Chapter Nine
“Marcus Bancroft, Jamaican Athlete Mowed Down By Car and In A Coma”: Those were the news headlines for most of the day. The local and international media were in a frenzy. In the middle of the day, one outlet reported him dead and then there was a firestorm of phone calls to the university to confirm. The hospital had to beef up security because there were several persons who were hanging about the place who wanted to know what was going on.
Tiffany arrived at midday. She could not believe that Marcus was in Jamaica and visiting Mount Faith. She was shell-shocked when she heard the news. She had been in bed with Neil at the time, reveling in their final day together.
Had Marcus come home and seen her with Neil and didn't bother to say anything? The thought made her woozy. When she arrived, they denied her access to the hospital waiting room.
"Only family is allowed in there." The fierce looking nurse told her rudely.
"But I am his girlfriend, I live with him." Tiffany demanded. "Where is Dr. Bancroft? I need to get a hold of him."
The nurse had looked at her incredulously, taking in her piercings and the tattoo of a bird she had on her neck, and had turned up her nose. She looked at the other nurses, who were trying not to stare, and then left to find Dr. Bancroft, who had been in the waiting room.
He had taken one look at her, given a grimace and nodded for the nurse to let her through. That's how Tiffany had been allowed in the precious inner circle.
She vented in her heart once more that she did not have the precious Bancroft surname. She also vowed to maybe dress a little more conservatively among the country bumpkins who obviously found her short blonde hair, her tattoos, and her piercings too over the top, as if they did not watch television or venture into the city.
Marcus' family treated her as if she was invisible. They gave her a wide berth when they came and went from the waiting room and whispered among themselves, excluding her from their conversations. She wondered, uncomfortably, if it was because she had in a nose ring, and an eyebrow ring.
Tiffany's anxiety levels rose exponentially with each ticking of the clock. How would she survive without Marcus? Would she have to move out of the apartment and move in back with her parents?
Suppose something was seriously wrong with his legs and he couldn't walk again; would she even want to live with a cripple? There would be no more traveling and fame. Marcus would be known as one of those athletes who had a bright future before him, but wasn't able to realize his full potential.
She kept fidgeting. On top of the stress of current situation, the guilt of being with Neil for the eight weeks that Marcus was away was strangling her.
"At least Deidra is all right," She heard Marcus' mother say to a distinguished looking man who looked like somebody she saw on television all the time. It was Senator Durkheim.
The thought clicked when she saw that he stood up and turned to the doorway just when Deidra walked through. She was in a bloody tracksuit. She looked disheveled and her eyes were red from crying. She was also limping a bit. One of her ankles was taped over with white plaster.
The senator hugged Deidra and she hugged him back. The thought suddenly made Tiffany sick.
Was she the cause of this accident? Did the person Neil hired to scare Deidra, acted when she was with Marcus?
What an idiot! She thought furiously. Blithering idiot.
Her hand started to sweat and tremble slightly. Was she the reason Marcus was hurt?
"I don't want to leave until I hear about Marcus." Deidra was saying to her father.
"Let's get you to the house and cleaned up," her father replied, pulling her gently. Deidra left the waiting room a little after that.
She hadn't even looked in her direction, Tiffany noted thankfully because she was sure that if anybody looked at her closely enough, they could see her sweating guilt.
*****
The family started taking shifts at Marcus' bedside. Tiffany had also muscled her way into some of the time spent there too; she had been staying at the school’s hotel and walking over to the hospital. It had been three days since the accident and Marcus was still in a coma. He just lay in the bed, still, his head wrapped in bandages with machines chirping all around him. The doctors reported that he was stable but that they had no idea when he would wake up.
The international media had become involved, and local media personnel were also camped out on the hospital grounds. Daily, the newspapers were running features on Marcus and his career and the television stations were running a documentary on his life, almost as if he were already dead.
