by L. L. Akers
The other nurse anticipated his next order. “I’ve got the crash cart, Doctor.”
“Prep her for an IV line in the cubital fossa—Adenosine—quick!”
Jake ran both his hands over his face and through his hair. “What’s happening?!”
A nurse roughly brushed past Jake to grab Gabby’s arm. “Sir, step aside. We’re going to give her an IV push to pause her heart and restart it. Hopefully it will return to her regular rhythm.”
“You’re giving her a shot to the heart?!”
Shot to the heart... Gabby sang inside her head. She recognized Jake’s voice calling out one of their favorite songs from their old Bon Jovi album. She thought about the rest of that verse and wondered why Jake was talking about that song. Did he know?
The doctor rolled his eyes. “No! To the inside of her elbow!”
The nurses all looked at each other. The doctor saw the look pass through them. He told Jake he wasn’t a specialist in this field and wasn’t feeling comfortable with this case, but would continue to try to help until the specialist got there. “Where’s that damn cardiologist? Somebody put out another STAT call now!”
“Gabby, I’m still here! I never even unpacked the truck. I came back. I know you still love me, girl! I’m not leaving,” Jake sobbed, “and you better not either.”
Jake watched in horror as the crowd of white coats and bright smocks surrounded his young wife, lying within arm’s reach but beyond his ability to fix.
“Gabby! Gabby! Hang on... Stay with us. Listen to your husband!” the doctor yelled. “GO! Push!”
“I love you, Gabby!”
Gabby felt a pain-filled pressure from her elbow to her chest. She wanted to hang on, to answer Jake and tell him she loved him too—to say good-bye—but she couldn’t form the words as the darkness slowly wiped out the bizarre bright lights and the scattered loud voices around her. She finally found it. Peaceful sleep...
CHAPTER 27
olivia picked at the tissue in her lap, shredding it as her thoughts swirled around everything, except the man standing at the pulpit, and the sermon that seemed hand-picked for her. Ironically, today of all days, he’d decided to speak to his flock about the gift of forgiveness. Olivia should be listening, as she was going to need to find a way to let go of the pain Gabby had caused her. But first, she needed to be sure Gabby lived—then she’d tear her apart limb by limb.
She looked at her watch. Thirty more minutes. Thirty more minutes to sit still and pretend that her sister wasn’t hooked to machines in the CCU—Cardiac Care Unit—having spent the night getting her heart stopped and restarted and her stomach pumped.
Olivia had gotten the call seconds before stepping out the door on her last trip to the car in the pouring rain, where she’d been frantically piling all of her things after Billy left for work. She was leaving him—again. When the phone rang, Olivia almost went to pieces in her panic, dropping the last load onto the floor. Somehow Billy knew, she had thought. Maybe a neighbor had called him and told him they’d seen her packing her car. She had stood staring at the phone, shaking, dripping water onto the carpet... too scared to answer—but too scared not to. Thank God she had.
Jake’s voice had almost been unrecognizable. He was exhausted. He hardly made sense, but she’d managed to get the important stuff out of him: Gabby had almost died the night before, by her own hand, and was in the hospital. She still wasn’t completely out of the woods, and no one would be allowed in to see her until noon, because that unit had strict visitation rules. Olivia was shocked and furious that she wouldn’t be allowed to come immediately, so she’d come to church instead, to wait it out—and offer up prayers begging for her sister’s life.
She felt another surge of anger cover her worry—at Gabby. After all they’d been through, what gave Gabby the right to think she could just check out? Hadn’t they always needed each other? It was a silent oath—together they’d make it through anything. But over the last six months, Olivia had felt Gabby slipping away. Their lives had taken separate roads and they barely saw each other. But still, just knowing they had each other somewhere had always been a comfort, hadn’t it?
However, the few times they had made time to be together, Olivia had seen the signs that something was wrong with Gabby, too. Still, no amount of poking or prodding had released the new secret her sister carried. And Olivia hadn’t confided in her either. They both hid under their facades of smiles and jokes, and teasing and ribbing each other, as they’d always done. Picking on each other’s clothes or hair, and other meaningless conversation to fill the time before they each went back to suffer alone in secret.
Secrets. It seemed their family was always carrying secrets. And not just little ones that would hurt a few feelings here and there. No, their family harbored big secrets, such large skeleton’s in their closets, that if let out were full of power to take a person and break them down into a small dust of nothing. Secrets that must be guarded like Pandora’s Box, kept vigil over sleepless night after sleepless night.
And yet, they all walked through life pretending everything was fine. Olivia was tired of the pretending. The preacher banged his fist on the podium and she jumped. She thought again of Gabby, going through a night of horror without her there to help her; hold her hand, cry with her and beg her to hang on. If Gabby died without anyone having given Olivia a chance to help pull her through... or say good-bye... she couldn’t let her thoughts go there.
A new lump began to form in her throat and she breathed deep, trying to ward it off. It was too late. The tears began to fall and Olivia furiously wiped them away. Her anger now moved away from her sister and to the ultimate one in charge. Was He punishing them? Did He want to see them all broken? What more did He want from this family?
