by John Saul
He stirred slightly, and then his eyes cleared. “I think we should call the hospital,” he said quietly. “I think something else happened to dad during the night.”
Judith felt a pang of fear pricking at her, but forced herself to reject it. What could Jed possibly know? If there had been a problem with Frank during the night, surely they would have called here. She said nothing, as she turned and walked through the small living room and into the kitchen, where she started a pot of coffee. But she kept eyeing the phone, the fear Jed had aroused in her growing by the minute. She remembered the other day, when he’d known it had been Randy Sparks who threw the rock through Rita’s window.
At last, as Jed came in and sat down silently at the table, she picked up the phone and punched in the hospital’s number.
As she listened to Dr. Banning’s brief description of what had happened during the night, her legs weakened beneath her. Then she hung up and faced Jed.
“You were right,” she said, her voice quavering.
Twenty minutes later, with Jed at her side, Judith entered the hospital. As soon as she saw the look on Bob Banning’s face, she knew it was even worse than she’d thought.
Banning led them into Frank’s room, standing quietly as Judith took Frank’s hand in her own, her eyes flooding with tears. She gazed down at him, trying to see the vital man she’d come to love so much. But the man in the bed seemed a stranger.
His face was expressionless, his jaw sagging Though his eyes were closed, he didn’t look as if he were sleeping.
Despite the motion of his chest as the respirator forced him to breathe, he looked dead.
Though she was absolutely certain he was totally unaware of his surroundings now, Judith leaned over and kissed his cheek. Still holding his hand in her own, she whispered aloud the thought that was in her mind. “Oh, Frank, what do you want us to do?”
They stayed with him a few minutes, then finally left his room, following Bob Banning into his office.
“He—He could still come out of it, couldn’t he?” Jed asked, his voice taking on a desperate tone. “I mean, people wake up from comas, don’t they?”
Banning was silent for a moment. It would have been easier, he knew, if Frank had died during the night. Indeed, without the respirator he would have. But the respirator had been there, and it had been Banning’s duty to use it. So now he had to explain the reality of Frank Arnold’s condition to the two people who loved him most.
“I’m afraid he won’t,” he said, forcing himself to meet Jed’s eyes as he spoke the words. The boy flinched as if he’d been struck, and his jaw tightened; but he said nothing, and managed to control the tears that glistened in his eyes. “Without the respirator,” Banning went on, “I don’t think he’d survive more than a few minutes.”
He stood up and went to a light panel on the wall, where the latest X rays of Frank’s brain were displayed. As his fingers pointed out large dark masses within Frank’s skull, he resumed speaking. “The damage is very extensive. There are parts of his brain that are still functioning, but his mind is essentially dead. In fact, I don’t think it’s fair to say he’s either asleep or awake. He isn’t even in what I personally would call a coma. To me, a condition of coma implies that there is still a functioning mind within the brain, a mind that has a possibility, no matter how slim, of recovering.” He took a deep breath, then went on. “But unfortunately, for Frank that just isn’t true anymore. What he’s in is more like a state of suspended animation. Though his body is still alive, he has no control over it, let alone awareness of it. He’s conscious of nothing, and never will be.” He paused for a second, then forced himself to utter the words he knew he had to speak. “I’m very sorry, Jed, but I’m afraid your father is dead.”
Judith gasped, and reached out to clutch Jed’s hand. “But there must be something you can do,” she pleaded. “His heart is still beating, and he’s breathing—”
Banning spread his hands helplessly. “Only because of the respirator,” he replied. “Without it …” He left the sentence hanging, and Judith nodded numbly, forcing herself to accept the unacceptable. At last, taking a deep breath and unconsciously straightening herself on the sofa, she faced the doctor again.
“What can we do?” she asked, her voice almost eerily calm.
Banning chose his words carefully. “I’m afraid there isn’t much we can do. Here—at the hospital—it’s our policy to keep a … shall we say ‘keep a body viable’ as long as we can.”
