Sunny's Hope

by Nola Cross

  “Yes. They had her in a medically-induced coma for the first three days to allow her brain to rest and to be sure the bleeding had stopped. They began gradually withdrawing the medication on Thursday morning. So far, there’s been some eye movement but not much else.”

  “Oh dear. That does sound bad.”

  “Her neurologist has assured us it’s typical for this type of injury. There’s every chance that she will recover. It may just take a while.” Ben felt anxious about having this discussion in front of Spencer. He and Sunny had agreed to shield the little boy from knowing the severity of Jasmine’s condition.

  “Well, I look forward to meeting your lady friend soon, then.”

  “I’m anxious for you to meet her. You’ll love her. She’s a second grade teacher at Spencer’s school.”

  “Oh. Is that how you met?”

  “No, actually we ran into each other in Pioneer Courthouse Square as they were putting up the big Christmas tree there. Our kids bonded on the spot. It’s just a coincidence that she lives nearby and teaches at the school.”

  “So you haven’t known each other very long then. Does she realize that Corinne died only a year ago? In fact, it’s a bit less than a year, isn’t it?” There was an undertone of quiet censure in her voice. He might have expected that from Corinne’s parents, but not his own. His anger rose from nowhere.

  “What are you trying to say, Mom? That I have to stay in mourning another year? Should I be dressing in black? Am I behaving in bad taste? Weren’t you the one who tried to set me up with your neighbor a couple months back?” Ben was shocked at his own tone of voice. He hadn’t spoken to his mother like this since his teen years. “I’m sorry, Mom. Sorry.”

  A long-suffering sniff came from the back seat.

  “It’s just that I thought you would be happy for me,” he continued. “For us. Having Sunny and Jasmine in our lives has been great.”

  “It’s been great,” Spencer echoed.

  “I’m sure it has.” There was still a fragile edge to her voice. “I just thought you and Evelyn would hit it off. She’s really perfect for you.”

  So that was it. He hadn’t realized she’d been so hurt when her matchmaking efforts didn’t pan out. Ben smiled to himself. His mom always had enjoyed running the show, but she’d love Sunny once she got to know her, he was sure of it.

  His father had remained silent throughout the entire interchange. Now he cleared his throat. “I think it’s wise you’re moving on, son. You loved Corinne—we all did—but she’s gone. It serves no purpose to continue grieving.”

  “Thanks, Dad. I wish you’d tell that to Stan and Kathy.”

  “Oh?”

  Corinne’s parents, the Holts, had presented him with a huge, vulgarly-Photoshopped portrait of Corinne for his Christmas gift. Its presence in his living room during the holiday season had almost single-handedly destroyed him.

  “They seem to think that Christmas should be devoted to sackcloth and ashes from now on.”

  “She was their girl. They miss her. Since she died during the holiday season last year, this time of year must be very hard on them.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “It’s not like they can start dating a new daughter a year later. You have to cut them some slack.”

  “You’re right. I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

  His father reached over and patted his arm in an uncharacteristic show of physical affection. “I’ll look forward to meeting your Sunny. I’m sure she’s very special.”

  * * * *

  On Sunday evening Sunny stood at the sink in Ben’s kitchen, rinsing the cutting board she’d just used to chop the veggies for their salad. On the table, a steaming meatloaf rested on its platter, surrounded by tiny red potatoes. She surveyed the fragrant spread, then unknotted the dish towel she’d tied around her waist. If she was going to stay there much longer, she really ought to bring one of her aprons from home.

  Over the past five days she’d made some subtle-but-necessary adjustments to Ben’s place, which was sadly in need of a woman’s hand. He kept the rooms fairly tidy, except for Spencer’s, but the kitchen and bathroom were terribly utilitarian. And earlier she’d searched through all the drawers and cupboards for some simple candlesticks to no avail.

  Still, she was beginning to feel at home here.

