“I’ll be back as fast as I can, I promise,” she said to Peter and he smiled.
“Sorry, Mom,” he said again. “Really stupid.”
“You’re really lucky. And I love you. So just hurry up and get better.”
“Tell Jamie I’m okay,” he said with real effort, but also real progress. It was the longest sentence he’d said since he woke up and started talking to them.
“I will. I’ll see you later.”
“I’m okay.” He was trying to reassure her, which was a good sign. He was cognizant, and not only aware of his surroundings, but the subtler implications of what had happened. She couldn’t even bear to think of what it would have been like if he hadn’t come out of the coma, or worse, hadn’t survived. It didn’t bear thinking.
“I expect to see you running up and down the hall when I get back. Okay?” He laughed at her, and she walked slowly out into the hall after she kissed him, and the doctor followed.
“He’s a very lucky boy,” he said, looking impressed by her. She hadn’t faltered for a single moment. “For awhile there, I didn’t think he was going to come out of it without surgery, and certainly not this quickly. He’s young and healthy, and who knows, maybe you made a difference, talking to him like that.”
“Whatever it was, thank God he came out of it when he did.” Her legs went weak as she thought about it.
“He’s going to be here for a couple of weeks, I suspect, so don’t wear yourself out all at once. If you want to come back in the morning, he’ll be fine.”
“I’d rather sleep here. But I’ll go home and check on the other children and then come back in a couple of hours.”
“How many do you have?” He was curious about her. He didn’t know who or what she was, but one thing was obvious to him, she was a wonderful mother and loved her son deeply.
“Five,” she answered him. “He’s the oldest.”
“Leave your number at the desk. I’ll call if anything comes up. And if you decide to stay once you get home, don’t feel guilty about it. The others may be pretty upset, particularly if they saw it happen. How old is your youngest?”
“Ten. They’re ten, eleven, thirteen, and fourteen.”
“You’ve got your hands full.”
“They’re good kids,” she said, and he wanted to say they had a good mother, but he didn’t. Instead, he went back to check on Peter again, and she left. It was after nine when she got home, and all the children were still up. The girls were sitting at the kitchen table, crying, and Jamie was sitting on Carole’s lap, looking exhausted and pale. They looked like orphans from a war zone, and they jumped at her the minute she walked in the door, trying to read her face, but she was smiling, although she looked worn out and disheveled.
“He’s going to be okay. He’s got a terrible concussion, and a hairline fracture of a vertebra in his neck, but he’s going to be okay now. He’s very lucky.”
“Can we see him?” They asked as a chorus.
“Not yet,” Liz said, as Carole put a plate in front of her with leftover meat loaf from dinner, but Liz couldn’t eat a thing.
“When can he come home?” Megan asked, looking anxious.
“Not for a couple of weeks, maybe longer. It depends how fast he recovers.” They wanted to know everything, but she spared them the horrors of that afternoon. All they needed to know was that he had survived. They sat together for an hour, and when they went upstairs, Carole told her how sorry she was. She felt entirely responsible for what had happened.
“Don’t be silly,” Liz said, almost too tired to talk to her, let alone assuage her guilt, but she felt she owed it to her to calm her down. “You can’t control everything. They obviously got too rough. He’s just damn lucky it didn’t kill him, or paralyze him.”
“Oh, my God,” Carole said, as tears rolled down her cheeks and she blew her nose. “Will he really be all right?”
“They think so. He didn’t regain consciousness until a couple of hours ago, but he’s talking now. For a while there, I thought …” She couldn’t even say it, and Carole nodded with tears in her eyes. She had thought the same thing, and the longer it took Liz to come home, and when she didn’t call, Carole was certain that the worst was about to happen. They had come damn close though. “I’m going back tonight. I’ll go up and pack some things.”
“Why don’t you sleep here? You look exhausted, Liz, you can use the rest if you’re going to be with him tomorrow.”
“That’s what the doctor said, but I want to be with him tonight. Even at seventeen, this has to be scary for him, and he’s in a lot of pain from the concussion.”
“Poor kid. What a miserable way to end the summer. Do you think he’ll be able to start school in September?”
“We don’t know yet.” School was the least of his problems. It had looked so terrifying all afternoon. Liz felt as though she’d been hit by an express train as she thought of it, and she looked as though she had, as Carole’s heart went out to her.
Liz walked slowly upstairs, and went in to kiss Jamie good night, but he was already sound asleep, and the girls were in bed. The house seemed strangely quiet without Peter, as she walked into her room and sat down on the bed. She wanted to pack a bag, but suddenly she couldn’t move. All she could think of was what had nearly happened, and all she could do was sob with relief. It was after eleven when she finally packed her bag, and midnight when she got back to the hospital to see him. She had delayed for a few minutes to call her mother, who was horrified about Peter’s accident when Liz told her. “My God, will he be all right?” she asked in a choked voice, and Liz reassured her and promised that when Peter felt better, he would call her.
Peter was awake when Liz arrived back at the hospital, and continuing to make good progress. He was talking almost normally to one of the nurses when Liz walked into the ICU.
“Hi, Mom,” he said the moment he saw her. “How’s Jamie?”
