Miracle

by Kimberly Shursen

  “Are you alright, Mr. Abbott? You’re a little peaked.”

  Frightened by what was happening, Clint sat down. “I don’t know,” he said, his heart beats escalating.

  “I want you to take in a deep breath and breathe out slowly. Do it several times. I think you might be having a panic attack.”

  Levitt was quiet as Clint tried to compose himself.

  “I apologize,” Clint said a few seconds later. He covered his mouth and coughed, hoping that what just happened never would again.

  “Understandable reaction. Many go through this, especially if they’re under a lot of stress.”

  Embarrassed, Clint asked, “Is she”—Clint cleared his throat—“is she going to be okay?”

  “As you know Mira was unconscious when she came in, and bleeding from the ears, mouth, and nose.” Levitt took a chair across from Clint.

  He started to feel dizzy again. “I had no idea.” He drew in a deep breath, telling himself to calm down. “But she’s only six.”

  “Age doesn’t matter when it comes to an aneurysm.”

  The only time Clint had heard about this happening was in high school when a friend’s father died with a brain bleed.

  “She’s still in surgery and probably will be for the next few hours,” Levitt said and stood. “I need to get back as I’m assisting.”

  “She’d doing fine though, right?”

  “I’m going to be honest with you, Mr. Abbott. It could go either way. The good news is we’ve stopped the bleed.”

  “And the bad news?”

  “There could be repercussions. Anytime something goes wrong with the brain, it could affect anything from speech to memory,” Levitt told him evenly. “But not always.”

  Clint tuned the rest of what Levitt was telling him out, thinking about one thing only: If her memory was affected, or gone, he and Charlie may never know if it was Mira who’d survived or Faith.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  “DAMN YOU, CLINT ABBOTT.” Charlie was furious. “Why didn’t you call like you promised my mom?” A jolt of pain shot through her chest and into her shoulder. “I’ve been worried sick. It’s after ten and you said you’d—”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “That’s all you have? I’m sorry? I’ve called the house a dozen times. Why didn’t you answer?” It wasn’t like Clint to promise something and not come through. “Where are you? Where’s Mira?”

  There was a long pause before he answered, “We’re in Kansas City.”

  “Kansas City?” she blurted. What are you doing there? I thought Mira was—”

  “Mira’s in the hospital. Mercy Medical.”

  “What? What is going—”

  “Just calm down and I’ll tell you.”

  She pushed the call button at the same time she reprimanded Clint, “Don’t you tell me to calm—”

  “Can I help you?” a voice answered over the monitor.

  “Yes,” Charlie said, “I need a pain pill.”

  “I’ll be right down,” the nurse answered.

  Charlie turned her focus back to Clint. “You lied to me.”

  “I didn’t want to worry you.”

  “You said you’d call and don’t, and then tell me you don’t want me to worry?” She smirked as the nurse entered the room. Charlie held out her hand and popped the pills in her mouth. “Thank you,” she said curtly to the nurse and then went back to Clint. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  After Clint explained that he’d received a call from a policeman in Kansas City, and that Mira had surgery because of an aneurysm, Charlie was so upset she could barely speak. “Oh, God,” she said, “I need to be with my baby.”

  “Mira’s in a coma,” Clint said. “There’s nothing either of us can do right now but wait.”

  “Are you saying that we could lose her?” Charlie held her breath.

  “Her surgeon induced the coma. He told me it would help reduce the swelling around her brain.”

  Charlie started to cry, her nerves were shot. “I need to be there.”

  “What you need is to get better,” Clint said calmly. “I’m right here beside her and she’s resting peacefully.”

  Suddenly angry, Charlie said, “And you decided to leave me in the dark again?”

  “I didn’t want to—”

  “Don’t you dare tell me you didn’t want me to worry. I’m sick of your excuses. If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t…” Charlie stopped, knowing she’d gone too far

  “You’d what? Not be in the hospital? You wouldn’t have been shot?” Do you really think I led that Patterson woman on?” Clint let out in a huff. “If you recall, this all started when Mira said you hurt her.”

