by Loree Lough
“If those hiccups don’t go away in a few minutes, try my technique. Swallow ten itty-bitty sips of water, one at a time, while holding your breath. Trust me,” he added as the doors whooshed shut, “works every time.”
When she arrived in the surgical unit, a nurse explained that Troy was in surgery, and that, based on what little she knew so far, the team would perform a craniectomy to relieve pressure on his brain.
“Don’t quote me on this, because I’m not supposed to speculate,” the woman said, “but I’m guessing they’ll do a laparotomy, too, to relieve pressure on his abdomen.”
“And what about Mr. Preston. I was told he was brought in with my brother.”
“How are you related to Mr. Preston?”
“He’s…he’s….” Billie’s hands trembled as she twisted her wedding band.
Nodding, the nurse picked up the phone, asked a few questions about Noah, and after hanging up, said, “I’m due for a break. I’ll walk you down there.” At the elevators, she added, “Ever been to Multitrauma before?”
“I’ve never even heard of it.”
“Well, just to warn you…your fiancé might look a little rough, so brace yourself.”
Evidently, the woman had assumed that because Billie asked about Noah Preston, instead of her husband, Noah was her fiancé. And because rules were rules, she didn’t correct her. For the first time since the divorce, Billie was glad she’d never found the courage to remove her wedding ring. When Troy and Noah were home and on the mend, she intended to throw it into the Patapsco River. The nurse pointed. “He’s just around the corner.”
Billie held her breath, footsteps slowing as she summoned the strength to deal with whatever came next.
“Want me to stay with you?”
She shook her head. “No, but thanks. Go ahead and finish your break.”
The nurse hadn’t exaggerated. If not for those perfectly shaped eyebrows and enviable lashes, Billie might not have recognized him.
“I’ll just stay long enough to explain what’s going on.” The nurse grabbed Noah’s chart, slid a finger down the first page and shook her head. “Hmm…looks like he was hit by a lot of flying debris when the car exploded.”
Exploded! Billie cringed, but did her best not to show fear.
“There was a lot of blood in his abdominal cavity. Lost more than three liters during transport. Lucky for him, he’s type O, and it isn’t a holiday weekend.”
In other words, they’d transfused him.
“He’s doing as well as can be expected. If he survives the golden hour, his chances are good. Real good.”
“The golden hour?”
“Blocks of time lost at the scene, during transport, in surgery, time in recovery, building up his reserves again, avoiding infection.”
How many times had the nurse been pressed to deliver that explanation? Billie wondered. Too many, if her quiet monotone was any indicator.
Billie couldn’t take her eyes off Noah. The breathing machine. The heart monitor. The tubes and lines and clear bags hanging from stainless poles. “How did they do all this in the short time between the accident and now?”
“9-1-1 call came in at four. Six hours isn’t a short time in a place like this. Besides, like I said…it isn’t a holiday weekend. Plenty of staff available.” She headed for the door. “A word of advice?”
Billie met her eyes and nodded.
“Think positive thoughts when you’re talking to him. I happen to be one of those who believe people in his condition can hear and understand what’s going on.”
“Is that true for Troy, too?”
“Way too early to tell,” she said. “After your brother is out of recovery, we’ll know a lot more. Meanwhile, if you believe in prayer, this might be a good time for it.”
*
AS THE DAYS passed, it got harder to sidestep Alyssa’s pressing questions about her dad. One night, long after Billie had tucked Alyssa in, she nodded off on the couch. Fractured dreams kept waking her, born, she supposed, of what her imagination made of the information delivered by the first responders. After half an hour of channel surfing, she dozed off again. And again the nightmare images pummeled her brain: an ear-splitting crash. Glass raining onto the pavement like blue diamonds. Fire and black, billowing smoke. And a blast that shook the ground until—
“Billie,” Alyssa whispered. “Billie, wake up.”
She opened one eye and looked at the wall clock. Two thirty-five. “Hey, sweetie. What are you doing up at this hour?”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
Billie opened her arms, and Alyssa went willingly into them.
