Rescue (26 page)

Sixty hours pass.

Sheila and Webster spell each other in six-hour shifts. Once, when he passes by the room, Sheila is sitting close to Rowan’s
face, speaking in a soft voice. Another time, Sheila is sitting near the foot of the bed, her head bent to the covers.

On Webster’s watch, Tommy comes with his father. “We brought you a car,” Tommy says.

Webster stands and shakes hands with Tommy’s father, who is shorter than his son. Barrel-chested, going bald. “We’re all wait
ing with you,” the father says. “We’re all praying with you. Here are the keys. It’s a navy VW and has a pink daisy in the
vase on the dashboard.”

Webster looks from father to son. Tommy has eyes only for Rowan.

“My wife’s,” Tommy’s father says. “Sorry about the flower.”

“Thank you,” Webster says. “Tommy, you want to sit there with Rowan a minute? I’m beat. I need some fresh air. I’ll be back
in ten.”

Tommy’s father and Webster take the elevator to the lobby. “Why don’t you walk me to the car, so I’ll know where it is,” Webster
suggests.

“My son blames himself,” the father says as they set out. “He believes that if he tried harder, it wouldn’t have happened.”

“That’s not how I see it. Your son did everything he could to stop her, but Rowan was drunk and wouldn’t listen to him. You
should be proud of your boy. He saved her life with the CPR. I’m proud of him. I’m grateful.”

“He’s useless now,” the father says.

“I’m not surprised.”

“This must be hell for you.”

“On a scale of one to ten, it’s a goddamn ten,” Webster says as they approach the parking lot. “But not as hard as the other
girl’s parents have it.”

Tommy’s father shoves his hands in his pockets. The sun sparks off the windshields.

“The funeral is tomorrow. Tommy doesn’t know whether to go or not.”

“I’d go if I were in town,” Webster says. “To pay my respects.”

“I’ll tell him that,” Tommy’s father says. “There’s the car.”

Webster shades his eyes and sees the navy bump. “Got it,” he says. “Thank you again. I can’t say how long I’ll be here.”

“Not to worry,” the father says, shaking his hand. “My wife wanted to do this for you and Rowan.”

“I’ll send Tommy down.”

When Webster makes it back to the ICU, he can see through the glass that Tommy is crying. Good for you, Webster thinks. He
waits a minute and then spots a nurse coming his way.

“Do me a favor,” he says to the nurse. “Just go in and pretend to be checking Rowan. That kid there is her boyfriend, and
he’s crying, and I want him to be able to collect himself before I go in.”

The nurse smiles. “Done,” she says.

Webster stands out of sight and gives it another minute. When he walks in, Tommy is at the foot of the bed and his nose and
eyelids are red.

“Your dad’s waiting in the parking lot. Please thank your mom for me.”

“I will,” Tommy says.

“She’s going to be OK,” Webster promises the boy.

Webster can see that Tommy doesn’t believe him.

After five and a half more hours of sitting, the nurses arrive and ask Webster to leave the room while they give Rowan a sponge
bath. Sheila finds him in the cafeteria.

“It’s stopped raining?” he asks her.

“It’s hot and sticky.”

She examines the tray before him. “Your usual? Coffee and a pastry?”

“I don’t seem to be able to eat anything else.”

“I’ll be right back,” she says.

Webster picks up his cup, sets it down again. When this is over, he might swear off coffee. Sheila returns with a tray. She
removes a bowl of soup and hands it across to Webster. “Minestrone,” she says. She does the same with a small plate. “Ham
sandwich.” She gives him utensils and a napkin.

“Thank you,” Webster says.

“You look terrible,” she says.

“You look nice.”

A memory is triggered. Webster tries to grab it. Keezer’s when she was a waitress, and he was just getting off the graveyard
shift. Eighteen years ago.

Surprising himself, Webster reaches for Sheila’s wrist. “I don’t think I can take this much longer,” he says. “This is hell,
just hell.”

“You have to take it,” Sheila says. “You don’t have any choice.”

He releases her. He’s left pink marks on the inside of her arm. “It must be hell for you, too,” he says.

“It is. But I’m glad to be here. I don’t think it helps Rowan one bit for me to sit with her, but it helps me.”

Webster nods. He understands.

