizing. X-rays show a hairline fracture right here—” and he reached over and touched Holly’s head two inches over the left temple —” but it’s not in itself the cause for worry.”
“What is?”
“That she hasn’t been conscious in—what? How many hours?”
Greg checked his watch. “Three—just over three hours.”
“She’s going to get MRIed within the hour. I want to look at the brain.”
“What—” Greg coughed to clear his throat. “What are you looking for?”
“Swelling, bleeding. See if there’s any situation that we can treat.”
“You mean brain surgery?” Greg gripped the railing of the bed.
“Without knowing, I can’t predict what we’ll want to do. Perhaps drugs, perhaps minor surgery. Perhaps keep her in an induced coma. Could be one of a number of interventions are indicated. Or,” he said, switching his gaze to Holly, “we might have to simply wait.”
“For?”
“For her to wake up, to get better, or to get worse.” The doctor shrugged one shoulder. “I wish I could tell you with more certainty, but we’re very much in a wait-and-see mode until we get that MRI. What I can tell you is that her Glasgow score is not terrible.”
“That’s what?”
“A scale that tells us how responsive she is. If you don’t mind, I’ll show you.”
“Yes. Please.”
“I’m going to pinch her, to hurt her a little.”
He reached over and took a fold of skin on Holly’s still hand, the one without the IV, and gave it a sharp pinch. She drew away, made a sound, and her eyelids fluttered. “You see?”
“I don’t know what I’m seeing.”
“She’s responsive to pain, but not to our voices. If you don’t mind trying, say something.”
Greg leaned over her and said, “Holly, honey, wake up. It’s Daddy.”
“Louder.”
“Holly, wake up!” She didn’t. He turned to the doctor. “That’s bad?”
“There was a little twitch of her facial muscles. It could mean something. Her pupils are equal sized, too, and respond to light. That’s all good.”
“But she’s not waking up.”
“That’s of concern.”
“What can I do? Should I keep talking to her?”
Slowly, the doctor shook his head. “It wouldn’t hurt, but I can’t promise it’ll help. I wish I could give you something more concrete to do. I know this is hard for you. But there’s nothing to do. For now, just wait.”
“I have to get back to work tonight.” He hated it. But he had promised.
“Is your wife…?”
“We’re divorced. She lives in Atlanta. I have custody. I have an aunt here—the only other family in town. Will you let her sit with Holly when I’m not here?”
“I’ll fix it so she can.”
“Thank you.” Greg wanted to stay. But how much good could he do here? He hated this. Hated feeling so helpless. Hated looking down at Holly and seeing her hooked up to those machines, unmoving. Hated his obligation to the job. Hated the damned tornado, most of all.
“I’ll let you be alone with her while I check on getting her that MRI,” the doctor said.
A half-hour later, they came to get Holly to take her for the scan. The person outside the double doors, not the one who had been there before, but a person in street clothes, called him over and gave him back his insurance card.
“They said they’d okay you to go inside,” he said to his aunt. “Can I impose on you—?”
“Oh Greg, you know it’s not an imposition.”
“She looks so helpless,” Greg said.
She took his hand, squeezed it, and let it drop. “I’ll stay as long as you need me to. All night, I assume. I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve taken the liberty of doing a few things.”
“What?”
“I filled out some forms for you. And I called your mother.”
“Oh, right. Of course. Thank you.”
“She didn’t answer, but I left a message.”
“I appreciate it.”
“And I called a car rental agency. They’re delivering a car here for you. If yours isn’t drivable, you’ll need one.”
“I’ll need to drop by and get a cell phone charger.”
“You can use mine to call your ex.”
He reached out his hand, but when he had the phone, he realized he didn’t know her number. “I need my phone to get her number,” he said to his aunt with a shrug. “I guess it’ll have to wait until I buy a charger. Maybe by then I’ll know more.”
“You don’t have it written down anywhere?”
“At home. But I doubt we have a home any more. And it was on her school records, but the paper version is blown halfway to Dayton by now.” He said, “I realize I haven’t noticed any computers in the debris. Isn’t that strange? Everybody had one. The school probably had dozens.”
“You probably did see some, in pieces.”
“Maybe. Come to think of it, I’ve seen three dead dogs, several injured ones, some muddy ones crawling out of collapsed buildings, and no cats.”
“Pretty clever at hiding, cats.”
“Why am I talking about cats? I have a daughter who’s unconscious, a job that’s hanging on by a string, a house that’s no doubt gone, and my uncle just died.”
“For all that, you seem to be doing pretty well.”
