Together (6 page)

"That's it! Nelson!"
Smitty clapped his hands, causing Bart to lift his head, curious at the sound.
"Nelson," Smitty said again. "That's exactly who you're going to
be. Bart, my boy, you're going to be Nelson."

The dog tipped his head and took on
a quizzical look, trying to figure out what a Nelson was.

Over the next few days
, he would find out. Smitty had done this before.
Dogs, he knew, could adjust to a different name if it was introduced in the
right way. The approach was to blend the monikers, so as the animal worked,
Smitty would say, "Sit, Bart; down, Nelson," or "Come, Nelson;
heel, Bart," and then gradually phase out the original name.

Over the next two weeks, that's
exactly what the trainer did, and by day fifteen, Bart the black Lab converted
to Nelson, a dog in the N string looking for a new master.

chapter
six

When Mora got the call from Flight
for Life telling her that she could be helicoptered to Grand Junction and St.
Mary's Hospital, her first thought was what to do with Gus. He had a doggy
door, and she could leave him with food, but she went next door and asked a
friendly neighbor to keep an eye on him.

Then she picked up the phone and
called Lindsey, not because she cared whether Lindsey was there or not, but
because she felt the need to do what Brenden would have wanted. Lindsey mattered
to Brenden. She mattered very much. And so Mora made the call.

Lindsey was already in class
listening to a lecture on contracts. When her cell phone buzzed, she climbed
over a few people to leave the room and answer it.

"Hello," she said, with a
tinge of irritation in her voice.

"Lindsey? It's Mora, Brenden's
mother. There has been an accident, and they're bringing him down off the
mountain to St. Mary's Hospital in Grand Junction. They've offered to helicopter
me up there to save time. I thought you might want to come to the house and
join me."

"That's horrible!"
Lindsey said. "Is he all right? Do you know anything?"

"Charlie Evans is with the
climbing team that found him. He says that Brenden is unconscious and probably
suffering from a concussion or more severe head trauma. That's all I know at
the moment. Can you get here quickly?"

The beat before Lindsey responded
took a little too long.

"I think so. Yes. I can join
you. I need to talk to a couple of professors. I mean, we're in the middle of
midterms and everything."

Mora cut her off. "I can't
wait for you, Lindsey. I'm going to go ahead, but I know Brenden would like you
to be there as soon as possible when he wakes up. You know where St. Mary's is
in Grand Junction? It's about a two-hour drive. Get there as quickly as you
can."

Mora hung up, not giving the girl
any time to respond.

Lindsey stood there, the cell phone
in her hand, wondering why she hadn't just said, "I'll be right there,
Mrs. McCarthy." Was she that selfish? The thought lit briefly in her mind
and just as quickly flew out again. After all, she had been worried. In truth,
she hadn't slept all night, wondering where Brenden was and if he was okay. She
put those thoughts aside and returned to contract class, figuring to talk to
her professors at the end of the hour and then head for Grand Junction.

Dr. Mark James, the
neurologist
on call for St. Mary's
Hospital, hated being brought in on cases like this. A young guy unconscious
with head trauma, they told him. Probably hemorrhaging. Probably bleeding
somewhere into the brain. He arrived at the hospital before the helicopter
landed and immediately ordered an MRI after the patient was stabilized.

On the first examination he knew
right away that the patient was in trouble. He was clearly in shock with
extremely low blood pressure. Everything pointed to a very dangerous situation,
and the MRI didn't help. There was major bleeding in the occipital lobe of the
brain, and he knew that they had to try and bring down the edema in the area.
He didn't want to have to operate in that section of the brain. He knew from
past experience that anything could go wrong. So for now he decided to try
medications. Actually, steroids. He chose Decadron, knowing it was fast acting
and time was essential.

This was the worst part of his job:
the waiting. No, actually the worst part of his job was having to talk to
families, which was exactly what he had to do now. A second copter brought the
boy's mother to the hospital, and so, here they were in a stark waiting room
with the doctor aware that he had very little comfort to offer.

Dr. James was struck by the quiet
strength and poise he saw in the face of the woman sitting opposite him.
This is a woman,
he
thought,
who has
seen a lot in her life and, thank God, has good coping skills.
After explaining the injury and the immediate course of treatment for Brenden,
the doctor was impressed with her next question.

