“Let’s make root beer floats when we go home,” Jimmy suggested, and Tim smiled at him again in the rearview mirror just as they pulled up to an intersection. The light was green, and Tim pulled ahead—as he felt the car start to skid on a patch of ice. He was concentrating on what he was doing and never saw the car barreling toward him at high speed. The teenage driver started to skid at the same time and hit the brakes, which made the skid worse. He lost control and hit Tim’s car at high speed as Jimmy watched in horror from the backseat. There was the fearsome sound of crashing metal as their car spun like a top and hit the stoplight, while the other car hit a tree. It was over in minutes, and the night was silent around them. There was no sound as Tim sat slumped forward, and Jimmy didn’t say a word. The air bag had opened, and Tim was burrowed into it, and all Jimmy could see was a trickle of blood running from his father’s ear.
Jimmy sat there unable to move or speak, and then he heard sirens, and policemen opened the car door and pulled him out. They sat him in the police car because it was so cold outside, and one of them asked him if he was okay, while the other officer checked their car and then the car that had hit the tree.
“I think my dad is hurt,” Jimmy said in a small, terrified voice as the officer knelt on the ground and talked to him.
An ambulance came a few minutes later, and the paramedics took him to the hospital to have him checked. “That’s the hospital where my mom and dad work,” he explained. He had already told them his name and address. “Can I wait for my dad to come with me? He’s hurt,” he said to one of the paramedics as tears slid down his cheeks.
“We’re going to bring him in a little while,” the paramedic explained. “We want to talk to him first about what happened,” he said, and Jimmy nodded. His head hurt, he had bumped it sideways on the car door when the other car hit them. Another ambulance screamed past them as they drove away. Both cars had been totaled, and the driver and the passenger in the front seat of the other car had been killed. So had Tim Matthews. But all Jimmy knew as they took him to the hospital was that his daddy would come later and his mom was already at the hospital, at work. He knew they’d pick him up there. He was scared and shaken up but sure his dad would come soon, and his mom would find them.
The paramedics from the ambulance took him into the emergency room on a stretcher, and the pediatrician on duty examined him, as the paramedics explained to the chief resident what had happened. He looked shocked when the ambulance driver told him Tim Matthews had been killed. He knew Tim and Jessie. He said nothing about it to Jimmy when he came to talk to him. He said they were going to call his mom to come and pick him up. He had a slight concussion, but no other damage. Jimmy had been lucky that night, a lot more so than his father. The resident went to get Jessie’s number from their roster then and called her cell, but all he got was voicemail. He didn’t want to say too much in a message, just left his name and cell phone number, and to please call him immediately. But she hadn’t returned his call by midnight, and they decided to admit Jimmy to pediatrics, for lack of a better solution.
“My dad will be here soon,” Jimmy assured him, and the resident said he was sure he would be, and they would wake him when his mother or father came to pick him up. A nurse took Jimmy up to pediatrics then, and they helped him change into pajamas with dinosaurs on them and put him to bed. He was still waiting for his dad to pick him up when he fell asleep.
Chapter 5
THE SURGERY TOOK longer than Jessie had hoped. It had gone as well as could be expected, but she didn’t have good news. The spinal cord injury was a T10, and was “complete,” which meant that the spinal cord had been severed irreparably. Had it been “incomplete,” there would have been hope that Lily could regain feeling and function in her legs. But the fall had been too severe. Jessie repaired all that she could, but there was no way Lily would regain use of her legs with a “complete.”
Ben closed for Jessie, and they walked out of the operating room at seven A.M., eleven hours after they started. It had been a very long night, but at least Lily’s chances of survival were good, barring postoperative complications. She was taken to the recovery room, where she would spend the rest of the day, and from there she would go to the ICU until her general condition improved. The only good news they had to report to her father was that the injury was not farther up her spinal cord. She had lost the use of her legs, but her other functions would be normal. Her diaphragm and breathing were not compromised, which would have been far more complicated and dangerous for her. She would have full use of her arms and could eventually lead a normal life, even if from a wheelchair. Considering the severity of the fall, it could have been much worse, or she could have not survived it at all. Jessie was hoping she’d make a good recovery after several months in rehab. But it was too soon to explain all that to Lily’s father. For now, what he needed to know was that his daughter had survived the surgery, her chances of recovery were excellent due to her age and good physical condition, her heart had held up well in the surgery, and she had a long life to look forward to. The bad news was that the severing of her spinal cord was complete. And Jessie already knew how hard her father would take it. She probably would have in his shoes too. And now she had to face him and tell him.
He was dozing when she and Ben walked into the waiting room. The lights were off, and he was the only one in there. One of the nurses had given him a blanket and a pillow, and he stirred instantly when Jessie touched his shoulder, and looked sympathetically at him. She was exhausted.
“Mr. Thomas …” She roused him gently and he sat up immediately with a terrified expression.
“How is she?” He was panicked, and couldn’t read Jessie’s expression.
“She did very well in the surgery. She’s in the recovery room. We’re going to keep her there today, to see how she does. If she comes out of the anesthetic well, we’re going to take the breathing tube out today and let her breathe on her own. Her lungs weren’t compromised. The injury was farther down her spine.”
