One of the doctors, a young guy with glasses, turned to me. He acted like this was no big deal, like it happened all the time. In a cool, clinical voice, he said, “I’m Dr. Bennington. Could you describe the accident please?”
I told him what I had seen and he nodded. “Was he all right before the game?”
I remembered the way he had been looking. “No,” I said. “I think he was feeling bad. He said he was feeling a little nauseous. His mother didn’t want him to play. But he did anyway. He said it was nothing.”
“Did he say he had any pain?”
“No. But during the game he was holding his side.”
He turned to the other doctor. “Almost certainly the liver. Internal bleeding. Given his skin color, there’s a good chance there was already a problem. If his liver was already compromised, a sudden impact could have caused the liver to fail. Let’s get him stabilized and run some tests. Right away. There’s no time to fool around.”
“What’s his name?” the doctor asked me, again talking like this was all matter of fact.
“Kurt,” I said.
The doctor bent over the patient, shined a tiny light in his eyes. “Kurt, can you hear me?”
“No response,” said the other doctor. “Let’s get him upstairs.”
chapter five
The door opened and the nurse from the front desk came in with Kurt’s parents. Both of them were visibly shaken when they saw Kurt passed out on the bed. His mother picked up his hand and seemed shocked by the feel of it. It was cold and clammy. I knew because I had held his hand during the ambulance ride. It was scary.
Kurt’s father started to talk to the doctors in a shaky, almost angry voice. “Do what you have to do.” Then he looked at them suspiciously. “Are you guys the best available?” he continued. “I only want the best for my son.”
“Look,” the young doctor said. “We have to get him upstairs right away. We think there’s damage to the liver. No time to waste. Will you go out front and fill out the permission form?”
They began to wheel Kurt out of the room. The nurse pulled Kurt’s mother’s hand away from her son, and Kurt’s mom turned and saw me for the first time.
“What’s she doing here?” she screamed hysterically, glaring at me as if I was somehow responsible for this.
I tried to say something, but my voice still wasn’t working right. I ignored Mrs. Richards and tried to follow Kurt to the elevator. I was grabbed by an orderly and pulled back. He led me away from Kurt’s parents toward a small waiting room.
Right then I didn’t trust anyone. That expression on Kurt’s mother’s face was still burning a hole right through me. I wrenched free of the orderly and ran for the front door. Outside, I kept on running until I was six blocks away and my eyes were so filled with tears that I couldn’t see enough to keep going.
When I phoned the hospital later, the switchboard lady said that I couldn’t be connected to Kurt’s room.
“Well, then let me speak to the doctor,” I insisted.
“Your name please?” she asked.
“Tina Wright.”
“You’re not a member of the immediate family?”
I didn’t get it. Why was she putting me off? “I’m his friend, okay?” I snapped.
“Sorry, I can’t help you. Only immediate family can talk to the patient’s doctor,” she said and the line went dead.
It drove me crazy all night, not knowing if Kurt was going to be okay. I kept thinking about all the good times we’d had together. I couldn’t believe that things might never be the same again. Kurt was the only guy I had ever known who treated me like I really mattered. I had other friends, but none like Kurt. He was different.
I kept thinking about when my parents had been fighting and I was so upset I couldn’t think straight at school. It seemed like everybody in town knew about the loud screeching battles between my mom and dad. It was hard to live with everyone knowing about it. Kurt used to sit in the cafeteria with me sometimes, through lunch, and right into the afternoon. One day, he stayed there with me after Mr. Findlay told us to go to class. Even after Mr. Findlay gave us both three days detention, Kurt kept his cool because he knew how upset I was. Then he walked over to Findlay, said something to him, and Findlay left. Kurt sat back down and stayed with me until I was human again. That’s the kind of friend he was.
