Family Matters (19 page)

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Art said, the lights glinting on his gray hair. He spread his arms wide, looking spectacular in the black tuxedo and bright red cummerbund they'd rented for him. “The
Dallas Times-Sentinel
and the North Dallas Swim Dream Team want to welcome you to a spectacular evening, an evening of frolic and special guests….”

She leaned over and whispered to Michael. “The swim team's never had a name before. They had to come up with something so they could welcome everybody like this.”

She was thrilled by the turnout. Several large corporations, one major downtown bank and several well-heeled individuals had supported the event. She'd seen Harv Siskell and Marshall Townsend take seats not ten minutes before.

Suddenly the spotlight wheeled around toward Jennie and, before she knew what was happening, the light was shining right in her face. Art was saying, “Ms. Jennie Stratton. A woman with foresight and guts, a woman with the know-how and the audacity to think a dream like this one could actually come true.”

Strange, she didn't feel like a woman with foresight and guts, a woman who thought dreams could come true. She only felt herself like someone who had been led on a journey…someone who had been wooed…someone who God loved.

With this new certainty in her heart, she felt as if everything…everything…was possible.

“Jennie,” Art said from the podium. “Stand up so we can show you our appreciation.”

She did as told, waving at the crowd as the hall filled with thunderous applause. As she sat down, the music began to swell again and Art bid his farewell. It was time for the show to begin.

The curtain rose to Andy's seven dancers, all clad in sunny yellow leotards and grappling with the black-and-white leather balls, spinning them this way and that, behind a huge piece of green-blue cellophane that made it look as if they were dancing underwater. “Buddy's coming out at the end of this one,” she leaned over and whispered to Michael. “Then after Buddy talks a while, it'll be Cody's turn….”

“Shh,” Michael said, leaning toward her and grinning, then unable to ignore the urge to kiss her on the nose. She was so enthusiastic, almost childlike. She reminded him of the way she'd been years ago when they first met. Yet, beneath it all, he knew there was something more, something different, something strong about her now. She'd grown up during the past months and so had he. “Don't tell me any more. This is all supposed to be a surprise, remember?”

She covered her mouth with her hand and looked apologetic. “Sorry! I forgot. I really forgot. I'm just so excited about it all.”

He draped one arm around her shoulder and snuggled close to enjoy the performance. And, at that moment, his pager went off.

It sounded loud enough to make people around them notice. He turned to Jennie, knowing how upset she would be.

“I have to call the hospital,” he told her. “I'll go outside and use my cell. Maybe I can get somebody to stand in for me.”

“Oh, Michael. See if you can.”

He rushed out to use his phone. When he came back moments later, his face was pale. “I have to go. It's Bill Josephs. He's gone into cardiac arrest and they're bringing him in.”

On stage, Buddy Draper ran out amid the girls' bouncing soccer balls and, around them, everyone was applauding again. Buddy was going to be the hit of the night.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” a voice from nowhere shouted out over the sound system. “Coach of the Dallas Burn, Mr. Buddy Draper!”

Cody's number was the very next one.

“Jennie,” he said, taking both of her shoulders in his firm grip, desperate to make her understand. “If I had any choice—any choice at all—I would stay with you. You are the most important thing in the world to me.” Gently, ever so briefly, he touched her lips. “I never want you to question that again.”

She nodded, not saying anything, tears streaming down her face, tears she never bothered to hide or wipe away.

W
ith a chilled heart, Michael raced toward the emergency room at Parkland Hospital where they'd brought Bill.

As he ran toward E.R.'s cardiac room two, Michael saw Marge in the waiting room. With overflowing eyes and a streaming nose, she told him she'd asked for him immediately when the ambulance arrived to pick them up.

“You did the right thing,” he told her now as he squeezed her tightly and handed her a handkerchief. “Dr. Rosenstein's one of the best in Dallas. And I'm going to do my best for him now, too.”

“You do that,” she said, her voice still wavering as she released him.

Within seconds Michael was beside Bill and getting the rundown from Rosenstein. “What's been done, Mitch?”

“Patient found at home by spouse,” Rosenstein told him. “Time of collapse unknown, approximately ten minutes. EMTs started resuscitation en route. First rhythm transmitted was V-fib. No blood pressure en route.”

They'd gotten Bill in quickly but Marge had been on the telephone talking to their daughter when it happened. She hadn't heard him cry out. No one knew exactly how long he'd been unconscious before she found him. Add that to the time it took to get the ambulance out to their farm and back.

“Patient was defibbed times three,” Rosenstein continued. “An amp of Epi was given. Patient then received into the E.R., was defibbed again. Pushed Lidocaine, 85 milligrams. As you can see—” Mitch Rosenstein gestured toward the monitor and at the eight other people in the room working frantically “—still no response.”

