Healing Waters (4 page)

“Babe,” was all he said. I let him pull me against his chest, but I couldn't cry. I went numb, and I thanked God for that.

“It's not good,” I said into his shirt. “Her whole face—”

“Don't, Lucia. She'll get the best treatment here. Just think about that.”

“They had to intubate her—I don't know if there's damage to her lungs.”

Chip pulled me in tighter. “You can stop being the nurse now,” he said.

“If that were your sister, could you stop being the doctor?”

It was out before I could catch it and stuff it back in.

“I already stopped being a doctor,” he said.

I made a halfhearted attempt to pull him back to me as he stood up. We must have cut a pathetic vignette for the doctor who appeared in the doorway.

“Dan Abernathy,” he said, putting out his hand. “I'm a burn surgeon. I'll be taking care of—your sister, is it?”

I nodded as I put a clammy palm in his. When he reached for Chip, I saw the flicker of recognition.

“Chip Coffey,” Chip said, even though there was no need. Dr. Abernathy's eyes had already narrowed.

“I'm just here as the brother-in-law,” Chip said.

I plastered both hands to my forehead. “Okay, so—what's the prognosis?”

Chip folded his arms, took a step back. Dr. Abernathy turned his attention to me and motioned us to chairs. Chip moved against the wall.

“I know it's bad,” I said. “I'm a nurse. I want the full story.”

The “story” unfolded with increasing degrees of horror, from possible injury to Sonia's lungs, which they would know more about in forty-eight hours, to second- and third-degree burns over 9 percent of her body, including the hands that she'd used to try to cover her face. That was only Chapter One.

Chapter Two still lay ahead, in waiting at least two weeks for the wounds to close and a few more months after that for scars to completely set up. The doctor tried to convince me he had some good news. The face regenerates well, he said, so once her body started healing itself, they could excise and graft. Because her injuries were limited to her upper extremities, they'd have plenty of donor sites elsewhere on her body.

If that was the good news, we were in trouble. Still, as long as we talked in clinical terms, I could stay numb and pretend to be the unflappable nurse.

But when Dr. Abernathy took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes, and put the specs back on, I caved. He was stalling.

“What else?” I said.

“Her eyelids have been compromised.”

“Meaning—”

“They've retracted.”

“Will she be blind?”

“No. But her eyes will always be open.”

He seemed to wait for that to sink in before he went on about keeping her corneas moist, and using a prosthesis to hold her mouth open so it wouldn't draw down.

I remained trapped in the image of my sister, unable to close her eyes to sleep or listen or capture her own vision when she sang— out of a mouth that wanted to lose itself in her chest.

“It's a lot to take in, I know.” Dr. Abernathy regarded me with soft eyes. “This kind of injury can be as difficult a loss as a death.”

“The loss of her face.”

I didn't mean to sound hard and flat, but I had to remain a board that could only handle Post-it notes—basic facts in small pieces that I would organize later.

“I don't know how much experience you've had with burn patients—”

“Almost none,” I said.

He dragged in a breath. “She's lost a lot of facial function, and I'm not going to lie to you, her appearance is going to be drastically altered. Returning her to any semblance of normality is going to mean multiple procedures by a number of different specialists as time goes on.”

“What about right now?” I said.

“The nurses are debriding the wounds in hydrotherapy. I promise you that we will make this hurt as little as possible. Forget any draconian stories you've heard, anything you've seen on TV about people screaming while a team scrapes off their skin. That doesn't happen here. We'll use as much Ketamine as we need to keep the pain at a minimum.”

Good. Can I have some?
I was scraping my thumbnail across my palm, over and over.

“That's all I can tell you at this point,” he said. “We'll sit down, the family and the team, when Sonia is able to, and come up with a master plan.” He stopped and cocked his head. “One of the nurses filled me in about her professional background. This will definitely be a chance for her to apply her own faith, won't it?”

I couldn't answer that.

