The Walk (7 page)

I hated to leave her alone, but I had no choice. It would have to happen someday. “You sure you’ll be all right today?”

“Yes. We need to get used to this,” she said.

I kissed her on the forehead, then went to get myself ready. While I was showering, McKale screamed, “Al! Come here, quick!”

I pulled a towel around myself and rushed dripping wet into the room. McKale was smiling. It was the first time I had seen her smile since the accident.

“What?”

“Look,” she said. To my amazement one of McKale’s legs was moving. “Something’s happening.”

“Do you have feeling in it?”

“No. But it feels like it wants to move.”

My heart leapt. It was the first hope I’d felt in weeks. “Whatever you’re doing,” I said, “just keep doing it.”

“I’m not doing anything,” she said. “It just started moving on its own.”

Finally,
I thought,
something good has happened. Thank
you, God.

Fortunately our bad credit hadn’t entirely caught up to us before I had leased a handicap van. I had gone from a luxury sports car to a handicap van. It was a fitting symbol of our new reality.

I arrived at the office at ten minutes to nine. The place looked as if it had been deserted during a lunch break. The lights and computers were still on. Pens and papers were still at desks. It was like one of those episodes of
Unsolved Mysteries
. Unfortunately this was no mystery. It was Kyle. More than half the awards were gone, leaving bare hooks on the conference room wall. In my office, someone had gone through my file cabinet, and there were file folders scattered around my desk. My Rolodex was missing.

I was still in my office when Falene opened the front door. I walked out to meet her. She smiled wryly when she saw me. “Welcome back,” she said. We embraced. “I tried to tell you.”

“I know.” I looked around the office. “Looks like the Grinch struck early.”

“He even took the last can of Who-Hash.” She shook her head. “Speaking of Grinch, did you ever talk to creepy Kyle?”

“Yes.”

“What did he say?”

“Basically, he said he left because I had abandoned the agency. He only had the clients’ best interests at
heart.”

“Wow, what a hero,” she said snidely. “Typical Kyle spin. The only interest Kyle has ever had is his own. You know, he started this before McKale was hurt.”

I looked at her in surprise. “What?”

“The day before you pitched Wathen, he told me what he was doing and asked if I would go with him. I was going to tell you after the Wathen pitch. But then everything went crazy.”

This revelation put everything into perspective. “That freaking weasel,” I said. I looked down at my desk and wondered if Kyle himself had ransacked it.

“A weasel he is,” Falene said. She rested her hands on her hips. “So where do we begin, boss?”

“I want you to call our client list and set up meetings with anyone who will meet with me.”

“Do I have permission to use guilt?”

“Absolutely. Do we have any new leads?”

“There have been a few inquiries. No one big, but they can help keep the lights on. I have them written down in my office. I was keeping them from Kyle.”

“Good girl.”

We walked off to our separate offices. I spent the morning following up leads and talking to Steve, our accountant. Financially, things weren’t quite as grim as it had seemed, not good, but not totally catastrophic either. At least not yet. Several large receivables had come in, and we had about twelve thousand dollars in the bank—
enough to cover our payables. Around two o’clock, Falene came into my office.

“I’m headed down for a salad. Want something?”

“Thanks, but I need to go home and check on McKale. How are the calls going?”

“Okay. Wathen says he’s very sorry, but they’re just too far along to change course. But he’ll keep us in mind for future projects.”

I shook my head. “It’s only been four weeks.”

“I know. He sounded kind of dodgey. I’m sure Kyle’s been working him over. But Coiffeur, iTex, and DynaTech are willing to meet next week.”

“It’s a start. Good job, Falene.”

“Thanks. And how is McKale?”

I smiled. “Her leg was moving this morning.”

“That’s wonderful, isn’t it?”

“It makes everything else seem manageable.” I stood and began gathering a few files to take with me.

“Will you be coming back today?”

“Tomorrow,” I said.

“I’ll see you tomorrow then. And don’t worry, Al. We’ll make it. We’ll make Madgic bigger than it was before.”

I looked up and smiled at her. “By the way, I’m promoting you to Vice President.”

A broad smile crossed her face. “Thank you.” She hugged me. “See? Things are looking up already.”

McKale was sitting in her wheelchair in the den when I got home. She had a book in her lap, but she wasn’t reading. She was just staring ahead at the wall. “Hey, girl,” I said. “I’m home.”

She slowly turned to look at me. Her leg was still moving, but her smile was gone. “I wish the fall had killed me.”

“McKale . . .”

Her eyes watered. “This is my new life, pushing around the house, chained to this chair.”

I put my arms around her. “Give it some time.”

She looked down. “I’m sorry, I don’t feel well,” she said softly. “I think I have a fever.”

I kissed her forehead then felt it with my cheek. Her skin was moist and very hot. “You’re burning. Why didn’t you call me?”

“You have so much work. I didn’t want to bother you.”

“Come on, Mickey, you know better than that. I better check your temperature. Where do we keep the thermometer?”

“It’s downstairs in the guest room medicine cabinet.”

I retrieved the thermometer and held it under her tongue. She was running a temperature of 104°. “You’re hot. I better call the doctor,” I said.

I couldn’t get hold of Dr. Hardman, but the doctor
on call told me to bring her in. Forty-five minutes later, I checked McKale back into the Overland emergency room. The staff checked her vitals, blood pressure, and temperature, then took blood and urine samples. Her fever had risen to 105°.

Within a half hour, Dr. Probst, a compact red-head in his late fifties, had her moved from the ER to the ICU where they put tubes back into her arms and a PIC line directly into her jugular vein, to fill her with antibiotics. The staff moved in a quiet, urgent manner, and the more I watched, the more concerned I became. I stayed by McKale’s side the whole time, holding her hand. She said very little through it all, though she moaned occasionally. When the motion had settled a little, the doctor asked to speak to me outside the room.

