“Greg.” I hesitated. “Will your brother . . . I mean, does he not want to come to Bradleyville because of my daddy?”
“No, no. He lives there before, remember? With his baba? Not a good time.”
“Thenâ”
“Hey, you two.” Katherine called from the doorway, and we both jumped. She tapped her watch. “Ten minutes.”
Greg squeezed my hands until they hurt. “Okay.”
I couldn't go. I couldn't leave him. “Tell me now when I'll see you again,” I begged. The next time, the next date to mark on my calendar and hold on to.
“The last concert is November 28. We will be busy for a few days after that, talking about things. We have to think about the next CD.”
“Will my song be on your next CD?”
He winced. “I don't know. I hope so, but I don't decide that. Our record producer must decide if it has a strong enough hook.”
What stronger hook did it need? I thought rather indignantly. It was about me, wasn't it? “Okay, anyway. Go on.”
“The other guys will go back to Greece then. I want to come to Bradleyville.”
I thought a moment. “So around the first of December? Daddy's getting married on the twelfth. I don't suppose you'd still be there?”
Greg shook his head. “No, I don't think. Wish I could.”
At his answer, an unexpected thought flashed through my head. I felt almost glad Greg would not be at Daddy's wedding, for Derek would be escorting me down the aisle, and the thought of Greg's seeing me on Derek's arm made me uncomfortable. Derek would be uncomfortable with Greg there, too, and I didn't want that for him. He didn't deserve to be hurt.
The thought vanished as quickly as it came. But later I would remember itâDerek, springing to my mind out of nowhere, while I was with Greg.
We had to say our goodbyes. Greg and I couldn't hold each other tightly enough, say we loved each other enough. Katherine nearly had to pull me out the door.
When Katherine and I returned to our hotel room my whole body still pulsed with remembrances of the night. On the telephone by the bed, the red message signal was flashing. It would be Daddy, I figured, worrying about why we'd been out so late. I sailed into the bathroom to take off my makeup, sharing incredulous glances over the evening with myself in the mirror. I paid little attention when I heard Katherine talking on the phone, even though it was after 1:00. She appeared in the doorway a moment later, face white, palms pressed tightly to her lips. One look at her and I froze.
“We have to go right now,” she said, her voice raw. “Derek's been in a car accident. They don't know if he's going to make it.”
T
hat drive to Albertsville would mark a dividing line in our lives, separating all that had gone before from the rapid changes to come. I look back now on the months that followed and see the grace of God at work. Then, all I could see was confusion and sorrow.
Within ten minutes of hanging up the phone, we'd checked out of our hotel, stopping only to change clothes and throw our things into our overnight bags. By the time we arrived, gritty-eyed and exhausted, at the Albertsville Hospital, it was after 5:30 A.M. Hearts in our throats, we hurried to the waiting area for intensive care, begging God as we had for the entire drive that Derek was still alive. We stumbled into the room, Katherine's parents pulling to their weary feet. Katherine rushed to throw her arms around them, choking on a sob. Her mama sagged against her.
“How is he?” Katherine searched her parents' faces.
“Still alive, thank God,” her daddy managed. “Looks like the surgery did all it was supposed to do.”
“You have to tell me everything, you have to tell me what happened!” Katherine sank down on the edge of a couch, holding tightly to her mother's hand. Old tears and new tracked through her smeared makeup.
I lowered myself into a chair, ankles trembling. How could such a magical night turn into such tragedy? I could not believe that Derek would die; I
would
not believe it. Over and over during our harried trip to the hospital, I relived all the moments in which he'd been so kind to me. The moment when we'd sat in our backyard, his expression saying what words could not. Derek needed to keep writing me funny e-mails. He needed to escort me down the aisle in my daddy's wedding. He needed to
live.
“I never should have sent him,” Katherine's mama intoned, her face ragged, old. “I needed some things from Albertsville, and Derek offered to go.”
