“What?” she called back, still working. “I’m in Lady’s stall.”
“Dawn! Come here!”
She peeked out of the stall, expecting to have to dodge a loose horse, and saw Tom standing in the doorway of the tack room. Ben was behind him, red in the face and coughing.
Tom turned, a look of horror in his eyes as he shouted again. “Dawn!”
She ran down the shedrow, but by the time she got there, Ben had stopped coughing and was slumped over his desk, his arm dangling limp at his side.
She and Tom stared, just stared, for the briefest of moments. “Oh my God! Was he choking?!”
“I don’t know!” Tom shook his head. “I don’t know! No! He wasn’t eating! How could he choke? Hurry! Go get help!”
Dawn bolted around the corner of the barn and ran into Gloria coming the other way. “It’s Ben!” she gasped. “Something’s happened to him!” She grabbed her by the arm. “He was coughing and now he’s not moving!”
Gloria stepped inside the door, assessed Ben’s condition in a glance, and immediately checked his pulse. “Get the ambulance!” she told Dawn. “Quick!”
Dawn ran up to the gap, dodging horses, people, a truck that just missed her, and stood gasping for breath when she located the attendant. “Barn fourteen!” she said. “It’s Ben Miller! He’s collapsed!”
A crowd of people had gathered outside the tack room by the time she returned, and she had to push through them. She stood at Tom’s side and stared frantically. Gloria had put a quilted wrap under Ben’s face, his head turned to one side. His eyes were closed, his mouth gaped as she hovered over him...her hand on his wrist, her eyes on her watch.
The ambulance attendants came in, Gloria gave them some numbers. Their voices were muffled and distorted to Dawn as she stared at Ben’s lifeless arm. She turned her attention to the one attendant, thought he said the words “possible stroke.” She looked at Gloria.
“Step back please,” one of the men said to her and Tom. “Step back.”
A stretcher was brought in, positioned so they could lift Ben onto it, and they wheeled him out.
“No one survives a stroke at his age,” Dawn heard someone say. “No one.” She and Tom followed Gloria to the ambulance.
“I want to go with him,” Dawn said to one of the attendants.
The man looked at Gloria, who shook her head and took Dawn aside. “You can’t help him in there.” She gripped Dawn’s shoulders and turned her face so she would look at her. “Listen to me. What you can do is help him here, and when you’re done...” She motioned for Tom to intervene, Tom pulled Dawn back, and Gloria climbed into the rear of the ambulance. The attendant nudged them out of the way so he could close the doors.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Sorry? Dawn looked at him, watched as he got in behind the wheel.
This can’t be happening, she thought. This can’t be happening. She and Tom stared as the ambulance slowly turned around, made its way to the stable gate, and pulled out onto the highway, its siren screaming.
The crowd dispersed.
Tom rushed to finish the last stall and put the horse away while Dawn hurried to start the oats. She spilled a whole scoop all over the floor, swore out loud, and nearly burst into tears. “Forget it! Let’s go!” Tom told her. “We can clean it up later. Come on!” They locked up and ran to the parking lot.
“Where’s your car?!” Tom gasped, looking around.
“Oh God! It’s not here!” She’d come with Randy straight from his apartment. “Where’s your truck?”
“Fuck! By the secretary’s office. Come on!”
Charlie yelled after them. “You call me, all right? Do you hear me? Call me!”
Tom shouted he would, and he and Dawn ran all the way to his truck. “Shit!” Tom said, banging the steering wheel when finally they were on their way and caught the first light. “Shit!”
It was only a ten-minute drive, tops, to Charity Hospital, but seemed an eternity. He honked his horn. “Move it! It doesn’t get any greener!” he shouted, as soon as it changed from red. He jumped the curb to get around this car, sped into the lot designated for emergency room parking, and he and Dawn hurried into the building.
Gloria was sitting in one of the chairs in the waiting room, alone. “Good, good, you’re here,” she said, looking up with tears in her eyes.
“Is he...?” Tom shook his head, glanced away, and swallowed hard. “What did they...?”
Gloria tried to smile to reassure him, to reassure Dawn. “I don’t know. We’re just going to have to wait.”
