Blood in the Past (Blood for Blood Series) (8 page)

“Doctor,” his mother corrected, apparently awakened by her son’s voice. She rushed to his side with a broad smile and misty eyes.

“Huh?”

“She’s a doctor, not a nurse.” She brushed Jason’s curls back soothingly, careful to avoid the bandages. She looked haggard and sleep-deprived. An image of her with messy hair and teary eyes flashed across Jason’s mind, but he couldn’t recall anything else about the image. It felt recent.
But what is recent?
He didn’t even know what had happened that brought him there.

“Sorry, I guess that sounded sexist.” Jason felt his cheeks flush but forced a smile.

“And I didn’t raise you like that,” his mother chided. She returned to the ugly orange chair and stretched. The chair squeaked in protest.

“It’s okay,” the dark-haired woman said with a chuckle. She fluttered around him, checking monitors and jotting readings down on a clipboard. Jason tried to read the name on her lab coat, but she moved too fast. He could barely focus his eyes.

“I’m just a resident,” she continued. “And to answer your question, you’ve been here for”—she paused uncomfortably for a few seconds—“several days.”

Her hesitation unnerved him. He watched her set the clipboard down and waited for her to elaborate. Instead, she reached into the plastic cup and placed an ice chip in his mouth. Her fingers glanced against his bottom lip. Suddenly hot, Jason appreciated the ice.

“What happened?” Jason’s voice already felt foreign, as if he was speaking with a bucket on his head. Juggling the ice chip garbled his speech further. Frustrated, he moved to rub his forehead. Raising his hand took great effort, and it immediately met the soft roughness of gauze bandages.

Jason’s face contorted in confusion. “What happened to me?” he demanded again, his voice frantic as he probed his head for answers. He tried to sit up, but his movements were sluggish and IVs tugged at his arms.

“Calm down, kid. You beat the odds. That’s what happened.” The doctor checked the lines in his arms, making sure they were still securely attached. “But I think I should let your mom explain the rest. Can I get you anything?”

“No, thanks,” Jason answered, anxious to be alone with his mother and find out what had happened to him.

“No, thank you,
doctor
,” his mother corrected again, on cue.

“Well, Jason, you’re going to be transferred to our inpatient rehab center soon. If I don’t see you again, have a speedy recovery. And if I do see you again, please call me Lyla.”

The dark-haired doctor left Jason’s hospital room. His mother left her orange chair and perched on the edge of his bed to stroke his brown curls again. He stared at her, wide-eyed and awaiting her explanation, grateful the chirping machines prevented a maddening silence.

“Jason, sweetheart,” she said finally, “you had an accident.”

“I know that, Mom. What kind of accident? Please, you’re scaring me. Was I driving? Where’s Dad?”

His mother swallowed hard, and her eyes blinked back tears. “Your father was killed, remember? Trying to save another detective from his burning home.”

She waited while Jason processed the information for a second time. He vaguely remembered the solemn detectives delivering the news. Perhaps that’s where the image of her, disheveled and crying, had originated. He said nothing but strained to remember more.

“After the funeral, you...” Her voice trailed off. Tears overwhelmed them both.

“What, Mom? Please.” Jason wrestled with the IVs to reach for her hand. He squeezed it, imploring her to continue.

“You were in your father’s office, with his...things...and accidentally shot yourself. The doctors gave a fancier explanation, but basically, the bullet penetrated your skull. Fortunately, it did minimal damage. Thank God for that.” She crossed herself. Jason had only ever seen her do that when speaking of the dead. Then it hit him: he had almost died.
But what was I doing in my father’s office? With my father’s gun?

“It was an...accident?” he asked.

“I was sitting downstairs when I heard the gunshot. I ran upstairs, and there you were, blood everywhere. Your father’s revolver was on the floor.” She shielded her eyes from him. “It was an accident, Jason. I found you, and I thought I’d lost you too, but it was just an accident.”

***

The chairs weren’t orange.