"Dr. James," she asked,
"the occipital lobe area of the brain, what does that—I mean, will this
kind of injury affect Brenden's ability to think? Or maybe limit his movement?
I mean paralysis? What are we talking about?"

The doctor took a deep breath.
"Mrs. McCarthy," he said carefully, "this part of the brain
controls the vision center."

The doctor saw the woman's hands
begin to shake slightly as she leaned forward. "You mean, he could be—he
could
be—"
Now her hands went to her face, as if she tried to hold back the Words.

The doctor went on gently.
"The truth is, Mrs. McCarthy, we won't know to what extent Brenden's sight
will be affected until he comes out of the coma. Right now, we're using drugs
to bring down the edema—the swelling on the brain. We simply don't have a clear
picture of his prognosis. We know the occipital lobe has been affected, but
there is no way to truly measure the extent of the damage. The truth is, we
won't know until your son tells us himself."

The woman seemed to pull inside
herself and then quietly asked, "You mean, he'll be blind?"

"It's possible, Mrs. McCarthy,
but until we get the edema under control and induce Brenden's regaining
consciousness, we simply don't know. I'm sorry that I can't be more specific,
but in these cases, we basically have to take a wait-and-see approach."

Mora took a deep breath. "To
see. I suppose that really is the question, isn't it, doctor?"

Brenden's first
awareness was of
movement and
vibration. Then a jarring and the vibration stopped. Then motion again. He was
being moved, his mind only taking in impressions, not thoughts. No clarity.
Just snippets of perception. He fought the haze, then succumbed to it, fought
again and then rested, each time moving a little closer to being aware, swimming
to the surface. He could hear voices, but he could not understand what they
were saying. He lay on a hard surface, and there was a repetitive banging
sound. Was that in his head or from the outside?

Again he felt himself being moved,
and the surface became soft. He felt the needle in his arm but only registered
it as a slight sense of pain and then nothing, as he rested again. Each time he
tried to climb out of the haze, the monumental effort seemed as impossible as
Everest. He wanted to be in the world, but getting there—it was so hard to get
there.

After working things out
with
her professors, Lindsey
Reynolds broke every speed limit as she rocketed toward Grand Junction. She
refused to consider whether it was competitive adrenaline or guilt that drove
her. But as in everything she did, she was in full concentration, driven to the
max by whatever motivated her.

Thankful that she hadn't been
stopped by the highway patrol, she skidded into the parking lot of St. Mary's
after an hour and thirty-seven minutes. As she entered the hospital, she
noticed Charlie Evans's beat-up Ford truck already there. She found the waiting
room and joined the watch-and-wait group.

Not long after she arrived, Dr. James
came out and told them that he was pleased. Twenty-four hours passed with the
patient still unconscious, but a second MRI indicated that the edema was coming
down. On further examination, the patient's eyes were beginning to flutter, and
involuntary muscle spasms suggested definite neurological activity. All very
good signs.

Now
Brenden could hear people
talking, and words began to take shape, though he
could not yet quite connect them into sentences. He could feel the warmth of
the sheets and smell—what was that smell? He remembered.
Hospital.
The days with his father. It was a hospital smell. And now yesterday came back:
the mountain and the fall. His head banging down the rock face.
No! No!
He thought he screamed and then knew he hadn't. He willed himself this time not
to move upward but to sink back into the quiet.
Sleep. To sleep.
He wanted to sleep,
but someone wouldn't let him. Hands gently shook him. Voices were becoming even
more clear.

"He's coming around,"
someone said. "Wake him up. Come on, people. Wake him up."

All right,
he
thought reluctantly,
let's wake up. I can hear everyone, but where are they? My eyes. Let me
rub my eyes.

Slowly, slowly, Brenden's right
hand began to move, and the people in the room saw it with a surge of hope.

"Brenden? Brenden?" Mora
said, leaning even closer to the bed. "Brenden, are you awake?"

His hand reached his eyes and
rubbed them.

"Mother? Mom? Is that
you?"

"Yes, dear," Mora said
softly, "I'm right here. Charlie's here, too, and Lindsey."

He could smell Lindsey's perfume
and heard Charlie cough. But where were they?