Time passed slowly. The wait seeming endless, though the hands on the clock hardly moved. Unable to sit any longer, Tom started pacing back and forth across the waiting room, stopping every three or four trips to look through the window of the door that led to where Gloria said they’d taken Ben.
A nurse approached Gloria. “Does Mr. Miller have family?”
Gloria looked at Tom and Dawn. Tom hesitated. “Just us,” he said. “How is he?”
The nurse shook her head. “I’m sorry. The doctors are still with him.”
Tom watched the woman walk away and sat down between Gloria and Dawn. “God, I hate this. Why won’t they tell us anything?”
“They will, dear,” Gloria said. “As soon as they know something.”
Tom glanced away, looked at Dawn, and then leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. “I’ll tell you what,” he said, visibly trembling and his voice shaky. “If he dies, then I’m glad he went the way he did. His wife suffered.”
Dawn touched his arm, leaned her head against his shoulder to try to comfort him, and they sat there like this for a moment. Then she was the one who got up and started pacing. It had been an hour and a half already. She stared through the window down the hallway.
Tom picked up a magazine and started to leaf through it, only to end up throwing it to the floor. One of the nurses looked up from behind her desk, and he picked it up and laid it on the table.
Two young men came into the emergency room, one of them holding a bloody bandage to his head. He was hurt on the job, he told the secretary, and she handed him a form to fill out.
A hearse pulled up outside, and a man and a woman, double doors swinging open, guided an empty stretcher into the waiting area. “Oh my God!” Dawn said, and Tom rose to his feet.
They heard a name then. It wasn’t Ben’s, and the two of them all but collapsed into their chairs next to Gloria. “I can’t stand this,” Tom said. “I’m going to fucking go nuts.”
A nurse looked up and frowned at him. He held out his hands; what did she want him to say? It was the truth. The three of them, Gloria, Tom, and Dawn…sat watching as the hearse attendants were directed down the hall and returned with a covered body, and a grieving family.
“You’d better call Charlie,” Tom said. “Not that you have anything to tell him, but you better call him anyway.”
Gloria nodded and walked to the pay phone.
“What about George?” Dawn said. George was Ben’s farmhand.
Tom looked at her, nodded, and walked to the phone next to Gloria’s. Dawn watched them both, focused on their actions. Gloria was dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief; Tom had his one hand braced on the top of the phone booth, shoulders squared, and was shaking his head. She turned then and looked out the glass doors into the parking lot, staring at a row of white cars, staring, staring, until they blurred into one.
Tom walked back and sat down next to her. Gloria returned a few minutes later. And again, they waited. A young doctor and an elderly man in a three-piece suit and shiny black shoes walked by, the sounds of their footsteps echoing off the walls long after they’d disappeared down the corridor.
“This sucks,” Tom said, and approached the nurse’s station. “Does anyone want to tell us something. I mean, come on. Enough is enough. There’s someone we care about back there, and no one’s telling us a goddamned thing.”
“Thank you,” Tom said, his voice trembling. “Thank you.”
As he sat back down between Gloria and Dawn, Gloria smiled sadly. This scene was far from new to her, she’d been on both sides of the nurse’s station. Doctor, the family wants to know. They want to know. And then, yes, I’m his wife. I see, a stroke. Massive stroke. Brain dead. His organs? Yes, of course. Complete heart failure. I understand. Widow. I am a nurse. I am a widow nurse.
“Dr. Martin, please report to emergency. Dr. Martin, please report to emergency.”
Tom leaned his head back and closed his eyes, thinking about the remark he’d made to Ben about being all set for funerals, and remembered the way Ben had laughed.
Randy came through the door, quickly glanced around, found them, and walked over. Dawn instinctively rose and fell into his arms. He held her tight, met Gloria’s eyes, whose expression said the outlook wasn’t good, and turned to Tom.
“We don’t know a thing,” Tom said, clearing his throat.
Randy nodded, smoothed Dawn’s hair, and looked again at Gloria. “I understand you rode over with him. Do they suspect a heart attack or...?”
