“I’ll call Jude and let him know what’s going on,” she said. “The manuscript will—”
“Screw it.” His words were slurred, but she understood him clear enough, and this statement scared her more than anything. Gray put little else above his work. It was why he’d delayed treatment in the first place. For it to lose its value now either meant that Gray was more afraid for his life than he let on or whatever was happening in his brain was changing him. Both scenarios filled her with fear.
“If I don’t…” he began and then swallowed. “Don’t… be afraid.”
Meredith gave him an arched look. “That’s a tall order right now, Gray,” she admitted.
“I mean… if I don’t make it—”
“Hush,” she scolded, shaking off the subzero bolt that shot through her body with his words. “Don’t talk like that.”
He squeezed her hand and tugged her closer. She leaned over him, draping her arm across his chest and framing his face in her hands. Even now, even though the color had drained from his face and his eyes stared back at her with haunting uncertainty behind them, his was the most beautiful face she’d ever seen. She wanted to wake up to it every day of her life.
“If I don’t…” he continued, pushing past her objections, “…you’ll be looked after… André—”
“You stop talking right now, Gray Blakewood,” she warned, pretty sure her tone was not the tone one should take with a stroke victim. Benny’s glance between them said as much, anyway.
Gray only smiled a small smile, but it was with great relief that Meredith noted it was an even smile, perfectly symmetrical. If a little wicked.
“Not worried about you,” he muttered, his eyelids blinking heavily.
The ambulance banked a hard right followed by another, and Meredith realized they’d arrived at the hospital. Her heart raced like a hummingbird’s. As Benny stood to open the doors of the rig, Meredith gripped Gray’s sweatshirt in her fists.
“I love you. Way too much, Gray,” she said, the lump in her throat swelling to the size of a boulder. “You pull through this, or I’ll never forgive you.”
Benny opened the door, and a pair of attendants shoved in and grabbed the stretcher.
Meredith straightened up to get out of their way, but Gray’s hand shot out and claimed hers.
“Whatever happens, I belong to you.”
Their eyes locked for a moment — the piercing blue of his lit with an almost other-worldly shine that terrified her — and then he was gone, tugged out of the rig by strong, swift hands.
Meredith jumped down in time to see the attendants, Benny, and Sam stampede through the hospital entrance, Benny barking stats and flanking the stretcher as the doors whooshed closed behind them.
With rubbery legs, Meredith followed, but she found herself shunted to a side entrance by a woman in pale lavender scrubs. “This way, ma’am. They’ll need you in Admitting.”
She sat in front of a partitioned window ten minutes later when a frantic Dahlia Blakewood called her, lost and trying to navigate the hospital from the main entrance instead of the ER. Meredith could hear Oscar whining in the background. When Gray’s mother found her a few minutes later, both she and Oscar broke into the same look of startled relief, and Dahlia set Oscar down so he could sail into his mother’s arms.
“Hello, big boy,” she said, gathering him up and pressing his chubby, sure flesh into her body. The reassurance of his weight and the way he clung back gave her a measure of calm that helped her keep her tears in check. Dahlia sat beside her and picked up with the admitting staffer right where Meredith had left off.
Half an hour later, after asking three different hospital personnel, she and Dahlia finally got confirmation that Gray had, indeed, been taken up to Neurology, and they could find the waiting room on the fourth floor. They rode up the elevator, Oscar temporarily entertained by pushing the round button, and found the information desk just as a white-coated doctor strode up.
“Are you Mrs. Blakewood? Miss Ryan?” he asked, his green eyes alert and searching. Meredith then tagged his ID badge, and all of her muscles flooded with relief.
“Dr. Cates! How’s Gray? Is he going to be okay?” The words rushed out of her, rapid-fire, and the doctor’s eyes flared a little at her greeting.
“Uh, hello,” he said, shaking her hand before reaching for Dahlia’s. “We’re prepping him for surgery now. The CT scan doesn’t show any hemorrhaging, which is excellent news—”
“Oh, thank God.” Dahlia gasped, her hand flying to her mouth.
“Y-yes, but the situation is still quite serious. If we don’t operate now, the damage could be permanent — if not fatal.” The grim set of his mouth said it all.
Meredith’s knees threatened to give, but she was holding Oscar, so she forced herself to stay upright.
“As you know, the craniotomy will take several hours. I’ll come back out to brief you as soon as it’s over. Try…” The doctor looked at both women in turn, seeming to reconsider his words. “…try not to put yourselves through hell worrying.” With a nod, he turned and sped down the hall before he was swallowed up by the pair of automatic glass doors at the end of the corridor.
Meredith and Gray’s mother stared at the tails of his white coat until he turned out of sight, and then they both faced each other. Meredith imagined that she probably looked just as awful as Dahlia Blakewood. Try not to put themselves through hell? Meredith was pretty sure they were already in hell, and there weren’t any exit signs as far as she could see.
CHAPTER THIRTY
GRAY WAS OKAY until they rolled him into pre-op.
That’s when it really sunk in that a team of doctors was going to cut a hole in his skull, remove a chunk of his brain, and hope for the best.