“How are her legs?” He got right to the point, and Jessie knew she had to tell him.
“She’s not going to regain full function,” she said quietly.
“What does that mean?” He was too tired to be angry now, only scared. “Will she walk again?” It was all he wanted to know. He couldn’t imagine Lily living life in a wheelchair, not his beautiful Lily, who was going to win the gold.
“I don’t think so, not with a T10 injury. She’ll have full use of her arms and other functions, but the severing of her spinal cord was complete, and there is too much nerve damage in the area to regain full function.”
“Are you telling me that she’ll never walk again? That she’ll be paralyzed forever?”
“There is constant ongoing research in spinal cord injuries. We can’t repair completes now, but that doesn’t mean we won’t be able to one day. She’s very young and could benefit from that research.” It was an oblique way of telling him that medical science currently had no way of repairing the injury Lily had sustained. Jessie had done all she could. Conceivably she could have babies one day, she could lead a full life, and she could have a profession, and a family, but she would do it from a wheelchair. Jessie was confirming his worst fears.
“Never mind the research,” Bill said, standing to face her. “Can you do anything to make her walk after this? Further surgeries? Bone grafts? Something? Anything?” Jessie shook her head, and he let out an animal sound that was almost a howl of grief. But at least his child was alive. She hadn’t died in the accident or the surgery, and she easily could have. He turned to face Jessie then with an angry expression. “I don’t believe you. You just don’t know what you’re doing. I’ll take her anywhere I have to, New York, Boston, Europe. There has to be someone who can repair the damage to her spine.”
“I don’t think so, Mr. Thomas. I don’t want to hold out false hopes. But she can lead a very good life just as she is. She’ll need rehabilitation, but one of
the best rehab hospitals in the country is right in your city. Lily will be able to make an amazing adjustment and adapt to her new life. And we can’t lose sight of the fact that it’s a miracle that she’s alive, given the injury she sustained.”
He sat down on the couch again with his head in his hands. The room was reeling. He couldn’t even imagine Lily’s future. It was a cruel turn of fate for her to wind up in a wheelchair for the rest of her life. He wasn’t going to accept it. He would take her all over the world if he had to. Whatever it took, he was going to find someone to fix her. He looked up at Jessie then with anguished eyes.
“I’m not going to let this happen to her.” Jessie knew better than anyone that he had no choice in the matter, any more than he had control over the cable on the chairlift breaking. It had happened, whether he wanted to face it or not. And for now he was in denial about the consequences of the accident for Lily. Jessie stayed and talked to him for a few more minutes and told him that he could see Lily in a few hours, when she was awake. She suggested that he go home and get some sleep for a while—they would call him if anything happened. But he was determined to stay. He didn’t want to leave until he saw Lily. And then Jessie and Ben left. Her conversation with him had not gone well, but it was what she had expected. She suspected that it would be a long time before he was able to face the truth.
Jessie turned her cell phone back on as they came out of the elevator and were walking into the lobby. It had been a long, hard night of intense concentration and back-breaking work, and all she wanted to do now was go home, take a shower, and go to bed. She listened to her messages on the way to her car, and was surprised to hear that she had three from a resident in the ER and two from the police. Her heart nearly stopped as she suddenly thought of Chris. Had something happened to him on the road the night before? But she had no messages from him or Tim, so it couldn’t have been about him. She was puzzled as she called the resident in the ER, and as soon as he answered, he asked her where she was.
“In the parking lot. Why? I just walked out of an eleven-hour surgery on an SCI. I warn you, I’m not in great shape, if you want me to look at a patient. Is it someone from the chairlift accident yesterday?” She was willing to examine a patient, but there was no way she could perform surgery again right now. She was exhausted.
He hesitated before he answered. “Your son was in a car accident last night, Dr. Thomas,” he said, sounding awkward. It was exactly what she’d been afraid of, and all she wanted to know was how bad it was.
“Chris?” she asked, panicked. He could hear the terror in her voice.
“No, Jimmy.”
“How is that possible? He was with his father. No one called me.” Except the police. And suddenly she added confusion to panic. “Where is he? Did you admit him?”
“He’s upstairs in pediatrics. He’s fine. He has a mild concussion.”
“Then why did you admit him? Where’s his father?”
“I … why don’t you come in?” She started back toward the hospital at a dead run, as she hung up and called Tim. It went straight to voicemail, and then she called the number on the message from the police. A sergeant answered, and she told him who she was and why she was calling.
“I think something happened to my husband and son last night. I got a message from the police. I just picked up the message. Is there someone who can tell me what happened?”
The sergeant hesitated, not wanting to tell her over the phone, but he had no choice.
“There was an accident last night. They were hit by a car and skidded on the ice. Your husband’s car hit the stoplight. Your son is fine.” He steeled himself for his next words and hated having to say them to her. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Thomas. Your husband was killed on impact. We went out to the house, but there was no one home.”