“I want my daddy. When can I go to the hospital and see him?”
When he doesn’t look like a cross between the Mummy and the Incredible Hulk, she thought. But that kind of sarcasm would offer no comfort to this frightened, lonely little girl. Trouble was, Billie had no idea how to tell her that her daddy was still unconscious, still breathing with the aid of a machine, still being nourished by an IV drip.
But she had to try.
“Remember that movie we watched a little while ago, While You Were Sleeping?”
Alyssa nodded.
“And you remember how Peter got hurt, and ended up in a coma in the hospital?”
Alyssa’s eyes filled with tears as she nodded again.
“It’s okay, sweetie. The coma is helping your daddy rest, so his body can heal from the accident.” Billie gave her a sideways hug. “Things turned out pretty well for Lucy and Peter, didn’t they?”
Rubbing her eyes, Alyssa nodded yet again. “So Daddy looks like Peter? Like he’s sleeping?”
Billie rested her chin amid soft blond curls. The staff did their best, keeping patients clean, preventing bedsores, but, unlike patients in the movies, there wasn’t a blessed thing they could do about whiskers and matted hair, or skin so pale it almost blended with the bed linens. If he were clean-shaven, hair combed, it might be safe to let her see him. But those often-open, staring eyes sometimes gave her the willies. How much more difficult would it be for his innocent, seven-year-old daughter to see him that way?
“I’m not a baby,” she said, brow furrowed. “I know he got in a crash. I heard you and your mom talking….” Alyssa turned, gazed straight into Billie’s eyes. “I heard you say you don’t know how to prepare me for how he looks. Why don’t you just tell me?”
Billie didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, so she gathered Alyssa close and said, “Are you sure you’re only seven years old? Because you sure don’t sound seven, and you absolutely don’t act it!”
She felt the child inhale a shaky breath and release it.
“Does that mean you’ll take me to see him?”
“How about this. I’ll talk to his doctors, and Max, and see what they think.”
“And if they say yes?”
“I’ll take you to see him.”
“Promise?”
Billie’s right hand formed the Scout’s salute. “Promise.”
Another deep sigh…much too deep and sad for one so young.
“I’m hungry,” Billie said.
“Me, too.”
“Ice cream? Or brownies?”
Alyssa made an attempt at a smile.
“I know,” Billie said, “how about ice cream on brownies!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“HARDLY SEEMS FAIR, does it?” Troy said.
Billie gripped the wheelchair handles tighter, but said nothing. Noah looked so fragile, lying there. Not at all the strapping, broad-shouldered man who could easily hoist a bike with just one hand, or rearrange a stack of heavy cartons without breaking a sweat.
“He saved my life. I was in and out of it,” her brother said, “but I sorta knew what was going on. I wanted to tell him to get away from me, but I couldn’t get the words out.”
She squeezed his shoulders. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“I’m not a moron, Billie. I understand the whole ‘acciden
ts happen’ thing. That doesn’t make it easier, knowing Alyssa might become an orphan. And for what? To save my sorry—”
She walked around to the front of the chair and knelt beside him. “Troy. Please don’t talk that way. Especially when Mom is around.”
Their parents had canceled their cruise to make sure their son was okay, and Billie was glad for their company.
“Can’t you look on the bright side? You have a new home, beautifully decorated, thanks to me. No charge for running up and down the highway, picking up all the stuff that blew out of your car, by the way.”
“Weird. I said something like that to Noah, right before we hit the road that day. And you’re all heart, by the way.”
“Oh, don’t be such an old sourpuss,” she said, mussing his hair.
He swatted her hand away. “Where are Todd and Dani? I thought they were coming into town today.”
“Tomorrow.” She’d told him that, half a dozen times. But the doctors said that repeating himself, problems with short-term memory, even his surly attitude was normal after a head injury like his.
“Well, tell them to turn the lights off when they leave a room. I’m broke.” He grunted. “And broken.”