“Thanks to you. I’m so sorry about Jim. Do you want to talk about it?”
She waved it off. “Later.” Her phone rang, and she answered. “Yes. Thank you.” She hung up. “The car’s here. You go down, show your license, insurance card, take the guy back to his office, and it’s yours for a week at a time.”
“Let’s go over to the desk,” he said. He introduced her to the woman there and explained that he wanted all medical information released to her. Was there anything he had to sign?
The woman’s eyebrows lifted in judgment as she realized he was leaving.
“I don’t want to go,” he told her. “But I’m a police officer. My town is in ruins. If she wakes up. If there’s any change at all, I can
be back in an hour.”
“I’ll let the doctor know.”
There was a form to sign—several, in fact. He got that done, and was about to leave when Sherryl called him over.
“Here’s my house key. Use it if you need it. Lock it and leave it under the mat.”
“That’s not secure.”
“Quit being such a cop. I know that. I wouldn’t normally, but this is a special situation.”
Greg hugged her then went down to pick up his rental car. It took him another half-hour to take the fellow back to his office, but he glimpsed the sign he wanted to see on the way. Thank God for Walmarts. With any luck, he’d be able to grab the right phone charger.
That’s when he realized that they couldn’t call him if Holly needed him, not until the cell system was back up in town. He nearly turned around and went back to the hospital.
But no. He had promised to go back to work. Other people needed help. His boss was right—he had a commitment to them, too. And if Holly just lay there, unconscious, he’d drive himself crazy watching her.
With any luck, they’d get something rigged up to replace the downed towers within a day. Still, guilt was his passenger as he drove north, out of cell range, and into the damaged town he had sworn to serve and protect.
On the way, he listened to the radio news. There were dozens of tornados all over Indiana and southern Ohio, and now those same cells were moving into Pennsylvania, spinning out more twisters. Their second one might be one of the biggest, but their town was not the largest that had been destroyed. Dayton had been hit by the same one—and there, its path was a full mile wide. Greg was pretty sure he had been looking at less than half that. He tried to remember the scene at the school—at least three blocks to the north had looked to be razed, and two to the south.
When he got within range, Greg radioed in to Rosemary. The dispatcher told him to come in to the police station.
He got stopped on the highway by a familiar-looking man with a Maglite. When Greg placed his badge at the window, he got waved through.
Downtown, he parked his car as near as he could get to the center of town and walked in to find Rosemary swamped. “We need crowd control,” she said. “Until we get more lights, at least. We have as many rescuers as we can use for the generators and lights we have. As soon as we get more set up, I’ll pull you in to those so you can do search and rescue.”
“Why crowd control? Are there riots?”
“No. We have media, we have first responders from other locations coming in, we have people who say they’re relatives but are probably looters. We’re trying to limit access on the main highways. We’re having road crews put up barriers at the minor roads, hoping it’ll deter the casual snoops.”
“Okay, so what do you need me to do?”
“I want you to take over on south Central. We have a roadblock up. And Jay Jackson—do you know him, retired a few years back?”
“Yeah, I know him.”
“He’s manning it alone right now. I want someone official there.”
Greg looked down at himself. “I won’t look any more official than him. My uniform shirt was filthy, and bloody. I’m in civies now, as you can see.”
“Can’t you get a shirt from home?”
“I don’t think I have a home.”
“Damn. Just take one of the yellow vests, over there.”
Before that night, Greg had not guessed what this sort of duty would be like. He supposed every fire and police officer had thought about disaster work. It’s the post 9/11 world, so you can’t help but imagine yourself there, or at the Boston bombing, or at Katrina, wondering how you’d hold up.
But this manning the barricade—this duty was just bizarre.
There was media, including one big satellite van with call letters he knew, coming up from Cincinnati. He directed them to the center of town, where Rosemary and any other officials could deal with them.
There were people with SUVs full of bottled water, blankets, simply wanting to help. He knew they might be looters in disguise, but he sent them on up to the center of town. They’d help—or steal what they could, if he was guessing wrong. One of the men had a retired military ID that helped to reassure him. Another was a CERT-trained volunteer from Cinci who had a card to prove it and a yellow stenciled helmet. Others were just citizens, and as long as they were middle aged and couples, he worried little about their committing criminal acts. He sent a car full of teenagers away. They were probably good intentioned, but he wouldn’t take the chance—or, for that matter, put them in the way of injury.