Jason couldn’t believe how something so small, something he felt so sure of, could be so wrong. He stared at the card in front of him. Dots. Lots of colored dots. According to the occupational therapist holding the card, a number was hidden in there somewhere, but he couldn’t see it. Then again, he’d also thought that the visitors’ chairs in his hospital room were orange, not blue. The confusion was a product of the bullet’s path. The doctors said it traveled beneath the bony calvarium, around the circumference of his skull, and nicked his occipital lobe prior to its exit. Luckily, the bullet had avoided all his major blood vessels and only partially affected the portion of the brain responsible for sight and color perception.

“Apparently I’m missing more than just my contacts,” he chuckled.

The therapist didn’t laugh. She just pointed at the card again with earnest.

“I’m sorry, I don’t see anything.”

She grunted and flipped to a different card. More dots. Jason sighed with exasperation and let his eyes wander over her shoulder instead of undertaking the task before him. He spotted a burly, dark-skinned man with gray hair and a matching goatee. He stared straight at Jason.
Is he one of the hallucinations the doctors warned me about?
The man nodded and walked away, leaving Jason to turn down yet another card full of dots.

When Jason’s session concluded, the therapist brought him back to his room. The inpatient rehab facility was separate from the hospital, but one could hardly tell the difference between the two. Residency rooms lined the halls. A hub of connected counters with people buzzing about stood in the center of each floor. Jason still slept on a hospital bed, the thin mattress lumpy from previous patients, but after just a few days, it showed signs of conforming to his frame. He looked forward to being helped into his room’s faux-leather armchair, which could be quite comfortable with a few added pillows, but from the doorway, he saw that seat was already occupied.

He’s waiting for me?
Jason peered over at the therapist, who had guided him through the halls after his session. Though mentally and physically exhausted, the staff still forced him to walk as part of his rehab. He watched her eyes and swallowed his anxiety when she acknowledged the seated man with a smile. Jason hadn’t imagined him after all.

Upon Jason’s entry, the man stood and sat on one of the not-orange visitors’ chairs. “How ya doin’, son?” he asked after Jason settled into the armchair. It was uncomfortably warm after holding the large man who reached out a hand made of tree roots. “My name is Chief Albert Tunney. I worked—”

“With my dad,” Jason finished.

“Yes. When I checked up on your mom the other day, she mentioned that you toyed with the idea of being a cop. Like your dad.”

Right to business.
Jason turned to the window. In the last couple of days, he’d regained flashes of memories of being in his dad’s study, of their last encounter. He felt no desire to discuss any of it with his father’s boss.

“I’m very sorry for your loss, Junior—”

“No one calls me that,” Jason said harshly.

“I’m sorry. Your dad always called you that. Ya know, around the station.”

“Not to my face,” Jason spat. The doctors said he might experience inappropriate irritability, but he could swear he felt genuinely angry.

“Because he knew you hated it.” Chief Tunney leaned forward, his interlaced fingers hanging between his knees. “He loved you very much, Jason. He was a good man and...Well, quite frankly, I would be honored to help you in any way I can. That is, if you still want to become a cop.”

Jason slowly turned his head from the window and studied the man. His eyes were kind, but they were buried beneath his sturdy, authoritative demeanor. Jason realized that, outside of a full recovery, he hadn’t thought about what he wanted to do. No matter what, his future depended on his present.

“With all due respect, Chief Tunney, what good am I to the force like this?” Jason extended his arms to indicate his surroundings. “My vision’s blurry. I can’t tell orange from blue or yellow from red. My speech only became clear a few days ago. I’m tired all the time. They say I might hallucinate. Hell, I thought
you
were a figment of my imagination when I saw you outside of my occupational therapy session.”

The chief nodded, taking in the young man’s concerns before responding. “I talked to your mom. You know what else
they
say?
They
say all of those issues are temporary.”

Jason turned to the window again. “What if they’re wrong?”

“What if they’re not? Just think about it. I brought some material for you.” He reached over to the other plastic chair and retrieved a stack of manuals and forms. “Look it all over. Study it if you’re so inclined. When you get out of here, you’ll be a few months shy of 21, right? I’ll find out the test schedule. But first I need to know one thing.”

