Heart Block

by Melissa Brayden

  Emory smiled at her and set down her mug. “Thanks, Luce. I have nothing but faith in your ability to handle everything.”

  Lucy reached across the small table that separated them and covered Emory’s hand with her own. “You can still call her, Em. This doesn’t have to be the end.”

  She pulled her hand back. “Even if I wanted to, you didn’t see the look in her eyes when she walked off. I’d rather she shot me than looked at me that way. Plus, my mind’s made up, Lucy, and it’s up to me to figure out what to do with myself now.”

  Lucy studied her. “Things are different, aren’t they? You’re different now.”

  Emory nodded, knowing that important changes had and would continue to take place in her life. “The last few months—Mother dying so suddenly, meeting Sarah and Grace, growing to love them and then losing them both too—these months have given me new perspective. Before Sarah, I wasn’t living, Lucy, not the way I should have been. I need to do that now. It may have to be on my own, but I have to find a way to do more than just stay ahead at the office. Life is too short.”

  “Now this is the kind of thing I’ve been dying to hear you say for years now.” Lucy came around the table and folded her into a tight hug. “I’m proud of you, Em, and grateful to Sarah for her role in this.”

  Emory finished cleaning the brushes, stored her paints away for a future session, and took a long, hot bath. The water felt amazing against her already sore muscles and she took her time, allowing the unwinding process to have its full effect. She would never have allowed herself so much down time just four short weeks ago. Her days and nights had been scheduled to the minute, and even if she did have an evening at home, it was with a stack of work in hand.

  She snuggled into bed for the night, Walter curled up at her feet, her always-loyal companion. She reached down and stroked his thick fur, earning an appreciative sigh.

  After switching off the small lamp by her bed, Emory took a deep breath and made a cognitive decision to close off her mind. Beautiful hazel eyes had a tendency of creeping their way into her subconscious, and once that happened, sleep was a lost cause.

  Tomorrow is a new day, she reminded herself, and she would find a way to somehow make it a good one.

  *

  November was definitely no October, Sarah decided. Not even close. The golden, glorious blue sky of October had been replaced by November’s bleak, daylight savings-induced darkness. The tree branches were bare and skeletal against the depressing pale sky. The temperatures had dropped considerably and she never did purchase herself that new jacket. Sarah hated November. It couldn’t win as far as she was concerned.

  Halloween came and went—Grace had gone as Vincent Van Gogh, sans the ear. They’d attended her fourth grade Halloween parade and then gone trick-or-treating with Carmen and her boys. She’d spent the following Sunday, as always, at her parents’ house screaming her lungs out for the Chargers and avoiding any and all questions about her love life.

  As she walked Grace to the bus stop that morning, Sarah listened intently as she rattled off the details of the papier-mâché turkey they’d be making in art class later that day. This was maybe the fifth time in twenty-four hours Grace had explained the process, but Sarah made sure to smile and nod accordingly.

  “Do you think there’s a way to make the turkey actually gobble?” Grace asked. Her excitement was insatiable. “Maybe a speaker inside its body would work.”

  “Slow down, mija. I think you might be dreaming a bit big. One step at a time.”

  “Okay. We can talk about the speaker later.”

  Sarah shook her head in amazement. The kid was tenacious. They’d gone shopping at the hobby store the night before for some extra supplies. Grace was so incredibly anxious to get to work on her turkey, already affectionately named Leonard, that she scampered in short spurts ahead of Sarah on the sidewalk and then meandered her way back to add in extra needed details on her planned masterpiece.

  “Probably, I’ll make his feathers a mixture of different colors, but I want them to be as realistic as possible. Our classroom computer has Google, so I’ll see if Mrs. Henry will let me print out some photos for accuracy.” Grace walked backward facing her.

  Sarah reached out and smoothed Grace’s hair. “Sounds like a good plan.”

  “Do you think he would make a good centerpiece for our table when I’m done? We don’t have any Thanksgiving decorations up, and our place needs some spirit.”

  “I think that could be arranged. Now give me a kiss. Your bus is pulling up.”

