Ralph Hayes was going to blow a gasket. That thought, at least, cheered her far more than she would ever admit.
Chapter Thirty
Lake Lois, Florida
Saturday 11:00 p.m.
BEN TOWELED OFF AFTER HIS SHOWER and wrapped a white terry robe around his flat midsection. He was bone tired, but what his father called good tired, the kind of fatigue that follows good deeds. He'd been working hard of late, logging long hours, both in his grief counseling and in his special projects. He planned to sleep peacefully tonight before an equally busy day tomorrow at Tommy Taylor's funeral. He'd eaten a bite of dinner with Frank Temple and his crew before he left the Sullivan ranch. He could relax.
He felt good. Really good. This week, although filled to capacity, had been an especially productive one. Closing the book on the Tommy Taylor case, where he'd provided grief counseling to all of those families earlier in his career, was gratifying. Tommy Taylor was a monster, the Central Florida Child Killer. He had hurt so many families. The world was better off without him. Ben had taken great pleasure in helping the various families achieve closure. After Taylor's funeral tomorrow, Ben was due a celebration.
Settling on the bed, he reached for the remote and turned the flat screen on, volume low. He set the timer to turn the television off at 1:00 a.m., in case he fell asleep before then. He wasn't concerned about awakening on time to attend the funeral. He'd long ago developed the skill of waking up when he needed to without an alarm.
He swallowed two 800 milligram ibuprofen tablets with a swig of single-malt Scotch to ease the throbbing in his left ankle. His exhaustion, the pain killers and the alcohol should have him sawing logs in thirty minutes or less.
He'd spent an hour with Oliver tonight and, even if Helen didn't want to admit it, Ben knew that Oliver was as good as dead already. No,
better
than dead. Oliver was breathing without a ventilator, which offered Helen false hope. The feeding tube, the medications they gave him, his continuing coma, the seizure, on top of the residual problems Oliver had from his original stroke three years ago, all combined to assure Ben that Oliver would never wake up. Soon Ben would have another funeral to attend.
Funerals were comforting rituals that commenced the survivors' recovery from their loved one's death. Ben had seen this process begin hundreds if not thousands of times when he was a child, living in the flat above his parents' funeral home. It had only been later, though, when he was old enough to work the funerals that he began to realize how therapeutic they were. Yes, he knew the truth about grief of all sorts.
Helen had already shown him how resilient she was. Oliver's funeral would permit her to move on with her life. She'd continue her run for the Senate. She'd be unstoppable after Oliver died. Ben wanted that for her. He wanted her success perhaps more than she did. Yet too soon a funeral would be a tonic for Helen that Ben wasn't quite ready to allow yet. The longer she continued to nurture pointless hope for Oliver's recovery, the harder she would grieve when all hope was extinguished
and the more she would need him.
He glanced over to the bedside table and noticed his cell phone. He hadn't checked his messages today. His mind was a little foggy. He probably couldn't concentrate on the substance of any important messages. Better to leave them for morning. Then again, there might be good news, too. He was already feeling good, but more positive news was always welcome.
He sipped the Scotch again, draining the tumbler. He set the empty glass down on the table, and reached for the phone. His motor skills were clearly a bit off, for instead of grabbing the phone, he swiped it onto the carpet. Leave it? Or pick it up?
More Scotch would be nice. He swung his feet off the bed, reached for the phone and picked up the glass, all a little slower than normal, but manageable nonetheless.
His gait unsteady, he held the tumbler in one hand and the phone in the other on his way to the decanter. After refilling the heavy crystal, he wobbled back to the bed and settled down again. He pushed the volume up on the television a couple of notches to hear the comedian's opening monologue. Ben enjoyed comedy.
He took another large swallow of the Scotch. His eyes were so heavy. He forgot about the cell phone for a little while. Until it vibrated in his hand to signal a new call.
“This is Dr. Ben Fleming. How can I help you?” he asked, realizing his speech was slurred. He heard shallow, labored breathing and wondered if it was his for a moment, before he realized the sound emitted from the phone. “Are you there?”
“Dr. Fleming,” a woman's faint voice whispered with her exhalation. Her pain was evident through his alcohol haze.
“Yes?”
“It's Vivian Ward,” she managed to convey.
“Oh, good evening,” he said, automatically adopting the soothing voice he used with patients. “How are you?”
He heard her faint, shallow breaths. It wouldn't be much longer for Vivian. She would be joining her husband and sons soon. Once again, Ben felt smug about the Wards. The justice system had failed them badly, their situation so desperately tragic. He'd helped them when no one else could, in a way no one else dared.
“Thank. You. Ben,” she whispered. He heard her gasping for air. “For. Everything.”
“You're welcome, dear.” He swallowed more Scotch and waited for her to speak again.
After a few moments, she said something else. Ben gripped the phone tightly and tried to clear his head.
What did she just say
? He blinked a couple of times to focus. He heard the little gasps Vivian made in the wake of her statement.
No
.
She couldn't possibly have said what he thought, could she?
“What did you say?” he said without regard for the growing harshness of his own voice. “I couldn't quite hear you.”
But someone else had entered Vivian's room, another woman's voice, stronger, louder. A voice he recognized. Marilyn Crawford. Mattie's mother. “Vivian, honey, what are you doing with that telephone? You know you should be resting. Here, let me hang up for you.”
And the line went dead.
Chapter Thirty-One
Thornberry, Florida
Saturday 11:30 p.m.
OlLIVER'S EYES OPENED AGAIN. Each time his eyelids lifted without warning surprised him and required a moment to acclimate.