“Still—you'll have access to Sonia's psychiatric liaison nurse, and I encourage you to talk to her. This affects the whole family, and your sister is going to need you to be strong for her.”

I was incapable of anything but a wooden thank-you and an acknowledging nod at the hand he pressed briefly over mine. If I'd done more, I would have splintered.

“If you have any questions or concerns, don't hesitate.”

Chip straightened from the wall. “Do you know anything about Marnie—Margaret Oakes? The other girl in the plane.”

“Was she burned?” Dr. Abernathy said.

Chip looked at me. My head turned to wood as well. I couldn't even shake it.

“Our social worker can help with that. She'll be checking in.” As he headed for the door, his last words were for me: “Get some rest.” The squeaking of his soles down the hall faded before Chip eased into the seat next to me, hands cool through my top as he ran them down my back.

“You okay?”

Was I okay? No. My sister's beautiful face was being scraped off, but my husband showed more concern for the little vixen he'd—

I stuck out a mental hand and sent all of that falling over itself. Let that in, and the pieces I would break into would be impossible to reassemble. No. I had to do what I did so well.

“Are
you
okay?” I said.

Chip's hand stopped on my back. “I don't know what I am. How do you get your mind around this? Or your heart, yeah?” His voice went husky. “She's our sister. We're both pretty shook.” He kneaded the muscles at the tops of my shoulders. “I think I should take you home so you can get cleaned up.”

I twisted to face him. “Home?”

“You won't be able to see her for a while.”

“Are you serious?” I said. “I'm not leaving.”

He peeled a hunk of hair from my cheek and tucked it behind my ear. His eyes looked washed out as they searched me.

“I could go home, then,” he said. “Get you some clean clothes and whatever else you need.”

“I look that bad?”

“Not to me. But you don't want to show up looking like a trauma victim yourself when you see Sonia.” He rubbed gently at something on my chin. “You heard Abernathy. She's going to need you to be strong.”

“Sonia hasn't needed me for years,” I said. “I can't see her starting, even now.”

Chip took my head in his hands and pressed it to his chest. “Well, I need you,” he said.

I shook away and struggled up from the chair. “Maybe some coffee would help.”

He gave me a long look before he said, “I'm on it.”

As he strode off, my thoughts crowded in. He looked like he should belong here and didn't. He said he needed me. He was probably going to go check on that Marnie child.

I shut them all down and poked into the smoke-drenched pocket of my tunic. I withdrew two cracked M&Ms and looked at them. I wished they could erase everything, the way I always counted on them to do.

CHAPTER FOUR

C
hip had only been gone a few minutes when a tiny Asian woman with a walk like a farmer stalked into the waiting room and dragged an upholstered chair over to face me.

“You're Lucia Coffey,” she said as she propped herself on its arm. She pronounced it Loo-CHI-a. I shook my head.

“LOO-sha,” I told her.

She gave me a miniature hand to shake. “No one can ever say my name either.”

She pulled at her top so I could get a close look at the tag pinned to it.
KIM AHN NGUYEN. PMHNP-BC
.

“I see your point,” I said. I also saw from the letters that she was a psychiatric nurse practitioner.

“Do not even try to say it,” she said. “Just call me Kim. I am your liaison with the medical team. Think of me like a concierge. And punching bag, if necessary.”

“Oh,” I said. “I don't feel like punching anybody at the moment.”

“You will.”

I shifted in the chair. The stench of my clothes was now beyond nauseating, and the aftertaste of smoke lined my mouth like bitter cotton. I didn't want to be around anyone.

“I understand that you are one of us.”

I glanced at her, probably too sharply.

“Since you are an RN, we can let you stay closer to your sister than we usually do.” She moved her head side to side. “It is what you are comfortable with.”

I couldn't imagine being comfortable with any of it.

“I'm sure her entire staff is going to show up here pretty soon,” I said. “She's a Christian, uh, I guess you'd call her a celebrity. She has a whole entourage of people who probably know her better than I do.”