  Grace obliged, planting a quick kiss on Sarah’s cheek and heading off. Feeling the buzz of her phone in her pocket, Sarah glanced down to read the text message from her assistant informing her that she now had a ten a.m. consultation with a prospective client. Damn it. It was going to be a tight morning, but she hated to turn away good business. It was Grace’s voice that pulled her from her thoughts.

  “Mom,” she yelled, sticking her head out of the door to the school bus. “Have a great day!” Sarah’s heart swelled and just as she opened her mouth to call back to Grace, she watched her body go limp and crumple like a ragdoll, falling from the top step of the school bus onto the pavement below with a horrifying thud. The action of the world seemed to slow down around her as she looked on in shock. Sarah reached out helplessly, a silent scream of horror bringing her stumbling forward onto her knees. Grace wasn’t moving; she could see that much from her vantage point. There appeared to be a small pool of blood forming beneath her head. Oh God, no. In the midst of Grace’s stillness, pandemonium broke out all around her. Children on the bus were calling out, another parent at the bus stop rushed to Grace’s side, and the bus driver, dialing his phone, descended the stairs rapidly. In the midst of it all, Grace still had not moved.

  All sound disappeared then and Sarah could hear only an intense roaring in her ears. She needed to get to Grace badly, but her body was not cooperating.

  She couldn’t move.

  Grass. There was the cool, damp feel of grass beneath her cheek and that was okay, she thought, as the world faded to black, because at least now she wouldn’t have to watch her child taken from her. She wouldn’t have to watch Grace die.

  Chapter Sixteen

  By the time Sarah came to, Grace had been transported to the hospital by ambulance. The other parent had ridden with Sarah in a police car, though her memory of the ride was almost entirely nonexistent. Except for the siren. She could still hear that shrill, horrible siren.

  Once she arrived at the hospital, Sarah was placed in a small exam room, and though the hospital staff assured her repeatedly that Grace was awake, she couldn’t seem to stop calling out her name in a voice so wracked with fear that she no longer recognized it as her own. She was asked a lot of questions, that part she remembered, about her name, address, and what year it was. All she could think about, however, was Grace’s lifeless body as she’d last seen it on the cement below the school bus. The other mother, Trish somebody, stood at her shoulder, looking through Sarah’s cell phone for someone to contact.

  “I’m going to call your mother,” Trish said. She pointed to the contact scroll in the phone. “Is that okay? Should I call your mother?”

  Sarah nodded numbly. “Where’s Grace?” she asked the doctor who was shining a small light into her eye. Her voice sounded hoarse from screaming, and she noticed that her hands were still trembling.

  “Another doctor is in charge of your daughter’s case, Ms. Matamoros. She’s just a few doors down, and I promise they’re taking good care of her. Now, can you tell me where you are?”

  “The emergency room. Please let me see my daughter.”

  “Soon. We have to make sure you’re all right first. You took a bit of a fall yourself.”

  “I’m fine,” Sarah insisted harshly. She stood and moved deliberately into the hallway. “I need to see my daughter. Now.”

  Seeming to finally understand her urgency, the doctor led her down the sho
rt hallway to a nearby hospital room. There were several people bustling about the bed, but there Grace was, alive, awake, and looking more than a little afraid.

  Sarah forced a smile and kept her voice low so as not to disturb the medical staff. “Hi, sweetheart. Everything’s okay. Don’t worry. How are you feeling?” Grace looked pale and not so great. She could see that there were traces of blood still matted in her hair.

  Grace blinked up at her, tears in her eyes. “My head hurts. What happened? I don’t feel well.”

  “You fell down and bumped your head, baby. The doctors need to make sure you’re okay.”

  A petite brunette referencing something on a clipboard stepped forward. “Ms. Matamoros, I’m Dr. Riggs. May we speak outside?”

  Sarah nodded and kissed Grace’s forehead. “I’ll be back in just a minute. You rest. Everything is going to be okay.”