The preacher stopped talking and the music began.
Alter call.
Olivia had never risen during the call to the alter. She’d been taught from an early age never to let anyone see her pain—even her closest family. She knew now that was the problem. They were all carrying so much inside, that if her sisters were like her, they probably felt ready to explode. It was too much. It hurt. It hurt so deeply. The burdens were too heavy.
Last call.
She stood. Her knees shaking, she made her way past the small family she sat beside, avoiding their eyes. In the center of the pews, she took a deep breath, and then followed a few stragglers to the front of the church. Finding a place between two people she didn’t know, she kneeled, her head bowed, both hands on the first step. She closed her eyes. Waited.
God, are you there? She prayed harder than she’d ever prayed before. God, please let my sister live through this. Please lay your hand on her and deliver her. Whatever she is carrying, I beg you to allow her to let it go. With those few silent prayers, the dam burst and Olivia felt her shoulders shaking and her heart breaking.
“Why, why, why... ” she chanted under her breath. Why to all of it. She felt like a small child throwing a tantrum. She knew being angry at God was useless. It wasn’t His fault. It must be something in them—something imbedded deep into their genetic makeup that marked them for suffering; to allow themselves to be continually hurt.
Olivia tried to get herself under control as the organist played another round of I Surrender All. She couldn’t stand and face the church. She knew her face was a wet, blotchy mess. They would see the naked pain on her face and she couldn’t allow that. She wasn’t sure her legs would hold her if she tried to stand.
She felt arms come around her. From both sides she smelled a disharmony of perfumes. She felt the strong presence of two women who’d been nice to her before, women she’d continually pushed away because that was just what she did. They didn’t speak, only offered the comfort of their touch and the silent reassurance that with God, anything is possible to overcome.
The music ended, and with the help of the two ladies, Olivia rose to her feet and turned back toward the congregation. Her hands knotted into fist
s. As others returned to their seats for the remainder of the service, she stared straight ahead and walked down the aisle and out of the church. She would wait no longer to see her sister.
She stood outside the church for just a moment, looking up into the dark and angry sky, wishing the sun would come out. The rain had stopped at least. She thanked God for that. As she did, the sun broke strong through the dreary clouds. She felt the warmth of it drying her cheeks. She took a deep breath of the sun-kissed air and let out a hitched crying sigh. Maybe her prayers were being heard.
“Gabby, Don’t let go... I’m coming,” she whispered fiercely as she ran to her car.
The Girl in the Box
Her eyelids felt glued together. When she finally works them open, she is nearly blinded by light shining down on her. The top is off her box! Is he here? The thought makes her blood run cold. What will he do to her? She can’t stay focused on that worry because she has been in the dark so long she wants to focus on the light; she wants to open her mouth and drink it in, but she needs water—a real drink—first.
Disoriented, she slowly tries to focus her eyesight. Her head is slightly elevated and she can see someone there at the end of her box—a woman!—just in front of her. Heavyset, and although she can only make out the hazy outline of her back, she knows she’s unfamiliar. But she can see it is a woman—not a man. Maybe she will help her.
Her throat is so dry and parched she can’t even squeeze a sound through it, but she desperately tries to get the mysterious woman’s attention, attempting to lift her arm, which is weighed down with sleep. She has to focus on getting one hand to do her bidding. She stretches her hand to the right and with her torn and bloody fingers taps against the cold wall of her box, hoping the woman will turn around.
The tapping isn’t loud enough and the woman steps out of her line of vision, leaving her to wonder if she was ever there in the first place. The darkness begins to roll back in as if someone is slowly dimming the lights, and she tries to hold on to her thoughts, but they are slipping away. What was she last thinking? A woman—something about a woman—but before she can grab the thread of that last thought, she sinks back into the blackness.
CHAPTER 28
She awoke agitated, sucking in a huge breath of air as if starving for it, causing her to cough from deep within her chest. She panicked. She felt like the air was too thin; she couldn’t feel it going in and she didn’t recognize her surroundings.
“Let me help you,” the nurse said patiently while trying to avoid her swinging arms. “Calm down. You’re going to be okay.”
“Where am I?” she asked after settling her cough.
“You’re in the hospital,” the nurse answered, gently placing her patient’s arms down to her side, smiling with a relaxed and friendly face, and lightly tucking the blanket back around her, cocooning her, giving her back the insulated feeling of shelter.
The effect was meant to compose her patient. It worked.
“How long have I been here?”
“A few days... You’ve really been out of it, honey,” she replied. “I need to let the doctor know you’re awake—really awake. I’ll be right back.”
The nurse walked out, her purple smock and lively multi-colored pants an explosion of color in the otherwise mostly pale room covered in white walls and filled with stainless-steel machines and gray screens. Even her bed was covered in white with silver side rails. Cold, she noticed as she gripped them and tried to pull herself up to take a look around.
The room seemed to shatter in sounds as if the gates of her mind had opened her ears—the tick-tick-tick of the large school room-like clock, the hum and beeps of the machines, a whir-clink-whir coming from the fluorescent lights hanging overhead. Her nose was quickly filled with antiseptic-like smells—rubbing alcohol, soap... bleach—on top of the smell of latex or rubber.