He croaked the words out. "I
can't—I can't—see you. You're here. All of you are here, but I can't see
you."

"Brenden, I'm Dr. James."

Someone took his hand.

"You've had a pretty bad bang
on the head, and it may have affected the occipital lobe. Can you understand
me?"

The occipital lobe.
Brenden struggled to work his way out of the haze and grasp what he
was told. "The occipital— The occipital— I can't see anyone. The
occipital—lobe."

"Yes, that's right," the
doctor's voice said. "It's the area of the brain that governs
vision."

The thought seared through the haze
of his concussed state. It was as sharp and clear as an electrical current. It
exploded in his head like a bolt of lightning and expressed itself in a cry so
guttural, so basic in its primitive pain, that no one in the room who heard it
ever forgot it.

"I can't see! I can't see! I'm
blind! Blind! Bl—ind!!"

The shot quickly administered by a
nurse who had seen this before sent Brenden back into blessed sleep.

Dr. James looked at the people in
the room.

"I hate to do that when he's
concussed, but with the bleeding going on, we can't have him upset. That kind
of agitation could cause additional hemorrhaging. I'm sorry, but we're going to
have to put him in restraints."

Lindsey gasped audibly, and Mora
clutched the rails of the bed.

"No," she said, "Dr.
James, you don't have to do that. We'll monitor Brenden. We'll keep him
relaxed."

"I don't think so," the
doctor said quietly. "You all need to understand that this is not just
simple vision loss. It isn't temporary. Your son had it right. Barring a
miracle, he's going to be permanently blind."

chapter
seven

Dark. Darkness.
I will forever live in a state of darkness. To be blind means to live in the
dark. To never see the light. To never know a sunrise. Never see color—the gold
of the aspens in the fall; the blue of the ocean; the reds, yellows, purples,
and oranges. To never see a sunset. Being blind is to never see a smile or to
see my Lindsey's eyes when they dance at the pleasure of a joke I've told.

I am blind. I
won't live like this. I can't
live
like this. Life, my life isn't
worth living if it's going to be like this, if I'm going to exist in a constant
state of darkness, never being able to see the light.

Brenden McCarthy thought all of
these things as the reality of his situation began to replace the haze of
concussion. He tried to sleep to blank out the pain of his thoughts, but the
pain was overwhelming, and it enveloped him in an impenetrable blanket of
self-pity. No one could touch him. Love could not breach the walls he built up.

Already he had constructed a
personal identity that said he would never be a doctor, and he would never
treat patients. He would never even be able to care for himself. He would be
forever helpless, dependent, worthless, handicapped, blind. From Superman with
super thoughts and dreams, hopes and ideas, Brenden had become Clark
Kent—invisible, vacuous, disconnected—and all of this occurred in an accident
that took only five seconds.

He expressed none of these
emotions. Time had not yet allowed him to come to terms with his feelings, much
less to communicate them, and so he did not speak. Not to his mother, who
constantly sat at the end of his bed, or to Charlie, who hovered at the far
side of the room, or to Lindsey. He registered that Lindsey came and went, like
a restless bird, not willing to perch or nest.

He registered this information but
did not indicate he knew. He worked to keep his eyes closed, pretending to be
asleep, wanting to remain alone. He heard their muffled conversations,
wondering oddly if his newly acquired blindness already improved his capacity
to listen. They spoke quietly, sometimes with each other in shorthand and
sometimes with the doctor, a good man who came in twice a day to check on him.

When that man asked him how he was
doing, the manners that his mother had so diligently worked to teach him
instinctively took over. He said he was fine, that nothing hurt, that he wanted
to go home as soon as possible, and then when the doctor left, he would turn
his face to the wall, especially after the physician confirmed to all of them
that the damage to the occipital
lobe, causing his
blindness, would quite likely be permanent. Surprisingly, they did not press
him. In fact, they, too, seemed uncomfortable about sharing any conversation
that would open up the floodgates to feelings so new and not yet understood.

He heard them
discussing the preparations they were making with the hospital's rehab people
regarding what they might do to make his homecoming easier. They would be
signing him up for adult classes in mobility and rehabilitation. His mother
talked about finding a counselor who would help him begin to move forward with
his life. Charlie even talked about things that they could still do together.