Jed gazed uncertainly at the doctor, and Judith felt her eyes moisten. Steeling herself, she forced the translation of Banning’s words from her lips. “You mean you won’t let Frank die, even though he can no longer live on his own,” she said.
Banning nodded gratefully. It wasn’t a policy he totally agreed with, but he wasn’t at liberty to suggest that perhaps the best thing for Frank, and Jed too, was simply to turn off the respirator. But if one of them brought it up, he was more than willing to discuss it with them. Now, to his relief, Judith did just that.
“If we decided to move Frank,” she said. “Is there a place where they would allow us to turn off the respirator?”
An anguished wail erupted from Jed’s throat. “Jude, I could never do that—” he began, but Judith pressed his hand, silencing him.
“I didn’t say that, Jed. I said if. We have to understand all the possibilities. And we have to do what’s right for Frank, even if it’s hard for us.” Her eyes shifted to Dr. Banning in a silent plea for help.
“She’s right, Jed,” Banning said. “I know how hard this is for you. Deciding what to do is going to be the hardest choice you’ve ever had to make. It’s possible that with the respirator and intravenous feeding your father could live for years. Or he could die at any time. But as long as he’s here, we’ll do whatever has to be done to keep him alive. On the other hand,” he went on, barely pausing, “if he were in a sanitarium, or a nursing home, you would have the right to ask them to do nothing for Frank except make him comfortable. And if you should change your mind about the respirator, there are places that would be willing to accommodate you.”
Jed chewed at his lip for a moment, then faced the doctor, his eyes stormy. “If he were your father,” he asked finally, his voice holding a note of challenge, “what would you do?”
Banning gazed steadily at the boy. “I’d let him go,” he said, and saw Jed flinch away from the words. “I don’t believe in keeping someone alive simply because I can. Here, I have to do it. It’s the rule of the hospital. But if it were up to me …” He shook his head. “ ‘There is a time to live, and a time to die,’ ” he quoted softly.
The words seemed to hang in the air, and then Jed spoke again. There was a new strength in his voice. “Can I do that?” he asked. “I’m only sixteen, but Dad doesn’t have any other family. Can I make the decisions?”
Banning shifted uneasily. “I don’t know,” he finally admitted. “But it seems to me we’ll have to find someone to act as your guardian, or trustee.”
“Jude,” Jed said instantly. His eyes shifted to meet hers. “Will you do it?” he asked, his eyes pleading. “You know it’s what Dad would want.”
Judith’s eyes brimmed over and tears began to run down her cheeks. Jed reached out and gently brushed them away. “Hey,” he said, his voice ineffably gentle. “It’s gonna be all right. We’ll make all the decisions together. Okay?”
Judith’s whole body trembled for a moment, and then she regained her composure. “Is there a place we could move Frank to?” she asked.
Banning turned to Jed. Something in the boy had changed just now. His face was still pale and drawn, but in the depths of his eyes, Banning saw a new maturity. Quite suddenly, Jed had been forced to grow up. “There’s a place up in the canyon,” he began. “I don’t know much about it, really—”
“The Cottonwoods?” Jed asked, his voice suddenly hard. Banning nodded.
“No,” Jed said immediately.
Confused, Banning turned to Judith, but her expression had taken on the same look of determination as Jed’s. “It’s the only place I can think of right now—” Banning began, but Judith cut him off.
“Then we won’t do anything for now,” she said. “Frank can stay here, can’t he?”
“Of course,” Banning replied. Abruptly, the mood in the room had changed. Judith and Jed were looking at each other, and though neither said a word, Banning sensed that a communication was taking place between them.
Jed stood up. “I think we need to talk about this for a while,” he said. “And then we’ll decide what we have to do. Is that all right?”
Banning nodded, and a moment later watched helplessly as they left his office. Something, obviously, had happened, but he had no idea what it might have been.
Judith was sitting in the waiting room with Jed. They hadn’t spoken for several minutes, each of them trying to absorb what the doctor had told them. They felt numb, their minds spinning helplessly as each tried to accept that Frank was now irretrievably gone.