The tingling in his face and tongue made talking awkward, but he needed the distraction. The nurse anesthetist, who detailed all the ways he could die while under anesthesia, and the surgical nurse — with her overuse of the word craniotomy — weren’t helping. There was only one nurse he wanted now, and she couldn’t be with him.
“Is my girl out there?” he interrupted, lifting a hand in the direction of the corridor that had led him here from the elevator.
The nurses looked up at each other before glancing back at him. Gray sensed that before he spoke, they hadn’t really even seen him.
Meredith would never make anyone feel like that.
“I don’t know,” the surgical nurse said. “Did she come in with you?”
“Yes,” he said. “In the ambulance…”
Her eyes returned to the paperwork in front of her, done with the conversation already. “She’s probably in the waiting room.”
Gray wanted to ask to see her, but he knew the answer would be no. And he definitely didn’t want Meredith to see him now, lying on a rolling bed wearing nothing but a hospital gown.
But if he could just look at her, he wouldn’t feel like this. Like he was going to suffocate, even in the cold sterility of the pre-op room.
Gray closed his eyes and tried to draw in a deep breath, but the tension in his stomach made it impossible. So much could go wrong. In minutes, he could be dead or worse.
With that thought, Gray forced himself to picture Meredith. If he was going to die within the hour, he didn’t want the last thoughts he’d ever think to be ones of fear.
If he was going to die, he’d die thinking of her.
Love, he realized, could distort time and even memory. He could remember the years in his life when he didn’t know Meredith, but he somehow couldn’t conjure a time when he didn’t love her. Now that he knew her, it seemed like he’d always been waiting to love her. Like the solitude he’d built in his life had only been a way to create a space for her to claim.
The thought of losing that life — and thus losing her — forced a wave of grief to surge in him.
“I’m giving you something to relax you,” his nurse said, manipulating his IV. “Then we’ll wheel you into surgery.”
The bed beneath him seemed to hover beside the operating table, and someone told him to move onto it. Gray obeyed without response or question. He found himself staring up at the blinding lights when a mask was placed over his face.
“This is just oxygen,” a voice said. “Just breathe normally.”
And then…
“Dr. Cates is ready to begin.” The air in his mask changed, and his throat grew warm.
Picturing bayou brown eyes and the feel of her fingers in his hair, Gray faded to nothing.
“DON’T TRY TO touch your head, Mr. Blakewood.”
Words came from a long way off, and the tightness around his head needed to go away.
“I’ll have to restrain you if you don’t stop.” This time a hand around his wrist accompanied the distant voice.
Okay.
He tried to say the word, but the sound that emerged was more like a half croak, half gurgle. His eyes felt greasy. The world blurred above him.
His lids drifted closed, and he disappeared.
GRAY BLINKED AGAINST the fluorescent light. Where was the sun? He needed to get up and feed the dogs, but his muscles held no strength. Maybe he was coming down with something. He still had six chapters to go on the novel, and not being able to work today would suck.
His room was freezing. And why did his sheets scratch like that? Flu. It might be the flu. It was December after all.
Is it December?
GRAY WAS NOT in his bedroom.
He glanced down at his chest to find himself wearing — unmistakably — a hospital gown. He scanned the space around him. Monitors. A bay of patient beds with half-drawn curtains. Nurses.
An ICU.
“Waa-agh…” Gray closed his mouth and tried again. “Haagh da-aah…”
Oh shit.
“Where am I?” and “How did I get here?” were the questions he wanted to ask, but the words wouldn’t leave his mouth intact.
A young nurse with a ginger bun strode across the room as Gray raised his hand to his head.
“Wait, Mr. Blakewood,” she cautioned. “Don’t touch your head. We’re working to keep the swelling down.”
The tumor. Was it gone? He’d had surgery? Why couldn’t he speak?
“Dr. Cates operated on you last night, and he removed the tumor,” the nurse said, smiling. “You did very well.”
“Baah… maaah….” he protested, humiliation and fear finding traction in his stomach.
She nodded as though she understood him perfectly. “The speech. This is normal. You may find that things improve in a few days as the swelling goes down, and then there’s rehabilitation.” She held up a pen light. “Now, first things first. My name is Cassie, and I’m going to test your responses.”
Cassie turned on her light and shined it in his eyes. “Good… Can you point your toes for me?”
Gray pointed his toes, but the action seemed to take much longer than normal. “Very good. Can you lift one foot off the bed?”
This seemed immensely more difficult, but he did manage to lift his left foot and then his right.
“It’s normal to be weak after brain surgery,” she said gently. “It’s the loss of cerebrospinal fluid. When that builds back up, you’ll feel stronger.”
This, at least, made Gray feel a little better. But as he shifted his hips in the bed, he became aware of something plastic and bulky on his thigh. He reached down and his eyes went wide.
“That’s a catheter, Mr. Blakewood. We’ll remove it when you are able to get up on your own.”
Oh, fantastic. And once he realized the thing was there, it was all he could feel.
Cassie pressed on, going through a series of tests and making notes on an iPad as she did. Then she looked back at him.
“Do you know your name?”
Gray opened his mouth to say it, and then closed it again. He nodded.
