by Arlene James
“No one can help me.”
“Darling, that’s not true. No one blames you for what happened.”
She flinched away from him, feeling the words like blows. He knew. He knew. He knew everything, all of it.
As if to confirm that horrible suspicion, he said gently, “I’ve spoken with your family. They’re gravely concerned, and they miss you. Gordon and Jeanette and Thai especially send their—”
Piper clapped her hands over her ears, but her nephew’s voice screeched at her all the same. You killed Asia! We brought him here to you, and you killed him! You killed my brother!
Hands closed around her wrists. Strong, warm. They tugged gently but firmly, insisting that she uncover her ears, that she hear.
“Asia was coming to you because he trusted you, because you were always there for him.”
You know what it’s like being a preacher’s kid. Dad does, too, sure, but he’s Dad. You’re Aunt Pip. I can talk to you.
Piper wrenched free. “Leave me alone!” Corded arms enveloped her, held her close. She had never been so terrified of anything, anyone. “Leave me alone,” she sobbed. “Oh, please. Oh, please, just go away!”
“I can’t do that.”
“Please! Please!”
How could he do this to her? How could he make her remember? Hadn’t she always known, deep down, that he would do this to her? She tried to get control of herself, to speak reasonably, to behave reasonably. She pushed away from him, gulped down the panic, the horror, took a breath. It was over. Might as well face it, deal with it. Forget the other.
“Leave now. I need to be alone. I want you to leave me alone.”
He gently smoothed the hair from her face. When had it tumbled down? “I love you too much to leave you now.”
Love her? That wasn’t possible.
Was it?
Something like hope kindled and was quickly snuffed out again.
How could he love her? How could he love someone who had killed someone else, a person she loved, a boy who thought she could do no wrong?
Oh, God. Oh, God.
She thought she might simply explode into tiny fragments too small to be put back together again even by the hand of God.
Blasphemy, she thought.
Another reason she couldn’t be forgiven.
Straightening, she leveled and squared her shoulders, lifted her chin and reached deep inside for the outward calm that had served her so well in moments of crisis. He would not go, she thought, until he had said what he needed to say. People needed to say things when someone died. They needed to comfort, to pretend that life could go on as before. If only she could believe that! Steeling herself, she tucked the letter into a pocket of her jeans and turned to lead him into the living area.
They sat down on the sofa. She perched there, prim and proper, her hands folded serenely in her lap. He sat next to her, his big body slightly angled toward hers.
“I’ve had a lot of experience with this type of thing, Piper,” he began.
“Yes.” She nodded solemnly, sure it was true, but of course she couldn’t think about that. She had to hold herself together. That was the important thing just now.
“Grief manifests itself in as many ways as there are people to grieve.”
Another nod, though she couldn’t really hear what he was saying—only the sounds, not the words themselves.
“Guilt is very often a part of it.”
“Mmm.” A little vocalization kept the repeated nods from seeming mechanical.
“Sweetheart, you are not to blame.”
She took a deep breath, holding on by the skin of her teeth.
“Sometimes people blame God,” he went on, “and sometimes people, especially people of great faith, blame themselves. Their faith won’t let them accuse God or others, you see, so they only have themselves to blame.”
He seemed to think that she was someone like that, someone of great faith. The idea was so ludicrous that she almost laughed. Instead she schooled her face into a solemn, pensive expression.
“Yes,” she said. “I see. Well.” She tried to think of something else to say, something prescient and clever. All she came up with was “I would appreciate it if you would leave now.”
“Piper.”
“I would really like you to go now,” she said again, hoping that she did not sound as desperate as she felt. She couldn’t look at him anymore, couldn’t pretend anymore. “I need time to think about everything you’ve said.”
Whatever that was.
He sat there for a long moment. Finally he rose reluctantly. Surging to her feet, she rushed eagerly to the door.
“Piper, please,” he said, spreading his hands. “I don’t want to leave you like this.”
“No, it’s best,” she replied glibly. “We both need to rest. Work tomorrow.” She smiled, holding on for dear life.
One more moment, she told herself. Keep it together for just one more moment.
At the very instant when it seemed that her control would break and the world would come tumbling down on top of her, he walked through her door. She closed it without another word, shot the bolt for good measure and moved swiftly into the bedroom. She closed that door, too, trembling now, quaking in every muscle, agony pouring over and through her. Memories that could no longer be held at bay rushed at her, driving her to the floor. To her knees.
To hell, a hell entirely of her own making.
Chapter Twelve
Rain poured in wind-driven gusts against the night-blackened window behind the rattan sofa where she sat curled against brightly flowered cushions. Safe and snug in her little house, she thumbed through a magazine, sipping peppermint tea gone tepid, despite the sultry temperature.
When the telephone rang she knew immediately, given the weather conditions, that she was being summoned back to work. As one of the few single nurses permanently staffing the city’s busiest emergency room, her name was often at the top of the call list when one of her colleagues could not cover his or her shift or catastrophe unexpectedly increased the workload.
