Love on Call

by Shirley Hailstock

  She remembered those days. They were painless, and she could still recall the floating feeling that she was someplace safe, inside a warm, moist holding place. She’d had no desire to leave it or to find out what it was. It was just a nice, pleasant place where there was nothing to worry about.

  “Then the voice came.”

  “What voice?”

  “I don’t know. It was a woman’s voice, soft, melodic, soothing. She talked to me. I couldn’t hear any words at first, at least none that I remember. There was a sense of time passing, although—”

  “Time passing?” he interrupted. “Coma patients don’t—”

  “You’re being a doctor,” she stated, cutting him off. “Coma patients are aware of time, although not the same way conscious people are aware of it, in hours and minutes. It’s daylight and darkness that defines time passing.”

  “You knew there were days and nights?”

  She nodded, but realized he couldn’t see her. The sun had set and the room was dark. “I was aware.” She went on with her story. “I couldn’t distinguish single days or know how often the voice came, but there was a regularity to it. I could sense she would be there and I looked forward to hearing her.”

  “Did she come for the entire two years?”

  “I believe so. I don’t know how long I’d been in the coma before I heard her voice. But once I heard it, she continued to come and talk to me.”

  “When did you recognize words?”

  “You don’t recognize words until you wake up. When I woke up I remembered her like a dream. Someone would say something to me and it would trigger the memory.”

  “Didn’t you ever ask who she was?”

  “No one knew. She was like a ghost.”

  “And that’s why you do what you do now?”

  “There are worse things I could do,” she told him.

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “I know,” she interrupted. “The people I talk to are like the children you save. They have no one else. No visitors come to see them. Nurses and doctors monitor their vitals, but there’s no caring, no one to touch their hand.” She reached over and took Brad’s hand as if to demonstrate. “Or caress their face. They’re in a void, and all they need is a voice to help them return.”

  “Why do you keep it secret?”

  “It affords me freedom. I don’t have to answer to anyone. There are no statistics. No one is monitoring the number of patients who wake up versus those who don’t.”

  “But they are. The hospital knows. The nurses talk about it every time one wakes up or someone dies. You appear to be providing a valuable, life-affirming service.”

  “I don’t need accolades, and I don’t need people looking over my shoulder. I do it for the patients and no one else.”

  “You surprise me all the time,” Brad murmured. “Anyone else would want to make front-page news. You’re content to stand in the background and do what you think is right.”

  Mallory smiled to herself. He got it! She was glad it was dark in the room, although the glow coming from her could probably light several candles.

  Brad was quiet for a while, the two of them lying side by side, taking in the twinkling lights of the city. Mallory felt this was as close as she would get to paradise. She slipped her arm around Brad’s middle. She’d been so angry with him earlier, but if she was honest with herself, she’d have to admit his question had probably helped her presentation. The audience had taken her paper seriously enough, but the addition of a personal connection to the psychology of coma patients turned a corner for her with the doctors in residence.

  “Brad,” she said, “I owe you an apology.”

  “For what?”

  “For this afternoon. My anger. You were trying to help me. I understand that now. It’s just that I’m not that forthcoming with my private life and…”

  “I know.” He didn’t let her finish. “Until that day in the emergency room, few people had ever noticed you. Only Dana knew anything about you. Then they went overboard. I admit I did, too.”

  She looked up at him. Their mouths were so close she could feel his breath on her lips.

  “I called you to bail me out. Then I called you when I needed someone to talk to. You saw that I was upset over finding my mother and you stepped in. I let you play the therapist every time I needed one.”

  “Brad, I didn’t mind.”

  He dropped a kiss on her lips. “I know you didn’t.”

  “But had you known I was the ghost, you wouldn’t have asked for my help?”

  “I wouldn’t have added to your burden.”

  Mallory moved away slightly to see him better. “You’re not a burden.”

  “You had enough on your plate. You didn’t need me.”

  “Now that’s where you’re wrong. I do need you.”

  She moved closer to him and pressed her mouth to his. She needed him more than he would ever know.

  Brad crushed her to him, deepening the kiss as one hand smoothed down her body, over her breast and waist to her hips, before returning the same route. Then there was no more talk. His leg accidentally kicked the suitcase, and her belongings toppled to the floor. The two of them barely heard the thud as it landed. They had other sounds ringing in their ears.

  “What did you say?” Owen glared at the brother he’d smiled at only a few moments ago as he came through the hotel room door.

  “She’s alive.” Brad stood on the balls of his feet, his weight evenly distributed as if he were a tennis player who would have to move in one direction or the other as soon as his opponent struck the ball. “I have a report from a private investigator.” He looked toward the desk. The manila folder was inside his briefcase.

  Owen turned his back to Brad and walked across the room. “You just couldn’t leave it alone, could you? You had to keep picking at it, over and over. You’re a doctor, Brad. Why couldn’t you just keep to the business of healing children?”

  “I did, Owen. We were children and we haven’t settled this.”

  “You’re wrong. I’m completely settled with it.” Owen spread his hands in his I-don’t-have-a-care-in-the-world gesture.