“He’s fine. Everybody said to tell you they love you. They wanted to come and see you. I told them to wait awhile, or they’d have been back here with me.”
The nurse set up a bed for her in a corner of the waiting room, and she lay down on it in the tracksuit she’d worn, and she pulled a blanket over her. They had promised to come and wake her if Peter needed her, or got worse again, but they told her they didn’t think there would be a problem. His vital signs were good, and he was talking up a storm.
She was just drifting off to sleep when she saw Bill Webster walk into the room, and she sat bolt upright in panic, with her heart pounding as she looked at him. He had changed his green scrubs for gray ones. It was not a particularly attractive costume.
“What happened?”
“Nothing. He’s fine. I didn’t mean to scare you. I just wanted to see if you needed anything … something to sleep …” He seemed to hesitate, and she realized how much he cared and she was grateful for what he was doing for Peter, and had already done.
“I’m fine, thank you,” she said, unwinding slowly again. “And thank you for everything you’ve done. I think I’ll be able to sleep.” She looked so tired, but it didn’t really surprise him. It had been an intense afternoon.
“I’m glad he’s doing so well.” He looked as though he meant it.
“So am I. I’m not sure we’d have lived through it, if he didn’t.”
“Was your husband ill for a long time?” he asked. For some reason he had assumed it was cancer, but she shook her head.
“He was shot by the husband of one of our clients on Christmas morning.” That jogged his memory, and he nodded. He couldn’t think of what to say to her, and could only guess what it had been like for her.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I remember seeing it on the news,” and then he turned off the light in the waiting room, and left her. It was hard not to admire her. She was still walking around, still reasonable, still coherent, still taking care of her kids and working. He went back to check on Peter then, and smiled as he looked
at him. He had been a gift that night to his mother, and she deserved it. Even more than Bill Webster could imagine. But what he knew now was enough. The boy was doing fine. And he smiled to himself as he walked back to his desk to sign some orders. He liked days like this one, days when you won instead of lost. It was one of those days that made him glad he did what he did for a living. For once, the fates had played fair with his patient. He sat back in his chair then, and closed his eyes for a minute. And then he opened them again, and signed the orders they needed from him. He had a long night ahead of him, but he didn’t mind. Things had worked out just fine this time, and he was glad.
Chapter 7
Liz slept fitfully for a few hours in the waiting room where Bill Webster had left her, and was back at Peter’s bedside before he woke up. And when Peter did wake up he had a tremendous headache, and complained about the brace and the pain at the back of his neck.
Webster came and checked on him at six o’clock in the morning, as he had every hour all through the night. But everything looked fine to him. The neurosurgeon came back later that morning, and seemed pleased with what he saw. He told Liz that her son was a very lucky boy.
She helped the nurses bathe him, and they started him on clear fluids, and in the early afternoon, she went home for a while. The others were still anxious about him, and the girls had a million questions, but as soon as she got home, Liz realized that Jamie was nowhere to be found. She asked Carole about it, who said that she hadn’t seen him since breakfast, and when Liz searched the house, she found him sitting quietly in his room.
“Hi, sweetheart, what are you doing up here all by yourself?” She was worried about him, and even more so when he turned to look at her and she could see the devastation on his face. Just seeing him that way made her heart sink like a rock. She went to sit beside him on the floor and took his hand in her own. “Peter said to send you his love. He’s going to try and come home soon.” But Jamie just shook his head, as two tears rolled slowly down his cheeks into his lap.
“No, he’s not. He’s gone, like Daddy. I had a dream about him last night.”
“Look at me,” she said, turning his face gently toward her, and looking straight into his eyes. “I’m not lying to you, Jamie. Peter is going to be fine. He hurt his neck and he has a brace on it, and a big, big headache. But I promise you, he’s coming back.” There was a long silence between them, as the child searched her eyes.
“Can I see him?” He still looked pretty scary, with tubes everywhere, and monitors flashing and beeping, but she couldn’t help wondering if it would be better for Jamie to see him and know for certain that his brother was alive.
“If you really want to. There are a lot of machines around him, they make funny noises, and he has tubes in his arms.”
“What kind of tubes?” Jamie looked curious but less frightened.
“Kind of like straws.” That was close enough.
“Will they let me see him?” There were no children allowed in the ICU, but she decided to ask Bill Webster, and explain the situation to him. He told her he’d be on duty that evening, and she had promised Peter she’d be back to spend the night.
“I’ll ask,” she promised, and then gently pulled the child into her arms. “I love you, Jamie. Everything is going to be all right.”
“Promise he’s not going away like Daddy?”
“I promise,” she said, fighting back tears. This was still so hard for all of them, not just for her.
“Pinkie swear?” he asked, holding his little finger up, and she linked it with her own.
“Pinkie swear. I’ll ask about your visiting when I see the doctor tonight. Why don’t we call Peter this afternoon so you can talk to him?” Jamie’s eyes lit up at that.
“Can I?”
“Sure,” she promised, and realized that it would be a relief to his sisters too. Jamie came downstairs with her after that, and she rounded up the girls, dialed the hospital, and asked for the Trauma ICU.