“No, they believe he’s had a stroke.”
Tom started to move over then, to allow Randy to sit next to Dawn, but Randy shook his head. He motioned to the nurse’s station. “I’ll see if I can find out anything.”
“Good luck,” Tom said.
Randy approached the nurses and for all his size and good looks, he didn’t get their attention until he rested his broken arm on the counter.
“Can we help you?”
“Yes,” he said. “Mr. Miller. We’d like to know how he’s doing?”
The one nurse hesitated. “I’m sorry, but...”
“I know. I’m not asking for any information you’re not allowed to give me.” He leaned a little closer. “Tell me though, what time was his arrival?”
Both nurses checked their records. “Ten-twelve.”
Randy glanced at his watch. It was almost two. “Who initiates the death certificates?”
The nurses stared. The paperwork started with them.
Randy figured as much. “Then is it safe to say...?”
The elder of the two nodded.
Randy thanked them and walked back.
“Well?” Tom looked up.
Randy hesitated, thought of how to word this. He didn’t want to give them any false hope, in the event... “They couldn’t say, but I think as of now, he’s still hanging in there.”
Dawn and Tom stared, Gloria nodded, and it was Randy who paced back and forth from this point. Again and again. He stared down the corridor, remembering a time long ago, a hallway just like this one. He was just a child then, but recalled it in his mind as if it were yesterday. The sounds. The smells. Doctors walking through the swinging doors to tell his father that his wife was going to be fine. “But we lost the baby, Mr. Iredell, and had to do a complete hysterectomy.”
Randy could still see the look on his father’s face, the pain, the anguish, the way his throat tightened when he tried to swallow. “You can go in now if you like, but leave the children here.”
He remembered Cindy laughing and giggling for the nurses, too young to know what was happening. And he remembered holding on tightly to her stroller, afraid to let go. How does one lose a baby? Dear, God, don’t let me lose my little sister.
Randy walked over and sat down next to Tom.
“Fuck this,” was all Tom said, his head back and staring, and Randy nodded.
About five minutes later, the nurse Tom had appealed to, returned. “The doctors are still with Mr. Miller, but will be out to talk with you all as soon as possible.”
She looked weary saying this, and Dawn took that as a bad sign. “Is there a chapel?”
The nurse nodded. “Down that hall and to your left, second door.”
“Thank you.” Dawn glanced at Gloria, Gloria nodded, and the two woman rose together. Dawn reached for Randy’s hand, and he and Tom followed.
The chapel was small, eclectic, four narrow pews on each side. An altar, a kneeling board, tapestries on the walls, carpet on the floor, a table and chairs, and well lit.
Dawn sat in one of the back pews; Gloria walked up front to kneel down and pray, Tom genuflected, made the sign of the cross and sat in the second row, and Randy stood just inside the door.
Charlie arrived a few minutes later, touched Randy’s arm reverently, then Dawn’s shoulder, and on the way to Gloria, gripped Tom’s hand to keep himself from falling. “Oh, God...” he said, as he knelt down next to his wife.
Word from the doctor when it finally came was the proverbial mixture of the good with the bad. Dr. Martin motioned to the table and chairs and they gathered around him. “Mr. Miller has had a stroke, but is alive, stabilized, and we have run several tests.” He focused on each of their faces. “He’s being transferred to the intensive care unit, and he is on oxygen support and a heart monitor.”
Dawn shivered.
“I’m telling you this to prepare you for the tubes and all the equipment.” He glanced at everyone and settled on Dawn; this had to be a daughter, from the look in her eyes. “In about an hour, you may take turns, two at a time, to see him. But only for a few minutes.”
Gloria cleared her throat. “Is he conscious?”
Dr. Martin nodded. “Yes.”
“Can he talk?”
“Yes, though his speech is affected. It’s very important he not try to talk too much.”
Gloria nodded. “Any other apparent damage?”
