by Nick Thacker
Diana took a sharp breath, covering her eyes with a hand. Berndt laid a tentative hand on her shoulder. “Mrs. Bennett, we had to place Johnson into a medically-induced coma in order to stabilize him. He’s alive, but because he went more than an entire day between the attack and getting first aid, his situation is particularly grim.
“He’s lost a lot of blood, but we gave him a couple of transfusions as soon as he got here, and he isn’t bleeding anymore. If we can stop the infection and the brain swelling, there is a chance he’ll recover, but I have to warn you. You should prepare yourself for the worst.”
Diana didn’t know what to say. She’d been with Johnson since they were both kids - she couldn’t begin to imagine what it would be like to lose him, not to mention having to raise Zach by herself. Harvey was grown, but he still hadn’t really found his place in the world. Where would he turn when he needed his father?
The elevator doors slid open at the fifth floor, the long corridor stretching away under a large sign pointing the way to the intensive care unit.
“Right this way,” Doctor Berndt headed down the hall, letting Diana follow behind at her own pace. They stopped at the nurses station, where the duty nurse helped Diana into a gown, mask and gloves, before they continued down the hall.
For Diana, the walls seemed to be closing in the closer she came to her husband’s room. She was struggling to come to grips with the idea that she’d last seen her family intact just a few days earlier before they drove off on their camping trip. She’d had no clue then that she might not see one of them again. If she’d known, she might have stopped them from going, might have said something less trite than ‘Have a good time,’ might have changed something.
Anything.
Doctor Berndt turned left into the eighth room past the nurses station. Diana suddenly knew with a sickening finality that all the hypothetical ‘what-ifs’ in the world couldn’t change the fact that she had to follow the doctor through that door, had to face whatever was left of her husband on the other side. Somehow she managed to keep moving forward, her feet making soft scuffing sounds as she shuffled into the room. Her breath stuck in her throat when she saw him, her mouth went completely dry.
Johnson was unrecognizable.
His arms, laid on top of the sheet that covered the rest of his body, were connected to a spiderweb of tubes and wires leading off in multiple directions, either carrying fluids and drugs into his body or waste and information out of it. Another, larger tube was taped down where it entered his throat at the center - a tracheotomy tube, for helping him to breathe. How do I even know that? Diana asked herself, her subconscious carrying on a detached sort of question and answer session while her conscious mind reeled from the shock.
His head was swollen so badly that it looked more like a basketball than a human skull, covered in more stitches than she could count. The skin was so badly bruised that she couldn’t recognize even a small section that had his normal skin tone. Instead his skin was a mess of purple, yellow, black and greenish blue welts. His facial features were hugely distorted by the swelling, and most of his hair was gone, either shaved off by the medical staff or ripped off by the bear.
Diana bit back a sob as she approached the bed. Johnson’s eyes were swollen shut, and he was completely motionless. The only sound in the room was the soft, rhythmic beeping from the heart monitor.
“Johnson?” she managed to say, her voice small, weak and terrified. “Honey, can you hear me?”
Doctor Berndt came cautiously to her side. “He can’t respond to you, Mrs. Bennett. As I said, we had to medically induce a coma to better combat the swelling and infection. But if you’d like, you can stay a while and talk to him. There are some studies that have shown people in comas can respond positively to favorable outside stimuli. There isn’t a whole lot of data to back it up, but if you want my opinion, ma’am - it certainly couldn’t hurt.”
Diana couldn’t take her eyes off of Johnson. “Thank you, doctor,” she said. “I’d like that.”
“I’ll leave you to it, then,” Berndt turned to leave. “If you need me, just have someone at the nurses station page me. I’m on duty all day.”
Diana just nodded. As Berndt left and the door swung softly closed behind him, she started sobbing. She gently took the fingertips of Johnson’s right hand and held them in both of her hands. His skin was leathery, clammy. Not cold, but not warm either. Not real.
