14 Degrees Below Zero (19 page)

“I’m with the
Star Tribune,
” Gretchen said. “We picked up Mr. Grant’s . . .
situation
on the police scanner. Are you related to him?”

“No,” Jay said.

“Do you know what happened?” Gretchen said, obviously uncomfortable with the prospect that she was talking to someone who knew even less than she did.

“They haven’t told me,” Jay said. She realized that Gretchen was probably just out of school, and roughly her own age.

“Um . . . well.” Gretchen took out her cell phone and looked at its screen as though some answers were to be found there. “There was an accident. He fell into the river.”

“The
river
?” Jay repeated. “You mean the Mississippi?”

“Yeah, over by the U. He was wearing some kind of running outfit.” Gretchen put the phone back in her pocket and fumbled until she found a pad of paper. “I don’t know why he was out running in this weather, but he fell into the water. Someone spotted him and went down and pulled him out. I don’t know how long he was under, but . . . well, it sounds pretty bad. I’m sorry.”

The magnitude of what Gretchen was saying settled over Jay like a soft linen sheet, the air in the room holding it aloft and allowing it to fall in gentle folds. Under the
water
? Well, the cold had just settled in—and the
real
cold was coming that night. The river would have been frozen only on the surface. But how had he fallen all the way down?

“Are you the girlfriend?” Gretchen asked, wrinkling her nose at all the messiness her question implied.

“Used to be,” Jay said.

The nurse returned with a woman wearing a white lab coat and actually sporting a stethoscope around her neck, like some fantasy of a doctor. She put her hand on the small of Jay’s back.

“I’m Dr. Ellis,” she said. She had bland brownish hair and a hint of a mustache on otherwise quite pretty features. Jay got an intense lesbian vibration from her, as well as a sense that she was someone who was proud of how much she could cope with.

“Jay Ingraham.”

“The girlfriend,” Ellis said.

“Formerly.”

Ellis reacted not at all, at first, then chewed on her lip as though this might be the development that put things over the edge.

“You contacted Stephen’s parents?” Jay asked.

“One of the nurses did,” Ellis replied. “They’re going to catch the first available flight out of San Francisco. I got the impression that might be difficult, though. They’re closing runways at the airport here. On account of the weather.”

Ellis seemed to be one of those semiautistic people who were remarkably effective at their jobs. Jay hoped so, anyway.

“Where is he?” Jay asked.

Ellis frowned as though this was a matter she had hoped could be avoided.

“He’s been seriously injured.”

“How seriously?” Jay asked. “He was underwater? Is he conscious?”

“Gretchen, I’ll make time to talk to you later,” Ellis said suddenly, and quite severely.

“I’m not trying to intrude, Doctor,” said Gretchen, whom Jay had forgotten entirely but who was indeed still hanging around.

“This is not the time,” Ellis said. “Go get a cup of coffee or something. I’ll talk to you when I’m done here. Your deadline’s a few hours off, right?”

“Right,” Gretchen said, not at all unpleasantly.

Jay took a moment to register this level of cooperation and familiarity between reporter and physician, the way that they were symbiotically linked by other people’s misfortunes. For a second she wondered if there was more between them, but decided against it. She had Gretchen pegged as engaged to a golf-loving college boyfriend.

But then, what did she know?

Gretchen left them, and Ellis folded her arms and let out a surprisingly weary sigh.

“He was underwater for quite some time,” she said in a bland tone of recitation.

“How long?”

“We don’t know for sure.” Ellis put her hand on Jay’s back again, slowly leading her into the corridor. “He was hypothermic when the EMTs brought him in. He’s going to lose at least a couple of fingers and toes. As for the extent of the brain damage, we can’t be sure at this time. We’ll keep him warm and wait for any brain activity. There’s no way of knowing when or if he’s going to regain consciousness.”

Jay was somehow moving into the hospital corridor—precisely how, she couldn’t have said. Snow had melted from the hem of her skirt and run down her tights and seeped through a small hole somewhere in the vicinity of her calf. It was about all she felt. She wasn’t even certain about the floor under her feet.

She felt the presence of her mother. But that was ridiculous.