A shadow passed over Judith, and she glanced up. A figure was silhouetted in the main doors, framed against the brilliant morning sky, but the glare from beyond the doors prevented her from seeing who it was. Then the doors opened and the person stepped into the lobby.
It was Greg Moreland.
He stopped, staring at Judith almost as if he’d seen a ghost. And then, seeming to recover himself, he came toward her. “Judith? Are you all right? Where have you been?”
There was an urgency in his voice that made Judith rise to her feet. “It’s Frank—” she said, then broke off. Her eyes hardened, fixing on Greg. “But you already know what’s happened, don’t you?” she asked.
Greg hesitated, appearing confused. Then his expression dissolved into one of sympathy. “Oh, God,” he said quietly. “You don’t know, do you?”
Now it was Judith who looked confused. “F-Frank,” she repeated, stammering. “He’s had another stroke.”
“Oh, Christ,” Greg groaned. “No, it’s Aunt Rita.” He lowered himself into a chair and reached out to take Judith’s hand. “I’m sorry.” He felt Judith stiffen, then she jerked her hand away. “There was a fire last night,” Greg went on, “out at her house. She—Well, I’m afraid she didn’t get out.”
Judith stared at him, stunned. “I don’t believe it,” she said, her voice hollow. But the words, she knew, were as hollow as her voice, for she could read the truth in Greg’s eyes. “What happened?” she demanded, too shocked, too exhausted, too emotionally drained to hold back the cold fury that washed over her now. “What did you make it look like? A short in the wiring? A coal popping out of the fireplace?”
Greg paled and his jaw tightened. “My God,” he breathed. “How can you even suggest such a thing? She was my aunt, Judith. She was almost as close to me as my own mother.”
“Yes,” Judith said, the word escaping her lips in a furious hiss. “And Max could have been your father. And what about Reba Tucker? Were you close to her too? What are you doing, Greg? Why?”
She buried her face in her hands, sobbing, and Greg gestured to Gloria Hernandez, who was just coming in for her shift. Gloria hurried over, and Greg spoke to her softly.
“She’s hysterical, Gloria,” he said. “There’s a sedative in the cabinet in my office. If you’ll just bring it.”
At his words, Judith’s wits returned to her. “No!” she exclaimed loudly. “It’s all right, Gloria. I’m upset, that’s all. But I’ll be all right.” She turned to Jed, grasping his hand tightly in her own. “Maybe you’d better take me home, Jed,” she said. “I—I think I need to lie down for a while.”
Instantly Jed rose to his feet, and with Judith leaning heavily on him, he led her out to her car. She fumbled in her purse, pulled out her keys and handed them to him. Then she collapsed into the front seat, once more burying her face in her hands. Only when she was certain that they were at least a block from the hospital did she straighten up in the seat again.
“Stupid!” she said out loud. “Stupid, stupid, stupid!”
Jed looked over at her, his eyes wide. “What the hell—” he began, but Judith shook her head impatiently.
“Not you. Me. How could I be so stupid as to sit there and accuse him like that?”
Jed glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. “You really think he killed Mrs. Moreland?” he asked.
Judith sank back in the seat. “Oh, God,” she groaned. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m crazy.” They were in front of Jed’s house now, but neither of them made a move to get out of the car. “What do you think, Jed? Am I crazy?”
Jed turned and looked at her. “I don’t think so,” he said. “But what can we do? We can’t go to the cops—all they’d say is that we’re both nuts. And everybody around here is crazy about Greg anyway. Shit, they think he’s the next thing to God.”
Judith’s lips tightened into a hard line. “Wouldn’t you think they’d notice that most of his patients are either dead or dying?”
Jed shrugged. “Even Heather Fredericks,” he said. “Except I don’t see how you can blame …” The words died on his lips as he remembered something. Starting the car again, he shoved it into reverse and shot back into the street. “We’re going up to the mesa to see my grandfather,” he said. “Remember the first time we went up there, when I said he was crazy?”
