Unexpected Dismounts (20 page)

“Fine,” I said. “Please do it. What do you need me to sign?”

He motioned to a nurse behind the counter and she handed him a form. “He might recall some details in the next few days, or he might not.” He smiled the smile that had probably gotten him into medical school, the one that would make him a great doctor when he grew up. “Some details are better not remembered, you know?”

That seemed to be the consensus among everyone in my life who’d been kicked in the stomach in one way or another in the past two days. I’d love to forget some of it myself.

When I got back to Desmond’s cubicle, they were taking him off for his scan. I asked Owen to go with him and I went in search of the nurse who had told me she couldn’t tell me anything about Chief. My own shock was wearing off, and I was ready to yank somebody up by the front of her scrubs to get her attention.

Nicholas Kent met me at the double doors marked TRAUMA and pushed them open as I approached.

“You can see him through the glass,” he said, “but they’re still working on him.”

“What does that mean?” I said to his back as he led me down an eerily shiny hallway and into a dimly lit area where the only light came from the other side of a window.

“I’m not sure,” he said. “Except that he’s alive and they think they can do something for him?”

His youth curled itself right around my heart. He was trying so hard to be kind. I started to cry without a sound.

He nodded toward the window at the long limp form that I could only assume was Chief. No one actually seemed to be “working on” him. There were certainly no more orifices they could put tubes into, no more veins they could open to needles, no more wires they could attach to computers to make them blink green lines and numbers that meant nothing to me.

“Which one is the heart monitor?” I whispered to Nicholas.

“I think that one,” he said, pointing.

A fragile line moved in what seemed to me an untrustworthy rhythm across a screen. I watched it go until I couldn’t see it for the tears. As long as that line continued its path, no matter how erratic, I could still breathe. But without Chief, I didn’t know if I could.

Shoes squeaked on the floor behind us and I steeled myself to resist being tossed back into the waiting room. But an unthreatening voice said, “Are you Allison?”

The shoes belonged to a man in his late forties wearing rumpled scrubs and a surgical cap from which gray curls poked their way wherever they could find an escape.

“I’m Dr. Doyle,” he said. “I understand you and my sister know each other.”

I couldn’t put that together.

“Liz Doyle.”

“Oh, of course, I’m sorry.“

“No worries.” His eyes blinked rapidly. He wasn’t making it up; he was definitely related to Liz.

“You’re Mr. Ellington’s significant other,” he said.

“I … Yeah, that would be me.”

“I think HIPAA would consider you a relative. Would you like to know—”

“Yes, and in the next ten seconds, starting with if he’s going to live.”

He didn’t give me the unqualified yes I knew my face begged for.

“I can’t assure you of that,” he said. “But I can tell you the next best thing, and that is that we don’t know.”

How that could be the next best thing I had no idea. I wanted to grab him and shake him and make him tell me something better. What I wanted more was for Chief to be standing next to me, touching my elbow to keep me from doing it.

“First of all, it’s good that he was wearing a helmet or I guarantee you he wouldn’t have made it. However, he is in a coma.”

I gasped.

“I know that word is frightening, so let me just try to explain it for you.”

I thought I said, “Okay.”

“Your brain sits in a kind of soup. It isn’t attached to your skull. When your head comes to a stop abruptly, like in an accident such as this one, your brain can bang against the inside of your skull, which is what more than likely happened to Mr.—”

“Chief,” I said. “He likes to be called Chief.”

“Good to know. I’ll tell the nurses that when we get him into ICU. They’ll want to call him by the name he’s comfortable with when they talk to him.”

“When he comes out of the coma,” I said.

“While he’s in the coma.”

“Which is going to be for how long?”

“I honestly don’t know. The CT shows a great deal of swelling, and what we’re worried about there is that the pressure of the brain against the skull will deprive the brain of its blood supply.”

“You’re saying he could have brain damage.”

“He could. There’s also a chance he won’t. No way to tell until he wakes up, and again, I don’t know when that will be.”

So, basically, he didn’t know anything that could stop my heart from trying to slam its way out of my chest.

“There is one piece of excellent news, though,” he said.

“Yeah?” Nicholas said.

I’d all but forgotten he was there.

“The swelling doesn’t involve the brain stem, so he’s able to breathe on his own. We feel like he’s stable enough for surgery on his leg.”

“His leg?” I said.