  What would she have done without Ben’s support this past week? It was beyond her imagination. Not only did he drive her to and from the hospital every morning and evening, despite his confessed hatred of the place, but he sat in on all her consultations with Jasmine’s doctor, taking notes and asking questions that had never even crossed her mind. Charles could take a page or two from Ben’s book, that was for sure. But she was actually glad her ex hadn’t put in an appearance since that first day, at least not that she knew of.

  She and Ben hadn’t made love since that first night home when she’d needed his strength and companionship so badly, but every night he was right there, warm and solid in the bed beside her. And when she cried out in her dreams, he woke her with gentle words and kisses, holding her close until she fell back to sleep.

  She knew she would have to go back to her own home one of these days soon. Mr. Trix probably thought he’d been abandoned for good, even though they stopped in briefly every day. And eventually she’d have to go back to work. But she didn’t want to think about leaving yet.

  She needed Ben. It was a new feeling for her to need someone. She was a strong woman with a reliable inner compass she rarely questioned. Ironically, she probably had Charles to thank for that. He’d been such a poor husband, she’d learned early on not to rely on him for much of anything. But Ben was different. He lifted her up, supported her without taking away any of her personal power. That was a rare combination, wasn’t it?

  She was lucky to have Ben, even though it did seem odd to be counting her blessings while Jasmine still lay in a coma. The unknown quantity of her condition was like a boiling black cloud that loomed over everything every moment of the day.

  Just that morning, Jasmine had opened her eyes and looked straight at her and Ben, but there had been no focus there, no recognition. The nurse had been pleased with the progress, noting it in Jasmine’s chart, but Sunny had wept in the elevator all the way down to the parking garage, while Ben held her and wiped her tears away. Sometimes she wondered how they were going to get through the next few weeks and months.

  Now she heard his voice in the hallway as he spoke to Spencer. She used the towel to dry her leaky eyes and practiced putting a cheery expression on her face.

  “I smell something delicious. What do you think it is?”

  “Maybe stew?” the boy guessed.

  “Maybe meatballs! I’ll bet it’s spaghetti and meatballs!”

  “Yay!”

  Sunny smiled as they came into the kitchen. “Sorry, it’s only meatloaf.”

  “Meatloaf!” Spencer’s little face screwed up in a sneer.

  “Spencer, be polite.” Ben turned to Sunny and kissed her cheek. “I’m sure it will be amazing as always.”

  Just as they were settling into their chairs, Sunny’s cellphone chimed from the countertop. She leaped up, hoping as always that the hospital was calling with good news. The number on the caller ID was an unfamiliar one from out of state. Still, she couldn’t seem to resist taking the call. She motioned for Spencer and Ben to go ahead and dish up their plates.

  “Hello?”

  “Sunny?”

  “Mom?” Eldretta Jackson’s voice had an unmistakable timbre, like gravel being tossed into a wood chipper. Forty years of cigarette smoke will do that to a larynx. “It’s been so long since I’ve heard from you. You didn’t answer my last three letters.” Since her remarriage a couple of years earlier, her mother had pretty much fallen off the face of the earth.

  “Well, that’s why I’m calling. I wanted to give you my new address and phone number.”

  Sunny copied down the information on a notepad, the
n asked, “How are you? Are you and Maurice doing well?” Her mother’s new husband had owned a janitorial service, but had sold the business just before they married. They had moved to Florida to enjoy the sun.

  “He’s good. We both are. How’s my grandbaby, my sweet little Jasmine?”

  Sunny bit back the harsh words that wanted to jump out of her mouth. If her mother really wanted to get to know her granddaughter she could have made more of an effort to stay in touch. “Well, actually, we were in a car accident a week ago and she’s still in the hospital.”

  “The hospital? Is it serious?”

  “She’s coming along.” For some reason, Sunny felt stingy about sharing anything further.

  “What do the doctors say? Will she need long-term care? Have you thought any more about suing that other driver?”

  Sunny gasped as the motive behind the phone call became perfectly clear. “I can’t believe this. You’ve been talking to Charles!”

  There was a moment of silence on the other end, then finally her mother’s innocent voice. “Charles?”