They brought a phone to Peter, and he sounded hoarse and weak, but relatively normal in spite of it, he promised to come home as soon as he could, and told his sisters to behave while he was gone. And then he warned Jamie to be careful in the pool, and told him that what he had done was real dumb, and never to do anything like that.
“I miss you guys,” he said, sounding like a child again, and Liz could hear tears in his voice, as she listened on the other phone. “I’ll come home as soon as I can.”
“Mom said she’s going to ask if I can come and visit you,” Jamie said proudly, and Peter sounded pleased. Liz spoke up then and told Peter she’d be back in a few hours. If he was feeling all right, she wanted to have dinner with the kids.
“That’s fine, Mom. Can you bring me something to eat?”
“Like what?” He was still on fluids, and they were talking about starting him on Jell-O that afternoon. He wasn’t too excited about that.
“A cheeseburger.” His mother laughed at the request.
“You must be feeling a lot better.” It was a far cry from the day before when she was begging him to open his eyes and talk to her, as he lay there in another world. “I think you’d better wait a couple of days for that, sweetheart.”
“I figured you’d say that.” He sounded disappointed.
“I’ll see you later.”
She went back to the other children then, and Jamie sat on her lap for a while, but he looked less upset than he had been. Talking to Peter had helped. And after he went to play outside, she called her office. According to Jean, there was nothing exciting happening. She had managed to postpone a court appearance, and reschedule some appointments for the following week. But it pointed out to Liz again that everything rested on her shoulders now. There was no one to stand in for her, juggle cases with her, it all depended on her. The children, her work, the catastrophe that had nearly befallen Peter, and the destruction it would have wrought if he had not survived. It was an awesome burden. And she was thinking about it as she drove back to the hospital to see Peter that night.
Bill Webster was back on duty by then, and he smiled when he saw her, but he looked harassed, and only waved as she walked by. It was another hour before he drifted in to the ICU to see Peter, and chat with her.
“How’s our star patient doing?”
“He asked for a cheeseburger, I think that’s a good sign, don’t you?” she asked, as she brushed a lock of red hair out of her eyes. She had been gently rubbing Peter’s shoulders for him, and he was still complaining about his massive headache, but they had put him on pain medication, which seemed to help somewhat.
“I think a cheeseburger is an excellent sign. How about tomorrow, Peter?”
“Really?” Peter looked thrilled.
“I think so. We’re going to start you on therapy for that neck in a few days, and you might as well get your strength up, if your stomach doesn’t object too much.” It was good news to Peter, who had hated the Jell-O, and refused to eat it, or the thin clear soup.
Bill Webster checked a few things on Peter’s chart, looked carefully at the monitors, and made some notes before he left the ICU again, and Liz followed him out. She wanted to ask him about bringing Jamie to visit the following afternoon.
“I have a favor to ask,” she began cautiously, as he listened. He was wearing blue scrubs this time, and he looked as though he hadn’t combed his hair in days. But he’d been dealing with a head-on collision all afternoon, three children and five adults had been injured. Two of the children had died that evening. It had been depressing and ugly, and it was a relief, even to him, to see Peter make such good progress. “I know they don’t let children visit the ICU,” she began, and he nodded, looking only faintly impatient. In his opinion, there were good reasons for not having children in the ICU, they were little germ factories, and his patients were not up to fighting off infections. But Liz was looking at him with a serious expression. “We’ve all been through a lot in the past year, since their father died,”
she still hated saying the word, but knew she had to, “and my youngest son is very upset about Peter.”
“How old is he?”
“Ten,” she hesitated, looking at him, wondering how much she needed to tell him, and then she decided to confide in him. After all, he had saved Peter’s life. “He’s learning-delayed. He was premature, and suffered a severe oxygen loss, and when they gave him oxygen at the delivery, it caused some damage. This is very hard for him, he saw what happened yesterday, and he thinks Peter may not come back, like his father. It would help a lot if he could see him sometime soon.”
There was a long pause as Bill Webster looked at her, and then nodded. She’d been through a lot, he was sure, and so had her kids.
“What can I do to help you?” he asked gently. “You have a lot on your plate, don’t you?” The way he said it to her made her eyes fill with tears, and she turned away for a minute to compose herself before she answered. It was just as it had been right after Jack died, when people were kind to her, it broke down her defenses and made her cry.
“Just let him see Peter,” she said softly.
“Whenever you like. What about the others? Are they okay about it?” The family had clearly taken a heavy hit when their father was killed, and he wanted to do something now to ease their burdens. It made him realize what their brother represented to them, and to their mother. It gave him some insight into what he’d seen between them the day before.
“I think the girls understand, but it would reassure them to see him. I just didn’t want to push too far. But it’s really important for Jamie.”
“Bring him in first thing tomorrow.”
“Thank you,” she said, feeling moved by what he’d said to her, and not sure how to thank him.
She went back to Peter then, and stayed with him until he fell asleep, and then she went back to sleep herself on the couch in the waiting room. It was dark in the room, but she was still awake when Bill opened the door and looked in at her. He couldn’t see if she was sleeping, and he was afraid to disturb her. He just stood watching her for a long moment until he spoke.
The House on Hope Street Page 11