Just after midnight on Wednesday, with his head resting at the edge of the bed, Webster thinks he feels Rowan’s fingers move
inside his own. He sits up with a start, not sure if he is dreaming or not. “Rowan?” he asks.

He waits ten minutes before she does it again. He has to be sure it’s not a reflex.

“Rowan, this is Dad. Your hand is in mine. If you can hear me, squeeze my hand or wiggle your fingers.”

He feels the movement of her fingers right away.

“Oh, God. Oh, Rowan.”

Webster stands, opens the door, and shouts for a nurse.

The nurse, when she comes, bends over Rowan, prepared to examine her pupils, but his daughter, bless her heart, opens her
eyes on her own, startling the nurse. Webster has never seen anything more beautiful.

Rowan seems dazed, unable to focus. She can’t speak. But Webster is OK. He knows she will.

O
w,” Rowan says, her first word. “My head.”

Webster clutches her hand. He may never let go.

“I’m not surprised,” he says. “You’ve had a nasty crack.”

“I did?”

“You don’t remember it?” Webster asks.

“No,” she says, trying to think, but he can see that the effort is too difficult.

Dr. Lockhart booms from the doorway, “I hear we’ve got good news!” He walks to the other side of the bed. “Well, I guess so.
Welcome back, Rowan Webster.”

Webster can see that Rowan is confused. Who is this man?

“I’m Dr. Lockhart,” the neurologist explains. “I’ve been treating you. You had a serious head injury.”

Webster observes Lockhart as he inspects Rowan’s pupils. He asks her to move her arms and legs, wiggle her toes, press down
on his hands, and squeeze his fingers. Then he asks Rowan questions. What year is it? Who’s the president? What month is it?
What’s her address? Rowan is OK with the year, a little slow with the president, completely confused about the month, but
she knows her address.

“I’ll give you a B,” the doctor tells Rowan. “I’ll come back and ask you again in two hours, and I guarantee you’ll get a
better grade.”

“I’m at Mercy?” Rowan asks her father when the doctor has gone.

“No, we’re in Burlington.”

Rowan glances around the room. “Why are we in Burlington?”

“You were airlifted here. What’s the last thing you remember?”

She studies him for a minute. He hopes he’s not the last thing she remembers. “I was at a dance,” she says.

“You remember anything after that?”

“It was hot in the gym,” she says. “And someone said we ought to go swimming.” She pauses. “And I remember being afraid, but
I don’t know why.”

It would be surprising if Rowan remembered every minute leading up to the crack on the head. Trauma erases time.

“I’ll tell you what happened,” he says to her. “You tried to climb a tree over Gray Quarry. You fell and hit your head on
a hidden ledge in the water. This was at two thirty in the morning on Saturday. Tommy went in after you, but when he got you
on shore, you weren’t breathing. He did CPR on you. You coughed up water and started breathing on your own, but you wouldn’t
wake up. Let’s see. The incident happened very early on Saturday. It’s early in the morning of Wednesday right now. You’ve
been out for four days.”

Rowan tries to comprehend this. “Where did I go?” she asks.

“That’s what I’d like to know!” Webster says, laughing.

“So that’s why you look like a wreck.”

“You have no idea,” he says. “The worst four days of
my
life, that’s for sure.”

“The nurse said I went up in a helicopter.”

“You certainly did.”

“And I missed it? I never even knew I was there? I’ve never been in a helicopter.”

“You didn’t miss anything,” Webster says. “It was a horrible ride. Someday, when you’re better, I’ll tell you all about it.
And you and I will take a helicopter ride just for fun.”

“Did you know I would wake up?”

“No.”

“I’m sorry, Dad,” Rowan says.

Webster smiles. “Rowan, you don’t have to be sorry about anything in the world. You woke up. That gives you a totally free
pass.”

“Forever?” she asks.

He squints. “I didn’t say forever.”

A team of nurses asks him to move outside the room. He’s happy to do whatever they require. They explain that they want to
try to get Rowan to sit up and then to stand. They’d like to be able to take the Foley catheter out, and they might try to
clean her up, depending. They suggest he get something to eat.

“She’ll be right here when I get back?” Webster asks, making sure.

“She’ll be right here.”

“Because I don’t like leaving her.”

“I
promise
you she’ll be right here,” the nurse says, “but she might be sleeping.”

“All right,” Webster says reluctantly, reaching in his pocket for his phone.