After school that day we didn’t go to detention, even though we both knew we would be in big trouble. Instead Kurt took me to Point Pleasant Park and we hiked up to a place he called the Ledge. We sat there on a rock overlooking the Northwest Arm. We talked and watched the setting sun. After that I knew I could handle the crap my parents were throwing around.
chapter six
Finally, at about three o’clock in the morning, I gave up trying to fall asleep. I got dressed and sneaked out of the house.
There was no bus, so I had to walk the two miles to the hospital. I ran part of the way. It was really weird going through Halifax alone in the middle of the night.
A couple of cars went by and one lady even stopped to ask me if I was okay. “You need a ride somewhere or something?”
I wasn’t sure what to do, but I said no. “I’m fine,” I said.
“Are you sure? It’s awful late. Maybe you should get in.”
She was probably trying to help, but I was feeling scared. I didn’t trust anyone, especially a stranger. So I ran. It was a good thing that I had been practicing with Kurt. I had good lungs and strong leg muscles.
I knew they weren’t going to welcome me at the hospital. I tried to calm myself down, but I know I looked frazzled when I reached the front desk.
“I need to see my brother, Kurt Richards,” I lied to the nurse. “He had an accident and he’s here somewhere.”
She checked through some lists. “He’s in intensive care. You can’t go in.”
“But there must be something somebody can tell me,” I pleaded.
She could see I was desperate. “There’s a waiting room on the third floor. A doctor will be around.”
“Thanks,” I said and ran for the elevator. When the door opened, I saw Kurt’s parents huddled together on a vinyl sofa. I didn’t care what they thought of me.
“How is he?” I asked.
Mrs. Richards looked up at me and said, “Leave us alone. You have no business here. He’s our son.” She turned away but then looked back at me. “What are you doing here, anyway? Where are your parents? Do they even know you’re here?”
I stood my ground, still trying to figure out what I had done to get this lady so down on me. It was so stupid. She thought I was a bad influence on her son just because my parents fought sometimes. It wasn’t like their family didn’t have a few problems too.
Kurt’s father patted her on the shoulder and got up. He walked me to the other side of the room and whispered, “Now’s the time Kurt needs just his family. You shouldn’t be here.” He was trying to sound cool and unemotional.
“Yeah, but I am.”
He sighed. “Okay. Here’s what we know. There’s some sort of damage to … one of his organs … his liver.”
I think I squinched up my face thinking about it. But I swallowed hard and tried to look serious.
“It’s not functioning properly. He’d been to the doctor with a liver problem before and was treated. But the problem must have come back and we didn’t realize it. When he got kicked in the game, it made things … well, a lot worse.” Mr. Richards rubbed his hand across his face.
“How much worse?” I asked.
“We’re not sure. Everything is under control.”
“Is he going to live?”
Suddenly Mr. Richards seemed angry with me for asking. “Live? Tina, everything is going to be all right. This is just … one of those things … it’s not a life or death situation. Kurt will be fine. It’s all under control.”
I looked him straight in the eyes, but he turned back to his wife. “Now go on home. We don’t need you here, an
d you’re upsetting my wife.”
I saw a doctor walking our way. He had a clipboard.
“Can you tell me how Kurt Richards is doing?” I asked him. I wanted to hear the news straight from the doctor, not just from Kurt’s dad.
He looked at his clipboard then up at me. “Who are you?”
“His friend,” I said. Why didn’t I have a right to know something?
But already two hands had grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me roughly aside. Kurt’s father pointed a finger toward the elevator, and I backed away.
“Any news?” he asked the doctor.
“He’s stable for now,” the doctor said.
“Good,” said his father. “Then everything is going to be okay.” He said it like it was all over and life was going to shift back to normal.
Somehow I knew better. I had a feeling that Kurt’s father was trying to convince himself and his wife that there was no further danger. And that wasn’t what I had seen in the doctor’s eyes.
Still, I couldn’t stand another confrontation. I slipped onto the elevator and left.
chapter seven
Six days went by, and no one would tell me a thing. Kurt’s parents hung up when I called. I tried getting up to the third floor in the hospital again, but each time I tried someone told me that since I wasn’t family I wasn’t allowed.