Diana leaned her forehead against the back of Johnson’s hand and wept.
Harvey stood at the window in the third floor visitor’s lounge, looking out at the mountains of Glacier National Park to the east. His thoughts were in turmoil. He felt helpless, and responsible, and angry, and a hundred other emotions and feelings that he couldn’t seem to get sorted. He should have been glad to see his mom, but her arrival had just made him want to go someplace and hide. Surely she could tell just by looking at him that all this was his fault, couldn’t she? She had an annoying way of always knowing when he’d screwed up, so how was this situation any different? He was contemplating just getting on the elevator and getting out of here, but he knew that wasn’t likely. They’d taken his pants.
“Pretty, aren’t they?” Harvey hadn’t heard Doctor Berndt come up behind him.
“What are?”
“The mountains,” Berndt said, pointing at them with a tilt of his chin as he stood next to Harvey, his hands stuffed in the pockets of his scrubs. “I’m from Delaware, so when I took this job, I’d never seen anything like them before. Been here thirteen years, and now I don’t think I could live anyplace else.”
“Good for you.” Harvey wasn’t in much of a mood for conversation.
Berndt looked at him sideways. “You see your mom?”
“No. I mean, yeah. I saw her for a minute. Before she went upstairs.”
“Probably didn’t get much chance to talk?”
“No.” Harvey wished the good doctor would take a good long walk.
“Harvey.” Berndt turned to face him. “It wasn’t your fault, young man.”
“Never said it was,” Harvey said, his voice carrying a hint of the defensive.
Berndt shook his head. “Most folks that blame themselves for some tragedy never do come right out and say it out loud,” he said. “But I’ve seen it often enough to know. People go through a traumatic event, like you did, and then they wonder how come somebody besides themselves ended up hurt, maimed or even killed. It’s called survivor’s guilt. Lots of folks deal with it, and I’d be willing to bet you’re getting at least a taste of that right now. Am I right?”
Harvey felt trapped, like somebody’d just exposed some horrible secret of his and now the whole world knew. He didn’t know what to say, so he clamped his teeth shut. His eyes welled up, and he kept staring out the window.
“Look,” Berndt said. “Your mom’s upstairs right now, sitting with your dad. You’ve had two days to process all this, up close. She’s had about ten minutes. She’s gonna need some time to just get past the emotions of it and let the reality sink in, so give her a little bit. But not too much, all right? Don’t make her wait too long. She’s gonna need you, a lot. I don’t know your mom, but my guess? If you run and hide from this, hide from that survivor’s guilt you’re feeling? That’s gonna hurt her more than if all three of you were killed out in those mountains.”
A single tear ran down Harvey’s face, catching in the corner of his mouth.
Berndt clapped a hand on Harvey’s shoulder and turned to go. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”
The life support monitors continued their soft humming and beeping, electronic reminders of the frailty of human life. It would only require a short power bump, a generator malfunction, a blown circuit breaker somewhere, and Johnson Bennett would cease to exist. His life was in the hands, or circuits at least, of machines that had no knowledge, concern or interest in the value of that life. Harvey stood at the door, watching, wondering of this was what it all boiled down to for
everyone, sooner or later. Wondering if he’d already spoken his last words to his dad, and struggling to remember what those words even were.
His mom was sitting next to the bed, holding Johnson’s right hand, resting her forehead against the bed rail. She looked tired. Harvey tried to convince himself he should go, should leave them there together, at least for a little while longer. But then Doctor Berndt’s voice crept into his mind.
“That’s gonna hurt her more than if all three of you were killed out in those mountains.”
Teenage surliness aside, Harvey didn’t want to hurt either of his parents. He loved them both, very much - though he’d never allow himself to say it out loud. He knew how a lot of other kids had it, with parents either mentally disengaged or physically missing altogether, or the few who had parents who were downright abusive and hateful. His parents were loving, and they worked very hard to give him and Zach the best of themselves. Even though Johnson’s job as a medical equipment sales rep kept him on the road more than two hundred days out of the year, he was always trying to redeem what time he did have when he was home.