The winding and narrow Route 622 between Bradleyville and Albertsville had proven dangerous to many over the years, especially to those unfamiliar with its curves. With vivid horror I could picture the truck, stacked high with wood, its new driver taking a turn too fast, losing control. Derek, coming around the curve from the opposite direction and swerving to miss the truck, plunging down an embankment. The car must have rolled over numerous times, Mr. King said. Rescue workers found it on its side, crunched against a tree. Derek lay crumpled and unconscious in his seat belt.
I raked my hands through my hair, listening to the strange medical terms that had become so suddenly, intimately real to the King family. A subdural hematomaâintense pressure in the brain caused by internal bleeding. A ruptured spleen. Doctors had drilled burr holes in Derek's head, alleviating the pressure from the hematoma. They'd operated to remove his injured spleen and put a cast on one leg. Ribs were also broken. He lay in intensive care in a coma.
“Can we see him?” Katherine whispered.
“They let us in for a few minutes every hour,” her daddy replied. “Only the immediate family.”
At 6:00 Katherine and her parents went to see Derek. I slumped in the chair, head resting against the pale yellow wall, stomach churning. Praying to Jesus to save Derek. At 7:00 the family visited Derek again. He remained unconscious. In between those times we sat in vigil, mostly silent, Mr. King often pushing to his feet in desperation to pace the floor.
At 7:30 Katherine called Daddy. I knew he would be here for her if he didn't have to stay with Robert and Clarissa. She returned, saying he would soon be on his way. Grandma Delham would take the kids to church. “He says the whole town's praying.” Katherine aimed an exhausted smile at her mama. “They've been praying through the night.”
My thoughts swirled like dust before the wind. Would Daddy and Katherine postpone the wedding? If Derek lived,
when
Derek lived, would he ever be the same? I promised myself that I would do everything I could for Derek. I would visit him, sit by his bedside while he recuperated at home if I had to, bring him homework from school. He deserved as much selflessness from me as he had shown himself.
Then I wondered when Greg would get up. I pictured security loading LuvRush onto the bus, heading for their next concert. I envisioned the arena from last night, the music, the excitement. Now it all seemed a planet away. Greg in his wondrous world, I in Bradleyville. Facing deathâagain.
Daddy arrived, heading for Katherine, then her parents. I shoved to my feet to hug him, hurt that he would leave me for last, disappointed with myself for having such a selfish thought.
We stayed at the hospital all morning, the Kings continuing to see Derek every hour. I memorized the worn, blue fabric of the couches, spots in the multicolored carpet, a gray streak on the far wall. The covers of the unread magazines on the wooden coffee table. Derek did not waken. Each hour, our fears ran higher.
“All those machines!” Katherine wailed into Daddy's shoulder after one visit. “Everything pumping and clicking. I can't stand it, Bobby! All the years I was gone, missing his growing up. I come back and look what happens!”
“Shhh.” Daddy held her, his dark hair crushing next to hers. Miss Connie's chin trembled as she watched them. “He's goin' to make it,” Daddy soothed. “What counts is, you're here now. You're here when he really needs you.”
Daddy proved a rock of strength all morning, never letting on how hard it must have been for him to be back in a hospital. When we found ourselves alone once the Kings had shuffled down the hall again, he quietly asked me about the concert and Greg. Yes, I told him, it was wonderful; you wouldn't believe it, Daddy, how great the show was. But the words flattened with insignificance, spilling away like water over a cliff.
By noon I felt like a walking scarecrow. We all did. Little food, no sleep. All the anxiety. My legs literally shook.
“You need to go home, get some rest,” Daddy said to me. “You, too, Katherine.”
She moved her head side to side almost like a puppet. “No. I can't leave him. My parents have been up all night too.”
A doctor appeared in the doorway, white-coated and solemn, one hand in his pocket. Our eyes riveted to his face, searching for answers, begging for good news. Mr. King stood.
“He's holding his own,” the doctor said. “You have a miracle boy in there. He appears stable, and so if you need rest, which I know you all do, you ought to go home for a while. You know we'll call you if anything changes.”
Miss Connie brought fingertips to the bridge of her nose and dragged in a sob. Her husband squeezed her shoulder. “Thank you, Dr. Namon. For everything you're doin',” he said.
