Aftershocks (35 page)

“I’m coming to get you, Jordan,” I said, as we puled up in front of his house. “I’l explain everything, okay?”

The ride to the hospital couldn’t have taken more than ten minutes, but it felt like an hour – a noxious hour of misery and questions and fear and helplessness as I tried to keep it together and at the same time explain to a thirteen year-old that his brother was unconscious. I found myself thinking that if I could just get to Connor, if I could just hold his hand and tel him how much I loved him, he would wake up. If he could hear Jordan’s voice, and know that we were there, he would be fine. I knew he would. We just needed to get to him.

I held my Mom and Jordan’s hands as we walked from the car to the entrance. I suddenly felt like I was a kid again and needed her, but at the same time, I needed to be there for Jordan who was trying to put on a brave face. Jack, wearing his navy blue hospital-issued volunteer polo, was waiting outside when we got to the front doors. As soon as I saw him, I lunged for him and threw my arms around his neck as fresh tears burst out. He put his arms around me, and held me tight.

“Jack, I need to see him,” I said.

“They’re only letting family in right now.”

That wouldn’t work. I had to see him. I had to find a way. As Jordan took my hand again, I felt him grasp it tight. I looked down at him, his face so much like his brother’s and so ful of terror. There were dried streaks on his cheeks where tears had falen just minutes earlier.

“Abby, I want to see Connor, but I don’t want to go by myself,” he said quietly, and I knew he was afraid.

I turned back to my mom. “Can you let me go in with him? Please.”

She nodded, and I knew she would pul the necessary strings. I mouthed ‘thank you’ to her as I squeezed Jordan’s hand.

“J, I’l go in with you, okay?”

He nodded.

“Jack,” my mom said, as we started to walk into the hospital. The three of us turned to face her but only Jack stepped forward. He and my mom whispered for a few minutes before she turned to Jordan. “Jordan, do you know your mom’s phone number?”

“Yeah,” Jordan said, as he fished his cel phone out of his pocket.

“How do you feel about giving her a cal?” my mom asked. “I think we should tel her what’s happening. She’l want to know.”

Jordan just nodded, and I could tel he was apprehensive about caling his mom who he hadn’t seen in nearly two months.

“Abby, I’l stay with him. We’l meet you upstairs.” I nodded, a sort of numbness taking over. “Jack?” she asked, turning to him.

“What’s the room number?”

“Um, it’s the fourth floor, Mrs. Lucas,” Jack said, and I knew that meant something to my mother. A strained look appeared on her face as she puled out her cel phone.

Jack took my arm as we walked toward the elevator bank at the far end of the halway. “Abby, there’s something else,” he said as we walked.

“What?”

“I didn’t want to say it in front of your mom and Jordan, but it’s Alexis.”

“What about her?” I didn’t realy care what he had to tel me about Alexis. Al I cared about was seeing Connor.

“She was with him, but since the impact wasn’t on her side of the car, she’s not very badly injured. I think she just has a broken wrist and some cuts. They’re keeping her overnight for observation, though.”

“What do you mean she was with him? That doesn’t make any sense.”

I was having a hard time piecing together what he was teling me.

“I don’t know, Abbs. Al I know is they were in her car and got hit on the passenger side by another car when they were crossing an intersection. The impact pretty much totaled her car. The other driver was fine, though. He walked away from the scene.”

I pictured Alexis’s tiny blue BMW crushed as it would have been after an impact like that, but worse, I could see Connor sitting in the passenger seat as they were hit. His side had taken the ful brunt of the impact.

I put my hand over my mouth as I puled away from Jack and ran to the first trash can I saw. I pushed the lid in just as the vomit reached my mouth. I leaned against the can with my head on my arm for a few seconds, tasting the bile in my mouth as I caught my breath.

A fresh wave of tears folowed closely behind, as I felt Jack’s hand on my back.

“Why were they together?” I asked quietly, not wanting to look at him.

“I don’t know, but I’m sure he had a good reason,” Jack said soothingly. “I know how he feels about you.”

“Abby? Are you okay, honey?” my Mom asked. She and Jordan were approaching us, and I was suddenly embarrassed that I couldn’t hold it together.

“No, I’m not,” I said, the honestly flowing out of my mouth.