“What’s that?” Jason asked, still devoted to the view outside the window.

The chief barely needed to stretch his lengthy arm to place a hand on Jason’s knee. “I need to know you didn’t turn that gun, your father’s gun, on yourself and pull the trigger. Your mom says it was an accident, and that’s the official report, but I need to hear it from you.”

Jason wanted to turn away from the window. He wanted to look the man in the eye, but he couldn’t. The truth was, he didn’t remember shooting himself. But something about the way his mother had described what happened, something about the way she uttered the word “accident,” stayed with him. She must have known it rang false because she’d avoided meeting Jason’s eye, just like he was averting his eyes from Chief Tunney.

“Chief, quite honestly, I don’t remember even touching the gun. I’ve only in the last few days remembered coming home from the funeral and going to my father’s study. I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you what you want, or rather, what you need, to hear.”

“Well then I guess your mother’s word will have to be good enough for me. Take care, son. My card’s in that stack somewhere. Use it if you need to.”

LYLA STARED AT the fragile child lying on the table. When the paramedics had swarmed in with the small girl on the gurney, she froze. Only after hearing her name shouted several times did she remember it was her E.R. rotation and they expected her to jump in.

The girl had fallen and needed emergency surgery to repair a compound fracture in her fibula. She was only seven years old, with straw-blonde hair like Lyla’s mother. The surgical team was preparing to sew up the incision.

Lyla had seen countless patients, but the little girl was by far the youngest Lyla’d ever seen opened up on the table. She’d calmed herself while she scrubbed in by breathing slowly in, then out, preparing herself for the tiny limbs and delicate vessels still developing in the innocent, prepubescent girl. With the procedure over, the entire team fell silent, satisfied the girl would soon see her eighth birthday.

Until she stopped breathing.

The calm and relief in the operating room disappeared in a cacophony of shouted inquiries and demands.

“Check her airway.”

“It’s clear.”

“Get the scope!”

The shouts almost overlapped each other, and Lyla struggled to piece together where each voice originated from. The task was exacerbated by the blue surgical masks strapped to everyone’s faces.

“Laryngospasms. She’s reacting to the anesthesia. I can’t intubate,” the nurse anesthesiologist called. She moved aside the oxygen mask and struggled with the scope and E.T. tube at the girl’s head.

Lyla snapped into action, determined not be frozen twice in one shift. She scoured her knowledge, trying to remember the protocol for a patient’s throat spasming during surgery. She grabbed a vial of Anectine from the cart and injected it into the child’s IV line with shaky hands. It was the same drug she’d injected her father with, right before she set him on fire. Funny how now it would save a girl’s life by paralyzing her throat muscles to allow for intubation and artificial ventilation.

But it wasn’t working.

“She’s crashing,” the nurse exclaimed.

The team fluttered around, launched into a type of coordinated dance—with Lyla hopelessly out of step. It was her first Code Blue in the operating room. With the patient so small, so fragile, the stakes were so grave.

“Doctor Kyle, what did you give her?” the lead surgeon demanded.

Lyla searched her brain for her mistake. Finding none, she answered confidently, “Anectine.”

“Pulse and B.P. are dropping...fast!” the nurse called.

“Doctor Kyle, this patient has muscular dystrophy! She’ll go into cardiac arrest!” the surgeon yelled, betraying his exasperation for only a moment.

“We’re losing her!” the nurse cried.

The lead doctor interrupted his scolding to compose himself and take charge of the room. “Start C.P.R. Push an amp of calcium and an amp of bicarbonate first. Then push fifty-percent dextrose with ten units of insulin. Hyperventilate her! Now!”

“We’re losing her!” Lyla repeated, half-expecting judgmental glares from her colleagues. After all, she was responsible. She stepped back, her head reeling. She watched the nurse anesthesiologist slide the tube into the girl’s throat. At least her near-fatal error had relaxed the muscles in the girl’s throat, easing the spasms.