Just outside her door she could hear the crisp walk of the people going to and fro, squeaky wheels of carts and gurneys, and an intercom seeming to blast at full volume some secret language known only to the medical staff. This all drifted unwelcome into her room.
The motion, the noise, the smell—those lights—it was all too much. She felt like she was on sensory overload and she lost her grip on the rails, falling backward, exhausted in her effort at fully awakening.
She tried to keep the dark from rolling back in; she wanted to stay awake and talk to the doctor—get answers—but she lost her battle, floating downward into the grasping nothingness.
Part III
TWO YEARS LATER
CHAPTER 29
The doctor walked into his office to find three very attractive young women. The two older sisters appeared to be in their early twenties, with the younger sister a few years behind, but they all looked so similar they could almost pass for triplets: the same sapphire-blue eyes and delicate facial features, long shiny chocolate-brown hair, and slender frames. A lovely set of daughters, he thought.
He knew they were sisters—close sisters—not just because of their similarities, but also by the way they’d audaciously rearranged his office, pulling his visitor chairs all together to face his desk as one unit, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder and hand-in-hand, with the youngest nested protectively between her older sisters. He was impressed with the young ladies as he saw them now, in the flesh as opposed to the distorted picture of victims painted by their mother in the throes of her illness.
The doctor hadn’t been expecting such a professional, polished, and put-together family. With the exception of their makeup, he could picture any one of these ladies in the hospital’s own executive administration offices. Their only visible flaws to their otherwise pulled-together appearance were around their eyes. It appeared they’d been crying and had rubbed their eyes raw, mascara and eyeliner hastily wiped away, leaving dark smudges—telltale signs of their grief. He looked at them with sympathy.
“Why was our mom tied down?” Gabby said forcefully the moment the doctor sat down.
“Ladies, I’m sorry you had to see your mother like that. It must be very stressful,” he said matter-of-factly. “But she is actually much better than when she arrived here. I’ve seen the most progress today. The nurse tells me after your first visit she awoke and seemed completely aware of her surroundings for just a moment before going back under. Luckily we’d just removed the constraints and finished her bath. It is always best if they don’t see those immediately upon regaining full consciousness—but you have to understand we were forced to restrain her for her own safety, and we may have to do it again if she becomes unmanageable,” he said firmly.
“I know you are probably all wondering why it took so long to let you know she was here.” The doctor continued. “Were you aware she was driving an unlicensed and unregistered car belonging to someone else, having no identification on her or in the car, and that she was found here... sixty-five miles away from where she lives?”
“Whose car?” Olivia asked in disbelief.
“It belonged to a dealer. She’d been test-driving it and wrecked. We assume her symptoms must have progressed quickly during that test drive to an unbearable headache, followed by delusions. She was probably lost. The sensitivity to light could explain the accident. She was unconscious when the ambulance arrived.
“She must have been going very slowly.” He paused to take a breath, and then continued. “There wasn’t much damage to her or the car from the accident. The dealer reported the car stolen after a few hours, but she had crossed the state line and the car had been towed by then. It took a while before the tow service realized they were holding an assumed-stolen vehicle belonging to a dealer from a neighboring state. They just assumed your mother would pick it up when she was released from the hospital.”
“Her boyfriend thought she’d just taken a road trip to clear her head. Sometimes she does that. We all do. We had no reason to believe any different. We were never even worried,” Olivia explained. They all felt terrible that their mother had been here a
ll alone for three days.
“What’s wrong with her?” Emma asked, eyes blinking rapidly trying to fight off her tears, not able to stop imagining the terror her mother must have felt surrounded by strangers with no family beside her.
“Her diagnosis is meningitis,” he explained. “It is an inflammation of the meninges caused by viral or bacterial infection, usually marked in the beginning by an intense headache, then moving on to fever, sensitivity to light, muscular rigidity, and sometimes convulsions and delirium.
“Your mother experienced all of these symptoms and is still somewhat delusional. When she was admitted, it was necessary to block out the light from your mother’s eyes, for her own comfort. We did that using eye pads and a head bandage. She was convinced she was being kept captive in a dark box, all alone. Even when we would remove the pads to clean her eyes, she refused to acknowledge the darkness gone. She still refuses. She wouldn’t listen to reason from anyone, acted like she really didn’t know we were there, unless it was a male voice. At that, she would go completely hysterical. It was so upsetting to her we wouldn’t allow a male nurse in there at all. Even her psychologist and I had to pass notes to each other and the nurses instead of speaking when around her, or remain perfectly silent until we were outside her door—whether she was awake or asleep. If she heard a male voice, she was impossible to handle or examine and we usually had to immediately sedate to calm her down,” he explained, shaking his head sadly.
The ladies all looked at each other in disbelief. Through her delusions, their mom had been experiencing their own tortured fears of the box... How ironic was that? Or was it? Maybe she’d heard them whispering snippets of the horrible threats they’d all lived under. Maybe she knew all along.