“She got sick,” Jack explained.

“Come here, honey,” she said, taking my arm and trying to pul me into a hug. I let her put her arms around me.

“Shh, shh,” she said, as I sobbed on her shoulder. “It’s going to be okay. Connor’s going to be fine. He’l be okay. Come on, let’s go up and see him.” She gently turned me, so we could walk toward the elevators. I kept my arms around her I as walked, not caring who saw or what I looked like. She held Jordan’s hand in hers, assuming the role of the strong one for both of us. I noticed he was crying again, and I knew my tears had instigated his.

We rode the elevator up to the fourth floor and the high-pitched ding let us know we had arrived. Jack led the way from the elevator, stopping at the nurse’s station that said, ‘ICU’ above it. Connor was in the ICU. The realization smacked me in the face.

“Hi Saly,” my mom said to a nurse with a short black bob who sat behind the nurse’s station. “This is my daughter, Abby, and this is Jordan Richmond – Connor Richmond’s brother. They’d like to see him, if that’s okay.”

“It’s just family right now,” Saly said, sticking to the instructions she’d been given.

“I know,” my mom said. “Can you make an exception?”

Saly didn’t look like she would, but then Jordan spoke up. “Please. My parents aren’t here. I want Abby to come with me.”

I could see Saly start to waver as she took in this young child who was parentless at that moment, whose brother was unconscious in the ICU, and her resolve for the rules faded.

“Okay,” she said. “Sign in here.” She passed me a clipboard that indicated I should fil in my name. I printed and signed my name before letting Jordan do the same.

“Are there any changes in his condition?” my mom asked Saly.

She looked at a nearby chart. “No, same as before, critical, but stable. He hasn’t regained consciousness.”

Critical, but stable. I repeated the words to myself, letting them rol around in my head, as I processed their meaning. I sighed. I had been hoping that during the time we’d driven to the hospital that Connor would have woken up.

“It’s probably too early, dear,” Saly said, patting my hand, as if knowing what I was thinking. “He has some serious injuries. It may take some time before his body is strong enough to be awake.”

At least she thought Connor would wake up. That was promising.

“Jack,” I said, puling him aside. I needed a minute to prepare myself for what I was walking into. “He’s in the ICU.”

“I know.” He looked at me grimly.

“Tel me he’l be okay?”

Jack smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “He’l be okay.”

I took a deep breath. I knew Jack was only appeasing me, but for some reason, his words had made me feel just the tiniest bit better.

“Okay.” I steeled myself for what I was about to see, took Jordan’s hand and turned to him. “You ready?”

He nodded, and we started to walk the fifteen feet toward the doors labeled ‘Intensive Care Unit’.

I pushed gently on the doors. Inside there were ten beds lined up against the wals, but only five were filed with patients. I looked over al of them and would have scanned right past Connor if Jordan hadn’t started walking toward his bed. When we reached the foot of it, the reality of what had happened gripped me like a vice.

Connor’s forehead was completely bandaged, obscuring most of his hair, but some of his dark curls flowed out from beyond the dressing. The rest of his face was swolen and bruised. His right leg was sticking out of the blanket, but was covered in a white cast. He had tubes running out of his nose and his arms and wires that came out from the blankets and attached to the various machines that beeped and hummed in the background. I spotted the heart monitor, and saw that it was beating slowly, but steadily.

I took a deep breath and looked over at Jordan who I could tel was trying to be brave but who stil gripped my hand tight. I didn’t know what to do, so I puled up two chairs at the side of the bed. I took Connor’s hand in mine. I had to be careful not to disrupt the IV

running from the vein in the top of his hand, so I put my hand under his. It felt warm. I took that as a good sign.

I closed my other hand over the top of his fingers and when I did, I saw the ring he had given me for Christmas – the cross-over heart that was meant to symbolize his heart. He had given it to me and told me to keep it safe. I stared at it wishing it was that simple, that I could hold the ring tight and it would keep his heart safe forever.