  Once they were in the hallway, Dr. Riggs didn’t waste any time. “The good news is that we got Grace here in very good time following her accident, and with head trauma, every second counts. At this point, it’s encouraging that she’s awake and conversing with us. However, she did sustain a significant blow and she seems a little bit fuzzy, disoriented on-and-off. It’s highly likely that she’s suffering from a concussion, and I’d like to run an immediate CT just to rule out any complications. This is the kind of injury we have to take very seriously.”

  Sarah blinked. “Of course. Can I go with her?” Sarah’s heart raced as a myriad of terrifying scenarios played themselves out in her head.

  “Certainly.”

  *

  It had been over an hour since the CT, and Sarah paced the hospital room anxiously, waiting for word. Grace continued to move in and out of lucidity and had recently grown more and more quiet. She’s probably just exhausted from the ordeal, Sarah reasoned, anything to keep herself from imagining something worse.

  Now it felt like a waiting game.

  Her mother and father had arrived and they all waited, along with Carmen, in the common waiting room. “Why haven’t they come back, Mama?” Sarah whispered.

  “They’re reading the tests, mija. She’s going to be just fine. I know it.” But when Dr. Riggs emerged fifteen minutes later, the words she imparted to Sarah were not at all reassuring.

  She’d sat down with Sarah in the plastic chairs just outside the nurse’s station. “So here’s what we know. The CT showed significant signs of elevated intracranial pressure, which is a swelling of Grace’s brain due to the fall. I have to be frank, Ms. Matamoros, this is a big cause for concern and something we have to closely monitor. It’s important that we do everything we can to stop the swelling and alleviate the pressure.”

  “What does that mean?” Her hands were shaking in her lap, so she clenched them into fists.

  “The next twenty-four hours will be critical.” Sarah felt her breath catch as the blood drained from her face. The doctor took her hand. “What that means is that we need to give Grace’s brain a chance to rest so it can heal, and we need to put her into a deep sleep so that can happen. She’ll be unconscious for the next day or so, but if we can get the swelling down in the next twenty-four hours, her chance of a full recovery is high.”

  Sarah couldn’t think clearly. This wasn’t part of the plan. When she spoke, her voice was barely a whisper. “And if the swelling doesn’t go down? What then?”

  “That’s harder.” The doctor squeezed her hand. “If the pressure doesn’t go down, or worse, it goes up, Grace could face the effects of brain damage or—”

  “She could die?”

  “She could. It’s a worst-case scenario, but I need to be honest with you. Let’s just focus on these next twenty-four hours and getting her well.”

  *

  Sarah sat mutely in the waiting room. Her mind kept replaying the sequence of events on some unstoppable loop. Her memory of the accident alternated between horrifyingly vivid and frustratingly blank. The small window across the room that offered a peak at the real world, the world Sarah could hardly believe still existed, showed signs of dusk falling. The clock couldn’t turn quickly enough.

  Her brothers checked in hourly, but at her insistence stayed home with their families awaiting word. Carmen offered her encouragement, clearly doing everything a best friend should do, but Sarah couldn’t find it within herself to say much back. Because really there was nothing to say. Instead, she stared at the sterile double doors that led to Grace.

  Visiting hours in the intensive care unit were monitored strictly, and Sarah was allowed inside Grace’s hospital room for twenty minutes each hour. She sat with Grace, who was covered with blankets and tubes, and looking so incredibly small that it about broke her heart in half.

  “You’re going to be okay, baby,” she’d whispered, “I’m right here with you. I’m here, Graciela,” as she held her lifeless hand.

  In the hallway, the doctors murmured in somber tones to one another, but inside, Sarah stroked Grace’s cheek softly, telling her one of her favorite stories, the tortoise and the hare. In the deep recesses of her mind, Sarah recognized with shocking horror, that her beautiful, sweet, witty child might never return to who she once was or…worse. God, she couldn’t acknowledge worse, but it hung over her in this endless nightmare.

  “Sarah, you need to eat something,” Carmen prodded her once she returned to the hellish waiting room. “You’ve been here all day. Did you even eat breakfast this morning before…?”