  Incensed, she came back with, “And you’re the one who led Miss Piggy on.”

  “I did not lead anyone on,” Clint shouted so loudly that Charlie pulled the phone away from her ear.

  “Then why did she stow away in our house with a gun and—”

  “Oh, for Crissakes, Charlie, stop it!”

  “Mrs. Abbott?” The same nurse who’d given her pain pills charged Charlie’s bed. She glanced up at the monitor. “Your heart rate is escalating.”

  “Nothing.” Charlie leaned back in her pillow. “I’m fine.”

  “You have to stay calm.” Charlie’s nurse put a hand on her arm. “Rest is the best medicine.”

  “I know.”

  The nurse turned the blaring machine off and then back on again. She watched the monitor for a few seconds, making sure Charlie’s blood pressure was stable.

  “Charlie?” Clint asked. “What’s going on?”

  “Hold on, Clint.”

  “One more time for that monitor”—the nurse pointed a finger at Charlie— “and the phone goes bye-bye.”

  Charlie waited for her to leave and then turned her attention back to Clint. “I’ll be fine.” She pushed a stray hair that had come loose from her ponytail back over an ear.

  “What happened?”

  “Oh, the stupid monitor went nuts. Blood pressure or heart rate or something.”

  “That’s exactly why I didn’t want to tell you about Mira.”

  Charlie felt her heart start to speed up again and she almost pulled the plug on the machine.“Did you talk to her? Mira? After she came out of surgery?”

  “No. They put her to sleep before she went into recovery.”

  “So you don’t know if she’s Mira or Faith.”

  “No.”

  “I’m not staying away any longer,” Charlie said. “I’ve been left out in the cold too long.”

  “That’s exactly what she wanted.”

  “What who wanted?”

  “Faith,” Clint said, “We’re tearing each other and our marriage apart.”

  He sounded tired. God, she wished she was with him. “You’re aware that you’re never going to get rid of me, right?”

  “Nor do I want to,” Clint responded.

  They could talk about their marriage later. Right now, they had a child in crisis. “Tell me more about Mira,” Charlie asked, trying hard to stay strong.

  “We won’t know anything more until she comes out of the coma.”

  Feeling drowsy, Charlie wished she’d never taken the pain meds. “Where’s Winston?”

  Again, Clint was silent.

  “Is he with you? Did he tell you what hap—”

  “I… I don’t know how to tell you this.”

  Now what? Just in case, Charlie reached up and turned off the heart monitor. “Just tell me.”

  “Winston’s no longer… he’s no longer with us.”

  “Winton abandoned Mira? Oh, my, God.” She put her hand down on the mattress and tried to sit up, but the pain was too intense. “Is that why she was found outside?”

  “No,” Clint’s tone was somber.

  “Then where is he?”

  Clint closed his eyes, knowing what her reaction would be. “Winston died of a heart attack.”

  The news took her
breath away.

  “I’m sorry, honey.”

  Oh, no. No… no… no.” Charlie’s heart was breaking. How many tears could she have left? “Make it stop. Just make this whole God damn thing stop.” She felt as if she was losing her mind.

  Clint was quiet until Charlie’s crying turned to snivels. “Winston doesn’t have any family and I don’t have any contacts for him. The hospital can’t keep him here.”

  She began to feel the effects of the pain pills, her eyes growing heavy. “I feel like I’m inside a bad dream and can’t wake up.”

  “I wish that were true.” Clint went back to what they were talking about before. “If they can’t locate any of Winston’s relatives, I thought I’d have him cremated.”

  “You’d have him cremated? Is that legal?”

  “I’m not going to leave him here.”

  “I can’t believe that I”—she broke down again—“that I won’t ever see him again.”

  “Me, either and no one knows what happened.”

  “What about his ashes?” Charlie asked.