I looked up at his bruised and bandaged face, took in the burns from the airbag on his neck and arms. He didn’t look like Connor, but at the same time he did. He was my Connor – the boy I loved. I looked at his face, his beautiful face that was so pale and bruised. I wanted to climb in bed next to him, curl up and whisper that I loved him. I wanted to wrap my arms around him, cover his face with kisses and make the hurting stop. I wanted him to know I was there so he could wake up. But I knew I couldn’t disturb him, so I did the next best thing I could think of. I took his hand and pressed my lips to it.

“I don’t know what to do Abby,” Jordan said then, reminding me he was there.

I looked over at him as I gently set Connor’s hand down. Jordan looked so smal and scared. “It helps if you talk to him,” I said.

“Can he hear me?”

“I think so,” I said, hoping it was true. I wanted nothing more than for Connor to hear the voices of two people who loved him.

“What should I say?”

“Do you want me to go first?” I asked and could immediately see Jordan’s relief at this suggestion.

He nodded his head quickly a few times, and I felt his eyes on me as I tried to figure out what I was supposed to say.

“Connor? It’s me, Abby,” I whispered through tears that had started to spil down my cheeks. “I want you to know that I’m here, and Jordan’s here, and we wil stay with you until you wake up, okay. Or, until they kick us out, right J?” I looked over at Jordan.

“Right,” he said, a little more confidence in his voice. “I’m not leaving, Connor.”

I waited to see if he wanted to say more, but he didn’t so I continued. “So we hope you wake up soon, because we’re not about to leave without knowing that you’re okay. We love you so much, and we need you to wake up. I need you, and Jordan needs you, okay? If you can hear me, please know that I love you. You mean everything to me. I don’t know why you were with Alexis tonight, but I don’t care. It’s not important. Al that matters is that you’re okay and that you wake up. Anything else, we can deal with.”

I was lying to him and myself as I said those words. I had no idea what him being with Alexis meant. It might not mean anything good for me. If he had changed his mind and wanted to be with her, I could deal with that, as long as he was alive. I didn’t care what decisions he made as long as he was alive to make them.

“Connor, I don’t want you to die,” Jordan said, his directness making me cringe. I hoped if Connor could hear him, he was laughing like he usualy did when Jordan made one of his al-too-honest statements, instead of worrying that he might die. “You have to wake up. I promise I’l keep my room clean and get good grades and practice realy hard at footbal. Just please don’t leave me.”

Jordan’s voice cracked with his last statement. He couldn’t keep it together anymore, so I puled him to me, holding him while he cried.

I kept my other hand in Connor’s, afraid to move it.

I don’t know how long we sat there, watching the monitors keeping Connor alive and searching for any sign of movement in his eyes or hands. There was nothing. The machines continued to beep away steadily, but Connor was as stil as when we had first arrived.

“Jordan!” a voice suddenly said from behind us, causing us both to turn toward the door to the ICU where a woman in her early forties with dark curly hair was staring at us.

“Mom!” Jordan said, breaking away from me and running toward the woman.

I looked back at Connor, kissed his hand once more and whispered that I loved him before I let him go. I would give his mother, a woman he’d fought with and resisted for so long, time to sit with him.

As she passed me, she didn’t acknowledge me. I just heard her gasp, ‘my baby’ as she took in how damaged her oldest son was. I looked back once to see if Jordan wanted to leave with me, but he was holding onto his mother’s hand as she wept next to Connor’s bed, so I decided to let them be. I stole one glance back at Connor before leaving the ICU.

Returning to the waiting room, I ran into Nicky and Luke.

“Abby!” Nicky ran to me and threw her arms around my neck. I could tel she’d been crying. I hugged her back not sure if Jack or my mom had caled her but so glad she was there.

“Nic,” I sobbed. “He’s going to be okay, right?”

“Yes,” she said firmly, and I knew she was trying to be strong for my benefit.

“Where’s my Mom?” I asked, as we walked over to Luke.

“She and Jack are talking to the doctors. She said they’d be back soon, but she said to cal her if you need them.”

I nodded, then sighed. For the first time al night I’d started to let everything sink in. I was suddenly exhausted and slumped into a chair in the waiting room.

“Abbs,” said Nicky.

I looked up at her.

“Nicky, no,” Luke said.

Nicky put her hands on her hips. “Luke, we have to tel her. She deserves to know.”

“Tel me what?”

Luke shook his head. “It won’t help anything,” he said firmly, but Nicky didn’t listen.