Strangest of all were disaster tourists. People “just wanted to see.” He pointed out the lights were out, there were deadly dangers, and that they’d get in the way of rescuers, but none of that seemed to convince them. After a few tries with each at politely explaining the rationale for their turning around, he put on his no-nonsense face and said, “If you go in there, you’re at risk of being shot as a looter. Turn around.” He couldn’t stop them from sneaking in on a minor road, but he hoped he deterred some of them. Ghouls.
He said to Jackson, “It isn’t just that it’s creepy they want to come and stare. But they could see it all better if they sat home and watched it on TV.”
“Like a Bengals game,” Jackson said, which Greg thought a very odd comparison.
Either everyone else in the world was going crazy, or he was. Maybe a little of both.
When he was radioed and told to go downtown, he handed over the roadblock to Jackson and drove south first, far enough to get a cell signal. His aunt told him the results of the MRI.
“They say there’s minor swelling.”
“And that means?”
“He says it could be worse. They won’t do anything, just wait and see for now. But he says if things change, they may need to do surgery. He needs your consent.”
“He should do what he has to.”
“He needs your signature, I mean.”
“Shit.” Greg thought. “What would they do for a child who was unidentified?” Wait until all the legal i’s had been dotted?
“I have no idea, Greg.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to complain to you. I appreciate what you’re doing for us.”
“You’re like a son to me, Greg. And I adore Holly. You know that.”
“Do—do whatever you can do. Tell him he has my permission. And I’ll come in tomorrow to sign forms. Have them ready for me.”
“I’ll tell him.”
He made the call to his ex-wife. It was after ten here. Eleven in Atlanta.
“It’s Greg.”
“I’m a little busy—”
“Kimberly, we had a tornado here.”
“Oh?” She didn’t sound very interested.
“Holly’s in the hospital, with a head wound.”
There was a long wait, and he wondered if he had lost the signal. But she finally said, “Is it serious?”
“She’s in the hospital. Unconscious since it happened. Her skull is cracked. So, yes, it’s serious.”
“I’m sorry.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you? Your daughter is critically injured, and you—” He ran out of words.
“Greg.”
“What?” he snapped.
“I’m pregnant.”
That would have made him feel something—a lot of things—if the day hadn’t numbed him. “Congratulations,” he said in a flat tone.
“There’ve been a few complications. I can’t fly, my doctor says.”
“Then drive.”
“I’m going to call you back. Ten minutes. Twenty at the most.”
“But—” She had hung up. To the inside of the rental car, he said, “I really need this.” What was wrong with her? Had the years away from Holly made her stop loving their daughter?
He had to get back to town, to his assignment. His ex would have to wait.
At the roadblock, Jackson was talking to someone in a new Lexus. Something in his postu
re told Greg he needed help. Greg pulled his rental car up and parked it on the shoulder.
The car held four frat-guy types, one of them clearly drunk. He suspected they all were. Without a breathalyzer, he couldn’t ticket the driver for drunk driving. Without a jail with a drunk tank, he couldn’t haul them in.
He looked over at Jackson. “What should we do?”
“I don’t know. Take their keys?”
“Hey, man, you can’t just strand us here!” said the driver.
Greg didn’t want to. For one thing, they’d probably just walk into town on foot and cause trouble. “Get out of the car,” he said.
He had all four of them walk the line and stand on one foot, recite the alphabet backwards or give him multiples of 13. While he did, Jackson searched the car for drugs and liquor.
“Don’t you need like a whatchamacallit for that?” The mouthiest of them complained.
“A gun?” Greg suggested. “Yeah, I have one of those.”
Another one whispered, “Is anyone recording this?”
Greg tapped their names and driver’s license numbers into his phone, and he’d check them later. He pointed to the one sober one of the lot, the one who had managed to stay on the line and remember the alphabet. He seemed okay to drive, though Greg would rather none of them did. Any other day, and he wouldn’t allow it, not for a second. But with the police station gone, the rules had to change. “Drive slowly, don’t stop for booze, get the first motel room you see. And do not come back to this town, or I’ll find something to arrest you for.”
When they were gone, Jackson said, “Hope they don’t have a wreck.”
He hated rich little assholes like that—had in college, did now. “As long as they don’t hurt anyone else but themselves.” He had no idea if he’d done the right thing. He realized his judgment had flown away about the time he’d lost his grip on Holly that afternoon. If he knew Jackson better, he’d let him make the decisions, even though the man no longer had a badge.
“Okay. I have to go back in now. Are you okay here?” he asked Jackson.
“I’ll be fine. It’s getting late. Traffic should slow down now, don’t you think?”
“I hope.” Without explaining it to Jackson, Greg drove south again until he got the cell signal.