by Joy Elbel
Pacing the floor back and forth, I tried to shake off the anxiety that was coursing through my veins like some sort of nervous poison. I checked the clock religiously with every lap around the waiting room. What could be taking him so long? He said that he would be back for us in a few minutes—a few meant less than five, didn’t it? Didn’t it?
A few—definitely less than five—laps later, a middle aged couple entered the waiting room with an elderly lady in a wheelchair so I forced myself to sit back down. They’d brought her in for a large burn on her right hand but that seemed to be the least of her problems. As a matter of fact, she didn’t seem to realize that she was burnt at all.
Instead, she sat there staring in my direction and loudly repeating, “Ralph, come get your dinner!” Frustration led to irritation which quickly led to rage. I couldn’t take it anymore so I screamed, “Shut up already! Ralph doesn’t want dinner tonight!” Everyone but the lady in the wheelchair ceased all communication and glared at me.
“Ruby! Apologize for your behavior this very instant!” Shelly commanded with more fury than I had ever seen from her before. Before I could say anything, the old lady’s caretaker spoke.
“I know my mother isn’t easy to deal with—God knows I lose patience with her sometimes myself. But she has Alzheimer’s and the only thing she seems to remember is cooking dinner for my father who died thirty years ago when I was about your age. That’s how she burned her hand tonight. We turned our backs for two minutes and she stuck her hand into the flame on our gas stove. Someday you will need the kind of patience it takes to deal with something like this. You best start learning it now, young lady.”
Once the rush of anger subsided, I felt like a complete shitass. Yes, sometimes I thought mean things but I typically didn’t blurt them out like I just did. Not to mention the fact that I lost it on Rachel earlier, too. But there was something so unsettling about the fact that while my world was crumbling, life still refused to come to a halt around me. I fired off an apology as the lady was being wheeled into triage then checked the clock again. Seven minutes had passed.
Before the little hand on the clock could finish its rounds again, Dad emerged from behind the double doors alone. I bolted from my chair, eager to go see Zach.
“Where’s Zach? Is he going to be okay?” “I need to talk to both of you first,” Dad said as he led Rachel and me down the winding hospital corridors. “I’ve seen plenty of gunshot victims in my day but nothing remotely like what I found when I opened Zach up. It defies explanation.”
I didn’t care about explanations—I cared about Zach! Yet again, I was being asked to go about my life as though I hadn’t been shook to my very core by watching Zach take a bullet for me.
Shook. That word gave me the perfect analogy for what was happening in my life right now. I felt like I was trapped inside a snow globe. While I ran scurrying for cover as my whole world turned upside down, the outside world was admiring the sparkly snow as it landed, oblivious to the upheaval inside.
Dad opened the door to a small office and told us to have a seat. More sitting. I didn’t want to sit. I wanted to see Zach, to hold his hand and wait for him to wake up. When he opened his eyes, I wanted to be the first person he saw. I wanted to thank him for taking that bullet for me. Then I wanted to smack him—gently of course—for the very same reason.
“Tell me exactly how it happened starting with the moment the trigger was pulled and ending with your arrival at the ER. Don’t leave anything out—I want every small detail you can remember.”
Rachel went first. She described the sound of the gun going off—without use of the Holocaust reference this time— then proceeded to describe how she incapacitated Jeremy.
“So while I knew that he wasn’t paying attention to the fact that I was even there at all, I snuck up behind him and karate chopped him across the back of the neck!” she exclaimed as she demonstrated her signature move. “He dropped the gun and I wrestled him to the ground. When I rolled over onto a rock, I grabbed it and smashed him over the head with it! I took his gun and hit him with that, too. Then we got Zach into the SUV and came here.”
Rachel seemed disappointed when Dad shook his head and said, “That doesn’t shed any light on this mystery. Ruby, what did you see?”
Way more than Rachel did, that’s for sure. Way more than I ever wanted to see. Since she and my dad were the only ones who would hear my account of what happened, I told them everything.
