Starting from Scratch (11 page)

I
t was a struggle not to cry.

All the way to the hospital, Elisha fought against the urge to break down and cry. Fought against even shedding a single tear.

She knew if she did that, there would be no stopping the torrent of tears that was rising dangerously high behind the emotional dam she'd managed to construct. And she couldn't cry. She had to be strong.

For Henry.

Who would be going home soon, she promised herself fiercely. One of those multidegreed, high-priced physicians was just going to have to fix Henry, that was all there was to it.

She wasn't about to accept anything less.

Mercifully, the cabdriver had given up attempting to engage her in conversation after three unsuccessful tries. Instead, he concentrated on getting her to the hospital as quickly as possible, especially since she'd promised a fifty-dollar tip if he could do it in under an hour.

The rain was pelting the roof, sliding down the sides of the windows. Heaven was crying, but she wouldn't.

Elisha realized that she was sitting on the edge of the passenger seat, straining against the seat belt as far as she could go. Her hands were planted on either knee and she was rocking. Unconsciously trying to find some kind of comfort in the motion.

She needed to get hold of herself. To pull herself together. Removing her hands from her knees, she saw that she'd been clutching them so hard, all ten imprints of her fingertips were clearly discernible. That was going to bruise, she thought. She always bruised so easily. Her skin was a great deal fairer than Henry's.

Henry.

Oh God.

With effort, she forced herself to breathe regularly. And all the while, within the confines of her mind she silently kept repeating,
It's going to be all right. Henry's going to be all right.

 

But he didn't look like someone who was going to be all right. Not when she saw him.

There was a battalion of machines on either side of his bed, all measuring something different, all speaking a strange, whirling, beeping language like invading aliens from another planet. A monitor to Henry's right displayed four horizontal lines, each a different color, each with a different wave function. Some were arrhythmic, others had a symmetry to them. She cheered the latter on, praying the uniformity was catching. There was comfort in uniformity.

It was crowded there with the machines and the bed. Hardly enough room for her prayers. Glass walls separated Henry's room from the others within the Intensive Care Unit.

She edged over to his bed, trying not to bump into anything, trying not to set any alarms off.

Henry looked as white as the crisp sheet that was beneath him. As white as the blanket that had been thrown over him. White was the color of surrender. She wished someone had thought to make everything red. Red was a fighting color.

An oxygen tube snaked its way across Henry's face, allowing him to breathe better. She strained her eyes, trying to see some kind of movement from his chest. It took more than a moment for her to finally satisfy herself that he was breathing.

She wanted to cheer.

And then his eyes fluttered open and she offered up silent thanks to God.

Forcing a smile, Elisha took her brother's hand in hers. His skin felt cool to the touch. She resisted the urge to rub her hands over his, to get the circulation going the way she used to when they were children and he would complain about being cold. It had been a chore to her then, an imposition that held her in place when there were things she wanted to do. Things that didn't include an annoying little brother.

Now, she couldn't think of anything she would have rather done than stand here, rubbing his hand. Making sure that Henry's circulation kept doing just that. Circulating.

“Can't say I care very much for your new look,” she told him softly, nodding at the tube that created the impression of a transparent mustache.

Her heart ached as she saw Henry struggle to smile at her.

Think of yourself for once, Henry. Complain. Tell me where it hurts. Stop being so brave.

“I…waited…for you,” he said to her in a voice that sounded so weak, she could feel her throat closing up just hearing it.

He'd waited for her. She didn't understand. Her mind was a complete utter blank. “Were we on for dinner tonight?”

He tried to move his head from side to side. There was barely a perceptible movement. “No…I mean…here…I was…waiting…for you…to come here…To…the…hospital.”

There was this tremendous pressure in the middle of her chest. As if a boulder had suddenly been dropped there, dead center.

Don't say it that way, Henry. Don't say it as if you are barely hanging on to life. You're going to be fine, do you hear me?

“I got here as soon as I could, Henry.” It was hard to talk, hard to keep her voice from cracking. “They didn't have your name listed at the information desk. I had to threaten the volunteer with bodily harm before he sent for someone to pull up the latest list so I could find you.”