That made Harvey feel that much more guilty about his own behavior lately. He’d been acting like a little kid, pouting and scoffing anytime his parents tried to engage him. That stemmed mostly from Harvey’s defensiveness about still living at home a year after graduating from high school, and not seeming to have any direction or ambition. He just couldn’t seem to figure out what he should be doing with his life, and he felt like everyone around him was silently critical of his apparent lack of direction.
He had to admit that he’d been a downright pain in the backside over the entire camping trip, and his dad hadn’t called him on it. He just kept smiling and talking as if Harvey weren’t being a selfish jerk.
On top of all that, Harvey knew how much Zach idolized him, and he’d gone out of his way to push Zach further away while they were hiking to the lake. When they got there and Zach begged him to go exploring, Harvey had snapped at him, telling him to go away and quit bothering him. Zach had done just that, and fifteen minutes later, the bear had attacked.
Which made it too late to apologize now.
Harvey had the sickening feeling that he’d never get to tell his dad how sorry he felt at that moment, how much he blamed himself for what had happened. Now, watching his mom in her silent grief, the weight of guilt became almost more than he could bear. The only thing keeping him there was the memory of what Doctor Berndt had told him earlier. He wanted to run away from the guilt, but he could see the pain his mom was suffering, and he didn’t want to add to it. He walked slowly into the room, placing his hand on his mom’s shoulder.
She started, then raised her head and looked around at him. “Hi, sweetheart,” she said. Her voice sounded gravelly, hoarse, like she’d been crying, a lot. Because of course, that’s what she had been doing.
“Hey.” Harvey hated himself for not saying more, but for some reason he couldn’t force anything else to come out.
“Have you had anything to eat?”
Classic Mom, Harvey thought. Always taking care of everybody. Even when she needed taking care of herself. “Not hungry,” he managed to mumble.
“You need some money? Maybe you can find a vending machine somewhere. I’m sure there’s a hospital cafeteria…”
“I’m not hungry, Mom!” He hadn’t intended it to come out so harshly, but there it was.
His mom looked stricken for a moment, but she covered it with a quick smile. “Well, do you want to sit with me for a while, then?”
Harvey looked down at the cheap shower shoes they’d given him. “Yeah, I guess.” He pulled a chair away from the wall and set it near the foot of his dad’s bed.
His mom turned her eyes back to his dad. “He’s strong,” she said. “If anyone can pull through something like this, Harvey, it’ll be your dad.”
Harvey watched her, wondering how she could be so sure. “You don’t know that,” he said.
She looked over at him, then back at Johnson. There was a hint of a smile on her face. “When we got married,” she said, “I was so young, and I was afraid of everything. I had no idea how the world worked, and I pretty much figured that anything bad that could happen, was going to happen, to us. I guess I was a pretty timid young lady. Got it from my parents, I guess.”
“So?”
“So, your father changed the way I saw things. Instead of criticizing me or shaming me, or even just up and leaving me - because let me tell you, I was no picnic to be around - he stuck by me. He encouraged me. He was so positive about everything all the time, that after a while, I couldn’t help but be positive, too. He was strong enough to be gentle with me, and believe me, that took some pretty incredible strength.” She laughed then, the sound washing over Harvey like fresh air. “I was pretty stubborn, but not stubborn enough to out-pessimist your father’s optimism.” She looked back at Harvey, her eyes suddenly showing steel. “Twenty-two years together with a man of that strength, that character. That’s how I know. If it’s possible, your dad’ll pull through. You can count on it, son.”
“It’s my fault.” It came out in a near whisper, as Harvey stared at the floor with artificial interest.
Diana turned in her chair. “Your fault? I doubt that.” She inclined her head toward Johnson. “Did you bite half his head off? Did you attack your little brother? Were you running around the wilderness wearing a bear suit, and I’m just finding out about it now?”