When she got to the room she was aware of
something
against the far wall, some mass of machinery and a glimpse of flesh, but she could not bear looking at it. Her strategy of complete avoidance was abetted by the presence of a nurse (another one, unfamiliar) talking to a uniformed police officer by the window. When Jay came in, they stopped their consultation. The cop was writing something on a pad of paper, and he approached Jay with a polite nod.

“Wife?” he asked in a husky voice. “Girlfriend?”

“Girlfriend,” Jay said robotically. “I mean,
ex
-girlfriend.”

The policeman seemed quite confused by this distinction, and was moved to rub his brown mustache in a manner that apparently brought him a good deal of comfort.

“I’m probably the person closest to him in Minneapolis,” Jay explained. “His parents are on their way.”

Still she managed not to look at Stephen, but the sounds were terrifying. He was somewhere over
there,
and she managed a glance at all the machines around him. She heard an awful variety of beeps and mechanical gasps.

“Well, they’re going to have a hard time getting here,” the officer said. He was burly, slightly fat, and no more than an inch or so taller than Jay. “I’m pretty sure the airport’s going to shut down for a while, especially with the cold coming in.”

“Do you know what happened?” she asked, and now she looked. She saw Stephen, or something that she was to take for Stephen, wrapped in heavy blankets and attached by tubes and wires to machines that made him look like some sort of inert cyborg. She could see the narrow band of his flesh around his eyes, which were closed, and his skin was a dark bruised violet.

“Oh, shit,” Jay said. “Can I . . . he doesn’t know I’m here, does he?”

The nurse was standing behind Jay. “No, I don’t think so,” she said.

“You said you and him broke up?” the officer asked.

“Yes.”

“Was it messy?” he asked. “Were there any indications he might have been emotionally distraught?”

“Emotionally . . . no, well, I don’t really know.” Jay went to the foot of Stephen’s bed.

“Is he prone to extremes?” the cop asked, looking down at his pad. “I’m not trying to be rude, it’s just that—”

“Do I think he jumped in the river?” Jay said. “No. I do not think he jumped in the river.”

“Was he involved in any disputes?” asked the cop. “You know, over money, or property. Over you, maybe?”

Jay stared at the cop, who seemed used to being stared at and didn’t mind at all. She tried to wrap her mind around what she was being asked. Could someone have possibly
pushed
Stephen into the river? That was preposterous.

Lewis. She didn’t know why, but she thought of Lewis and the way he had disappeared over the last couple of days.

“No,” she said slowly. “Stephen didn’t have any enemies or anything like that.”

“You’re sure?” the cop asked. “You seemed to hesitate for a second there.”

“I beg your pardon,” Jay said. “I apologize for not behaving in precisely the perfect way at the moment, but I am trying to come to grips with the fact that someone I love is lying in front of me and might never wake up again. So please. Accept my apology.”

The police officer’s hand went back to his mustache, and he flipped shut his notepad. He had the manner of someone who could be spoken to in pretty much any manner at all.

“Of course,” he said quietly. “I’ll be in touch if I need anything else. I’m sorry for what happened.”

“Yes, of course, thank you,” Jay said. “I’m . . . I’m sorry I talked to you like that.”

“No apology necessary,” the officer said, the soul of blandness, then excused himself from the room.

Jay was alone with the nurse. “How bad is it?” Jay asked.

The nurse looked at Stephen, then looked away, as though she, too, could barely take the sight.

“Very bad,” she said. “He was under nearly freezing water for a while. We’re lucky he’s still breathing.”

“Should I . . .
talk
to him or something?”

“It wouldn’t hurt,” the nurse said. “Do you want me to leave you alone with him?”

“Yes, please.”

When the nurse had gone, Jay pulled up a chair as close to Stephen as she could, between the machines and monitors. He was breathing on a mechanical respirator, and his body was submerged beneath thick thermal blankets. All the devices made his body pulse gently. Jay reached out and touched the exposed skin by his temple. It was cold and felt lifeless.

“Well, Dr. Grant,” she said.

He was there but not there.

“I’ve really missed you,” she told him, glancing at the doorway to make sure they were alone. “I wished you were with me last night. You know you’re . . . you’re such a wonderful man, Stephen. I’m sorry I hurt you.”

Her words felt and sounded cheap. But what else was to be said?