She’d told him that Jeff had agreed to pay his salary until he was well enough to go back to work, but Billie told him again.
“Work? What a joke. I put in six lousy days before…”
Troy’s gaze focused on Noah, and he took a deep breath, wincing when the chest brace put pressure on his broken ribs. “Get me out of here.”
Rising slowly, she just looked at him for a long, silent moment.
“Is everything all right?” their mom asked as she entered Noah’s room.
“Troy is tired,” Billie said, wheeling the chair into the hall. “He wants to go back to his room.”
“Let me take him. Your father went to the Courtyard Cafeteria. He’s supposed to call my cell phone once he sees what’s on the menu today.” She leaned forward and kissed Troy’s cheek. “Maybe Dad can bring you something, so you won’t have to eat that awful hospital food.”
“Not hungry,” he said. “Can we go to my room now?”
Billie and her mother exchanged a worried glance.
“Sounds like my boy needs a nap.”
Troy shook his head, and their mom shrugged helplessly.
“Are you coming, honey?”
“No, I think I’ll sit with Noah for a while.”
When they were gone, Billie slid the bedside chair closer. “You’d better get well, and do it fast,” she said, patting his bandaged forearm, “because you need to talk some sense into that fool brother of mine.”
It was disconcerting, watching Noah. If she positioned herself just right, it seemed as if he was looking at her. But the blank, lifeless stare told her that, although his eyes were open, Noah wasn’t seeing anything. She was beginning to doubt the theory that comatose patients could hear and understand what was going on around them.
“So I’m thinking it’s time to bring Alyssa here, so she can see for herself that you’re alive and breathing.” Not much else, she thought, but it was something to be thankful for, at least.
She walked to the window and, cupping her elbows, described the scene outside. “You should see the traffic. Where are all those people going? Not here, I hope.”
Billie leaned on the sill. “I wonder what it cost the developer to plant all those trees and shrubs,” she said, tapping the glass. “And there must be a thousand mum plants out there.” Laughing, she said, “But you’re a man. You probably wouldn’t know a chrysanthemum from a dandelion, would you?”
She told him about the park benches and water fountains, and the decorative trash barrels positioned here and there. “You know what’s missing? One of those glider swings. Not the wood-slat kind…a green metal one, like my grandmother used to have on her back porch. Can you hear it now? Squeak-squeak, squeak-squeak…”
Billie sighed and watched the people down on the ground level. From five floors up, it was hard to tell if they were students of the university, professors or visitors headed for the trauma center.
“Sor-r-ry.”
She whirled around. Surely she’d been hearing things. Because how could he say “Sorry,” or anything else for that matter, with a breathing tube down his throat?
Billie stepped up to his bed, rested both palms on his bandaged arm. “Between you and Troy nearly dying, I swear, you’re driving me nuts.”
For the first time since the trauma team had put him in this room, his eyes moved. Blinked. And locked on hers.
Billie would have raced into the hall to find his nurse, but he slowly shook his head, once. At least, she thought he had.
“Well, I hope you’re happy,” she said. “You’ve succeeded at driving me nuts. I would have bet my next design contract that you said sorry, and you moved your head just now.” A nervous laugh escaped her lips. “And you’re going to know it for sure when you hear that I almost prefer that vacant stare of yours to this. Almost…” Billie wasn’t smiling when she whispered, “…because it feels like you’re reading my heart and my mind at the same time.”
His eyelids drooped, then slowly closed, and a tiny tear tracked down his cheek.
Billie plucked a tissue from the dispenser on his tray table. His eyes had watered a lot that first day, and the nurse explained that happened occasionally to patients with a sensitivity to the tape that held their eyes closed during surgery.
Gently, Billie blotted the tear. “I shouldn’t be surprised. A guy who risks his life to save someone else has to be pretty darned sensitive.” She held her hand against his cheek a little longer than necessary. “On the way here tomorrow, I’m going to buy one of those electric razors and clean you up.” Leaning close to his ear, she added, “Although I kinda like the rugged, unshaven movie-star look. And if you tell anyone I said that, you’ll be sorry.”