Tiffany had offered an interview to the Associated Press, and it had been nice to see her name in print: “Tiffany Lewis, the girlfriend of Marcus Bancroft, says that his leg is broken but the doctors say it is a clean break.”
She was sitting at Marcus' bedside and was reading the paper again, looking at her name and grimacing. It should be Tiffany Bancroft.
"Ehem," she looked up and there was Deidra. She looked fresh and pretty. She should be the one in the bed, in a coma, Tiffany thought resentfully.
Tiffany watched her as she walked over to the other side of the bed and sat down. She didn't even spare Tiffany a glance. She gently smoothed Marcus' brow and whispered something in his ear. Then she took out an MP3 player and put it in Marcus' ears.
"What are you doing?" Tiffany asked acerbically.
"Huh?" Deidra looked across at her. "Playing Marcus a sermon. You know a sermon, where the preacher elaborates on God's words. Have you ever heard one?"
Tiffany sneered at her. "Marcus and I don't listen to sermons and ridiculous God talk."
"That's because he was fraternizing with the wrong company," Deidra said fiercely. "Something tells me you discouraged him from listening to such things."
Tiffany reached over and plucked the headphones out of his ear. "Leave him alone. He can't hear it anyway."
"Oh yes, he can," Deidra said, pulling the headphone from Tiffany's hand. "The doctor said coma patients can sometimes hear what is going on around them."
Tiffany grunted. "You people are something else. You ignore me, all of you, yet I am the only person in Marcus' life that knows what is going on with him. Where were you all three years ago?"
Deidra frowned. "No one is ignoring you. We all meet at the chapel in the mornings, his family and friends, community people, even the press stops by to join in; we pray for his recovery. We know that only a higher power can help."
Tiffany sat down sullenly. "I don't pray."
"Well," Deidra said, "that's your loss. Prayer is the only option we mere mortals have to get access to God. And you may sneer all you want, but medicine cannot explain what is going on with Marcus right now. Only God can, and He alone can help us now. Think about that while you sit here and rely on doctors to tell you what's wrong."
Tiffany's face crumpled and she hung her head.
Deidra sat down and put the headphones back in Marcus' ear. "I think God can take bad circumstances and work them for our good."
"Marcus would not be in that situation if he had not been up here." Tiffany growled, when she revived after Deidra's chastisement. "Would you really want to be with Marcus if he cannot run again? If he wasn't the famous Marcus Bancroft? I doubt it Miss Beauty Queen. You want a high profile boyfriend. That's what you are searching for and stupid Marcus took the bait. He took one look at your pretty face and his emotions took over."
Deidra was in the process of taking out one of her textbooks to read and she stopped, looking at Tiffany incredulously.
"Do not ascribe your ambitions to me, Tiffany. I like Marcus. I don't see him as some sort of running machine that only deserves love if he can win a race or as a ticket to some high profile life."
"This is very soap opera-ish," Natasha said at the door. Both women swung around to look at her.
"I heard that I could find you here," Natasha said to Deidra. She nodded to Tiffany and then looked at Marcus.
&nbs
p; "Come on, Marcus, snap out of it already."
"He has a sermon in his ear," Tiffany said waspishly, "he can't hear you."
Natasha raised her brow and looked at Tiffany. "So you are Tiffany Lewis, his girlfriend?"
Tiffany nodded. "I am. Who wants to know?"
"Well," Natasha shrugged, "I am just your regular police detective working on this case. My name is Natasha Rowe."
Tiffany straightened her spine guiltily. "So you don't think this was an accident?"
"It definitely wasn't," Natasha said. "We have a break in the case too."
"You do?" Tiffany asked far too quickly, with just a tiny hint of guilt piping through.
Natasha picked it up and she turned her body fully and focused on Tiffany. "Yes, the gray car that mowed you guys down," she looked at Deidra, "is registered to one Dean Hartley. He lives in Kingston. It took us a while to find him because we had to look for every gray Toyota Corolla licensed in this region first.