“I was working,” she said in a small voice. “Oh my God …” And where was Chris? Why hadn’t he called? “Where is he? … my husband … where …” She felt completely disoriented as she walked into the ER.
“He’s at the morgue,” the sergeant answered. Without thinking, she closed her phone. She couldn’t bear what he had just said. It couldn’t be true. Tim was home with the kids. He had to be. What would he be doing at the morgue? And then the resident spotted her and walked toward her. He recognized her immediately, even though she didn’t know him. She was the star neurosurgeon in Squaw. He came to tell her how sorry he was, and she nodded blindly and let him take her upstairs to pediatrics, where Jimmy was dressed and wearing the clothes he’d been wearing the night before, and she could see that he had a bruise along the side of his face where it had hit the car door. She folded him into her arms and held him, grateful that he wasn’t dead or seriously injured, and then she looked at him with devastated eyes.
“Daddy forgot to come and get me,” he said quietly. “We got hit by a car, and he hurt his ear. It was bleeding, and they took me away in an ambulance.” He tried to tell her everything at once. “The air bag opened, just like you said why you don’t let me sit in the front seat.” She listened and had no idea what to tell him, or that his daddy hadn’t hurt just his ear, and hadn’t forgotten to pick him up. He was at the morgue. The sergeant’s words were still ringing in her ears. “Can we go home now?” She nodded, unable to speak. She helped him put on his coat, and the resident from the ER walked them to her car.
“Can you drive?” he asked her with a look of concern, and she said yes in a small voice. She could drive. She just couldn’t think. She didn’t understand what had happened, and she knew it couldn’t be true. Tim would be at home, making breakfast for the others. She put Jimmy in the backseat of the car, and tried to pretend everything was normal on the drive home, although she was shaking violently. And as soon as they walked into the house, Chris ran down the stairs with a look of panic.
“Dad and Jimmy didn’t come home last night,” he said, before he saw Jimmy. “I knew you were operating so I couldn’t call you, and Dad didn’t answer his cell.” And then he saw Jimmy standing behind their mother, with the bruise on his face. “Where’s Dad?” Chris asked both of them, as confused as she was. She didn’t answer, and both boys were staring at her with a look of terror in their eyes.
“He’s not here,” she said, vaguely. “He’s out. I’ll make breakfast,” she said, with no idea how to do it. And then she asked Chris to pick up Heather and Adam and bring them home.
“Did something happen to Dad?” he asked her, and Jimmy answered.
“We got in an accident. A car hit us. Dad hurt his ear, it was bleeding, and I bumped my head.” He showed him the bruise, and Chris didn’t question him further, or his mother. He left the house without a word, and twenty minutes later all four of the children were in the kitchen, looking expectantly at her. Chris had told them what he knew on the way home, which wasn’t much.
“Is Dad okay?” Heather had asked him with concern, and Adam was annoyed that he had had to leave his friend’s house just as they were about to eat breakfast, but Chris said they had to go home right away, and for once Adam didn’t argue. He could sense that something was wrong, and his older brother looked scared.
Jessie sat down at the kitchen table with them. She had wanted to tell them all together, but now she didn’t know what to say. It was too much for her. None of it made sense. How could he die from being hit by a car? Jimmy had survived it. Why hadn’t he? She knew none of the details, but they didn’t matter. All that mattered was that Tim was dead. It was unthinkable as she looked into her children’s eyes and started to cry.
“Something terrible happened last night. I don’t know how it happened.” She looked at Jimmy as she said it, and pulled him onto her lap. He sat there and clung to her. “Daddy was killed.” She sobbed the words, and all three of the other children put their arms around her and hugged each other and began to cry. It made no sense. It couldn’t be true, but it was. She always worried about Chris driving at night, but not Tim. She had assumed he would be there forever. She
had never thought something would happen to him. They sat in the kitchen, crying and holding each other for a long time.
And then she called Ben and told him and asked him to come to the morgue with her. The police said she had to identify him, but Ben did it for her—she didn’t want to see him like that. She wanted to see him and touch him and hold him, but she didn’t want to remember him dead. She couldn’t bear it. She couldn’t believe he would never come home again.
They went to the funeral parlor and made the arrangements, and then Ben took her home. He told her not to worry about Lily Thomas, that he would go back to the hospital and check on her and cover for Jessie—she should stay home with her kids. But Jessie was too responsible to let him do that, and said she would go to the hospital with him. She owed it to her patient and her father. Ben said he’d pick her up, and at five o’clock she left the children and told them she’d be back soon. Chris’s girlfriend had come over, and two of Heather’s friends. Adam was playing a video game, unwilling to believe what had happened, and Jimmy was asleep in his parents’ bed. Jessie had been lying next to him before she left the house again with Ben.
When they got to the hospital, Lily had been moved from the recovery room to the ICU. The breathing tube was out, and she was sedated, but she was awake. And medically she was doing well. Her father had been in to see her, and the nurse with Lily said he had gone to the cafeteria to get something to eat. Jessie checked Lily’s chart and prescribed several medications. She was satisfied with her progress, and Ben promised to check on her again that night.
Winners Page 4