“No, we are not!” the lead surgeon declared. He watched the anesthesiologist firmly attach the bag. The nurse rhythmically squeezed breaths into the girl’s lungs. His team’s confidence rose steadily with the girl’s blood pressure.

They didn’t lose her. But they almost had.

Once the girl became stable, the team filed out of the operating room. Everyone patted Lyla on the back, trying to convince her it was an honest mistake. Their faces were still covered with masks, but their eyes revealed their true emotion: pity. Lyla thought she detected a slight shake of the nurse’s head, as if to say, “
Such a shame. The girl who had lost both parents in the space of one week now almost killed a child.
”

Maybe they were right. Lyla could no longer ignore the conversations that screeched to a halt as soon as she entered the break area or the locker room. The whispered re-tellings of her story flooding the hallways gnawed at her. Perhaps her grief
was
a liability. Or maybe the truth remained in the thought she’d had as she flicked her lighter before igniting her home: Death was her story.

***

Lyla wandered through the halls of the hospital, stopping to inspect details she may never see again: donated sculptures, portraits of benefactors, the brass trim of the elevators. She couldn’t believe how quickly her last day of residency at West Philly Gen had arrived. Not because she had completed the program, but because she’d almost killed a child, almost stopped her heart cold, almost kept the young girl from seeing her eighth birthday.

Lyla had finally conceded to herself that she’d administered the drug while distracted over the fact she’d used the same drug to keep her father motionless before smothering him with flames. Seven days ago, the admission prompted her to request release from her residency.

The decision to leave turned out to be easier than Lyla anticipated. With both her parents gone and her childhood home diminished to ashes and the arson investigation still ongoing, perhaps the time had come to admit she didn’t belong in medicine then—or ever. She was surprised she hadn’t endangered a patient earlier.

Lyla rounded the corner to a hallway lined with historic artwork of Philadelphia General Hospital. Built in the early twentieth century and closed down in 1977, the illustrations portrayed the areas the current West Philly Gen shared with its predecessor. Lyla studied the painted and hand-drawn likenesses behind the glass display case, mesmerized by the many life cycles of the area. She wondered about the future of her childhood home, what would become of the blackened plot, when her clamshell phone clipped to her hip vibrated. She glanced at the caller I.D. It was her boyfriend, Anthony. Third time that day. With an eye roll and an exaggerated sigh, Lyla dismissed the call. Lately, Anthony had added to her inner conflict by bombarding her with constant questions.
Are you okay? Do you need anything? Do you want to talk?

He meant well, certainly, but Lyla couldn’t bear it anymore. Each of his reassurances served as constant reminders of the whole unfortunate chain of events. Her mother had killed herself. Because of her father. So she’d killed her father. Lyla needed time and space to accept those life-altering incidents. Privately.

Not only did Lyla want the investigation to conclude so she could rebuild her life, but perhaps she could also rebuild her home—her own version of the ever-evolving Philadelphia General Hospital. Lyla smiled briefly before her gaze wandered from the old hospital to her reflection in the glass. More specifically, to the maize-yellow shirt peeking out from under the collar of her blue scrubs. When she’d put it on that morning, she’d noticed a few tiny specks of acrylic paint on the right sleeve.

Lyla regretted not taking some of her mother’s artwork the night of the fire. It was a shame they wouldn’t have fit into her bag. But maybe Lyla could dabble in art—something her mom had always encouraged—as part of her new life, a way to pay homage to her mother. Ever since she was a young girl, her mother had admired Lyla’s creative side and said she possessed an uncanny eye and talent to match. Lyla couldn’t escape the feeling she should do something else to please her mother, as if she was
meant
to do something else. She felt torn between the bereavement of losing her mother and the empowerment of killing her father. Perhaps killing her father wasn’t enough. Regardless, she needed time to figure it all out.