Luckily, the Supe literally passed a gray car fitting the description on his way to work yesterday morning and we got the license plate number and traced it to Hartley. It so happens that his brother was the one who was driving it and lives just down the road in the Bramble community. His name is Levaughn Hartley. We have him at the station for questioning."
"So what does he do?" Deidra asked anxiously. "How does he know me? Why would he want to follow me around?"
Natasha shrugged. "He goes to school here. He's a business student. That's all we know for now. But believe you me Deidra, we will not let this go. We are going to get to the bottom of this case."
She was looking at Tiffany when she said it and smiled in satisfaction when Tiffany swallowed involuntarily, her eyes not quite meeting hers.
Chapter Ten
Day five.
The world had moved on with their lives; other news had since taken over the headlines. Other things were happening in the world while Marcus slept on.
Deidra was in Marcus' room, as usual. Her mid-terms would start tomorrow and were scheduled back to back for a whole week, so she had taken to studying in his room until late at nights. This time she was alone. Usually some member of the family or Tiffany would be hanging around, but it was late, the hospital staff had allowed her to stay way past visiting hours, and as usual, she had her books propped up on his bed and her head steeped in a book.
Her ankle still hurt her a bit and she rubbed it absently. She looked over at Marcus. His head was in a bandage and his right foot in a cast. He may miss the Olympics next year, the year when he was determined to prove himself on the world stage. It was going to be a hard pill for him to swallow. Deidra put her book down on the bed and leaned on her wrists, looking at his still face.
He had actually said that he loved her before the car had knocked them down. Theirs had been a swift and electrifying connection, and then they almost died. She realized now, more than at any other time in her life, that time wasn't guaranteed to anyone, despite the plans they may make.
Natasha hadn't gotten much out of Levaughn Hartley. He admitted that he had been following her around campus because he liked her and that he hadn't seen them on the sidewalk when he almost ran them over. He had even gotten a lawyer, and was slapped with a charge of dangerous and reckless driving. He was to appear in court in a month to answer the charges. The case was solved. She hoped he got jail time. He had given her the creeps following her around for weeks.
Deidra rubbed Marcus' arm gently. The case was solved too quickly, and tied up too neatly for her. She couldn't shake the feeling that there was more to this sordid situation.
She fell asleep on Marcus' hand and dreamt that she was in the stand of a brightly lit stadium. Levaughn Hartley was sitting behind her and sneering, but every time she moved to see his face he disappeared. She jumped out of her sleep and rubbed her eyes.
Marcus' eyes were wide opened.
"Who are you?" he whispered.
"Marcus," Deidra squealed. "It's me, Deidra."
"Where am I?" Marcus asked hoarsely. He tried to move his legs and realized that one of them was in a cast. He raised his hand to feel his head and realized it was in a bandage.
"Nurse!" Deidra said loudly. She pressed the buzzer that was at his bedside, and a nurse came to the door.
"He's awake," Deidra said excitedly.
Marcus was looking at her with a frown and he looked at the nurse. He wondered who was the pretty girl beside his bed and how he end up in a hospital bed. The last thing he remembered, he was preparing to go to a meet in Miami.
He was supposed to be packing, and Tiffany had just gone into the other room for some of his shirts. He had promised Tiffany that when they went to Miami they would go and see the artist, Khaled, in concert.
"Where is Tiff?" he asked the girl urgently.
The girl looked at him with concern in her eyes. "You don't remember me, do you?"
"Should I?" Marcus racked his brain trying to remember where he'd seen her before, but his mind would not corporate. He concluded to himself that he had never seen her in his life.
Things moved swiftly after that; the nurses hustled Deidra through the door and she was left standing out into the waiting room.
She felt weird and bereft. Marcus had looked at her with a blankness that was frightening. Had he lost his memories? Certainly not, he still remembered Tiffany. She paced in the waiting room for what seemed like hours.