Dr. Martin hesitated. “Some paralysis naturally, but as to the extent...” He left this in the air. “As I said, we’ll know more later. ICU is at the back of the West End. I suggest you all get a cup of coffee or something to eat, and give the staff time to get him settled in.” He stood up to leave, knowing the question on all of their minds, seeing it in their faces, and addressed it before walking out. “Our concern now is recovery with no setbacks. This stroke he survived.” He looked at Dawn again. “The next forty-eight hours will be crucial. I wish I could tell you more, but at this time it would only be speculation.”
They went to the hospital cafeteria as a group, one of three groups gathered there that day. And though no one was hungry, they all opted for coffee and grilled cheese sandwiches.
The conversation was grim. “I wish we knew more,” Dawn said, sipping her coffee and putting her cup down, only to pick it right back up again.
Gloria shook her head. “I wish I knew less. I know too much about strokes. They can be devastating.”
“You mean he’ll get worse?”
“No, sweetie. What I meant was, well…” Gloria paused. “Complications. But let’s wait and see. Think positive.”
Finding ICU by following the signs and arrows, they were pointed to a lounge area and asked to wait. Permission to go in to see Ben came about fifteen minutes later. Tom and Dawn went in first, and found the warning that Dr. Martin had given them totally inadequate.
Ben looked small in his sterile bed, small and helpless, and pale. He was on oxygen, his breathing labored, had an IV needle in his arm, electrodes taped to his chest, a catheter, and was surrounded by a stockade of beeping, flashing machines.
“Five minutes,” a nurse said cautiously.
Dawn nodded, reaching for Tom’s hand as the two of them edged closer to Ben’s side. “Oh, Jesus...” Tom said, shaking his head at seeing this mountain of a man reduced to this.
Dawn touched Ben’s arm gently. “Ben... Ben, it’s Dawn. Tom and I are here. Ben, can you hear me?”
Ben struggled to open his eyes. “Dawnnnn. Tommm.”
“Yes,” she said, tears flooding her eyes. “Yes.”
He focused on her and then Tom.
The nurse intervened at this point. “I’m sorry,” she said, watching the monitor. “You’ll have
to leave now.”
Dawn looked at the woman as if she were from another dimension.
“I’m sorry,” the nurse repeated. “I’ll come out and let you know when you can come back in,” she added, hovering over Ben as the monitor beeped faster.
Gloria, Charlie, and Randy stared anxiously as they returned. “He said our names,” Dawn said, her voice cracking. “Didn’t he?” she asked Tom, needing assurance that it really happened.
“Yes,” he nodded, looking away as he bit at his bottom lip. “He knew us right off.”
Everyone laughed then, a giddy laugh, when Charlie called Ben a tough old fart, and for a moment it seemed like everything was going to be okay. “They made us leave though,” Dawn said, “because of something on the monitor. They’ll come out and let us know when someone can go back in.”
“How does he look?” Gloria asked.
Dawn shook her head. “It doesn’t look like Ben,” she said, and broke down. “I’m sorry.”
Randy pulled her close and she buried her face against his chest. “It’s all right,” he said. “It’s all right.”
Tom stood struggling with his own emotions, glanced at the door and then at the clock on the wall. “I’m going to go feed,” he said. “I’ll be back.”
Dawn turned, wiped her eyes. “Do you want me to...?”
“No, you stay here,” he said, and was gone.
“Dawn, I’m going to have to go too,” Randy said, tilting her chin up and kissing her lightly. “I got paged while you were in with Ben. Hopefully I won’t be long.”
Dawn nodded. “I’ll be here.”
Randy kissed her again. “I know.”
Dawn sat down with Gloria and Charlie to wait for word from the nurse, and caught herself rocking back and forth, an old habit of hers that signaled disaster.
Help me, help me, help me, she kept saying inside her head. Help me, help me, help me. I don’t want to do this.
About a half hour later, Gloria and Charlie were allowed in to see Ben. “Five minutes,” the nurse said.
The first thing Gloria noticed was Ben’s coloring, or lack thereof, and the extent to which the right half of his face slackened. Charlie stood like a soldier at her side. “Ben, Charlie and I are here,” she said, gripping his hand gently. “You get lots of rest, you hear. Rest is what you need right now.” Charlie nodded in agreement, tears trickling down his face.
Winning Odds Trilogy Page 34