But with Anthony hovering and recently talking about marriage, how could Lyla figure anything out? She supposed she loved him, but they had only been seeing each other for a year, and even that time was off and on. Plus, how could she think of marriage after finding out what a sham her own parents’ union turned out to be? Layer upon layer of lies, infidelity, and lost love. Or perhaps love still lingered there somewhere, beneath all the resentment and bitterness. Bottom line, Lyla had no intention of marrying Anthony—or anyone else. She couldn’t bear to repeat her mother’s mistakes.

Lyla headed back up several floors, to the locker room. Though she hadn’t expected fanfare, in her heart, she wanted it. Disappointment enshrouded her when she made her rounds of goodbyes instead of patient check-ins. Even more so when no one steered her toward a break room filled to the brim with balloons and the scent of buttercream-frosted cake. Instead, she emptied her locker in solitude and silence.

The metal hinges on her locker screeched. Lyla bundled all of her spare scrubs into a single sweatshirt and dumped it into a cardboard box she’d grabbed from supply. It wasn’t nearly as large as the one she’d taken to hide the discarded vials bin last week. As she shut her locker for the last time, precariously balancing the cardboard box on her raised knee and her large tote bag on her shoulder, she heard CJ’s shuffling gait. She turned, and a wave of her dark hair fell into her eyes as her mouth turned up into a grin. She should have known CJ wouldn’t let her down. The squirrelly, acne-peppered kid swapped her heavy box for a bouquet of multi-colored Gerbera daisies with several balloons tethered to it, dancing above their heads.

“Hey, Lye-Dye, how was your last day?” he asked cheerfully, his hand grazing hers as he grabbed her tote bag.

“You know I hate it when you call me that.” She poked his chest hard, but still playfully. “As for my last day, I’m feeling quite indifferent about it.” She paused before mumbling, “So is everyone else, apparently.” She wove through the locker room, threading between alternating rows of benches and stacked lockers.

“Why indifferent?” His free arm wrapped around her shoulders, his voice and touch soothing her as they walked toward the locker room’s swinging door.

Lyla shrugged. “No one really seemed to care.”

“Well you’re dropping out of medical residency, Lyla. You won’t tell anyone why. All anyone can assume is that it’s because of your parents.” CJ stopped short of the exit, placed the box and bag on a bench, and took her hands. His blue eyes were round and bulging, almost cartoonish. He examined her intently. “Has it occurred to you no one knows quite what to say?”

“I guess you’re right.” Lyla swallowed hard and sniffed back tears she knew CJ would eagerly wipe away if she allowed them to fall. “What are you doing right now?”

CJ raised an eyebrow. “Cheering you up?”

“You hungry?” she asked.

“Starved.”

Lyla’s smile trembled as she shoved the locker room door open.

***

Though the beginning of September meant the start of the fall semester, the food trucks lining the curbs only stuck around until late afternoon. CJ and Lyla walked arm in arm to a local cheesesteak place, grabbed some dinner, and brought it back to campus to eat. They chose the same spot they always chose: a grassy hill beneath a stand of maple trees. The leaves rustled as CJ and Lyla nestled into the plush grass. They both inched to and fro and left to right, trying to avoid the reflection of the setting sun in the surrounding buildings. The orange blaze caused them to squint until they found the perfect angle.

Lyla nibbled a bite of her cheesesteak before her eyes welled up and her lower lip quivered, but not from the motion of chewing. “I quit because I almost killed a little girl,” she blurted out, almost involuntarily.

CJ placed his sandwich down on its crinkled aluminum wrapper and shifted so he sat beside Lyla rather than across from her. He folded his right arm around her and used his free hand to guide her face toward him with a gentle, crooked finger beneath her chin. Lyla sobbed, drowning out her friend’s cooing and hushing.

“You know I hate it when you cry, Lye-Dye.”

“I know,” she managed to sniff out, her voice croaking as she looked away.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he coaxed.

Lyla told CJ about the seven-year-old girl slowly, like molasses from a carafe. She awaited harsh criticism and judgmental chiding, but it never came. When she finished, puffy-eyed and sniveling, CJ brought her face to him again and said simply, “Mistakes happen, sweetheart.”