Sighing, she set aside the teacup and laid the magazine next to it on the small, round, glass-topped table that her parents had carried all the way from Thailand. Inlaid with delicately carved nacre, it had been given to them on the day of her birth and so had come to her upon their retirement. As the phone bleated again, she reached for it at her side.
Ten minutes later she was backing her economy coupe out of the garage, reflecting that the weather would undoubtedly barrage the E.R. with the victims of auto accidents, one of Houston’s most prolific killers. While the thought was depressing, it did nothing to dim her enthusiasm for her work, which she considered vital and challenging. It did, however, encourage her to drive carefully through the rain-washed streets.
Within half an hour of the call she was turning into the hospital employee parking lot, and half a minute later was crossing the street, her ID pass card ready. The familiar wail of sirens told her that she was in for a busy shift.
Just inside the door she met one of her favorite orderlies stacking a cart with clean linens.
“Hello, Gene,” she said, swiping her card through the wall-mounted time clock.
“You back already?”
“Yep.” She headed down the broad hallway. “Busy night?”
“I’ll say! They’ve called in all the docs.”
“Wow.”
She smacked a button on the wall and double metal doors swept open just as she reached them. Striding into the triage center, she slid the strap of her satchel from her shoulder and turned a sharp left into the nurses’ lounge, momentarily escaping the controlled chaos of multiple desks and glassed-in nursing stations. Lindy, a married friend and co-worker, walked in right behind her.
“Fancy meeting you here,” Piper said. “Again, and so soon.”
“School bus full of football players,” Lindy replied grimly. “I’ve already heard about two casualties.”
�
��Oh, no.”
Quickly Piper threw aside her personal materials, draped a stethoscope around her neck and went out to her station.
“Number two,” the shift leader informed her. “Humpty Dumpty coming in now.”
Humpty Dumpty was lingo for any sort of injury resulting from a fall. Piper swept back the privacy curtain cordoning off the glassed-in treatment cell from the general area just as a gurney burst through several sets of swinging metal doors. It was immediately followed by two more and a shouting emergency medical technician.
“Burn vics!”
“Burn victims!” the triage station manager exclaimed. “They go to Fourteen.”
“Unit Fourteen’s full,” came the reply. “Dropped two with compounds there myself.”
“Crash and burn,” said his partner with a tsk.
Meanwhile, the Humpty Dumpty had been wheeled into Piper’s “cube.” She caught a troubling hack and gurgle as she snapped on a pair of latex gloves and reached to help the technician “off-load”—slide the patient, a young man who was back-boarded and collared, from the gurney to the bed. Mentally cataloging extensive craniofacial damage, she popped her ear-pieces into place and slid the bell of her stethoscope to the base of the patient’s throat just above the collarbone beneath the stabilizing neck brace.
“He’s choking. Should’ve tubed him before you collared.”
“Didn’t dare,” replied the EMT, taking time to slap on sensors and set monitors. “I’m surprised he made it this far. Took impact on his face and throat.”
That much was obvious, but a more detailed assessment of the gross facial contusions would have to wait.
“If his windpipe isn’t opened, he won’t make it any further,” Piper concluded, hitting the surgery call button on the wall. A triage nurse in surgery answered at once.
“I need a trache here,” Piper shouted into the speaker on the wall.
“Everybody’s already on the floor,” came the reply. “I’ll send Blalock.”
Blalock was their most experienced med/surg nurse, but he was no more qualified to perform a basic tracheotomy than Piper herself. It was painfully obvious from the gurgling that he wasn’t going to make it in time to help this patient.
Pulling a tracheotomy tray from the supply cabinet recessed into one wall, Piper made a split-second decision.
“Prepare the field,” she instructed the LVN who rushed into the space to assist. “I’m going to trache him myself.”
“Oh, man,” said the EMT anxiously.
“What are you hanging around for?” Piper demanded as the LVN started preparing the field.
The technician shifted from one foot to another. “I promised his family I’d speak to them before I pulled out.”
From the tone of his voice Piper knew that he didn’t expect to give them good news, but she couldn’t let that deter her. Scalpel in hand, she instructed the assisting LVN, “Break his collar.”
The capable older woman with whom Piper had often worked carefully but swiftly released the fastening on the stabilization collar around the patient’s neck. Instantly the patient convulsed, gargled and collapsed. The monitors started screaming.
“Crash cart!” Piper yelled, making the necessary incision at the base of the throat and into the esophagus. She inserted the small breathing tube cleanly and smoothly. Blalock swept into the room and without a word produced a breathing bag to attach to the end of the tube. He began to squeeze air into the victim’s lungs as the LVN shoved up a torn and soiled T-shirt and squirted liquid on the victim’s chest.
He was just a kid, Piper noted dispassionately. She had yet to do more than a cursory assessment of his injuries. Getting his heart started again was more important.
A doctor finally sailed into the room just in time to apply the paddles to the young man’s chest.
“Clear!”
The apparatus buzzed. The patient convulsed. The heart monitor continued to squeal out a warning.
The physician yelled, “Charge!”