Harvey shook his head, unable to answer.
“You three were attacked by a bear, Harvey.” Diana stood up and looked down at her son. “You didn’t cause that. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s it, and that’s all. Don’t blame yourself for something that you had no way of controlling. From what the State Police told me on the phone, you saved Zach and your Dad’s lives.”
Without understanding why, Harvey was suddenly furious. With Zach for wandering off; with his dad, for dragging them on the trip in the first place, and with his mom, for not understanding. But more than all of that, he was angry with himself, for not being there to prevent Zach from stumbling across the bears, and for not getting there in time to keep his dad from getting mauled. Now, he stood up suddenly as his anger boiled out.
“You don’t know anything!” he barked at her. “You weren’t there. The state cops weren’t there. You don’t know what happened!”
Diana recoiled as if she’d been struck. She took a moment to gather herself, studying her son as he stood there, his body shaking. “Then why don’t you tell me?” she said, her voice quiet and gentle.
“You wouldn’t understand,” he said, glaring at her for a brief moment before looking away, suddenly ashamed. Why am I getting so mad?
“You might be surprised by what I can understand, Harvey.”
“Look,” Harvey said, turning to leave, “just leave me alone, all right?” he stalked out of the room and disappeared down the hall.
Diana felt her hands start to shake. She sat back down and stared at the empty doorway.
Harvey walked into his room on the third floor. Zach was sitting in his bed, watching something inane on the Cartoon Network. Harvey grabbed the remote and turned of the TV.
“Hey!” Zach protested. “I was watching that!”
“I did you a favor.” Harvey flopped down on his bed. “Now do me one and leave me alone.”
Zach looked at his brother, not sure what to make of his attitude. “Did you go see Dad?”
“I said, leave me alone, Zach.”
“How is he?” Zach persisted.
“I don’t know.”
“Is he awake yet?”
“Zach, I don’t know!”
“When do you think he’ll wake up?”
Harvey sat up. “Never, all right? I don’t think he’s ever gonna wake up, Zach!”
Zach’s chin started trembling. “Why would you say that?”
“Because it’s the truth, Zach! You saw h
im, the whole time I was dragging him out, right up to when they loaded him on the helicopter - never opened his eyes, never said a word! He lost too much blood, Zach. If he ever does wake up, he’s probably gonna be a vegetable for the rest of his life! He woulda been better off if I hadn’t -”
Zach’s eyes were huge. “Hadn’t what?”
Harvey lowered his voice. “He woulda been better off of the bear had just killed him, Zach. Better off if I hadn’t been there at all.” He suddenly had an overpowering urge to get away from the hospital as fast as possible. He made his mind up, swung his legs off the bed and left the room, headed for the nurses station.
Zach sat alone on his own bed, hurt and confused, tears streaking his face.
“Where are my clothes?” Harvey asked the nurse on duty.
“I’m sorry?” she answered. “You should get back to bed, young man, you need your rest.”
“Don’t ‘young man’ me,” Harvey said in a quiet voice. “I’m nineteen years old. I’m not a minor, and I don’t need your permission to check myself outta here, but I’d rather not do it half naked. So if you don’t mind, tell me where you put my clothes, and I’ll get outta your hair.”
The nurse scowled at him. “Did you tell your mother about this?”
“That’s none of your business.” Harvey said. He braced his hands on the counter and leaned toward her. “My clothes.”
The nurse tipped back in her swivel chair, folding her hands in her lap. “Nobody ‘took’ your clothes from you, Mister Bennett. They’re hanging in the wardrobe right next to your bed.”
Harvey straightened. “Oh,” he said. This was awkward. “Thanks.” He turned on his heel and went back to the room he’d been sharing with Zach.
As he walked away, the nurse picked up her phone and punched two numbers. There was a short pause before someone picked up.