“Fine,” Michael told him. “I'll take over, Mitch.” He stood only feet away from his friend, a man he felt he had known forever. He knew he couldn't make emotional judgments now, yet he had to make the correct decisions and make them without feeling. “Defib with 360 joules.”

“All clear,” the paramedic warned.

The jolt of electricity lifted Bill's body clear up off the table. Michael checked the monitor. Still no response. The steady hum of the machine continued mercilessly. Michael felt as if it were shouting at him.

“Come on, Bill,” he whispered as nurses and paramedics and EMTs performed their duties in a frenzy around him. “Come on.”
Father, help him. We don't want to let him go yet.

He had a decision to make. He gave the command loudly. “Administer Lidocaine, 43 milligrams.”

A nurse ran to carry out his orders. He checked the clock on the wall. Time was of the essence. He looked at the monitor, waiting for a certain sign, anything, that he was getting somewhere.

The monitor hadn't changed. “Defib again,” Michael commanded.

“All clear,” the paramedic shouted.

Again the jolt. Again the lifting. Again no response on the monitor.

Bill. Come on. You've got a wife who loves you waiting out there.

And a friend who cares about you in here, too, he might have thought. Only he didn't dare. He couldn't equate the motionless man on the stretcher with the man who'd given him a tour of his barn and had constantly chided him about his bills. And, now, it had come to this.

Michael was getting desperate. “Give him Bertylium, 425 milligrams.”

The line on the monitor continued. The evidence of any heart impulses was growing fainter.

“Defib.”

“All clear.”

No response.

“Let's go with more Epi.”

No response.

“Defib again.”

“All clear,” the paramedic repeated.

No response.

“I want double the Bertylium. 850 milligrams this time.”

The monitor continued to hum ominously. He didn't even have to look up and check it this time. He knew what it was going to tell him.

“Defib again.” It seemed to go on forever, these electrical jolts and all of his choices of magic medicine.

One of the nurses was keeping track for him or he'd have no idea now how many times they'd gone back and forth trying to save his patient. He did everything by the book, alternating between Atropine and Epinephrine, feeling as if hours had gone by while he sweated as though he were running a marathon.

“Bill,” he said aloud. “Hang in there, Bill. You've got to.”

“Michael,” Mitch Rosenstein said from behind him. “You've got to think about calling the code.”

“I know that, Mitch,” he said calmly. “I'm not ready to do that yet.” Louder. “Defib again.”

“All clear,” said the paramedic.

“Come—on—Bill,” Michael whispered from between gritted teeth.

A jolt. Bill's torso practically went flying off the table.

Another buzzer sounded. The line on the monitor had gone totally straight. “Doctor,” the EMT said. “We have asystole.” No heart response at all.

Father, no,
Michael thought.
I've lost him.

“Administer Epi,” he ordered frantically. But in his heart of hearts, he knew it was over. He'd done the best he could do. And it hadn't been good enough. After everything, he still had no response.

“What's our pressure?” he asked futilely.

“We have no BP.”

“I'm going to try one more time,” he told them all. And after that, he knew he had to stop. He owed it to Bill to stop. “Defib again.”

“All clear.”

To Michael, the very last time seemed as if it happened in slow motion, the nurses clearing away, the EMT climbing off the stool away from Bill's chest, the electrical jolt surging through the man on the table. But, again, nothing happened.
Father, all this letting go. I give him over to Your hands.

He said almost beneath his breath. “Let's call it.”

No one stirred.

He hadn't said it loudly enough. “What did you say, Dr. Stratton?” someone asked him.

“I said—” this time his voice was clear and firm and loud “—let's call it.”

The frenzy had ended. Nurses silently went about turning the machines off one by one.

“You did a good job, Doctor,” Mitch Rosenstein said. “You did everything you could do and then some. I'll write that in my report.”

“Thanks,” Michael should have said. He should have thanked his colleague for his help. They both should have said, “Sorry, better luck next time—there's always a next time, you know—” But he couldn't do it. He'd just lost one of his dearest friends. He felt as though he'd lost a member of his family, as well.

He thought of Marge still in the waiting room, still pacing alone, still praying and hoping it might not be over. “I'll tell his wife,” Michael said.

“Fine,” Rosenstein agreed sadly.

But when Michael took his first step out of the cardiac room and saw the lovely, elderly woman waiting for him, it took everything he could muster to keep from breaking down.

“Doc? Michael?” she asked in a timid voice. But she didn't have to ask. She saw his face and the tears in his eyes.