  “Mom! How dare you? If you’ve read my letters, you know Charles and I are now divorced. He betrayed me more than once, and he doesn’t exactly have my best interests at heart, nor Jasmine’s.”

  “I don’t know. He has a point. If you hire the right lawyer—”

  “I’m hanging up now, Mom.”

  “But Maurice and I wanted to come visit—”

  “Now is not a good time.”

  “Is it true what Charles said? Are you really seeing a white man? A white man, Sunny?”

  “That is none of your business, Mother. Goodbye.” She clicked off the call and slammed the phone onto the counter, her blood roaring in her ears. She whirled around just in time to see Spencer’s eyes bulging from their sockets. She’d forgotten entirely that he and Ben were even in the room!

  “Unbelievable,” Ben said quietly.

  Putting his fork down on his plate, he scooted back his chair and held out his arms. As the tears started, she went to him and let him pull her down onto his lap. Despite the stiff confines of the brace, she was able to wrap her arms around his neck, burying her face against his shoulder. Her heart was still going a mile a minute and she thought she might vomit. She couldn’t seem to stop the damn tears.

  “My own mother!” She sobbed into the clean, crisp collar of his shirt. “Can you imagine? And Charles! The nerve of that bast—”

  “Shhh.” Ben’s hand stroked her hair, her face. She began to quiet. Now she could hear the steady thrum of his heartbeat against her cheek. She breathed in the smell of his skin, so familiar, so comforting. Gradually, her own heart slowed. And then she felt another hand, a smaller one, skimming along her arm. She opened her eyes. Spencer was standing next to them, an expression of grave concern in his eyes.

  “Are you okay, Sunny?” he asked.

  She did her best to give him a trembling smile. “I am now.”

  Chapter 7

  On Tuesday morning, Jasmine opened her eyes and looked around and attempted to speak. Ben happened to glance up from his book just at that moment and saw the expression of sheer panic tear across her face.

  “Nurse!” He leaped to her side and grabbed her hands, which had closed around the ventilator tube. “Lie still, sweetie. Lie still. I’m right here.” He stroked her hair with his free hand and prayed the nurse had heard him call out. Where was the damn call button anyway?

  Sunny had gone down to the cafeteria a few minutes earlier. Thank God they hadn’t left Jasmine to wake up alone.

  A few seconds later a young male nurse whisked through the door, followed by Dr. Joffman. Ben stepped back from the bed to allow them access, but stayed where Jasmine could see him. Her eyes rolled wildly as she thrashed in the bed.

  “Is she having a seizure?” Ben asked, his heart contracting.

  “No,” the nurse told him, “she’s just reacting to the breathing tube. It’s very common. She won’t remember this later.”

  But I will. He would never forget that look of primal fear on Jasmine’s little face as their eyes met. Her terrified gaze had pinioned him, begging for answers and reassurances he couldn’t give.

  Did she remember what had happened that dark night on the highway? Did she blame him?

  If only they’d started down the mountain a moment sooner. Or a moment later. If only he hadn’t turned to look at Sunny at that critical moment.

  His whole body quaked with the adrenalin rushing through it.

  As the doctor bent low over the narrow bed, Ben stood by helplessly, battling for control over his demons. He had thought he finally had a handle on his feelings of guilt, but obviously he was wrong. Those few moments at her bedside just now had shaken him to the core.

  He stepped out into the hall and took his phone out of his pocket, trying to ignore the way his fingers trembled. He knew he needed to text Sunny and let her know what had happened. After all, this was good news, right? Wonderful news, really. Jasmine was waking up! But he couldn’t text Sunny quite yet. He couldn’t let her see how the experience had affected him. He needed to stay strong. To be that rock that Sunny needed.

  Desperate, he clicked on his calendar function and made himself read through his appointments for next week. Then he checked the weather forecast for the next five days and his personal email inbox. Anything to distract himself.

  The strategy worked. The raw emotions began to subside and he was able to send her a text with the news. But by the time Sunny made it to the third floor pediatric ICU, they had increased Jasmine’s sedation again and she had gone back to sleep.