  “He talked about his place in Kentucky. I think he said it was on a lake.”

  Charlie’s mind was growing fuzzier every second. “So we’d take him home?”

  “I think that’s what he would want.” Clint paused. “Don’t you?”

  “Yes. That’s where Saul is.”

  “About Mira,” Clint said, changing the subject. “The doctor said there could be complications.”

  Charlie braced for more bad news.

  “The operation could have an effect Mira’s speech, balance… memory. I can’t remember what else he—”

  Unable to stay awake any longer, Charlie drifted off with the phone nestled between her shoulder and ear.

  When Charlie woke, she was soaked in perspiration.

  The last thing she remembered Clint saying was something about Mira could have complications. But it wasn’t Clint that kept repeating the word “memory” over and over in her dream. It was Winston’s voice.

  She’d had a nightmare about watching Mira on the operating table, her head cut open exposing her brain. And she’d seen Winston’s face, his eyes wide open and staring intensely at Charlie, his mouth moving as if he were trying to tell her something, but nothing came out.

  “What, Winston?” she said out loud, slowly moving her feet over the edge of the bed. “What are you trying to tell me?”

  Racking her brain, when a thought crossed her mind, she picked up the phone. “Mom?” Charlie said when her mother answered. “Is Daddy up to driving us to Kansas City?”

  “Kansas City? Charlene Abbott, you cannot—”

  “Mom, please.” Her mother always called her by her given name when she was upset with her. “I’ll explain everything when I see you. It’s important or I wouldn’t ask Daddy to take me.”

  Charlie had the nurse call her doctor and tell him she needed the chest tube removed immediately. Two hours later, she signed a form saying she was leaving against medical advice and Charlie settled into the backseat of her father’s Corolla. “I need to stop by the house first.”

  When Charlie opened the back door, the sight of her own blood splattered on the walls, table, along with the thick pool on the floor made her stomach curdle.

  After her father helped Charlie up to her bedroom and left her alone, she went to the small desk under the window and turned on the computer.

  Next, she went to the closet and opened a metal cabinet where Clint kept important papers. After she located Mira and Faith’s hospital file, she carried it back to the desk and sat down.

  Flipping through the hundreds of pages, trying to understand all the medical lingo, Charlie found that the surgery to separate the twins had taken longer than expected because of the depth of the connective tissue.

  After she found where the twins had been conjoined, she typed the words “parts of the brain and function” into the browser.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  SHE DIDN’T LOOK LIKE the child who’d left the house with Winston yesterday morning.

  Whenever Clint scanned the dark bruises on her legs, arms, and face, his temper flared. What kind of pain had his little girl gone through? She’d been found in front of a house where Winston had died. Mira’s surgeon had told Clint that the aneurysm burst before she was found and it was a miracle that she’d survived.

  Mira’s hands were folded chest high over the blanket. The ventilator tube was taped to either side of her upturned nose.

  Clint watched her chest rise and fall with each breath of oxygen that was forced into her lungs. Her shaved head was bound in white bandages, and sensors attached to her chest and head were attached to monitors blinking red or green. Water, nutrients, and antibiotics dripped slowly into her veins.

  There were no words to describe what Clint was feeling. It was agonizing to see his child so helpless, and carry the guilt of letting Mira go with Winston.

  Evidently Charlie’s mother had kept her promise, and not told Charlie that Clint had called and told her that child services would be contacting them. He’d asked his mother-in-law to stretch the truth and say that she’d seen Mira the morning she’d left with Winston.

  Clint wasn’t allowed to see his child until the hospital social worker and child services representative had spoken with both Charlie’s mother and physician. He’d been on pins and needles thinking that they’d find out that Mira had been removed from their home for a period of time. Thank God child services were satisfied with Mira’s doctor and Charlie’s mother’s responses.

  He placed a callused hand over her pale, frail hand. The nurses advised Clint to talk to Mira. Clint rambled on about Hank, and how Charlie was getting better, and that he couldn’t wait until they could build another snowman together. In between the mindless chatter, he’d choke up, unable to continue.