As soon as we arrived home, I fell into bed, descending into sleep with tears tracking down my temples for Derek, Greg's picture the last thing I saw. I awoke after 6:00 P.M., immediately frightened that something had happened while I slept. Then I realized I hadn't e-mailed Greg. He'd worry that Katherine and I hadn't made it home safely. And now he would have no time to turn on his laptop until after the concert.
I rubbed my eyes and stumbled out to the family room. Robert played on the computer. Daddy flipped halfheartedly through the Sunday paper. “How's Derek?” I demanded.
“The same.”
I flopped down on the couch, chin practically to my chest.
“You need to eat something,” Daddy said.
“I know.” Sighing, I focused on Robert's profile, his arm jerking as he fired lasers on the screen. “Robert, I need to write an e-mail real quick. Could you pause the game?”
Daddy shifted his position. “To Greg, I suppose.”
Did I imagine the judgment in his tone? My chest twinged at the thought that I could be so self-absorbed, wanting to write Greg while Derek lay near death in a hospital. “It'll only take a minute. I want to tell him about Derek.”
Daddy studied me for a moment, as if seeing right through me. “Robert, let her have the computer.”
My brother grumbled but did as he was told.
Minutes later my fingers hung over the keyboard as I tried to think what to say. Except for that brief conversation on our first date, I'd never mentioned my friendship with Derek to Greg, even though I knew they'd met briefly. I felt suddenly caught between them, which made no sense. Plus, I could practically feel Daddy's eyes on my back. At that moment the realization hit me. “Derek is crazy about you,” Alison had said, and she barely had any contact with him. If
she
could see how Derek felt about me, surely Daddy and Katherine and her parents knew too. Had they felt sorry for him because of that? Had they wished for his sake I would turn from my “foolishness” over some singer to him?
I stared at the computer screen, wondering at that. Wondering particularly about Katherine. She'd never breathed a word about Derek's feelings to me, never done anything but encourage me with Greg. Did she think she'd betrayed her brother now? That she should have done more to push me toward him?
Slowly, I typed, telling Greg what had happened. And how kind and generous Derek had always been to me. That I counted him as a good friend.
If Idon't write as much as Iusually would, I concluded, it's because I'll be back and forth to the hospital. Daddy and Ineed to support the Kings and Derek all we can right now.
Don't forget, Greg, how much I love you.
âJackie
After a long rest, Katherine and her parents returned to the hospital that evening. They would keep vigil for the second night in a row. Daddy drove in also for a few hours, leaving me to stay with Clarissa and Robert. When he returned with the news that nothing had changed, our family sat around the kitchen table to hold hands and pray for Derek. Clarissa cried crocodile tears. For the first time ever, I heard Robert pray aloud, asking God to please heal his friend. Hearing his mournful plea, I cried too.
At 1:00 A.M., I found myself wide awake and slipped to the computer to check my e-mails. Greg had written of his sadness at the news. He was praying, he said.
The following morning, just after Daddy pulled out of the garage for work, Katherine called. Derek had come out of the coma and was talking. Clarissa, Robert, and I all leapt with joy.
Thank you, God, thank you, thank you!
I prayed, rushing to the computer to write Greg. All that day Derek continued to stabilize, his family seeing him every hour. That night the Kings returned home for a full night's sleep, rejoicing that Derek was going to pull through. The town of Bradleyville rejoiced with them.
Katherine called me from home Monday evening. “Derek's asking to see you,” she said.
I drew in a breath. “Can I do that? I thought only family could go in.”
“You
are
family. Maybe not immediate, but I don't care what the nurses say. If Derek wants to see you, I'm getting you in there.”
I thought of the promise I'd made to myself about visiting Derek, to do anything I could to help him get better. I would stay at the hospital day and night if I could.
“Come to the hospital tomorrow evening as soon your daddy's home to watch the kids,” Katherine urged. “I'll get you in then.”
“Okay.” I hesitated. “You sure your parents won't care?”
“Jackie,” she said, and I heard the raw honesty in her voice, “my parents want anything that will make Derek happy right now. And that happens to be you.”