Cassie eyed him skeptically. “If I gave you a marker board, could you write it?”
He held his fingers and thumb together and pictured the letters of his name. He nodded.
Without a word, Cassie crossed the unit to one of the desks along the wall. She returned a moment later with a marker board the size of a binder and a red Expo. She put the board by his side, handed him the marker, and then raised the head of his bed a little more.
With the shift in position, Gray felt the pressure in his head change. He imagined he looked like a bobble-head doll in a hospital gown. It took him a little while, but he managed to remove the cap from the red marker.
“Grayson Kyle Blakewood.” The lettering wouldn’t win any penmanship awards, and it looked nothing like the handwriting he remembered, but he could write it.
He could write.
“Wow. Whole name. Very good.”
It was better than good. Gray knew immediately, instinctively, that he could put words together. He could form sentences. He could tell stories. For now, even if he couldn’t speak, he could communicate.
He wiped away his name with the heel of his hand.
“Family?” he scribbled.
The nurse smiled again. “They’re all here. I’ll go get them when we’re done.” She took the marker from his hand and replaced it with two of her fingers. “Now, squeeze as hard as you can.”
By the time they were finished, Gray only wanted to sleep again. But he’d already started to wonder if he’d be allowed his laptop in the ICU. He could ask Bax to get it for him and…
HE AWOKE MUCH later. He knew it had to be later because his body felt so stiff. Though it took effort, he stretched each limb in turn before pressing the up arrow button on the guardrail of his bed. Sitting up a little more took some of the pressure off his back, and he sighed in relief.
Seeing him move, his nurse scurried over, wearing the pleased smile he’d seen before. What was her name again?
“Oh, good. You’re awake. Your family’s so eager to talk to you. They came in earlier, but you were down for the count. Ready to see them?”
Her cheerfulness and conversation felt like an assault. Why was this so exhausting? He squinted as he read the name on her badge.
“Eh… thh…” At least it sounded remotely like yes. He really didn’t want to see anyone or have anyone hear him try to talk, but, his parents and Bax were here, and they had to be worried sick.
Cassie the nurse nodded. “I’ll just go get them. Don’t fall asleep this time,” she said with a smile.
Gray had the strength of an infant, and sleep already beckoned, but he nodded, knowing that seeing his family would reassure them and maybe give him some answers. He had no memory at all of coming to the hospital or even scheduling the surgery.
Less than a minute after his nurse left, his mother and father rushed into the ICU, almost sprinting. He’d never seen his mom move so fast.
“Oh, Gray. Oh, Gray. You really are alright?” she cried, a half sob in her voice.
“Maaah.” Gray tried to scold her, but he wound up sounding like a barnyard animal.
The startled look on his mother’s face and the frown of concern his father wore as he stepped up behind her let Gray know they’d been told little.
Cassie followed at their heels with the marker board. “For now, it might be easiest for him to communicate this way,” she said, thrusting the writing implements into his hands.
“What’s wrong?” his mother asked, looking between Gray and then nurse and then back at Gray.
Rather than embarrass himself further, Gray uncapped the pen. Then he hesitated a moment to consider exactly what to write. “Tumor gone. Took speech with it.”
Her hand shot to her mouth with a horrified gasp. “Oh, good Lord!” But at
once she shook off her frightened look, and her signature resolve took over. “Well, we’ll just have to get you into speech therapy, that’s all.” She said this as though re-teaching someone to speak was as easy as renewing a driver’s license.
Gray’s father wrapped his arm around his wife and settled his other hand on Gray’s left shin. “The worst is over, and you’re healing. That’s all that matters,” his dad said.
Gray had so many questions, he didn’t know what to ask first. “What happened? Was this planned?” he wrote.
Both of his parents frowned, but his father was the first to speak. “Well… what do you remember?”
An unwelcome clench of fear gripped his stomach. The look on their faces told him there was something worth remembering. He put the marker to the board’s surface and decided vague was best. “Not much.”
Dahlia and Lowell Blakewood glanced at each other, exchanging worried looks. Gray’s mother pressed her lips together. “It wasn’t exactly planned. You were scheduled to have surgery next week, but then…”
Gray watched her swallow, clearly pained.
“…you had a small stroke, but, thank God, Mere—” Her voice broke, and she waved a hand in front of her face, struggling to control her emotion.
“They got you here so fast,” his dad broke in. “Dr. Cates said it could’ve been a lot worse.” Teary-eyed, his mother nodded, but she said nothing else.
A stroke? The news was sobering. When he’d learned the diagnosis in November, Gray had thought he’d have more time. At least enough time to finish his book. And he had no memory at all of scheduling the surgery. How could he when he still had six chapters to go?
Gray studied his parents. They both looked exhausted. And old. Like they’d been through hell and had their fill of it. Fatigue pulled at the skin under their eyes and weighed down their shoulders. Looking at them, he knew they’d feared for his life. He knew they’d had to face the specter of losing another child.
Cecilia.
The lump in his throat startled him. The grief for his sister and the guilt he felt for putting his parents through this latest nightmare swept over him. The feelings were potent and unchecked. He swallowed hard and pinched the bridge of his nose.
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