“He suffered a fracture, so we’re going to have to stabilize it with a rod. Then we’ll take him to Neuro-ICU.” His face softened beneath the pokey curls. “I’ll put you on the list of people who can spend short periods of time with him, and I encourage you to talk to him as if he’s awake. Studies have shown that’s associated with positive outcomes. If you and his family can rotate so there’s someone with him for some portion of every hour, that would be optimum.”

I nodded, but I was wondering for the first time if Chief even had any family. I knew so little about him.

“Any questions for me?”

I knew my face was vague. All I could do was look at him.

“This is a lot to absorb,” he said. “I need to go consult with the orthopedic surgeon, but please get my number from the nurse at the desk. You can call me as questions come up in your mind. Okay?”

I suddenly wanted to lean right into this unkempt man and stay there until Chief woke up. When did I become so needy? When did I get to the place where I was strangled by the very thought of losing someone?

“How’s your boy doing?” Dr. Doyle said.

Desmond. I had to get back to Desmond. And I couldn’t do it groping for air.

I tried to straighten my shoulders. “Okay, I think. I need to go see how his CT scan went.”

He shook my hand and Nicholas’s and squeaked off down the hall. Nicholas kneaded his uniform hat between his palms.

“Can I do anything else for you?” he said.

I took his hint and moved with him to the double doors. “I want to know how this happened, Nicholas. Chief is an expert rider. He and that bike are like one. Oh.”

“What?” he said.

I stopped with the door pushing against me. “They were on
my
bike. I made him take it. This is my fault.”

Nicholas nodded at the disgruntled nurse who was staring at the open door and gingerly touched my arm to steer me toward a waiting area.

“I don’t see this being your fault,” he said. “In the first place? I mean, I don’t know him that well, but I’m not sure anybody makes Jack Ellington do anything he doesn’t want to do.”

“Then what happened? Desmond doesn’t remember anything. At least, that’s what he tells me.”

“You think it’s true?”

“I don’t know why he’d lie. He usually tells me more than I really want to know about anything.”

Nicholas tried a smile on me. I saw it and burst into tears again. Big sobs that made him look like a new father with a screaming infant on his hands.

“Is there somebody I can call?” he said.

“I’ll be okay,” I said, snot already pouring from my nose. “I need to focus on Desmond.”

“I’ll see what I can find out from the officers on the scene.” Nicholas straightened his shoulders. “You want me to walk you back to the ER?”

I shook my head. “I just need to sit here for a minute.”

I waited until his footsteps faded before I sank my face into my hands. The fact of my aloneness contracted inside me, a pain that went on and on until I nearly cried out
Dear God.

He answered anyway. He said,
It hurts, doesn’t it?

I knew it would. I knew it would hurt to love like this. That was why I had pushed it away for so long, because I knew it could make me writhe like I was in an endless act of giving birth.

“Why did you change me?” I whispered into my palms.
I was doing what you asked of me. Why couldn’t I do it without …

I don’t do my work without love. How can you?

The next spasm went so deep I doubled over in the chair.

“Are you all right?”

I pulled my head up and found myself nose to badge with Detective Kylie.

“Sorry to disturb you, Miss Chamberlain,” he said. “I need to ask you a few questions.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

That was Detective Kylie. It was so like him to go directly from “Are you all right?” to “You have the right to remain silent.” At least it felt that way, even when he said, “I know this is a bad time, but I only need a few minutes.”

“I don’t have a few minutes,” I said. “I need to get to my son.”

“He’s okay. I just talked to him.”

“Without me there?”

“His grandfather was with him.”

“His gr—” I stopped myself. He had to be talking about Owen.

Detective Kylie shrugged. “All he would tell me was that one minute they were riding and the next minute they weren’t.”

“Then that’s all he remembers,” I said. “And from now on, don’t talk to him without me present. Are we clear?”

My own clarity was a surprise to me. The Chief-pain dulled to an ache as my mind came to a point on Desmond.

“I understand your concern,” Kylie said. “Did he tell you any more than that?”

“No.”

“If he does, I would appreciate your letting me know.”

I didn’t answer.

“Look, I know you and I don’t see eye to eye on some things, but I’m trying to determine whether we need to be looking for a hit-and-run driver.”

I sat up straight.
“You mean, someone caused the accident and then took off?”

“We’re not even sure it was an accident. Two witnesses at the scene said they thought the other driver deliberately caused Jack to swerve and lose control.”

