Brain Child (12 page)

Ellen couldn’t resist smiling at Valerie, who was a notorious late-riser. Indeed, Valerie sometimes claimed that the real reason she’d divorced her husband was that demanding breakfast by nine
A.M.
was the worst sort of mental cruelty. But here she was, as always, coming through in the pinch, and looking as if she’d been up for hours.

“You didn’t have to come,” Ellen told her.

“Of course I did,” Valerie said. “If I hadn’t, everybody would have talked about it for years. Is Marty here yet?”

“I don’t know if she’s even coming. And it’s so early—”

“Nonsense,” Valerie snorted. “Must be nearly noon.” She gave Marsh a quick kiss on the cheek. “Everything okay?” she asked, her voice dropping.

“They won’t even let us see Alex before the operation,” Marsh replied, making no attempt to hide the anger he was feeling. Valerie nodded knowingly.

“I’ve always said Raymond Torres is impossible. Brilliant, yes. But impossible.”

Ellen’s eyes clouded. “If he can save Alex, I don’t care how impossible he is.”

“Of course you don’t, darling,” Valerie assured her. “None of us does. Besides, maybe he’s changed over the last twenty years. My God, if I had any brains, I’d marry him! This is some place, isn’t it? Is it all his?”

“Val,” Ellen interrupted. “You can slow down. You don’t have to distract us—we’re going to get through this.”

Valerie’s bright smile faded, and she sat down abruptly, reaching into her purse and pulling out a handkerchief. She sniffled, wiped her eyes, then determinedly put the handkerchief away. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just that the thought of anything happening to Alex … Oh, Ellen, I’m just so sorry about all of this. Is there anything I can do?”

Ellen shook her head. “Nothing. Just stay with me, Val. Having you and Marty Lewis and Carol here is going to be the most important thing.” To know that her friends would be here to support her, to try to comfort her, would help.

The longest day of her life had just begun.

When the lounge door opened just after ten-thirty that evening, neither Ellen nor Marsh paid much attention. People had been in and out all day, some staying only a few minutes, others remaining for an hour or two. But now only her closest friends were still there: the Cochrans, Marty Lewis, and Valerie Benson. Only Cynthia Evans had not come.

Slowly she realized that someone was standing in front of her, had spoken to her. She looked up into the face of a stranger.

“Mrs. Lonsdale? I’m Susan Parker—the night person. Dr. Torres wants to see you and your husband in his office.”

Ellen glanced at Marsh, who was already on his feet, his hand extended to her. Suddenly she felt disoriented—she’d thought it was going to take until midnight. Unless … She closed her mind to the thought that Alex must, at last, have died. “It’s over?” she managed. “He’s finished?”

Then she was in Torres’s office, and the doctor was gazing at her from the chair behind his desk. He stood up, and came around to offer her his hand. “Hello, Ellen,” he said quietly.

Her first fleeting thought was that he was even more handsome than she’d remembered him. Hesitantly she took his hand and squeezed it briefly, then, still clutching his hand, she gazed into his eyes. “Alex,” she whispered. “Is he—?”

“He’s alive,” Torres said, his voice reflecting the exhaustion he was feeling, while his eyes revealed his triumph. “He’s out of the O.R., and he’s off the respirator. He’s breathing by himself, and his pulse is strong.”

Ellen’s legs buckled, and Marsh eased her into a chair. “Is he awake?” she heard her husband ask. When Torres’s head shook negatively, her heart sank.

“But it doesn’t mean much,” Torres said. “The soonest we want him to wake up is tomorrow morning.”

“Then you don’t know if the operation is a success.” Marsh Lonsdale’s voice was flat.

Again Torres shook his head, and rubbed his eyes with his fists. “We’ll know tomorrow morning, when—if—he wakes up. But things look good.” He offered them a twisted smile. “Coming from me, that’s something. You know what I consider success and what I consider failure. And I can tell you right now that if Alex dies in the next week, it won’t be from his brain problems. It will be from complications—pneumonia, some kind of viral infection, that sort of thing. I intend to see that that doesn’t happen.”

“Can … can we see him?” Ellen asked.