“So Clay and Zach both got to me around the same time. Before the bullet got to Zach, it went straight through Clay. It was sort of weird. I don’t know exactly how to describe it. Clay’s a ghost but the bullet kind of stuck inside him for a second and then he disappeared. I guess you know the rest of what happened after that.”
“I knew it!” Dad said excitedly. “I knew that bullet hit someone else first—it was the only explanation that made sense. But since no one else came in with a bullet wound, I was totally stumped as to who else it could have been. You owe Clay a huge thank you, Ruby. He’s part of the reason why Zach is still alive. The other part I’m still puzzled about, though. How in the world did you two manage to defibrillate him before he got to the hospital?”
“De- what him?” Rachel asked curiously. “I don’t have any clue what you just said so I’m pretty sure it wasn’t me who did it.”
I wasn’t familiar with the term either but I knew exactly what he was asking us. “I guess that would have been me,” I answered self-consciously. “I hurt him, didn’t I? Please tell me the truth.” Nervously, I began chewing on my bottom lip. I didn’t want to hear his reply.
He returned my question with a brief blank stare, like he was trying to process what I’d said in his brain before replying. “No, Ruby, you definitely didn’t hurt him. Clay is only part of the reason Zach didn’t die before he got to the hospital—whatever you did to him is the second reason. What did you do? And how did you do it?”
The shock. I explained to Dad what happened when I touched Zach’s chest—something I hadn’t even told Rachel yet. And I explained that it wasn’t the first time—simply the most important time. She knew that he and I had a powerful connection—she just didn’t know how strong it really was.
Dad sat there in awe. They both sat there in awe. “I don’t know any other way to say this so I’m just going to come out with it. I think you brought him back from the dead.”
Now it was my turn to be awestruck. “I did what?” “All fancy medical terms aside, if Clay hadn’t taken the brunt of that bullet; Zach would have probably died instantly. If that bullet had struck him even a hair higher or to the right, he wouldn’t still be alive. He lost an incredible amount of blood as it was but his heart rhythm was stronger when he got here than it should have been without defibrillation of some sort. Any way you look at it, the deck was stacked in his favor which makes his condition now even more puzzling.”
I knew that something else had to be wrong. If everything had been okay, Rachel and I would have been allowed to see Zach already.
“What’s wrong with my brother?” Rachel asked through a sudden onslaught of tears. “I’m not quite sure, Rachel. We hooked him up to an EEG to check for brain damage since I didn’t know for certain how long he’d gone without oxygen. The results don’t look normal. I’ve never seen anything like it. I wish that I could tell you that he’s going to be okay, but I don’t know that for sure. All I know is that luck’s been with him so far and we need to hope and pray for the best. I consulted with a neurosurgeon that I used to work with back in Trinity. He’ll be here tomorrow to run some more tests. Until then, we will continue to monitor Zach for any changes.”
Slowly, I began to rock back and forth in my seat. No. He survived the gunshot so that meant that he was going to be okay. He survived the surgery so that meant that he was going to be okay. He loved me enough to be willing to die for me so that meant that he was definitely going to be okay. Right?
Dad handed Rachel a box of
tissues then asked me if I was alright. What a stupid question! Of course I wasn’t alright. The love of my life was lying in a hospital bed unresponsive and it was my fault. “No, I’ll be alright when Zach is alright. Alright?” I snapped back sarcastically. “Can I please see him now?”
“Yes but only for a few minutes. He’s been through a lot today and I don’t want to overstimulate him. Follow me.” I trailed down the hallway behind him like a zombie. This was all just a terrible nightmare. It had to be. My nightmares were vivid and felt more real to me than this did. I was going to wake up any second now. I was going to be in my bed, awake, and cursing my alarm clock like usual. As hard as I tried to convince myself of that, I knew it wasn’t the truth. This was real. Losing Zach forever was a distinct possibility. And if I lost Zach, I would lose myself, too.