“Marge.” He reached for her, taking one of her wrinkled hands in his own and holding it there. “I did everything I could. And Bill was strong. But this was a massive heart attack. It was just too much for him.”

Tears came to her eyes now, too. “He's gone, isn't he?”

Michael nodded.

He watched helplessly as her composure crumpled and she buried her face in his chest, her body racked with sorrow.

Michael wrapped his arms around her, and held her as the nurses and all the assistants started coming out of the cardiac room to get out of their scrubs. They each cast knowing eyes in his direction.

They didn't know the half of it. As he gently held the old woman he'd known for what seemed like forever, as he watched her begin to come to grips with the fact she'd have to live her life now without her husband, he came to grips with the fact that he'd have to live his life without Jennie now, too.

He had betrayed her, left her alone to be there for Cody when she'd needed him most. It would be months, years, perhaps a lifetime, before he forgot the anguished acceptance he'd seen in her eyes.

And so,
he thought,
it's over for us, too.

No, you crazy fool,
he reminded himself.
It was all over four years ago in a divorce court.

Marge choked back the sobs against his chest and did her best to compose herself. “Michael. I'm so sorry.”

“Oh, Marge,” he said, gripping her tighter, his own eyes still bright with his pain. “Don't apologize, please. Go ahead and
cry…
”

“I know that you both did everything you knew to do. I thank you for that.”

“I wouldn't have done less for him.”

She was obviously in shock, and her mind was going in a thousand different directions at once. “Do you want the horses?” she asked. “I can't keep them by myself. He'd love for you to have Dan and Kimbo.” She started to cry again, realizing she'd spoken of him as if he was still here. She gazed up at him with eyes so full of despair she looked as if a part of her own soul had died, too. And, really, Michael supposed it had. “I don't know—what—to—do now.”

“Is there anyone I can call for you, Marge?”

She shook her head. “My daughter and her husband are on their way. They would have been here sooner but the kids were in bed and they had to find a sitter. And now they don't know he's
gone…
”

Michael lowered Marge Josephs to the sofa in the waiting room and held her there until her family came. After that, he finally slipped away to grieve alone. It had been a torturous night.

“Everybody ready backstage for the second number!” Andy shouted.

“We're going to get a hot fudge sundae after the show,” Cody told Andy. “My dad promised. You want to come with us?”

“Thanks for inviting me, little one,” Andy told him. “I can't make it tonight. I'll tell your dad to get you an extra scoop so you can eat mine, too.” She squeezed him. He'd been trying hard again lately and she was proud of him. “After how hard you've worked to get ready for this show the past two weeks, you deserve six hot fudge sundaes.”

“Yum! You better tell my dad that. You can find him easy. He's sitting in the front row with Mom.”

“You get onstage,” she said, giving his chair a little shove. “You're on.”

“See ya later, Andy.”

“Do good.”

Cody rolled out onstage and took his place beside five other kids from the swim team. The music began to play, and in the pit below them Cody could see the conductor leading it, his baton pointing crisply at each new group of instruments as they faded in.

Cody tried to see his mom and dad but he couldn't. The huge spotlight was shining right into his eyes. At least he knew they were there. He could feel them there.

The microphone stuck to his chest was bugging him but he knew he had to keep it right on his collar. They had already practiced this way all afternoon. He knew the little microphone would help everybody hear his lines.

“Down at the corner,” he said as loudly as he could, “where the old well stood…”

He finished his poem and they all started singing. Cody puffed out his chest as far as he could. He sang so hard he knew he was red in the face. He stumbled on a couple of the words because he forgot to think when they came up. But that was okay because he knew his mom and dad would see that he was trying his best.

He even forgot to be scared. He just kept singing and smiling. Every so often he peered out through the blinding light, doing his best to find his parents. But he couldn't.

When the song ended, Cody felt as if he was just getting started. He wanted it to go on all night long. Everybody was clapping for them and, one by one, they each took the little bow they'd practiced with Mark.

“Way to go!” Andy shouted from the wings.

Buddy Draper stood right beside her. He was clapping, too. “You nailed it, kid!”

Just as Cody turned his wheelchair to start off stage, the curtain began to come down and the big spotlight flashed off. The audience became people again. He could see heads and hundreds of hands and faces.

“Mom!” he shouted. “Dad! Did you like it?” And then, his breath caught. The only thing beside his mom was an empty chair.

“Where did he go, Mom?” he asked as they hugged in the aisle and Jennie told him what a good job he had done.

She knelt down beside his chair, and touched his hand. “He had to go to the hospital, Bear. One of his patients got sick.” She paused. “He didn't want to leave, sweetheart. I saw his face. He wanted to see you so badly.”