“You know, you’ll like this,” she said, thinking of the night before. “I mean, it’s a little sad, but it should make you feel good. Ramona cried when she found out you weren’t going to be coming around anymore. I know you thought she didn’t like you. I thought so, too. Sometimes. But it isn’t true. She loves you, Stephen. And I do, too. You have to hold on and find a way to come back.”

Stephen showed no sign of having heard a word. At least it had made Jay feel a little better. She took off her coat and got out her cell phone, then dialed the number for Ramona’s day care. Janet answered on the second ring.

“Jay, what’s happened?” she asked. “How is he?”

“I’m here with him,” Jay said. “It’s bad. He’s . . . I guess he’s in a coma or something. He was underwater for a long time.”

“Oh, no,” Janet said. “I’ll be praying for him.”

“Thanks,” Jay said. “I have to stay here with him. I’m going to try to get my dad to pick up Ramona. Is it OK if she stays with you until then?”

“Of
course,
” Janet said. “Don’t worry about a thing. All the other kids have gone, and me and Ramona were cuddled up together watching TV when you called. I’ll make dinner for her. Don’t worry.”

“Thanks,” Jay said again. “Thanks so much. You know what my dad looks like, right?”

“Tall, dark and handsome?” Janet said with a laugh. “Yeah, I remember what he—”

Janet paused.

“Oh, hang on, there’s someone at the door,” Janet said. “It looks like . . . oh,
hi,
Mr. Ingraham. I’m on the phone with Jay. Do you want to talk to her?”

There was some muted background conversation.

“Um, he says he’ll call you later,” Janet said. “But he’s going to take Ramona.”

“Well, OK, fine,” Jay said. “Tell him what happened and that I’ll call him later.”

“Will do,” said Janet.

They hung up. It was strange that Lewis hadn’t wanted to talk, but it was not a worry that stuck in Jay’s mind. This was, after all, going to be a day in which strangeness was a very relative thing. She’d had days like this before. And now here was another.

Stephen stood at the head of the class with a piece of chalk in his hand. His students were arranged in expanding concentric circles rising in great tiers in the distance—the ceiling was too high to see, and the thousands upon thousands of pupils rose up until they became a great massed blur.

“Good morning,” he said. He could not feel his hands. How, he wondered, did one illuminate a room that had no end?

The class was silent, expectant—what a responsibility. There were so many of them.

“Today I would like to talk about perception, reality and memory,” Stephen began.

“You should talk,” said a voice from the front row.

Stephen looked across the black void that separated him from the students.

“Not now, Mother,” he said. She was sitting there knitting, not even taking notes. “I’m trying to conduct a class.”

“I’m just saying, you’re a fine one to teach about memory,” she said in her relaxed California syntax. “You’ve been trying to forget who you were since high school.”

“He never calls,” said a man’s voice.

“Dad?” Stephen said. “Look, you don’t call
me
—”

“Don’t try to turn things around,” his father said. He had a brush and a can of wood stain in his lap. “You’re my son, Stephen. It hurts to have you shut me out of your life.”

“This isn’t the time,” Stephen said.

“All right, go ahead, teach your class,” his mother said. “I’ll keep quiet. Just the way you like.”

“He’s been terribly disrespectful to me,” said Lewis. He unfolded his lanky body and turned to face the thousands.

“Manipulating. Arrogant.
Cowardly.
” Lewis spat out each word with outrageous venom.

“Now you wait—” Stephen began.

“I loved him.”

Stephen turned. Seated five rows back was Jay. She held Ramona in her lap.

“You—”

“I hurt him,” said his Jaybird, in a slinky dress, radiant and gorgeous. “But I loved him.”

“Me, too,” chirped Ramona. She smiled and waved. “Hi, Stephen. I think you’re a good teacher.”

“Oh, thank you, Ramona,” Stephen said, feeling tears well up in his eyes. “That means so much to me.”

“I was kind of mean to you sometimes,” Ramona added. “But it was just because I wanted to know if you liked me.”

“I like you very much,” Stephen said, and Ramona smiled. “It . . . it would have been such an honor to be your daddy someday. I used to think about that.”

“Hijacker!” Lewis shrieked. “Interloper!”

“You sit down!” Stephen yelled.

“Lewis, you never gave him a chance,” said Anna Ingraham, who was seated behind Lewis. She looked healthy and whole, and quietly beautiful, just as she had before she turned ill.