By the time he descends to the cafeteria, he’s unexpectedly ravenous. He wants sugar. He selects two pieces of apple pie and
a doughnut, accompanied by a cup of coffee. The pie tastes so
good, he moans with pleasure. When he finishes, he calls Sheila, Tommy, Gina, and Koenig, in that order. Tommy is speechless,
Gina starts to cry, and Koenig whoops. Sheila is the most relieved. She says,
I’m so happy,
and he can feel the release in her voice, the lifting of the terrible worry.

“I’ll come right now,” she says.

“I think you’d better wait. She doesn’t know you’re here. She doesn’t even know I’ve been in touch with you. Let me talk to
her first, and then I’ll call you.”

“Will she make her graduation?”

“If I have to carry her.”

When Webster returns to his daughter’s room, she’s asleep. He sits next to her, as he has been doing, but doesn’t wake her,
even though he wants to, just to make sure.

The room looks better for her having woken from the coma. The curtains aren’t as dreary, the television not as dull. Webster
knows it’s simply his state of mind. He gazes at his daughter.

The doctors had to shave the top of her head in order to suture a deep laceration, and, as a consequence, she has a four-by-two-inch
bald spot with a little fuzz starting. When she was in a coma, her hair was flattened to her skull, and she seemed to be all
widow’s peak. But someone in the last hour has taken the time to comb her hair so that her bangs cover most of her forehead.
Rowan will think the bald patch a problem for graduation.

Though now she might not care.

A nurse stands in the doorway. Webster turns.

“She was still woozy when she sat up, so we didn’t try to get her to stand. We took the catheter out, and she was able to
use the bedpan. She’ll be moved to a semiprivate room and be there
at least two or three days, maybe longer. She has to be able to walk unassisted. There may be issues with balance.”

“She graduates from high school on Sunday.”

The nurse chews a lip. “That’s going to be pretty tight.” She pauses. “How are you doing?”

“A hundred percent better.”

“You need to get some sleep,” the nurse says. “I can’t order you to do it, but you know I’m right.”

“I hate to leave her.”

“This is the ICU. She’s being monitored every second.” The nurse smiles. “She’s out of the woods, Mr. Webster. I think you
can start to relax now.”

He stands immobile in the shower for twenty minutes, letting the hot water remove the kinks. Then he scrubs and washes his
hair and slides between the covers. It’s nearly dawn when he shuts his eyes.

It’s noon the same day when wakes up. He comes alert and has to remind himself that his daughter has come out of the coma.
He lies back against the pillow, his arms crossed behind his head, and savors that sweet sensation. A bright sun tries to
enter the room at the edges of the curtains. He wonders if today will be too soon to mention Sheila to Rowan. It’s a gamble
on his part—the notion that Rowan might better absorb the idea of Sheila visiting in a hospital setting than at home, which
is full of memories—but he thinks he should try it.

He dresses and half jogs back to the hospital. He finds Rowan in her new room, awake, sitting up and eating lunch. He stands,
wide-eyed, in the doorway. A simple sight and yet so astonishing.

“Hey,” he says.

“Who are you?” Rowan asks.

Webster’s heart thuds against his chest.

“Are you my doctor?”

“Rowan, this is Dad. You don’t remember me?”

“My father works with the Hartstone Rescue Squad.”

His heart kicks again.

“Rowan. Sweetheart.”

“Oh, I had you good! You should see your face.”

“You…” He grabs her foot under the sheet and shakes it.

She laughs. “I’m having a turkey sandwich. And custard. I never knew how much I loved custard.”

“You’re a rascal,” he says, still finding it hard to believe his eyes. “You look wonderful.”

“Dad, I look like a freak! I’ve got a ten-inch bald spot on top of my head and a cast on my shoulder.”

“The bald spot is four by two inches.”

“It feels huge. I wish I could wear a hat.”

“Let’s see what the nurses say about that. I’ll go buy you one.”

“A Red Sox hat,” she says.

“How about a UVM hat?” he asks.

“We’re close to UVM right now, aren’t we?” she asks, as if just registering that fact.

“We’re
at
UVM,” he says.

“But don’t get me a baseball cap. Get me one of those, oh, you don’t know, it’s like a golf cap, except bigger, and I can
get my ears under it. I should really pick it out.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” he says.

“If only Gina were here. She’d know what I meant. Do you know what happened to my cell phone?”