Brenden heard
it all, absorbed it, and then threw it all away. He was blind, and that meant
life was over. Oh sure, he had read about people like Helen Keller, who
overcame her double disability; Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles, who were
remarkably gifted in music; and there was even this guy, Eric Weihenmayer, who
recently climbed Mount Everest. But they weren't Brenden McCarthy, and he
wasn't willing even to try to get his life back. What was the point? God had
dumped him on that mountain, and so he would quit, give up.

Lying there
in his hospital bed, the weight of his situation crushing his chest, crushing
his heart, he was sure that God would not punish him for wanting to escape.
Wasn't it God who had caused his injury? And so shouldn't God cut him a little
slack, forgive him for his sin and grant him his place in heaven?

Visiting
hours finally ended, and the blessed night settled over the hospital. He was so
glad his mother and Charlie had gone back to the motel and he was alone. And
where was Lindsey? He didn't know, and his recognition that she wasn't there
profoundly deepened his sense of hopelessness and self-pity.

Time moved
slowly because he was unable to sleep, and in that state he found himself
unable to shut off his mind. For the hundredth time, he considered how he could
bring his now worthless life to an end. He wished that his head had split wide
open in the fall. He so wished that he had died that way, certainly causing his
mother grief, but nowhere near as much as she would feel when he acted on the
decision he knew he was going to make.

How to end it,
he
thought.
How to rid the world of a useless young man with an
infirmity. How to check out of my personal existence.

The limitations
of his blindness reduced his choices, even in this ultimate act. He knew from
listening to conversations that he was on the second floor of the hospital,
probably not high enough to jump, even if he could find and then open a window.
There were no pills available, and nothing sharp within his reach. So what did
all that mean? He would have to go home and work on his demise from there. And
yet that wouldn't be right. It wouldn't be fair to his mother. No. He would
have to create an alternative, and that would require him to at least tacitly
begin some kind of rehabilitation process, even if it only meant that it got
him out of his house and into a different environment. So tomorrow he would go
home, and then he thought of a phrase that almost made him laugh. He would keep
his eyes open—
ha!
—until he found the opportunity
to—
what?
He knew the inevitable answer to that question.

How
MANY DAYS HAD IT
been?
Mora wondered as Charlie drove her back to the motel
where they had been staying. She actually couldn't remember. Time ceased to
exist, and like her son, day and night did not seem to have any significance.
The world turned, but hers stopped. She had buried her husband, and now what?
What did the fates—or more relevant to her, faith—really mean? What did God
have in mind? What test was she expected to cope with now? What was she
supposed to learn?

After
thanking Charlie and closing the door to her room, she flopped onto the bed and
buried her face in the pillows. She wanted to scream. She wanted God to hear.
She wanted him to know how unfair it all was.
I
could cope with Brian's death
, she thought,
but
my son being blind; I don't know if I can handle that. More to the point, I
don't know if he can. Or even more to the point, I don't know if he has the will.

Her thoughts
somehow became a prayer.
Dear God, please give Brenden the
strength to understand the way and to accept his burden as your will. Amen.
Like a hamster on a wheel, the
thought kept revolving—the same prayer over and over again.

Over the last
few days, she had done what she always did—jump into any crisis and try to
become organized. She had talked to the Colorado Rehabilitation Center for the
Blind and been referred to a counselor in Denver, who surprised her when he
spoke by telling her that Brenden's reaction was not particularly unusual.

"There
has to be a grieving period," he said, "and from what little I know
about your son, there also has to be some time to allow anger to be expressed.
Stabilizing him psychologically will take time, Mrs. McCarthy. It's a long road
with a great many pitfalls, but we'll work on it together, one step at a
time."

"Is
there anything I should be doing? I mean, in terms of preparing our house for
his coming home?"

The man on
the other end laughed softly. "I'm sorry, Mrs. McCarthy. I didn't mean to
laugh. It's just that people ask me that all the time. What's most important
for your son and for any newly blind person is that everything in his
surroundings be the same as he remembers when he was sighted. We'll be trying
to plug his new, developing sensory capacity and mobility into the mental
pictures of environments that he already had before his accident."

"Thank
you," Mora said, understanding. "I'll just try to make it like
home."

"That's
worth a lot, Mrs. McCarthy. Love is always the best cure-all."