Nobody at school knew anything. The story going around was that Kurt was getting better and he just had to stay in the hospital for “a while.” It was one of the hardest weeks of my life. I flunked every test that came my way and couldn’t read three lines in a book without forgetting what I had just read.
Then I was at my locker after fifth period and who shows up but Jason, chewing bubble gum. “So, are you going to be there for the unveiling of the new improved Kurt Richards today?” he asked. Then he blew a pink bubble in my face.
“What are you talking about?”
Jason sucked the gum back in and it caught on his cheek. He tried to untangle it from the puny growth of hair on his top lip. “We’re invited to visit the fallen hero,” he said sarcastically, “the living legend of the soccer field who didn’t even last one game into the season.”
I could have slapped the smirk off his face. “Who invited you?”
“His mom.”
It figures, I thought. Leave it to her to invite a dork like Jason and not me. But it sounded like good news to me anyway. It meant Kurt was improving. I heaved a sigh of relief.
“What time?” I asked.
“Three-thirty.”
“What room?”
Jason took out a slip of paper and read the number. “Three fifty-seven.” Then he popped his gum into the slip of paper, wadded it up and batted it with the palm of his hand across the hallway. “Should be good for a laugh,” he said.
I slammed the locker in his face and walked away. I should have been mad at the jerk, but all I could think about was going to see Kurt. I would be there, invited or not. My heart jumped up in my throat.
I got to the waiting room at three-thirty and, this time, no one stopped me. When I walked off the elevator I heard the snickering first; then I saw Wicket, Jason, Dorfman and Leach—all guys from the team. None of them were really good friends of Kurt’s. Kurt was a loner like me. That was why we had always understood each other so well.
“Hi Tina,” Wicket said, trying to be polite.
“Thought you weren’t invited,” Jason teased. He knew there was tension between Kurt’s folks and me. I said nothing. Jason was hugging his motorcycle helmet like he’d been doing all week at school. He had just got his license and his parents had bought him a spanking new Kawasaki. Carrying around the helmet was his way of gloating over his new toy in front everyone—Kurt included, I suppose.
The door to room 357 opened and Kurt’s father walked out. “Thanks for coming, guys.” I hid behind Wicket. “Come on in. Kurt’s anxious to see you.”
I slinked in last and stood near the back of the room, avoiding Kurt’s father. Mrs. Richards wasn’t around, thank God.
Then I saw him, propped up in bed. I almost didn’t recognize him. His face looked sort of yellow and his eyes were sunken in. He had a tube going up his nose and another going into his arm. Everything was secured with white tape and the tubes were hooked up to dripping bottles. Kurt tried to smile but had a hard time faking that he was happy to see everybody.
Nobody said anything and then Jason pointed to another clear plastic sack that was suspended from a hanger at the bottom of the bed. It was connected to a tube that came from under the covers on the bed.
“How’s it going, dude?” Dorfman asked.
Kurt coughed and cleared his throat. “No homework. No responsibilities. It’s like a vacation,” he said. There was little energy in his voice.
Kurt hadn’t seen me yet. I was still hiding. If Mr. Richards was going to throw me out, I wanted to be able to hang around as long as I could before he did.
“Did we win?” Kurt asked. Everybody knew what he meant.
“Nah,” Jason answered. “We lost by one goal. If you’d made your shot it would have been a tie.” Good old Jason wanted to rub it in, even now.
“Easy, dude,” Dorfman said, putting an elbow in Jason’s ribs, then turning to Kurt he asked, “When you getting out?”
Kurt shrugged. His father interjected, “We don’t know for sure when he can leave. His liver has been badly damaged. He’s still bleeding inside.”
“Gross,” Leach responded.
“Tough break,” Jason said. “Hard to stay in shape when you’re in a hospital bed.” He flexed his muscles like he was trying to make the most of it. Dorfman smacked him on the side of the head.