As we entered the elevator, I heard the wheelchair bound lady shout one more time.
“Ralph, come get your dinner!” At first, I simply found her tone and volume annoying. But after I heard the story behind that phrase, hearing it again frightened me. I knew what was wrong with Zach. He was stuck between the past and the present—like I was the night Lee died. I needed to find a way to bring him back. Soon.
32. The Root of the Problem
“Collecting the eggs” had become a secret code between us over the years—even Grandma didn’t know the special meaning behind it. For some reason, we had our deepest conversations while performing that simple chore. Grandpa once said that while he was collecting eggs, he was also collecting his thoughts. So anytime I had something weighing on my mind, I would call and tell him that I needed to collect some eggs with him. He was always more than happy to have me.
“Grandpa, I have a lot of eggs to collect,” I said with a sigh. “I know you do, Squirt. I know more than you might think I do—starting with the fact that I knew you would end up here eventually.” He knelt down and gingerly plucked an egg from beneath a hen and then patted her on the head. Ralph was not amused. She squawked at his indignity and pecked defiantly at his pant leg. He chuckled like always and moved on to the next hen. “I know what’s wrong, Squirt, but I’ll let you tell it to me in your own time and in your own way.”
“I’m the reason you died, Grandpa. I’d just started to begin to forgive myself for that—thanks to Ruby—when Dad brought the whole subject back up again. That’s when I really started to think about the ramifications of what I’d done that night—how it’s affected my life since then.” I paused before saying the one thing that I hadn’t shared with anyone else yet— not even Ruby. “When you died, a part of Grandma died with you. She was lost without you. I think she gave up on everything after you were gone. I feel like I killed her, too.”
“You know what I think, Squirt? I think you think too much. When’s the last time you had fun? And I mean, real fun? Took an entire day and stopped analyzing life and started living it instead? When’s the last time you set your responsibilities aside and acted like a teenager? You’ve grown up a lot since the last time I saw you. A little too much if you ask me.”
I was taken aback. If there was one thing Grandpa taught me, it was the value of hard work. Or at least that’s what I thought he’d taught me. It had been a long time since I’d dropped everything I needed to do in favor of doing something I wanted to do. But probably not as long as he thought.
“I know I work a lot now and concentrate on school harder than I did when you were still alive, but I’ve done a lot of fun things with Ruby since we met.”
That’s when he gave me the look. That “Grandpa is about to say something well beyond wise and you best pay attention” look. That “you may think you’re grown up now but you’re still just a squirt” look. What he said to me next was unexpected and far more profound than I could have imagined. And it made me realize that I had more eggs to collect than I thought I did.
“But did you do those fun things with her or for her? There’s a big difference between the two.” I stopped dead, my hand still planted beneath Ralph’s bottom and clutching the last egg. I knew exactly what he meant by that but I didn’t have a concrete answer. “Well,” I said as I tossed it around in my brain, “A little of both, I guess. Making her happy makes me happy. When I see her smile, I feel better inside.”
“That’s the root of all of your problems right there. You live your life to make other people happy. First it was me, then your dad, and now Ruby. You’re forgetting about the most important person in your life, Squirt—you.”
He was right but he was forgetting about something important, too. “But the last time I did something purely to make myself happy, you died.” I sat back down on my bucket again and cried.
I sat there and thought back to that night, to how happy I was when Misty invited me to that party. I’d had a crush on her since elementary school. Back then, she was quiet and shy—just like I was. I was too afraid to ask her to be my girlfriend. What if she said no? While Rachel was busy kissing every boy on the playground, I was dreaming of how I wanted my first kiss to be with Misty.
And it was, too. I ignored the fact that she’d changed dramatically since those days. I guess maybe I thought that my love could change her back. But I was wrong. I wasted my time and killed my grandfather in the process. Then I realized that now that he was dead, he knew exactly what I was doing that night that made me forget all about helping him. I was even more ashamed of myself than I already was.