  “You say that, but it’s not true. It’s never been true.” Owen didn’t turn around. Brad watched his brother’s back, watched the movements of his muscles as his hands curled into fists and relaxed again. Brad waited. This was a twisting knife in an old injury to Owen. Brad had had time to get used to the idea of their mother being alive. Owen hadn’t had time yet to digest the news. Brad had spent months thinking about her. And he’d had Mallory to hold him, to help him through the trauma. She had been there to keep him sane.

  He wished Owen had someone like Mallory, but his brother played the field. Brad thought their mother was the reason. While Brad had openly searched for her, Owen had hidden the effect she had on him behind a mask, so no one could see the real harm. But Brad knew. Their mother was the reason he didn’t settle on one woman. He was afraid she would leave him, just as their mom had done.

  “Where is she?” Owen asked.

  “Austin. She goes by the name Sharon Yarborough.”

  “All this time. For most of our lives she’s only been two hundred miles from me.”

  Brad nodded.

  “I don’t want to see her.” Owen made a snap decision. He didn’t usually do that, certainly not in his work as an architect. Brad knew it was the hurt—the deep-seated, heartbreaking hurt at what she had done to them and the fear of finding out that she’d really never wanted them—that made him say that. It often manifested as anger or some other emotion, but it was the kind of fear every child knew. Neither Brad nor Owen had ever addressed or released that fear. Silently, Brad thanked God again for Mallory.

  She was in the next room, waiting for him to finish talking to his brother.

  “I want to go and see her,” Brad said.

  “So go. No one is stopping you.”

  “I want you to go with me.”

 
“Not on your life. She left us years ago. She wasn’t concerned if we lived or died. I’m returning the favor.”

  “You don’t know that,” a woman’s voice said.

  Both men turned to see Mallory standing in the doorway of the connecting room.

  “Hello, Owen. I’m Dr. Mallory Russell. I work with Brad and he’s told me about your mother.”

  She extended her hand as she came into the room. Owen took it and quickly shook it. Even when he dropped it he made no comment about how she looked or how attractive she was. Brad understood that meant he was truly distracted. Owen was always ready to compliment a woman.

  “There could be many reasons why your mother never got in touch with you. Not wanting you is only one of them.”

  “Such as…?” He left the sentence hanging.

  “You have to go see her and ask.”

  “Psychiatrist?” He looked at Brad.

  “Friend,” Brad answered. Mallory stared at him. He thought she was happy that he’d addressed her as such.

  “Brad admitted he was afraid of what he might hear,” she murmured. “I imagine you are, too.” She held her hand up when he started to protest. “You don’t have to deny it. Whatever the reason is—that you need to know why she left, you want to tell her off, or just get closure in your life—you owe it to yourself to put it to rest.”

  “You said she wasn’t a psychiatrist.”

  Brad smiled. “She’s going with us.”

  “Is there something here I should know about?” Owen moved his finger back and forth between them.

  “No.” Mallory answered, without giving Brad a chance to deny it.

  The Austin Rehabilitation Center was a single-story brick building that sat on seventeen acres of wooded land a half mile off the highway. The name called up visions of wealth, of uniformed nurses pushing wheel-chair-bound patients around the grounds. In reality it was a state-supported nursing home. The building looked tired. Its roof sagged along the end and the windows were gray and coated with dust. Brad couldn’t imagine the last time they’d been cleaned. The side of the building, under the trees, had green moss climbing its face.

  He got out of the car and expelled a long breath. Brad was hot, but it had more to do with what waited for him inside than with the unusually high temperature.

  Owen must be apprehensive, too. He’d gotten out of the car and stopped just as Brad had. Both of them wanted to go in, but both were afraid of what they would find.

  The unassuming building seemed like a dungeon to Brad. Inside lay all the answers. Questions he’d asked himself in the dark of night and on a sunny street when he thought he saw someone who looked like her could all be laid to rest. All he had to do was walk thirty feet and cross the threshold.

  Their mother didn’t know they were coming. Brad hadn’t called, and Owen hadn’t had the time or inclination. Brad glanced over at his brother, who stared back at him. Half a head taller and looking a lot like him, Owen stepped around to his side.

  Mallory hung back. She’d been quiet in the car, too, letting them relive old times, a mechanism they used to avoid discussing the present and the possible reasons their mother would leave them.

  But now they had only two options, go in and ask the questions or leave. Brad couldn’t leave without knowing. He had to find out. He’d prepared himself for the worst—that she just hadn’t wanted two kids around.

  Mallory slipped her hand into his and he looked down at her. Contact made him feel better. She also took hold of his brother’s hand. She glanced back and forth between them, as if she were a conduit or a pipeline through which the two of them communicated.

  “Ready?” she asked.

  Neither spoke. Owen cleared his throat and Brad nodded. The three of them walked toward the glass entry door, hands still linked.

  “I’ll wait here,” she said after they’d spoken to a receptionist, who told them Sharon Yarborough’s doctor would see them first. They were shown to a waiting room with walls painted a muted blue, dusty and in need of fresh paint, and furniture several decades old.