The pain wrenched at me again. “Why would someone do that?”

“That’s where I hoped you could help me out. Do you know anyone who would want to see Jack … out of the picture? Maybe a disgruntled former client?”

“Good grief, no. He’s not even a criminal lawyer. It’s not like he puts people behind bars.”

“Anything of a personal nature? An old boyfriend of yours who’s jealous of your relationship with Jack?”

“No. Look, everyone likes Chief. He’s a paragon of integrity in this town.”

Detective Kylie closed his notepad. “Some people hate integrity, especially when it gets in their way.”

“To my knowledge he hasn’t gotten in anybody’s way.” I fought to keep my voice steady. “But if I find out anything I
will
let you know. And when he wakes up, he’ll probably be able to tell us exactly who it was. Chief is always aware of his surroundings. He doesn’t miss anything.”

Kylie drew his eyebrows together.

“What?” I said.

“Both witnesses said just before the car went for them, Chief turned his head like he was trying to look at Desmond.”

I tried, but I couldn’t imagine Chief doing that. I pulled in air, once, twice, but I couldn’t push back the pain. I always thought I would be the one to have the unexpected dismount that landed me in the ICU. Not Chief.

“Who were the witnesses?” I said.

He hesitated before he opened his pad again. “Ulysses Hickman and Stan Wentworth. The officers said they both sat with Desmond because he wouldn’t leave Jack’s side for the paramedics to assess him. They had to do it right there.”

I clamped my hands behind my neck and stared at the ceiling and wished he would go away before he told me one last thing that might send me over the edge.

“That’s it for now,” he said. “I might want to question you about this rape you reported last night, but that can wait.”

Could it? I thought, as he left me in the waiting area squeezing my elbows together to keep from coming apart. Could any of it wait? Ophelia’s rape. Zelda’s sentencing. Priscilla Sanborn’s intentions for my son. Was all of that going to take a hiatus while I kept a vigil at Chief’s bedside and begged him to come back? Each one of those desperate things stretched its hands out to me, but even as I stretched back to them in my mind, my fingers couldn’t reach them. If they had, I knew we would only end up in a tangle of need I couldn’t meet.

One creamy-palmed hand did touch mine from the end of a lanky adolescent arm. I got up and went to find it.

The sun was just leaving Matanzas Bay to a silhouette of boat masts when Owen got us back to Palm Row. All the way Desmond sat in a curl in the backseat saying nothing, which of all the things I’d experienced in the last twenty-four hours was the most disturbing. Owen filled me in on the interview with Detective Kylie, including his posing as Desmond’s grandfather. It had gone down just as Kylie said, which instilled a fragment of trust there.

Owen offered to take Desmond home with him, but I declined. I needed to keep him next to me. I hadn’t told anyone about Priscilla’s visit yet, but somewhere in the painful reality of the day, the stark realization had come to me that Desmond must have recognized her that morning. Hence, “Don’t have nothin’ to do with that woman.”

Desmond went straight to his room and I let him. We needed to be alone before I broached the subject with him, and the house was full of people. Nita and Leighanne had taken Ophelia out to eat, but Hank was in the kitchen preparing a meal for Desmond and me, and Jasmine, Mercedes, and Sherry were gathered in the dining room, heads bowed around the table, lips moving soundlessly.

“They’ve been praying for an hour,” Hank whispered to me.

The smell of leather led me to the living room, where Stan and Rex sat with Ulysses in front of an untouched loaf of Italian bread and a saucer of olive oil. I sat on the arm of the red chair and Stan put his arm around my waist. All my reasons for usually smacking him for doing that blew away like dust.

“We’ve been going over it and over it,” Stan said. “And we just can’t figure out what happened to save our life.”

I wanted them to go over it one more time, for me, but what came out of my mouth was, “We have to be his family.”

“You got that right,” Ulysses said. “He doesn’t have much of one. An ex-wife’s all I know about.”

Stan gave a grunt. “We won’t be calling her.”

I thought with a stab that I didn’t even know there was one not to call.

“No parents, no siblings,” Ulysses said. “You’re right, girl, we
are
his family.”

“Who sign for his treatment?” Rex said.

They all looked at me, but I had to shake my head. “All I know is that someone can be with him for fifteen minutes every hour, and that when we’re there, we should talk to him like he’s awake. They say that’ll maybe bring him out faster.”