Torres nodded. “But only for a minute, and only through the window. For the time being, I don’t want anyone in that room except members of my staff.” Marsh seemed about to say something, but Torres ignored him. “I’m sorry, but that includes you. What you can do is take a look at him—Susan will take you over there—and then go home and get some sleep. Tomorrow morning’s going to tell the tale, and I want you to
be here. If he wakes up, I’m going to want to try to determine if he can recognize people.”

“Us,” Ellen breathed.

“Exactly.” Torres stood up. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going up to bed.”

Ellen struggled to her feet, and reached out to grasp Torres’s hand once again. “Thank you, Raymond,” she whispered. “I … I don’t know what to say. I didn’t believe … I couldn’t—”

Torres abruptly withdrew his hand from hers. “Don’t thank me, Ellen,” he said. “Not yet. There’s still a good chance that your son will never wake up.” Then he was gone, leaving Ellen to stare after him, her face ashen.

“It’s just him,” Marsh told her. “It’s just his way of telling us not to get our hopes too high.”

“But he said—”

“He said Alex is alive, and breathing by himself. And that’s all he said.” He began guiding her toward the door. “Let’s go take a look at him, then go home.”

Silently Susan Parker led them into the west wing and down the long corridor past the O.R. She stopped at a window, and the Lonsdales gazed through the glass into a large room. In its center stood a hospital bed, its guardrails up. Around the bed was an array of monitors, each of them attached to some part of Alex’s body.

His head, though swathed with bandages, seemed to bristle with tiny wires.

But there was no respirator, and even from beyond the window they could see his chest rising and falling in the deep, even rhythm of sleep. A glance at one of the monitors told Marsh that Alex’s pulse was now as strong and regular as his breathing.

“He’s going to come out of it,” he said softly. Next to him, Ellen squeezed his hand tightly.

“I know,” she replied. “I can feel it. He did it, Marsh. Raymond gave us back our son.” Then: “But what’s he going to be like? He won’t be the same, will he?”

“No,” Marsh said slowly, “he won’t be. But he’ll still be Alex.”

There was a soft beeping sound, and the nurse whose sole duty was to watch Alex Lonsdale glanced quickly up, scanning the monitors with a practiced eye, then noting the exact time.

Nine-forty-six
A.M
.

She pressed the buzzer on the control panel, then went to the bed to lean over Alex, concentrating on his eyes.

The beeping sounded again, and this time she saw its cause. She picked up the phone and pressed two buttons. On the first ring, someone picked it up.

“Torres. What is it?”

“Rapid-eye movement, doctor. He may be dreaming, or—”

“Or he may be waking up. I’ll be right down.” The phone went dead in her hand and the nurse’s attention went back to Alex.

Once more, the beeping began, and the occasional faint twitching in Alex Lonsdale’s eyelids increased to an erratic flutter.

Hazily he became vaguely aware of himself. Things were happening around him.

There were sounds, and faint images, but none of it meant anything.

Like watching a movie, but run so fast you couldn’t see any of it.

And darkness. Darkness all around him, and no sense of being at all. Then, slowly, he began to feel himself. There was more than the darkness, more than the indistinct sounds and images.

A dream.

He was having a dream.

But what was it about? He tried to focus his mind. If it was a dream, where was he? Why wasn’t he part of it?

The darkness began to recede a little, and the sounds and images faded away.

Not a dream. Real. He was real.

He.

What did “he” mean?

“He” was a word, and he should know what it meant. There should be a name attached to it, but there wasn’t.

The word had no meaning.

Then slowly “he” faded into “me.”

“Me.”

“Me” became “I.”

I am me. He is me.

Who?

Alexander James Lonsdale.

The meaning of those little words came back into his mind.

He began to remember.

But there were only fragments, and most of them didn’t make any sense. He was going somewhere. Where? A dance. There had been a dance. Picture it.

If you want to remember something, picture it.

Nothing.

Going somewhere.

Car. He was in a car, and he was driving. But where?

Nothing. No image came to mind, no street name.

Picture something—anything.

But nothing came, and for a moment he was sure that all he would ever know was his name. There was nothing else in his mind. Nothing but that great dark void. Then more names came into his mind.

Marshall Lonsdale.

Ellen Smith Lonsdale.

Parents. They were his parents. Then, very slowly, the blackness surrounding him faded into a faint glow.

He opened his eyes to blinding brightness, then closed them again.