“But you are her family. She will want you, believe me.”

I didn't, but I let it go.

“So.” She looked at me earnestly. “What do
you
need?”

“Me?”

“We are a holistic burn care center. You are my patient too. And whatever other family.”

“I'm it, basically.” I churned again in my seat.

“Tell me. You mind? I need to know about her.”

I did mind, but it seemed useless to argue. “We're the only two.” My voice flattened. “Our mother died several years ago. Our father is—not in the picture.”

She didn't chase that—fortunately, since there was nowhere to go with it.

“Does she have a husband?” she said.

“My sister's a widow.”

A fine eyebrow went up. “A young widow.”

“Blake died six years ago. They'd only been married a short time.”

“Children?”

I nodded. “A daughter. She's six.”

A sympathetic sound escaped from Nurse Kim. Sonia's tragic life could drag compassion out of a stone.

“You are close to your niece?” she said.

“Bethany? I haven't seen her in two years. She doesn't really know me.”

I wanted her to go and take her questions and her charming little accent with her. I looked into my lap and noticed that my fingers were sooty. Something similar probably smeared my face as well.

“My husband went to get me some coffee,” I said. “And I don't need anything else right now.”

“Except a shower.”

I blinked.

“We have facilities for family members. Many people come in covered in ash and do not even know it.”

“I don't have clean clothes.”

She stood up. “We have scrubs. You are no stranger to those.”

What were the chances they'd have any in Size Tent? How humiliating would it be to have her scamper off promising a wardrobe, only to come back apologizing because they seemed to be running low?

Then I felt small hearted for even thinking about that while my sister— “You stay. I will fix you up.” Nurse Kim pointed a small finger at me from the door. “You have not heard the last of me, Missy. I am here for you, want me or not.”

With the room quiet again, I looked around for my pocketbook so I could at least drag a Kleenex across my face. Oh, wait. I'd run off and left my handbag in the terminal.

Heaven only knew what had happened to my car by this time. I had a strange vision of coconut truffles folding over the backseat like the watches in the Salvador Dali painting.

I was about to heave myself out of the chair when Chip sailed in, napkins plastered to his sleeve by the breeze he stirred up. His hands were full of cardboard drink trays and paper bags that oozed grease. Something normal. I could pretend to be normal.

“You'll be happy to know I've been offered a shower and clean clothes,” I said as he unloaded the booty onto a veneered table.

“I'm happy to know you're almost smiling.”

Chip pulled a plastic top from a cup and dumped the contents of a packet of sugar in. He took my hands and wrapped them around its Styrofoam warmth, leaving his own on top of mine.

“It's going to be all right, babe,” he said, his voice bedside-manner kind. “I know it seems overwhelming, but it's never as bad as it seems at first blush.”

He could do that for me, Chip could: come in with his big-bear chest and his soft, thick words and his blue-denim eyes and dissolve my demons into some silliness we could laugh away, even in the desperate moments that had tried to undo us. That was why I'd married him. Why I'd stayed with him when even my most anti­divorce acquaintances told me I shouldn't. Why I wanted right now to let go into his arms.

“Chip? Oh, my gosh, Chip—I am so glad to see you!”

Something brunette flew into the room and hurled itself at him. He barely had time to pull his hands from mine before she collapsed against him and wept.

“Otto's dead,” she sobbed into him.

“Okay, Marnie—shhh.”

“What happened?”

She pulled away to look up at him, and something real crashed through my hope. I'd seen them have this kind of exchange already, and that obviously hadn't been the first time. Her eyes knew him, and they were trusting as a puppy's.

“We're not sure yet,” Chip half-whispered to her. “Thank God you're okay.” He gave her the crooked smile. “How many stitches, champ?”

“Six on my forehead. Seven here.”

She leaned over to display her leg, and her eyes caught mine for the first time. Her face crumpled again.

“Thank you so much,” she said, and flung herself at me.