  “We’ll be taking Mira down for some tests.” Clint wiped his eyes before turning around to face a nurse.

  “What kind of tests?”

  “We just want to make sure Mira is progressing,” she said as two attendants walked into the room.

  Clint stood. “Should I go with her?”

  “You can’t go in during the scan, so why not grab a cup of coffee or some food at the cafeteria in the lower level of the hospital?”

  “How long will she be gone?”

  “Forty, maybe fifty minutes.” The nurse smiled. “We’ll take good care of her.”

  Feeling anxious, every time he left Mira, something bad happened, even if he was only a bedroom away. He stood in the hallway, watching as they pushed her bed away from him. Clint would give anything if he could trade places with her.

  He went back into her room and headed for the bathroom. After he took off his baseball hat, and set it down on the toilet seat, Clint turned on the spigot and splashed cold water over his face.

  When he looked into the mirror, beads of water dripped from the thick stubble of whiskers on his cheeks and chin. The dark, puffy skin underneath his eyes made him look a hundred years old. He grabbed a towel off the rack and wiped his face.

  Going down the hallway, the silence made him even more anxious. Every patient in ICU teetered on life and death as friends and family took shifts to watch over loved ones.

  In the cafeteria, he grabbed a cup of coffee and a sandwich, but could only stomach a couple of bites before tossing the stale ham, cheese and bread into the garbage.

  On the way back to Mira’s room, he stopped at the gift shop, grabbed a couple of disposable razors, shaving cream, deodorant, soap, and shampoo, and a T-shirt with the Kansas City Chiefs logo on the front.

  When he reached Mira’s room, and saw she wasn’t there, he decided to take a shower. The hot water didn’t last long and, when Clint stepped out, he heard voices.

  “Hope the shower made you feel better, Mr. Abbott,” the nurse told him when he came out of the bathroom.

  “How’d my girl do?” Clint glanced at Mira.

  “Good.” The
nurse adjusted the bedding and then stared down at her face. “She’s such a beautiful child.”

  “Looks like her mother.” God, he wished Charlie was here. He needed her calmness and positive words.

  “Will your wife be coming soon?”

  “I hope so, but she’s in the hospital, too.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “She’s doing well, but thank you.” God knew he couldn’t talk to one more person about what had happened.

  “I guess the saying is true that when it rains, it pours,” the nurse said before leaving. “I’ll be back to check on Mira in a bit.”

  Clint pulled a chair up to the bed again, picked up Mira’s hand and pressed it to his lips. “How ya doin,’ Pumpkin?” he asked. “Remember, we Abbotts are tough.” He gulped back emotion. “Don’t forget, okay?” Clint raked his mind to think of things to talk to Mira about. He wasn’t much of a talker, but he’d do anything to help her.

  “Don’t want to startle you.”

  Clint opened his eyes when he heard someone and cleared his parched throat. How long had he been asleep? He must have put his head down on the bed and drifted off.

  “Dr. Levitt,” Clint said when he saw Dr. Levitt beside him. “Sorry.”

  The physician waved a hand. “No need to apologize. Parents need rest, too. I wanted to talk to you about Mira’s tests. Let’s take a walk down the hall and find an open room.”

  Clint stood and put a hand on the back of his neck, rubbing out the kinks. “I don’t want to leave her.”

  “Would the hallway be alright?” Levitt nodded at the door. “We’ll just be outside.”

  “Sure.”

  A few feet away from Mira’s door, Levitt held Mira’s chart in his hand. “As you know, we did some tests this morning.”

  Clint’s didn’t have a good feeling about this conversation.

  “And it doesn’t look promising.”

  “I don’t understand.” Clint felt his hands start to get clammy and his chest tighten.

  Levitt’s forehead crinkled into fine lines. “The tests revealed there’s no brain activity.”

  “But that’s normal when someone’s in a coma, right?”