Piper fell into the familiar routine, applying chest compressions while the machine recharged, then standing back while the doctor applied the paddles. The poor boy’s thin chest was reddened and splotchy by the time the doctor gave up several long, frantic minutes later.
What a way to begin a shift, Piper thought sadly.
“Man, that’s too bad,” the technician said from the corner where he’d stationed himself during the crisis. “Wish I hadn’t told his family I’d speak with them, but I can’t say no to a minister.”
“Minister?” Piper echoed, hoping it wasn’t someone she knew. The doctor thrust a chart at her, having made the necessary notations and signed them.
“He was probably dead when you popped that collar,” he commented cryptically before sweeping from the room.
She barely registered the words, as they were not accompanied by a reprimand. Her gaze scanned across the form for a name, curiosity warring with defeat.
Wynne.
The clipboard clattered to the floor. Her gaze flew instinctively to the battered face of the body upon the bed. Could it be? It had to be! She hadn’t even recognized him! Reeling backward through the curtain, she stumbled blindly. Her hand found the edge of the desk counter.
“Oh, God, no! Asia!”
Hands grasped at her. Voices spoke her name, but she spun away, running. She didn’t even know where she was going until she was in the waiting lounge.
Some innate radar honed in almost instantly on her family now disappearing into a private consultation room where only bad news was delivered. The doctor was there, along with the EMT, who had his cap in his hand as he held the door for her mother. Funny, she couldn’t remember his name, though she’d known him for months.
She heard him saying, “I was afraid to remove his neck brace,” and she remembered what the doctor had said.
Dead when you popped that collar.
“I did it.”
Everyone turned to look at her: brother, father, nephew, sister-in-law. A heartbeat later her mother’s head appeared in the doorway. They were weeping, especially her fourteen-year-old nephew Thai. Her father, she noted, had one arm around Gordon and the other around his sobbing grandson.
“I did it,” she repeated stiltedly. “It was me. I opened the neck brace, and he died.” She still couldn’t believe it. That was Asia on that gurney!
Thai began to wail.
“I thought he was choking,” she said to herself. “His mouth was torn—I didn’t want to go in that way.” So she had opened his collar, and he had convulsed. She swayed on her feet, saying again, “I did it.”
“You killed Asia!” Thai erupted. “We brought him here to you, and you killed him! You killed my brother!”
Gordon grabbed him—his only son now—with both arms, shushing him as if he were still a babe in diapers.
Piper sat down hard, only vaguely aware that there was no chair in the immediate vicinity.
Asia was dead, and Thai was right. She had almost certainly killed her beloved nephew.
Piper rolled into a tight ball, arms clasped about her knees, and keened. She had weathered those first awful minutes, hours, days, with a dullness born of shock, moving by rote through the hateful obligations of living and mourning. She remembered little of what was said in those next minutes and hours after she’d realized what she’d done, but what she could recall came to her with vivid clarity: the whispered drone of others speaking, Gordon and Jeanette holding on to each other, silent and still, the shadows that lay across the blue tweed carpet in the darkened room.
Most of all, she remembered the way Thai huddled in a chair in a dim corner, bent double, his face in his hands, which were in turn braced upon his knees. Her mother sat with him, looking years older than the last time Piper had seen her. Had it only been days? Her strong, calm, courageous mother looked defeated, beaten, even as she struggled to comfort her only remaining grandson.
It was odd what Piper remembered. She recal
led being shocked at the thinness of her father’s faded hair as he bowed his head, hair that had once been as lush and vibrant as her own. The room had been cold, so cold that her teeth had chattered. She could still see the strained faces of her co-workers and friends as they filed past her chair, and she remembered especially the way the supervisor of nurses had squeezed her hand, as if they had enjoyed some friendship of which Piper had been unaware, anything other than a distant familiarity and a tenuous sharing of tragedy.
What haunted her most, however, were the eyes of everyone in a position to know what had happened that day. In every gaze of every person who had been there that evening, including her family, she saw the truth, the knowledge, the understanding that she had made the choice that had killed her nephew.
Removing the protective collar from around his neck had allowed the shattered bones of his skull and spine to break apart when he had convulsed. One bone splinter had punctured his battered brain. Piper knew because she had insisted on reading the coroner’s report, at least as much of it as she’d been able to bear. Oh, there was no proof that it had happened after she had removed the collar, but she knew that if she had left the collar in place and inserted the tube through his mouth he might have lived. That he might have been paralyzed was of no consequence. He could have survived that. Her family could have survived that. She could have survived that.
She had kept herself together only by keeping her distance. Of course, she’d been with the family as often as was expected and proper, but even then she stayed to herself, quiet, hoping they wouldn’t notice that she was there any more than they noticed the chairs upon which they sat and the food that kept appearing and disappearing in the kitchen, along with the many whispering faces. Members of her brother’s church, friends and family of her sister-in-law, admirers of her parents, even people whom she knew, all swam across her field of vision, mouthing familiar words, bestowing tentative touches, both pitying and accusing her with their eyes. She had nodded and murmured and answered squeeze for squeeze, pat for pat, tolerating the torture because it was her due. She deserved it.