She felt his fingers flutter a little against her hand. She tightened hers around them.

Stick with me, Henry. Don't go. Don't go.

There was just the slightest trace of amusement in his eyes as he looked at her. Amusement and affection. “You…can't…threaten…everyone…Lise.”

“It got me here, didn't it?”
I'm not going to cry, I'm not.
Elisha looked at her brother and shook her head. “An ambulance ride. Having a paramedic call me. I never knew you had a flair for the dramatic.”

“Neither…did…I.” The words were light, reedy, as if he didn't have the strength to project them any farther than just the small area surrounding his pillow. Elisha leaned in closer in order to hear him better.

As she did, she saw Henry wincing. She knew, because of what she'd read and not because of anything Henry would admit to her, that there was a great deal of pain associated with his condition.

“Are they giving you anything for the pain?” Weakly, he moved his head from side to side. “Well, dammit, they should be.” Agitated, she looked around for a nurse to summon. Someone to buttonhole and demand that they come to Henry's aid. “Where's the nurse?”

“I…told them…not to…I…didn't…want to be fuzzy when…you…got here.”

She could feel her eyes stinging. The struggle almost undid her. “Fuzzy's good. My favorite bear was fuzzy, remember? Mr. Fuzz-bear.”

She was talking nonsense, she thought. Her mind was jumping from the present back to her childhood. Back to when things were safe and rugs weren't ripped out from beneath her. Back when there was no pain and everything was all right because their mother and father were there to protect them.

I want to go back. I don't want to be an adult. Not anymore.

Henry was looking at her. Looking into her eyes. Her soul. “You…you'll…take care of…the girls?” Every syllable looked as if it cost him.

She wanted to make him stop talking.

She wanted to make him talk forever. Because if he was talking, he was still with her. And she wasn't alone.

“You'll be getting out of this hospital bed and taking care of them yourself,” she insisted with feeling. The lump in her throat kept getting bigger. “Not today, maybe not tomorrow, but you will. You will.” She could see her words weren't changing anything. “Henry, you have to. Do you hear me? You have to get better. You have to come home. I'm not ready for this to happen.”

“Lise—”

“I'm not,” she cried, desperation vibrating in her voice. “You can't leave me, Henry. I can do a million things, juggle a thousand balls in the air, but I need to know that you're there, somewhere in the background, with your patient smile and your endless good humor. I need you.”

She pressed her lips together to keep back the sob that was choking her. After a moment, she continued, “I'll tell you a secret, Henry. One I never told you before. When you were born, I tried to get Mom to take you back.” She could hardly see. Tears were swimming in her eyes, refracting the light. Distorting everything. She brushed them aside so that she could see her brother. So that she could see him still breathing. “I wanted a dog. Or at least a sister, not some dumb brother.”

He tried his best to smile. “I…know…Mom…told me.”

“Well, I changed my mind, Henry,” she told him fiercely. “I don't want a dog or a sister. I want you.” And she was losing him, she thought. “Please, Henry.”

“If…I…could stay…I…would.”

That's all she needed. For him to will himself to remain in this life. “You can. You can. You just have to try harder. Please. Try harder. You've got to try harder, Henry.”

But each breath that he took sounded thinner, more shallow than the last. Elisha just held on to his hand more tightly.

“Henry,” she whispered, afraid that if she tried to speak in a normal voice, it would break completely apart. “Henry, I love you.”

She saw his lips moving, but there was no sound.

Elisha leaned in closer. “What? What is it, Henry? I can't hear you.”

“I…love…you…too.”

She felt his breath on her cheek.

And then nothing.

Raising her head to look at him, Elisha saw that her brother's chest had stopped moving.

The barely wavy colorful lines on the monitor beside his bed gradually flattened out. A mournful, droning filled the air around her.

“Henry! Henry, come back. Please come back!”

But there was no response. As she knew there wouldn't be.

Elisha's eyes filled with tears, instantly overflowing. She touched her fingertips to her cheek, trying to press in the breath she'd felt there. Trying to preserve the last bit of her brother that she had.

“Say hi to Mom and Dad for me,” she whispered before her voice broke.

“C
ode Blue! Code Blue!”