“I didn’t mean to make you cry. I’m trying to help you see that you need more balance in your life. I’m not suggesting that you become selfish. You just need to learn that the only place you can find happiness is inside yourself—not inside other people.”
“But making other people happy makes me happy!” I protested. “Does it really? If you were given one extra day in your life and told to spend it doing nothing but make yourself happy—knowing that nothing bad would come of it afterwards—what would you do?”
That was a really tough question. How would I spend that day? I thought about it long and hard before answering him. “Well, I would probably start off the day by going to the shelter—not to work—but to play with the animals. Taking care of them is time consuming—I wish I had time to throw some tennis balls across the lawn and watch the dogs all go nuts chasing them.”
“That sounds like fun. What would you do after that?” Grandpa made this question seem like it was a game but it felt more like a test to me. A pop quiz—pass or fail only— that determined whether or not I sucked at life. “I would want to hang out in the kitchen with Mom and Rachel while they made chocolate chip cookies. I love eating the raw dough more than I do the cookies themselves. And it’s fun to watch how infuriated they get when I eat spoonful after spoonful. They never really get mad at me—it’s all just for fun.”
Grandpa nodded his head in agreement. “I used to do the same thing to your grandmother. She would always tell me that I was going to get salmonella poisoning from the raw eggs in the dough. And I would always remind her that those eggs came from the healthiest hens in the state of Pennsylvania.”
“That reminds me of something!” I said with a laugh. “Mom used to tell me the same thing! I knew what salmonella was but when Rachel was younger, she thought it meant that I was going to turn into a salmon from eating the dough! Even once she knew the truth, she would still say it. At least I think she knows the truth now.” My sister lived in such a happy little bubble filled with rainbows and unicorns. I wasn’t trying to be mean by laughing at her. I just wanted her to stay in that bubble as long as she possibly could. Life outside the bubble was harsh.
“That little Rachel is one in a million!” Grandpa exclaimed. “What’s next on the list?” “Football. I never really enjoyed playing it but I will always love watching it. I would want to sit down and watch the game with Dad and Boone like we used to—a guys only kind of thing. No girls around for any of us to try to impress or behave for. Burping contests and foul language. Pizza, chips, hot wings—the works. I w
ant to swear at the TV like a drunken sailor and get fist bumped for it.”
Grandpa chuckled over that one. “Me, too, Squirt. Me, too.” We reminisced about the Super Bowl party we had at our house the year the Steelers won. So much food, so much swearing. Those were the good times. When he got quiet all of a sudden, I knew something big was cooking inside his head and the pot was inevitably going to boil over onto me.
“What about Ruby? Would you want to spend time with her? You haven’t mentioned her at all, Squirt.” Indeed, I hadn’t. Even with all of the other issues I had in my life, she was by far the most complicated piece of my puzzle. I needed to decide exactly how to fit her into my life. Assuming I still had a life, that is. Right now, I wasn’t ready to go back there. And I wasn’t sure if I ever would be, either.
33. Meltdown
Dad needed Garrett and Diane to sign some medical consent forms so while they took care of the paperwork, Rachel and I were allowed in to see Zach. When I walked into the room and heard the humming and beeping of the numerous machines hooked up to him, I understood perfectly what the Holocaust sounded like. sounded like loss and It sounded like fear and doubt. It devastation. It sounded like the
possibility that life would never be the same again. He looked terrible—pale, fragile, and nothing like the strong Norse god I’d met almost a year ago. Rachel and I seated ourselves one on either side of him and took his hands in our own.
“Hey, little brother,” Rachel said, trying to sound like her usual cheerful self. “You’re out of surgery now—time to wake up.” She sniffed back the tears as she sat there staring at him and trying to force a smile.
The monitors continued to beep rhythmically; the ventilator kept up the steady whoosh of air through its hoses. Zach remained still. No movement, no sign of recognition. His eyelids sat still, no flutter to indicate that he was inside there at all. His body temperature showed normal on the monitor but he felt ice cold to me. He felt like death.