Judith nodded numbly.
“Well, I was wrong. He said someone made Heather jump into the canyon, remember? He said he’d seen it from the kiva, just like I saw Randy Sparks from the kiva. And if he saw what happened, maybe he knows how they did it too.”
Chapter 23
Judith Sheffield stood at the doorway of her classroom on Monday morning, her eyes searching the hall for any sign of Jed. The first bell had already rung, but this morning the kids were slow in heading toward their classes, and Judith knew why. They, like the teachers in the lounge a few minutes ago, were talking among themselves about the fire in which Rita Moreland had died. Indeed, little else had been talked about in Borrego since the morning after the fire, when nearly everyone in town had gone out to the charred ruins of the house. There, they had gathered in small groups, murmuring quietly, speculating on what might have happened.
Judith herself had said little about it, either yesterday or this morning. Not that she hadn’t wanted to tell them what she thought—that the fire had been deliberately set, and that perhaps she, as well as Rita Moreland, was supposed to have died. But as she listened to the to Elliott Halvorson—who, as always, had stopped at the café that morning to pick up the latest gossip—the fire had apparently started in the basement, where the remains of a pile of oily rags had been found. She had imagined the looks on the teachers’ faces if she’d told them what she suspected—that Greg Moreland himself had set the fire.
Frustration was building inside her. So far all she had were suspicions. But even those suspicions had grown stronger yesterday, when she’d listened to Brown Eagle describe what he’d “seen” the night Heather Fredericks died.
“There was someone with her,” Brown Eagle had said. “He was talking to her, telling her what to do. And she did everything he wanted her to. When he told her to jump, she jumped.” But when Judith had suggested that Brown Eagle tell the police about the vision he’d had, he’d shaken his head. “I was in the kiva, remember? I couldn’t possibly have seen anything. I’m a Kokatí—an Indian.” His voice had taken on a rare bitterness. “We all lie about everything, you know.”
And so, in the end, she and Jed had found themselves with nothing to do but wait.
Wait until Peter Langston called, and told them what was in the syringe Judith had sent him; in the end, it was the only solid evidence they had. If, indeed, it turned out to be evidence at all. There was still a chance that she was wrong, she reminded herself.
Now, as the corridor began to clear and the bell rang signaling the beginning of the first period, she stepped inside, closing th
e door behind her. But Jed’s absence preyed on her. He’d insisted he’d only stop at the hospital for a few minutes and would be at school in plenty of time. She decided if he didn’t show up by the end of the hour, she would call the hospital.
She moved quickly up and down the aisles, collecting homework assignments, then went to the blackboard and raised the map to expose the morning quiz, a daily ritual always accompanied by groans of anguish from the class.
Today, however, there were no groans. Frowning, Judith ran her eyes over the class, doing a quick head count. Three people were absent, which was a little better than on Friday. So the lack of groaning wasn’t simply a matter of fewer people. She tried to tell herself that they were just getting used to her ways.
The trouble was, she was used to their ways too, and she found she missed the loud complaint. It was almost as if they suddenly didn’t care enough to protest. Still, they were all hunched over their papers, working diligently at the equation she’d put on the board. She began checking off names in her attendance book, then turned her attention to the stack of homework on her desk. She was about to begin correcting the first paper when the door at the back of the room opened and Jed stepped inside. Their eyes met, and she knew immediately that something had gone wrong. Signaling him back out into the hall, she walked quickly down the aisle to join him.
“They moved him out of the hospital,” he said, his voice taut. “Gloria Hernandez told me.”
Judith stared at him. It wasn’t possible. “How?” she breathed. “Who authorized it?”
“Dr. Moreland,” Jed replied, his voice cold, his eyes glittering with anger. “Gloria says he’s always been Dad’s primary physician—whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean—and that when he came in this morning, he had Dad moved out to The Cottonwoods. He claimed it would be a lot cheaper, and that there wasn’t any reason why Dad had to stay in the hospital.”