Lindsey
had been in and
out of the hospital for the last
three days, and as she drove home to Denver, this time obeying the speed
limits, she was angry at herself. Why had she been so uncomfortable with
Brenden and his mother?
Of course I'm worried,
she
thought.
I love Brenden. I want him to get well, to see again. Is
that it? Am I so selfish that if he's not perfect, I can't handle it? Do I not
have the patience or goodness or love to share my life with someone who
—she
nearly choked on the words—
is handicapped?

She pulled
her car into a rest stop as the tears started to come. Were they tears of
sadness or tears of disgust at the kind of person she was being forced to face?
Eventually, she shook off her malaise and framed her own reality.
It isn't
wrong,
she thought to herself.
I'm not wrong if I'm not sure I
can cope with this. I have hopes and dreams and goals of my own. If I can't
handle the idea that someone I wanted to marry is going to be blind, that
doesn't make me a bad person. Almost anyone with a life to live would feel the
same way.

Her cell
phone buzzed.

"Lindsey?
It's Andrea. Are you going to make study group? We really need your precedent
brief."

Lindsey was
glad for the diversion.

"I'll be
there," she said. "Tell everyone not to worry. Lindsey the litigator
will be there."

That's who
she was going to be: a lady lawyer litigator, driven to be a lioness in court,
a winner in life, and a woman with an unswerving determination to be the best.

Brenden was back at home
and in his bedroom. Another
day. Another night. He didn't care. Nature was challenging his bladder, and he
knew he had to deal with it. Earlier they had wheeled him out of the hospital,
a requirement of the medical protocol, right to his mother's car, so all he had
to do was get in and ride.

Arriving
home, Charlie nearly carried him up to his room, both of them feeling
completely awkward, not understanding how to move together. The newly blinded
young man was hesitant to put one foot in front of the other, and his friend
treated him as if he were a crystal vase. At last his mother kissed him good
night and went to bed, and now he would have to make his first independent
voyage.

Where was the bathroom?
he thought, trying to picture it.
Out
the door, down the hall, to the right.
That's what he remembered. Hands out in front of him,
he moved hesitantly toward the door, but his angle was wrong, and he knocked a
picture off his bureau— a picture of Lindsey, he knew—beautiful, independent,
wonderful Lindsey. He hadn't heard from her today. That didn't really surprise
him.

Finding the
knob, he stepped into the hall and turned left. One, two, three, four, five
steps. The door to the bathroom should be on his right. Extending his hands,
the feeling of the mountain returned. His toes rocked over the edge, and he
teetered precariously on the stairway.

Instinct took
over as he fought to maintain his balance, throwing himself backward. He slid
down the first three stairs on his rear and stopped. Gus got to him first. He
loved this little dog, and the animal's concern immediately registered as he
licked Brenden's face. His mother was right behind.

"Oh my—
Brenden! Are you all right?"

"Oh
sure," he said quickly. "I'm fine. Sorry, Mom. I guess I just turned
the wrong way and forgot to turn the light on."

Neither one
of them laughed at his effort to make a joke.

His mother
helped him to the bathroom and then back to his bedroom, and for the first time
in his life, Gus stayed with him, crawling up under the covers and snuggling
close.

"Hey,
Gus," Brenden said, "what are you going to do, become a seeing-eye
dog? I think you're a little small for the work."

The dog
licked him again.

"You
know what?" Brenden told the animal in the dark. "You shouldn't waste
your time on me. I'm not worth it, and I'm not going to be around for very
long."

The animal
cuddled into the man's shoulder, making it clear that he didn't agree.

chapter eight

By late-night
stealth, a dozen roses for his secretary, and forged paperwork, Smitty once
again enrolled Nelson, aka Bart, into the guide dog program. And the animal
reluctantly took his place in the kennel with dogs on a string that were in
stage three. Smitty hoped against hope for a student in his next class who
would have the skills and drive to handle this most special animal. For now he
would work Nelson as a part of his string and say a small prayer.

Smitty loved
training guide dogs. He loved it because he felt it was the highest form of
human-animal bonding. He also loved it because he knew that these remarkable
creatures gave without question once they committed to their masters.
"Love in its purest form," he always told friends. "That's what
we see when we work with these dogs, love in its purest form."