When she finally went to the nurse's station and asked if she could see him. The nurse looked at her sympathetically.
"I am sorry Deidra. He does not recognize you. He is asking for his girlfriend, Tiffany. He says he does not want any visitors except her."
Deidra sighed and then swallowed. "So he has some kind of amnesia or something?"
"It would seem so." The nurse shook her head. "The neurologist will be by to confirm later in the morning, and to check him over." She looked at the clock; it was 3 a.m. "The bump to his head must have done something to his memories. He only remembers to the beginning of the summer. He is convinced that he is going to a track meet in Miami."
Deidra gasped. "That's where he met me."
The nurse patted her hand. "Go home. Come visit him tomorrow, maybe by then he'll get back his memory. We have called the specialist. He's on his way and so are his parents and that girl Tiffany."
Deidra slouched her shoulders. "Okay, thanks."
The nurse smiled sympathetically and watched as she grabbed up her backpack and headed through the door.
*****
Marcus felt like a fish out of water. He glanced at the clock. It was early morning, almost seven. He was told that he was in an accident. Dr. Vonner, the neurologist, explained to him simply that he had amnesia. He had lost almost six months of his life.
"You will eventually recover those memories," the doctor had reassured him after an examination. "It may take a few days or even a few months."
His leg was another matter. Dr. Phillips had told him that his right leg had gotten a tibia and fibula fracture and that he had to stay in the cast and would be immobilized for 12 to 16 weeks. After that, he would have to go through rehabilitation with a physiotherapist to restore the range of ankle and knee movement, and to restore the muscle strength that would be lost during the immobilization period.
He felt numb when he heard about his situation. It didn't help that the incident happened the year before an Olympics. He would have to learn to walk again. How was he going to run the quarter-mile and the half-mile, in less than sixteen months?
The thought had him preoccupied for so long that he had forgotten to ask what exactly was he doing in Mount Faith, and how he had met in the accident?
He figured those were questions any normal amnesiac would ask, but he had been so preoccupied with the loss of movement in his leg that he had forgotten to quiz the doctor. His coach had called him soon after the doctors had left, and they had spent a long time talking about rehabilitation.
He sighed and
covered his eyes with his hands. Why him? He had been on the way to a great future in the quarter-mile. He had just mastered his first two hundred meters or had he?
Did he even win that Miami race? Had he gone to the Diamond League and gotten a trophy for the last couple of races?
He needed to talk to somebody.
"Knock knock." He looked up and it was his manager, Kirk.
"Hey, Kirk," he greeted him without enthusiasm.
"Oh, you know who I am." Kirk laughed. "That's good, cause I heard it on the grapevine that you had lost your mind."
"And my damn leg," Marcus said, with disgust. "My career is over."
"Nah, man," Kirk said, sitting down in the chair beside the bed. "You'll be fine. Many athletes have come back from injuries and done great."
"In the longer distances?" Marcus asked incredulously. "I might be fine in the various leagues, but what about the Olympics and World Champs?"
Kirk shook his head. "What you need to do now is concentrate on getting better. Your doctor said that it's a clean break. That should heal in 16 weeks, tops. They are monitoring you, like the prize patient you are, to make sure that everything is okay for you to get moving again."
"Then a long rehab." Marcus swore and shuffled on the bed. "I am going to have to use a cane, like an invalid, or hop around. How am I going to even exercise, and why the hell am I up here in Mount Faith?"
Kirk scratched his head. "Beats me. Howard said he dropped you up here at your request. The doctors say we shouldn't feed you with information in case it messes up your real memories. Be patient man, you were in a coma for a couple of days relax."
Marcus thumped the bed. "You are no help. Where's Tiffy? I need some answers."
Kirk grinned. "I am just happy you are all right man; your mother had us all, Christians and non-Christians alike, petitioning the throne of God. I think she called it prayer. At first, they thought you were dead. Give thanks, man."
Practice Run (Mount Faith Series: Book 5) Page 8