  Dr. Joffman took them aside. “I know it’s frightening to watch your child wake up and fight the tube, but this is a positive sign. I’m very encouraged.”

  “Can’t the ventilator be removed at this point so she doesn’t have to go through that the next time she wakes?” Sunny asked, fighting tears.

  The doctor had very kind hazel eyes. She laid her hand on Sunny’s arm. “Unfortunately, the ventilator needs to remain in place until we’re sure she’s out of danger and can breathe on her own. But now that we know she’s beginning to come out of the sedation, we’ll be watching her more closely. We’ll be there next time to make sure she doesn’t try to pull out the tube.”

  “No, I’ll be there,” Sunny muttered as they walked down the corridor together a few minutes later. Ben recognized the determined set of her jaw.

  “You can’t stay beside her twenty-four-seven,” he said gently.

  “Watch me.”

  He sighed. “Speaking of commitments, Sunny, I really have to get back to the office, at least part-time. I’ve put off several clients this past week and they’ve all been very understanding, but it’s time I put in some regular hours.” As he spoke, he worked to convince himself that it was true, that his boss and his clients were getting anxious, and not that he wanted to avoid the turmoil of emotions this place evoked. “When do you see your doctor again about removing the brace so you can drive?”

  “I don’t need the damn brace any longer,” she growled.

  He suppressed a smile. God, he loved this woman!

  “But when is your doctor’s appointment?”

  “Tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Great. I’ll go along.”

  That night, true to her word, Sunny had him take her back to the hospital and Ben went home to bed alone. At about two he woke from a horrible nightmare, sweat drenching his body. In the dream, Jasmine was paralyzed from the neck down, her limbs shriveled to strange brown matchsticks, and Sunny was screaming at him, over and over, “It’s your fault, Ben. It’s all your fault.”

  * * * *

  As she had hoped, Sunny’s doctor released her to drive again. Outfitted now in the smaller, softer cervical collar, she spent most of every day in the chair at Jasmine’s bedside. She brought her laptop, corresponding every morning with the substitute teacher who had temporarily taken over her classroom. While Jasmine slept on, Sunny
worked on lesson plans and read everything she could find about traumatic brain injury in children. Now that her daughter was steadily improving, her fears had abated somewhat, and she was fiercely determined to do everything within her power to see that Jasmine made a complete recovery.

  Jasmine’s periods of awareness became more frequent. She no longer woke in a total panic about the breathing tube, as long as Sunny was there. She even began to communicate by nodding yes or no to Sunny’s questions. During those waking times, Sunny read Jasmine her favorite books, helped her brush her toy pony’s mane and tail or painted her toenails, anything to keep the one-sided dialogue going. Sometimes they watched cartoons together far into the night, until Jasmine’s fingers would slip from her grasp.

  Finally, at the end of that second week, Dr. Joffman ordered a series of trial breathing tests to see if Jasmine was ready to be weaned off the ventilator. They explained everything to the child in terms she could understand, and allowed Sunny to stay in the room for the tests. The oxygen flow was reduced in small increments, and each time Jasmine did very well on her own. The following morning a team of respiratory therapists and nurses removed the ventilator.

  Ben and Spencer were there for the occasion, but they waited out in the hallway on the chance that things didn’t go as well as planned.

  As the team of specialists stepped away from the bed, Sunny heard a scratchy little voice whisper, “Mama. Mama.”

  “I’m here, babydoll. I’m right here.” She rushed forward and scooped her daughter into her arms. The smell of Jasmine’s hair seemed like a rare perfume as she pressed her nose to her baby’s scalp. It had been too many days since she’d been able to hold her child this close. Her arms felt as if they’d been empty for a lifetime. Sunny couldn’t stop the happy tears from streaming down her face.

  “Don’t cry.” Jasmine’s hand touched her cheek.

  “I’m trying not to.” Sunny laughed.

  “Can I have a drink of water?”

  “Yes. Oh yes, baby, you can.”

  She had to step back again then and allow the medical team to complete their evaluations.