  “Stay with us.” Brad took her arm and pulled her to her feet just as a short man in his sixties, with thick, graying hair and glasses, came through the door. He wore khaki shorts, an open-collared shirt and sandals. Brad thought he looked more like a beach bum than a doctor. All three pairs of eyes focused on him.

  “I’m Dr. Diaz. You asked to see Mrs. Yarborough.”

  “Yes.” Owen spoke first.

  “I’m Dr. Brad Clayton. This is my brother Owen. And this is Dr. Mallory Russell.”

  “Doctors?” Diaz’s eyes, behind his glasses, revealed his curiosity.

  “We’re in town for the neurology convention.” Mallory looked at Brad.

  “Is that your field?” the doctor asked her.

  “That’s my wish. I’m a first-year resident at Philadelphia General. My interest is in coma patients.”

  He smiled. His teeth were even and too white to be natural. Even with the products on the market to produce white teeth, his gleamed like a toothpaste ad.

  “And you, Mr. Clayton? What do you do?”

  “I’m an architect,” Owen answered cryptically.

  “I see,” he said enigmatically. Then he stated, “Mrs. Yarborough has never had any visitors. Are you relatives?”

  The brothers looked at each other. Brad still held Mallory’s arm. He felt the tension inside himself and tried to relax, wondering if she could feel it, too. He could also see tension in Owen. Mallory raised her hand to cover his. Her touch told him it was all right.

  Owen spoke again. “We believe she’s our mother.”

  The doctor looked at Mallory. “I think we should sit down,” he said. He gestured toward a group of chairs in front of a black coffee table strewn with old magazines. They took seats in tribunal fashion—the three of them on one side, facing the single doctor on the other.

  “Mrs. Yarborough has been with us for nearly fifteen years. She speaks to no one.”

  “Can we see her?” Brad asked.

  “I think it’s only fair that I tell you something about her first and you tell me something.”

  Brad glanced at Owen, then murmured, “What do you want to know?”

  “Why are you here now?”

  “We found out only recently that she was alive and living here. I live in Philadelphia, my brother in Dallas. We wanted to see her.”

  “I’m afraid she won’t recognize you,” Diaz murmured.

  “Can you tell us how she got here?” Mallory spoke for the first time.

  “I can only relate what I’ve been told and what’s in her records. But before I do that, tell me—when was the last time you saw her?” He swung his glance between the brothers.

  “I was nine,” Brad said.

  “Eleven,” Owen stated.

  “Did you come here to confront her?”

  The question took them by surprise.

  “You don’t have to answer. I can see it in your faces,” the doctor said. “I won’t have it. I don’t know the reasons for her actions, but she was severely traumatized, and I won’t have her accosted in my hospital.”

  “Dr. Diaz…” Mallory spoke softly. “That is neither Brad’s nor Owen’s intention. They were abandoned by Mrs. Yarborough, and while they do want to know why she left them, they would never deliberately cause her any harm, or even agitate her in any way.”

  “We may not be able to help that, however,” Brad added. “If she sees us and knows who we are—”

  “I don’t think she will.” Dr. Diaz cut in. “She was very agitated the first few months she was here, but after that she lapsed into a remote state. She’s never asked anything of anyone. She crawled inside herself and there she lives. I’ve tried everything short of surgery to get her to respond to the world around her, but she stays where she’s comfortable.”

  “Coma?” Mallory asked.

  He shook his head. “There is no medical term for her condition. She’s just…l
ost.”

  “What is her physical condition?” Brad asked.

  “She’s healthy, suffers from mild high blood pressure and has arthritis in her knees and fingers. She’s got a strong heart and clear lungs. Other than needing medication for the blood pressure and arthritis, she’s rarely ill. I’d feel better if she got more exercise, but she passively refuses.”

  “Then she’s really fine?” Mallory said.

  “She was abused badly before she came here. We haven’t been able to get the full story.”

  “Physically or sexually?” Owen asked.

  “Both,” the doctor said. “She was beaten, and I’m afraid there is some indication of brain damage.”

  “Indication?” Brad asked.

  “Because we can’t get her to do anything except sit in her chair, it’s difficult to assess if she is not responding because she can’t or simply because she won’t.” The doctor opened his hands in a helpless gesture.

  “Can we see her now?” Brad asked again.

  He nodded. “I need to warn you that the abuse left her face scarred.” He stood up and the three of them stood, too.

  “I believe you should go in one at a time. Since she’s never had a visitor I’m not sure how she will react to you.”

  “I’ll stay here,” Mallory said.

  “Actually, I think you should go first, Dr. Mallory. If she is only hiding inside herself, seeing her sons might cause shock or distress,” Dr. Diaz said.

  Brad looked at Mallory and nodded. “You can tell her we’re here.”

  Mallory came out of Sharon Yarborough’s room and headed down the corridor. She stopped when she saw Brad standing there. He’d probably been pacing, too restless to stand still. She went straight into his arms, hugging him close as if he were a child and needed to be prepared for what was to come.

  His arms encircled her and she felt the safety of them. Mallory hoped her arms made him feel safe, too.

  “How is she?” he asked.