A disembodied voice shouted the call to action somewhere in the vicinity as an alarm sounded the moment that all four of the wavy lines on the monitor beside Henry's bed became linear. Within the next minute, the small enclosure exploded with activity as hospital staff came rushing in, determined to wrestle back another soul from death's grasp.

The crash cart bumped against Elisha's hip as a nurse angled to get it into position for the attending physician.

Like someone standing on the sidelines, watching a nightmare unfold, Elisha began to back away. The fight before her was a futile one. She knew that in her soul. Everything was going on around her in a blur of sounds and colors, none of it making any sense.

Her brain was numb. Her body was numb.

Henry was gone.

And then suddenly, behind her, she heard a small, high-pitched wail, “Daddy!'

Beth's cry halted Elisha's headlong spiral into a bottomless abyss of despair. There wasn't just herself to think of. She couldn't give in to the destructive clawings of grief.

Turning around, she saw that both Andrea and Beth were being ushered in by a distressed-looking Asian woman she vaguely recognized as someone who knew Henry. But no name came to her.

Andrea was holding tightly on to Beth's hand to keep the little girl from pushing through the ring of blue-uniformed people and flinging herself onto her father's bed. Elisha recognized the look on the older girl's face. Andrea was as numb as she was, as disbelieving in what had transpired.

They were both waiting, Elisha thought, for a commercial break to be announced, after which programming would resume as usual and life would return to its normal boundaries. Boundaries within which Henry was still among the living.

Sobs racking her small body, Beth shifted her deep blue eyes to her, as if she expected her to make everything all right. As if she had the power. “Aunt Elisha?”

For a split second, Elisha couldn't move. Couldn't offer any words of consolation.

You're not alone, Lise. You've got nieces to take care of. Henry's girls. They need someone to lean on. It's up to you to be that someone.

And who did she have to lean on? she wanted to cry. Who?

The answer was as self-evident as the emptiness that was still tugging for possession of her soul.

No one.

The lump in her throat still made it impossible for her to speak. But she could act. Elisha opened her arms to her nieces.

Without hesitation, both girls flung themselves into the embrace.

“Is he…?” Andrea couldn't bring herself to finish the statement.

Elisha knew exactly how the girl felt. She bypassed the word that neither one of them wanted to hear. The word she couldn't say. Not yet. Instead, in Henry's honor, she focused on the one positive aspect in the otherwise horrible event.

“He's not suffering anymore.”

“But we are,” Beth sobbed, her small fingers clutching on to her raincoat as she clung to her waist. Her tears dampened the material.

Henry, think like Henry, Elisha schooled herself. “He wouldn't want us to.”

Beth raised her head, her soft cheeks wet with tears. “Then why did Daddy go? Why did he leave Andie and me?”

“He didn't want to, honey. He didn't want to, but he didn't have a choice.” Elisha dropped down on her knees beside the child she was trying to comfort even as her own heart was breaking. Even as her own heart selfishly asked the same questions. “And all of him didn't leave, Beth. He's still here.”

Wiping her face with the back of her hand, Beth blinked, confused. The father she adored was still lying prone on the hospital bed, despite the actions of the people around him. “Where?”

“Here. In your heart.” Elisha lightly tapped the little girl's chest. “And in here.” Her fingers brushed against Beth's temple. “Your daddy will always live on there.”

Beth shook her head. It wasn't enough. “But I want to see him. Talk to him. Go for a walk with him and have him hold my hand.”

So do I, baby. So do I.

“Just close your eyes, Beth.” She had no idea how she was saying this, how she managed to push one word out after another and not have it sound like babble. “Whenever you want to see your daddy, just close your eyes and you'll be able to picture him. He's never going to leave you,” she told the little girl with feeling. “A piece of your father will always be inside of you and inside of Andrea.” She glanced up toward the older girl. Tears were sliding down Andrea's face. “And he'll always be watching over both of you. Because that's the kind of man your daddy was.”

Behind her, activity around Henry's bed had halted. The nurses wilted away in defeat. The physician set down the paddles that had failed to restore a rhythm to his heart. His expression was perfectly stoic as he looked at the young intern beside him. “Call it.”