Noah’s eyelids fluttered slightly, and she couldn’t be sure if it was because he wanted to open them—and couldn’t—or a dream had begun forming in his poor, bruised head.
“I better go. I promised Alyssa I’d teach her how to make tuna salad, Billie style.”
On her way to Troy’s room, she ran into her dad, who was carrying a cardboard drink tray and a white paper bag.
He handed her the bag, and as they walked down the hall, he threw an arm over her shoulders. “You’re lookin’ a little weary and worn, kitten. You doin’ okay?”
“Yeah, I’m good.” She looked up into his mustachioed face. “You and Mom sleeping okay over at Troy’s?”
“You know me,” he said as they entered Troy’s room. “I can sleep standing up, like a horse.”
“Eats like a horse, too,” his wife teased, relieving him of the drinks tray. “Ate every morsel of food in Troy’s kitchen.”
Billie looked at her brother, who was staring out the window, not paying attention to his family.
She helped herself to a soda. “That’s what it’s there for, but restocking is a good idea. Todd and Dani will be here tomorrow morning, right?”
“Around noon,” her dad said, “unless they hit traffic.”
“And then you’ll move over to my place?”
“That’s the plan, if it’s still all right with you.”
“Of course. There’s a key under my mat.”
She heard Troy shifting and sighing in his chair, and she knew that meant he was itching to get rid of their parents. Poor guy wasn’t accustomed to so much parental interaction.
Their mom walked over to kiss his cheek. “Well, we’ll get out of your hair. Try and take a nap, will you? You look horrible.”
“I just had major surgery—two of ’em,” Troy said, “four days ago. Of course I look horrible.”
“Oh, now, you know I didn’t mean anything.” She kissed him again. “We’re leaving. Take a nap, all right?”
“Have fun,” Billie teased. “Take lots of pictures of Troy’s new house.”
; When they were gone, she looked at her brother, who was slouching, battered and bruised. He seemed beyond sad, and her heart ached for him. There were so many reasons Noah just had to get better, and one of them was sitting in a wheelchair near the window.
She opened the paper bag, withdrew a wrapped sandwich. “Bacon, lettuce and tomato on toast. Triple decker, sliced in triangles, secured with blue-and-red-fringed toothpicks!”
“Looks good,” he said. “Thanks, but I’m not hungry.”
“If you don’t eat, how do you expect to get your strength back?”
“Yeah. Right. Like BLTs are health food.”
Well, at least he was smiling. Sort of. She sat beside him and helped herself to a sandwich wedge. She’d almost finished it when he said, “All right. I give up.” He held out one hand, and Billie unceremoniously plopped a quarter into it.
“Noah looked at me today,” she said.
“He never stops looking. Poor guy’s eyes are—”
“Troy, I’m serious.” Billie leaned forward. “He turned his head—not much, but he turned it and looked at me. And after a minute or so, he closed his eyes.” She fidgeted with the cellophane decoration on a toothpick. “I was talking about how, between the two of you nearly dying… Anyway, a tear escaped his eye.”
Her brother stopped chewing. “A…a what?”
“A tear.”
“It’s probably because he hardly ever blinks. Or maybe it’s clogged tear ducts or something.”
“It could just as easily be a sign that he’s coming out of the coma.” In her excitement at the possibility, she grabbed his arm, gave it a little shake.
“Ow! Yeesh,” he said, wincing.
“Oh. Sorry.” She patted his arm, gently this time. “But…that’s great news, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. Yeah, it would be great.”
A nurse stepped into the room. “BLTs,” she said, one hand on her hip. “Really?”
Billie stood behind Troy’s wheelchair as the nurse waved an orderly into the room. “Jerry here is going to help you onto the gurney, and then he’ll take you down to X-ray.”
She looked at Billie. “By the way, there’s a tall redheaded woman in your fiancé’s room, and she’s asking for you.”