“He’s awake.” The words meant something, and he understood what they meant.

He opened his eyes again. The brightness faded, and
blurred images began to form. Then, slowly, his eyes focused.

Certain images clicked in his mind, things he’d seen before, and suddenly he knew where he was. He was in a hospital.

A hospital was where his father worked. His father was a doctor. His eyes moved again, and he saw a face.

His father?

He didn’t know. He opened his mouth.

“Wh-who … are … you?”

“Dr. Torres,” a voice said. “Dr. Raymond Torres.” There was a silence, then the voice spoke again. “Who are you?”

He lay quiet for a few seconds, then, once more, spoke, the words distorted, but clear enough to be understood. “Lonsdale. Alexander James Lonsdale.”

“Good,” the man whose name was Dr. Torres told him. “That’s very good. Now, do you know where you are?”

“H-hob …” Alex fell silent, then carefully tried it again. “Hos … pi … tal,” he said.

“That’s right. Do you know why you’re in the hospital?”

Alex lapsed into silence again, his mind trying to grasp the meaning of the question. Then, in a rush, it came to him.

“Ha-hacienda,” he whispered. “Car.”

“Good,” Dr. Torres said softly. “Don’t try to say anything else right now. Just lie there. Everything’s going to be all right. Do you understand?”

“Y-yes.”

The image of the doctor disappeared from his vision, and was replaced by another face that he didn’t recognize. He closed his eyes.

Ellen and Marsh rose anxiously to their feet as Torres walked into his office a few minutes later.

“He’s awake,” he told them. “And he can speak.”

“He … he actually said something?” Ellen asked,
her voice alive with hope for the first time since the accident. “It wasn’t just sounds?”

Torres seated himself at his desk, his demeanor, as always, perfectly composed. “Better than just saying something. The first thing he did was ask me who I was. Then he told me his name. And he knows what happened.”

Marshall Lonsdale felt his heart pounding, and suddenly a vision leapt into his mind. It was the chart of probabilities he’d seen two days earlier. Partial recovery had been only a twenty-percent chance. Full recovery had been zero percent. But Alex could hear, and he could speak, and apparently he could think. Then he realized that Torres was still speaking, and forced himself to concentrate on the doctor’s words.

“… but you have to realize that he might not recognize you.”

“Why not?” Ellen asked. Then: “Oh, God. He … he isn’t blind, is he?”

“Absolutely not,” Torres assured her. His eyes fixed on her, and Ellen felt a small shiver run through her. There was a quality of strength in his eyes that had not been there twenty years ago. Where once his eyes had smoldered in a way that she used to find frightening, now they burned with a reassuring self-confidence. Whatever Raymond Torres told her, she was suddenly certain, would be the absolute truth. And if Alex could be healed, Raymond Torres was the one man who could heal him. In his presence, the overriding fear she had fallen victim to since the moment she heard of Alex’s accident began to ebb away. She found herself concentrating on his words with an intensity she had never felt before.

“At this point there’s no way of knowing what he will remember and what he won’t. He could remember your names, but have no memory at all of what you look like. Or just the opposite. You might be familiar to him, but he won’t remember exactly who you are. So when you see him, be very careful. If he doesn’t recognize
you, don’t be upset, or at least try not to let him know that you’re upset.”

“The fact that he’s alive, and that he’s conscious, is enough,” Ellen breathed. Then, though she knew she could never truly express what she was feeling, she went on. “How can I thank you?” she asked. “How can I ever thank you for what you’ve done?”

“By accepting Alex in whatever condition he is now in,” Torres replied, ignoring the emotion in Ellen’s words.

“But you said—”

“I know what I said. You must understand that Alex will undoubtedly have a lot of limitations from now on, and you must learn to deal with them. That may not be a simple task.”

“I know,” Ellen said. “I don’t expect it to be. But whatever Alex’s needs are, I know we’ll be able to meet them. You’ve given us back Alex’s life, Raymond. You … well, you’ve worked a miracle.”

Torres rose to his feet. “Let’s go see him. I’ll take you in myself, and I’d like to do it one at a time. I don’t want to give him too much to cope with.”

“Of course,” Marsh agreed. They started toward the west wing and paused outside Alex’s room. Through the window, nothing seemed to have changed. “Does it matter which of us goes in first?” he asked.