The latter looked at the clock on the wall directly behind the bed. There was a note of distress as he said, “Three-eighteen.”

Three-eighteen.

From somewhere in her head, a voice arose, much like the voice of a media commentator delivering an endless stream of news:
At three-eighteen the world lost a good person it could ill afford to lose. Henry Reed. We'll not see his like again.

Trembling inside, Elisha rose to her feet again. She put her arms around Beth, holding the little girl to her.

Her eyes met those of the woman who had ushered in the girls. There were tears in her eyes. She was clearly distressed over Henry's passing. Welcome to the club, Elisha thought, her arms tightening around Beth who had begun to sob again.

“I just took the girls to get the something to eat. He told me I should. Henry,” she added in a disoriented voice, in case there was any question as to whom she was referring. “I didn't know…” The woman's voice trailed off as she looked at her helplessly.

“You couldn't have known,” Elisha replied, trying to absolve her of any feelings of guilt. Henry knew he was dying, would die in the next few minutes. That's why he sent the girls away. He didn't want them to see that. She took a breath, trying to steady a voice that kept wanting to crack. “I'm sorry,” she apologized. “I can't seem to remember your name.”

A slight smile quirked the woman's small mouth, indicating she understood. At a time like this, nothing made sense and names of acquaintances were lost in the shuffle. Words gushed out in an effort to make the introduction and subsequent explanation as short as possible.

“I'm Anne Nguyen. I live next door to Henry and the girls. Andrea came to me when Henry collapsed. When the paramedics arrived, they would only let Andrea accompany Henry to the hospital. They said that Beth was too young to ride along, too. Something about violating the rules, so I took Beth and followed the ambulance to the hospital.”

As she spoke, Anne looked toward the bed. They all did.

Henry seemed serene. Almost as if he was just sleeping instead of breaking three hearts and leaving behind a hole that could never be filled. An orderly was taking away the crash cart. There were other patients to treat, other patients to stand vigil over, poised to go into action. Henry didn't need it anymore.

“I didn't even know Henry was sick,” Anne confessed to her.

“Henry never liked to talk about himself,” Elisha murmured. Her mouth curved in a fond, sad smile as she thought of her brother. “Said he didn't want to bore people.”

The physician turned from Henry's bed and looked from one woman to the other, obviously trying to address someone about the man he had failed to revive. After a beat, he crossed to Elisha.

“Are you Mrs. Reed?” he asked Elisha.

“Ms.,” she corrected. “I'm his sister. Henry's wife died five years ago.” Still holding Beth to her, she placed her other arm around Andrea's shoulders. They were rigid, she noted. As if the girl was holding everything in by sheer willpower and if she bent, even a little, she'd shatter.
I know how you feel, Andie.
“These are his daughters, Beth and Andrea.”

The physician frowned ever so slightly, as if this was more information than he wanted. As if this would make everything more personal than he intended it to be.

“I'm very sorry for your loss, Ms. Reed.” He looked somewhat ill at ease with the situation, avoiding eye contact with the girls. “The nurse will be here to help you with the arrangements.”

“Arrangements?” Elisha echoed. What was he talking about? Right now, it was all she could handle just to remember to breathe in and out.

His voice softened. “To have your brother's body removed.”

“For the funeral,” Anne prompted from behind her when she said nothing.

Funeral. Henry's funeral. She hadn't even thought that far ahead.

Because she never wanted this day to get here.

She nodded woodenly. “Right. The funeral. I, um…” She tried to think, to remember where Rachel was buried. Henry had handled all the details for Rachel's funeral and burial. Grieving, he had still managed to take care of everything. Because he had to.

And now it was her turn. Her “had to.” There wasn't anyone else to do it. She certainly couldn't hand over the responsibility to Andrea. Aside from being cowardly, it wouldn't have been fair.

She cleared her throat, then nodded. “Of course. Thank you. I'll speak with her.”

“Fine.” The doctor was already standing in the doorway. He nodded his head quickly, taking his leave. His eyes drifted over to the bed, then retreated and focused on her face. “Again, I'm sorry for your loss.”

Elisha could feel her chest constricting, could literally feel her heart aching.

Not nearly as sorry as I am, Doctor.