“You’re her partner?” he asked.

“I’m her husband. What’s happening?”

“It appears your wife has developed a urinary tract infection from her catheter. Unfortunately it’s gotten into her bloodstream, and she’s septic.” He looked at me as if waiting for the gravity of his words to settle.

“What does that mean? You give her more antibiotics?”

He looked at me solemnly. “This is extremely serious. We could lose her.”

“Lose her? It’s just an infection.”

“Infections are never that simple, especially when the body has already been weakened. When they reach this stage, they’re very dangerous.”

“So what do you do?”

“We’ve upped her antibiotics. She’s on a pretty powerful dosage. Now we carefully monitor her and wait to see how her body responds. We’ve also sedated her. A fever this high can be quite uncomfortable.”

I raked my hair back with my hand. “I can’t believe this. This morning we were celebrating. Her leg was moving. We thought she was gaining her nerves back.”

“Involuntary muscle spasms,” he said. “It’s caused by the infection.” He had a strained, worried look in his eyes that made me wonder if he was holding back. “I just want you to be prepared.” He touched my shoulder then turned and walked away. I watched him go, then I walked down to the men’s room. It was a one-occupant bathroom, and I locked the door, then knelt on the tile floor and began to pray.

“God, if you’re there, I’ll give you anything. Just spare her life. I beg you, don’t take her from me.” I was on my knees for another ten minutes, until someone tried the door.

How much more humble can you be
, I thought.
Kneeling on the floor of a public bathroom. Surely God would hear my prayer.
But the truth is, I felt like I was praying to nothing. I might as well have been praying to the urinal. I got up and went back in to McKale’s room. She looked paler already.

“What did he say?” she asked softly.

I didn’t want to frighten her. “He said it’s just a little infection.”

“It doesn’t feel so little . . . ,” she said, grimacing. She looked up at me. “You must be so tired of all this.”

I took her hand. “I’m tired of you going through all this.”

“It won’t be much longer,” she said.

I looked at her quizzically. “What do you mean?”

She closed her eyes. “Stay close to me.”

The painkillers did their job, and McKale slept for three more hours. Her temperature had fallen back down to 104° but no lower. Everything else seemed to stay the same, which I suppose was a mixed blessing.

It was around nine or so when she opened her eyes. They were heavy with fever. She tried to speak, but her words were labored and slurred, and, at first, I couldn’t understand her. I put my ear next to her mouth. “What did you say?”

Her voice was barely a whisper. “Orcas Island.”

I looked at her quizzically. “What?”

“That’s where I was going to take you.”

Orcas Island is the largest of the San Juan islands, located off the northern coast of Washington. We had celebrated my college graduation there, staying in a bed and breakfast built from a restored farm house. It was one of my fondest memories. I had never been more happy or felt more in love.

“Do you know when I knew I would marry you?”

“When?”

“That day in the tree house. You said you’d never leave me.” Her brow furrowed, likely as much from pain as concentration. “Do you remember?”

“Yes.”

She swallowed. “You never did.”

“And I never will.”

After a moment she said, “I’m leaving you.” I looked into her face. Her eyes were brimming with tears.

“Don’t talk that way, McKale.”

“Promise me . . .”

“Don’t, Mickey . . .”

“Please. Promise me two things.”

My heart was racing. “What?”

“Don’t leave me.”

“I’ll never leave you. You know that.”

She swallowed. “I don’t want to die alone.”

Her words sent a chill through me. “Mickey, don’t say that. You’re not going to die.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re going to beat this. We’re going to beat this.”

“Okay. Okay.” Her words sounded more like pants. She closed her eyes again. A few minutes later a nurse came in. She checked the monitors and frowned.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Her blood pressure’s falling.”

“What does that mean?”

She hesitated. “I’m getting the doctor.” She walked out of the room.

A minute later, McKale opened her eyes, but she didn’t look at me, and she didn’t speak.

“You can’t leave me, Mick. I can’t live without you.” She silently looked into my eyes. “If only I had stayed home like you wanted, we wouldn’t be here.”

She gripped my hand the best she could.

A tear fell down my cheek, and I furtively wiped it away. I looked into her face. “Mickey. What was the other thing?”

She didn’t respond.

“You said you wanted me to promise you two things. What’s the other thing?”

She looked down for a moment, swallowed, then pursed her lips together, slowly moving them. I put my ear next to her mouth. “What, honey?”

The word seemed like an expulsion. “Live.”

I pulled back and looked into her eyes, then she closed hers. The nurse walked back in with the doctor. “You’ll need to step back, please,” the doctor said.

The doctor gave McKale an injection through her I.V., then took the ventilator tube and carefully inserted it through McKale’s mouth and down her throat. My mind was swimming. Things were happening that shouldn’t be happening. Her body was shutting down. I don’t remember the exact sequence of events. It came at me like a dream where time moved one frame at a time, and disjointed, disembodied phrases hung in
the air.

“She’s in shock.”

“Still dropping.”

“Heart rate is dropping.”

The motion in the room continued in a growing climax, a swirling, frenzied dance of activity. Then McKale started to breathe differently. She was taking long, strained gasps of air with long pauses between breaths.

“Respiratory failure.”

Then came the most frightening sound of all. A single, loud beeping noise joined the cacophony.

“She’s going into cardiac arrest.”

The doctor frantically began performing CPR. After a minute, he shouted, “Shut off that thing.” The beeping stopped. He kept pressing on her chest.