“How’s school?” Kurt asked, sounding like he was half interested, half asleep. Maybe it was the drugs. He might have been on painkillers.
Nobody knew what to say. They shuffled their feet and stared down at the floor. The room grew quiet—too quiet. The silence was broken by the sound of liquid dripping down a tube and emptying into a plastic bag. Jason nodded toward it to draw every-one’s attention. Kurt didn’t notice. I think he was fading off to sleep.
We all looked at the tube coming out from under the sheet. It was clear and the fluid inside it was a sickly yellow with streaks of red.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Leach said and looked around the room for a good place to puke. All he found was a trashcan. He threw himself over it and heaved out his lunch.
Wicket and Dorfman looked like they were about to do the same. They held their noses and ran for the door. Leach followed, his head hung over in embarrassment. Only Jason and I stood there. Jason had a stupid grin on his face like he thought it was all happening for his personal entertainment. I shoved him toward the door and he took the hint.
I’m not sure if Kurt knew what had freaked out the guys. And I don’t know if he knew that I wasn’t supposed to be there, but he noticed me for the first time. So did his dad. Mr. Richards was about to speak, but I fired a look at him that would fry meat. He stayed quiet.
I walked to Kurt’s side and he held up his hand. I grabbed onto it and gave a squeeze. He squeezed back, but he didn’t seem to have much strength. I leaned over and put my cheek next to his. I closed my eyes and realized he was crying when I felt his tears run down my cheek. “Thanks for coming, Tina,” he said in a whisper. “Stay with me.”
When I opened my eyes, I saw Mr. Richards carry the trashcan full of vomit out of the room. He closed the door quietly behind him.
chapter eight
After that, nobody tried to stop me from visiting Kurt. I still didn’t feel comfortable when Kurt’s mother was there. I guess she was trying to be nice to me, but she really got on my nerves.
“You’re such a loyal friend,” she’d say in a haughty voice. But the way she said it sounded like an insult. I wanted to say something to her, but I just kept my mouth shut.
“Kurt’s improving nicely,” Mr. Richards would say. But that wasn’t
quite the way I saw it.
When they were out of the room, I’d say to Kurt, “Squeeze my hand. Hard.” This was my little test to try and figure out if he really was getting better.
He’d squeeze, but there wasn’t much to it. He was still pretty weak. And he seemed depressed.
“I know what you must be feeling,” I said to him ten days after he had first arrived in the hospital. I’d said it to him before, but today things were different.
“No you don’t,” he snapped back. “You don’t know what it’s like at all.”
I felt a little hurt.
“This whole situation stinks. It shouldn’t have happened to me.” He was really angry.
“No, it shouldn’t have,” I said. “You’ll get better.”
“I think it’s the hospital. The longer I stay here, the more I think I’ll never get out. They just keep me here so they can keep the hospital in business. If I just had a chance to get outside, to go home, I’d get better. I know it.”
The door opened and two doctors came in. They were very calm and quiet. They checked the chart on the bed and then one of the monitors beside the bed I recognized Dr. Bennington, the young doctor who had been in Emergency when Kurt had arrived. He’d been a regular, but the other guy was new. Something was up.
While they were in the room, Kurt seemed angrier. The doctors always made him mad. When the door closed behind them, he whispered to me, “They don’t know what they’re doing. If they did, they’d have me fixed up by now.”
“I’ll be right back,” I said. I decided to talk to Bennington myself. Maybe Kurt’s parents knew the whole truth. But I knew Kurt didn’t, and I sure as heck didn’t have all the facts.
I don’t usually sneak up on people and snoop, but Bennington and his buddy were standing at the nursing station desk with their backs to me. No one else was around. Bennington was pointing at Kurt’s chart, which was in his hand.
I crept up silent as a cat and ducked behind the nurse’s station.
“I estimate that the liver is only working at about twenty-five percent,” Bennington said. “He’s going to have to stay in treatment for a long while, maybe indefinitely.”
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