Once more, he recognized everything he could see in his bedroom, which wasn't surprising. He'd slept here for most of his married life, and across the hall his entire childhood. He was, as the doctors liked to say, alert and oriented in time and space.
At least he thought so. Since he couldn't speak, he could ask no one to confirm his thesis. Doctors had been in and out, but they didn't discuss his condition in front of him. He was glad they'd refrained from outlining the more terrifying possibilities. Dan the medical resident and Ben Fleming's earlier discussion had alarmed him enough to make his eyes pop open when he'd first awakened after their departure.
His medical watchdog was a fellow named Steven. Oliver hadn't seen Steven, or any of the doctors. They were never around when his eyes were open. Bad luck, maybe. If they observed his eyes open, perhaps they'd know he was conscious. Maybe then they could alter their diagnosis and begin treating him.
Oliver felt groggy, as if he'd been given sedatives that hadn't worn off, and a pounding headache that seemed like an old companion. How long had that particular tympani been traveling with him? He wasn't sure. Perhaps it was related to the rapid change in light, from total darkness to visual noise every time his eye lids jerked up.
He glanced toward the oak dresser across the room where an oversized LED alarm clock reflected the time in bright red numbers large enough for his myopic vision to read.
Eleven-thirty p.m
. What day? No calendar hung within his limited sight line.
Checking for improvements since his last alert period, he tried to turn his head, but couldn't. His eyes were dry, so he tried to blink. That didn't happen, either.
Come on, Oliver. Push!
He tried forcing his lids down.
Nope. Ain't happening.
Systematically, he tested and reviewed his physical status again. He could see as distinctly as his myopia and presbyopia allowed. If he'd been wearing his bifocals, his vision was probably as good as that of any other man his age. He'd joked with Eric and Helen many times that his close vision was perfect, but he needed longer arms.
Vision okay,
he thought.
That's good. You're too old to learn Braille.
The black humor would have made him smile, but he still couldn't move his lips. A
t least you know you're thinking now.
His eyes burned. He tried desperately to blink or squint. His corneas felt arid enough to glue his lids open. He'd seen one of Helen's contact lenses shriveled on the bathroom floor once. Is that what happened to the human eye?
To distract himself, he thought about what he
could
feel, besides the dryness. IV ports in both arms, no doubt flowing fluids and medications into his veins. Leads pasted to his chest that must have been connected to the steady beating of the heart monitor he'd recognized earlier.
Heart beating is a good sign.
That joke wasn't quite as funny, since there had been a time when his heart stopped beating right after Milton Jones shot him at Eric's funeral.
Don't think about that.
What else can you feel?
Tape across a sensitive area of his stomach. What was that? He didn't recall feeling that before. He couldn't see his stomach because of the blanket covering him and he couldn't move the blanket aside. Tamping down the panic as best he could, he moved his internal reviewing process lower.
Oh, yeah, I remember that sensation,
he thought when he recognized the catheter.
Glad I was asleep when they inserted you, little buddy.
Was his grim humor an indicator of health or hysteria? He didn't know.
And, of course, the severe headache that he just couldn't shake.
Without warning, his eyelids closed, covering his corneas in moist, comforting darkness. He continued his physical check in the dark. Could he move his legs? No. Arms? No. Feet? Hands? Fingers? Toes? No, no, no and no.
So you can't move. Don't freak out.
You're not a vegetable. A fruitcake, maybe.
If he could have groaned at his childish joke, he would have.
Earlier, Ben and the resident had said something about being locked in. Oliver wondered if that was his situation, whatever it meant. He tried to remember exactly what they'd said. He focused on what he could recall of the conversation and finally pulled up the only hopeful piece of information embedded there: the tests on his brain didn't show a brain-stem lesion.
You've spent a lot of time with doctors in the past three years, Oliver. You know what a brain-stem lesion is. Think it through. What is it? What does it mean?
The location of the brain injury made a difference in the symptoms and treatment he remembered from Eric's childhood fall from the oak tree in Todd Dale's front yard. In Eric's case, they said it was his frontal lobe that was damaged. They called the damage mild, but to Oliver and Helen, the changes in their normally happy boy seemed devastating. He acted out, seemed uninhibited instead of shy, and often erupted in inexplicable anger or laughter. So far, Oliver hadn't felt any of those emotions.
That you remember,
he
thought.
Still, probably not frontal lobe.
When Oliver had his stroke, the neurosurgeons explained it as a brain attack. They'd been able to tell him which part of his brain was affected, and it was on the right side, they said, since the principal physical symptoms were his left leg and left arm.
But now you can't move anything at all. That must be why the resident mentioned the brain-stem.
As soon as he worked out the logic, it felt like an epiphany.
Of course
. The stem is the part of the brain that's connected to the spinal column. Where all the nerves are that control movement.
A lesion was a wound, maybe, in the brain-stem. The implications began to fall down like a row of dominoes in his mind. Paralysis. Total body paralysis. Forever. Unable to move even his eyelids voluntarily.
He felt his heart rate ratchet up, heard the monitor's beeps pounding closer together. If he could have screamed, he would have. He tried, but no sound emerged.
“Hey, Mr. Sullivan,” he heard a man's voice near his head. “What's got you all excited, hmm?”
That must be Steven, a sliver of Oliver's mind processed through his uncontrolled panic. He felt Steven's cool fingers on the side of his throat.
If I'm paralyzed, could I feel that?
No. No, of course not. Paralyzed means lack of feeling, surely.
“Something bothering you?” Steven touched Oliver's wrists next. He felt a poke in his ear. An ear thermometer, probably. “Blood pressure spiked up there, but it's coming down now. Did you have a bad dream?”