  Sarah cut her eyes to Carmen and shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Don’t worry about me. I’m fine. I’m not in a hospital bed.”

  “Still, I think—”

  “I said I’m fine.”

  Carmen nodded resolutely.

  Time crawled by.

  Coffee cups came and went.

  The fluorescent lighting in the grim waiting room spared no detail of her family’s fear-stricken faces. Her mother thumbed through a battered magazine from the rickety coffee table. Carmen scanned her phone. All the while Sarah watched the hours tick by with excruciating delay.

  Finally, her father stood. “Why don’t I go pick up dinner for everyone?”

  “Nothing for me,” Sarah said. “You guys go ahead.” Her eyes settled resolutely back on the set of double doors.

  Carmen joined him. “I should update your brothers. Can I use your phone, Sarah? My battery is all but gone.”

  Sarah nodded and handed her the phone. Carmen exited the waiting room with her father, leaving Sarah alone with her mother. She took advantage of the private moment. “Mama, why did this happen? She doesn’t deserve this.”

  “Of course she doesn’t,” her mother said. “You don’t either. No one does. God doesn’t work that way. But here we are and we have to be strong for that little fighter in there, do you understand me? She needs you now.”

  “I’m trying, Mama, but I feel like I’m about to cave in. I can’t seem to find the strength. I feel like crying, but I can’t do that either. I don’t think I can handle this on my own. I need help, but I don’t know where to get it.”

  Her mother scooted in closer and wrapped her arm tightly around Sarah and spoke to her quietly. “This may surprise you, but do you know what helps me in dark times? Prayer. I haven’t raised you in the church because that’s not how I was raised, but in difficult moments, I turn to a higher power. There’s a chapel down the hall. Do you want me to go with you?”

  “No. If I do decide to go, I think it’s something I need to do on my own.”

  By midnight, there was no real change in Grace’s condition, but at least the swelling hadn’t increased. She found herself in a difficult place and thought hard on it. Her mother was right. She wasn’t a very religious person. She’d only been to church a handful of times in her life, mostly on Christmas, and even then it was kind of a formality. But she believed in God. She did.

  The hospital chapel was surprisingly small with only four pews and a center aisle leading up to a modest altar. Above the altar hung a
large stained-glass window depicting two white doves in flight. Sarah took in the image before her, struck by its beauty. There was something about the quiet of the room that she found comforting.

  She glanced around, feeling unsure and not knowing exactly how to proceed. Finally, she decided to do what felt natural. She knelt before the altar, bowed her head, and took a deep breath. Here goes nothing. “So I know I haven’t been in touch in a while, and I’m so sorry about that. I don’t know how else to say this, but I really need you today and so does my daughter, Grace.” She felt her voice catch and choked back emotion. “She’s only eight years old and not doing so well. Please help her through this. I don’t think I’d survive if anything were to happen to her. She’s my life. And lastly, God, I ask you to send me the strength I need to get through this and to give my daughter the support she needs right now. Please send me the strength and I will receive it. Amen.”

  Sarah raised her eyes and stared silently at the white doves for another few moments when a feeling of calm slowly and inexplicably crept over her. She couldn’t identify precisely its source, but she could detect a noticeable change in her resolve. She stood slowly and turned. The figure standing at the entrance to the chapel was dimly lit but unmistakable. Sarah didn’t hesitate. She moved to Emory and fell into her arms as a burst of tears sprang from somewhere deep within her. Emory held her for several long moments as she cried.

  “I would have been here sooner, but I had a long drive. I came as soon as I heard.”

  “How did you—”

  “Carmen called me from your phone a few hours ago. Grace is going to come through. Know that.”

  Sarah nodded, the tears falling freely now, as she clung to Emory and buried her face in her neck. Emory was here and she would help her through this. Emory would be her strength. No matter what had transpired between them, that much she knew.

  They walked slowly back to the intensive care, Sarah filling Emory in on all that had happened. Emory greeted her parents and accepted a hug from Carmen. She sat next to Sarah and held her hand, not saying much of anything, seeming to know that was exactly what Sarah needed.