They waited while I pulled my voice back from the edge it teetered on. Their respect for my pain made it even harder to speak.

I managed, “Do we know anybody who would want to see Chief hurt?”

“No,” Stan said, “but I know who I want to hurt when they find him, and that’s that limo driver.”

“What limo?” I said.

Ulysses frowned at Stan. “It was a Lincoln Town Car.”

“Yeah, but they were using it like a limo. Who sits in the backseat while somebody else drives unless it’s a limo?”

“How could you see anybody in the backseat?” Ulysses said. “The windows were tinted.”

“Because the dude in the back rolled his window down about that much.” Stan held his index finger and thumb several inches apart. “I couldn’t see his face. He had on shades and a hat. But there was definitely somebody sitting back there.”

“
What
limo!” I pressed the heel of my hand against my forehead. “I’m sorry. I’m a little freaked out.”

“The car that ran Chief off the road,” Stan said. “It was a limo, Town Car. Whatever.” He gave Ulysses a look. “With a driver in front and a guy in the backseat.”

“And you saw him?” I said.

“Just the top of his head basically. I was too far away for a good look.”

“Dinner’s almost ready,” Hank said from the doorway. “You people need nourishment. We have a long haul ahead of us.”

She rested her dark eyes on me and I had to nod. I didn’t know how I was going to eat with my insides cramped into a knot, but I didn’t know how to get out of it either. Not with Hank speaking her love language all the way to the table.

Nita brought Ophelia back around eight. I hadn’t had time to figure out where to put her, and at the moment, whether Vickie Rodriguez approved was at the bottom of my priority list. With Priscilla Sanborn now in the picture, Vickie was likely to hear all kinds of tales that would top that anyway. I got Ophelia settled in the bedroom I’d used for Geneveve and later for Zelda, and hoped the outcome would be better for her.

I bade her good night and started to snap out the light by the door, but from the bed she said, “I heard them calling you ‘Miss Angel.’”

I tried to smile at her. “It isn’t because I am one, I can tell you that.”

She looked into her lap. Her dark hair grazed her shoulders. “I just want to know if I have to be one.”

“If that were true, none of us would be in the House, including me.”

“What
do
I have to do, then? To stay here.”

I opened my mouth and hoped something coherent would come out.

“Be honest,” I said. “With us. With yourself. With God.”

“I have to believe in God? Nita and them, they told me I needed a Higher Power. They didn’t say it was God.”

I so didn’t want to have this conversation right now, but I crossed to the bed and put my hand on her forehead and said the only thing that came into my too-crowded mind.

“If you have issues with God, we’ll sort that out,” I said. “For now, knowing you can’t do it alone is enough.”

She nodded and closed her eyes. Her breathing was deep and even before I got to the door.

I hoped I could follow that advice myself.

I certainly didn’t fall asleep the way she did. It was after eleven when everyone left, and I was so exhausted I couldn’t even climb the stairs, much less talk to Desmond. He was blessedly asleep anyway.

Yet after I stretched out on the couch and stopped my shivering with three of Sylvia’s afghans, I could barely close my eyes. When I did doze, dreams immediately haunted me—of the Reverend Garry flying over the footwashing on white-haired wings, Priscilla doing a tribal dance on Geneveve’s grave, and squealing tires sending my son and my love hurling into the air. When I awoke to screaming, I thought the cries were my own. But they were coming from Desmond’s room.

One of the afghans caught on my sweats and dragged behind me as I groped through the dark to the kitchen. I expected to see the boy in the doorway sobbing, but his door was closed the way it had been from the moment we got home. He’d slept through the time for his pain pill, and I was wracked with guilt as I pushed open the door. The poor kid was probably in agony.

But I knew the minute I saw him cringing against the headboard, eyes darting sightlessly, that he wasn’t even awake.

“Desmond,” I said.

I touched his good shoulder, and he jerked away and spewed out a jumble of sentences I couldn’t understand. I didn’t need the words to know he was seeing something that terrified him.

“Desmond,” I said again. I tried to keep my voice calm, despite the terror climbing up my own throat. “You’re dreaming, son. It’s okay.”

His breathing slowed, but he remained so taut I would have to break his legs to get him unwound from his frightened fetal position. I reassured him, over and over, that it was just a dream, that he was asleep, that no one was going to hurt him. I wasn’t sure which one of us I was trying to convince.