Taylor's Gift (8 page)

“We can leave and come home now,” he said, after I'd told him what had happened and we'd cried together over the phone.

“There's no point. Just continue on to Paris like you planned, and when I know more, I'll let you know.”

I hung up with Matt and then called Father Fred at our church in Coppell. I told him what had happened. “We've got to get some prayers going for Taylor,” I said, and he agreed. We talked a few minutes longer.

I had just hung up when I saw Bill coming around the corner. Bill was Tara's oldest brother. She was the youngest, and they'd always had a special relationship. Bill was also a doctor.

“Bill's here!” I said.

Tara stood up. I grabbed her arm because I knew she was still shaky. Bill met us, and the three of us embraced.

“I'm so sorry,” Bill said. “I don't understand how this could happen.”

“You've got to tell us what's going on,” Tara cried. “I need you to fix it, or we're going to lose her!”

I'd been texting and talking with Bill since we'd arrived at the hospital in Vail. At one point I'd even put him on speakerphone so he could hear what the ER doctors were saying. Bill heard how serious Taylor's injuries were and he wanted to be with us, but he was with his own family in Montana for their spring break. Texting back and forth, he told me there weren't any commercial flights between Montana and Grand Junction. Bill had a private pilot's license and he could fly himself, but he still needed to find a plane.
And then there was the weather. A couple of hours earlier he'd texted me and said he was on his way, but I still had no idea how he'd made it happen—I was just so thankful to see him.

“Let me fill you in,” I said as we sat down.

I updated him on what the neurosurgeon had told us, and he told us how he'd gotten to Grand Junction. Through a series of connections he'd finally found a pilot with a plane, but the weather was too bad. But suddenly a two-hour window of good weather between Montana and Grand Junction had opened up. Just enough time for them to make it, if they left immediately. I knew instantly that God had done it.
Thank you
. I marveled at the miracle, but I knew we needed at least one more.

Behind me, I heard doors opening and turned to see who else was coming. A nurse had pushed open the doors that led to the Intensive Care Unit, and she was now walking toward us. “Are you Taylor's parents?” she asked.

I nodded.

“You can see her now.”

__________________

*
Some names and identifying features of people mentioned in the book have been changed. In the case of medical professionals, some composite characters were created to simplify the story for the reader. In addition, the time frame of certain events has been adjusted for clarity.

Tara

I jumped up from the loveseat and rushed toward the open ICU doors,
desperate
to see Taylor. The nurse pointed to a room at the end of the short hallway. When I reached the door, I paused before entering. My heart was pumping madly and my stomach churned.
What will I see when I open the door?
Todd caught up with me, with Bill right behind us. I slid open the glass door and Todd entered first. As soon as Todd saw her, he burst into tears.

“Taylor,
no
!” I said as I moved past him to the far side of the bed, away from the tubes and wires that seemed to be attached to every part of her. “Baby, I'm here. Mommy is here!” I said. I climbed into bed next to her. I wanted to be as close as possible to Taylor and to feel her warm body next to mine.

“Taylor, Taylor! The doctors are wrong. Taylor, wake up! Please wake up,” I pleaded. In the Vail ER, they'd told us that whenever we spoke to Taylor, her blood pressure would rise and that was a good sign. I wanted the doctors at St. Mary's to see that too, to know she was still responsive. “Taylor, please wake up. Taylor, baby, please! Mommy and Daddy are here. We're here, baby. We're here.”

We didn't want much, just a flicker of an eyelid, a twitch of a finger, or even her heart rate or blood pressure to increase slightly. I rubbed her face, her chest, and I kissed her. I saw Todd rubbing her foot and heard him telling her how much we loved her. I tried to think of anything else that would prompt her to respond.

“Show us you're okay, baby, just move something!” Any positive sign would do, just something to show the doctors, and us, that she could respond, that her brain was still functioning. “Please just show the doctors that they're wrong, show them you're still here.”

Nothing.

I remained on her right side, trying to avoid the rods that were elevating the sheet on her left leg. I knew I was out of control—the nurses down the hall could probably hear my wailing—but I didn't care. I looked up at my beautiful daughter's face. Even though she had a trach, stitches on her head, and blood in her hair, someone had taken the time to comb her hair and pull it back. I touched her face and saw a slight scrape on her cheek. For all the trauma she'd been through, she looked like herself, like my baby.

With my head resting on her chest, I listened to her heart beating. Bump-
bump
. Bump-
bump
. Bump-
bump
. Taylor's heart had always made a distinctive sound. It had a fast rhythm, and there was a downbeat on the second beat. I remembered how many times we'd lain like this at home, on her bed, with my head resting on her chest as she told me about her day. But, unlike then, when her heart would accelerate as she got excited about something she was telling me, there was no change in the rhythm, no slight increase in her heart rate to signal she even knew we were there.

Everything in the room seemed steady and rhythmic. The whoosh of the ventilator and the slight whirring noises of the other machines were predictable and regular. The only unpredictable sounds were ours—the sobs of a grieving family.

I don't know how long I lay there, but I know why I finally moved; another wave of nausea forced me to run for the toilet.
While I stood over the bowl on the other side of her room, I heard the nurses down the hall sobbing too.

I finished and wiped my mouth on a paper towel from the dispenser. I returned to the same side of Taylor's bed, but this time I sat on the sofa next to her. The world around me seemed to disappear, and time stopped.

I held Taylor's hand and just tried to breathe.

Todd

There is nothing more horrifying than the sound of a mother crying for her dying child—unless that mother is also your wife. It was as if my insides had been shredded and spit out; my guts spilled across the floor. The pain of that single moment in time was unbearable, indescribable. I could feel a burn spreading through my chest and a rage building in my head.

Nurses, lab technicians, and other medical professionals walked in and out of the room for the next several hours. Each time they did, Tara and I asked if they knew anything more. They didn't. Bill would inquire as to what they were doing and why. “Have you checked her oxygen?” or “Has her level gone up or down on that?” he'd want to know. Sometimes he'd suggest a new test or ask about a previous one. The staff seemed to be on top of things medically, and they were always willing to share the results with him. Several times, I heard him have conversations in the hallway, and more than once he was on the phone with the surgeons we'd talked to earlier in the night. At one point, he even went down the hall to view the CT scans with the technicians who had performed them. Each time he learned something new, he'd come back and share it with us in a way we could understand. But he didn't give us false hope.

“The doctors think that Taylor is brain-dead, but they won't know for sure until they run more tests.”

Medically, the plan was to watch Taylor through the night. At 7:00 a.m., Taylor was scheduled for another CT scan to look for
any signs of brain function. All of our hopes and prayers for the next five or six hours were directed at the outcome of that one test. If it showed brain function, we could continue to hope for Taylor's recovery. If it didn't, it would confirm what doctors already believed—that Taylor was brain-dead.

Being in the hospital room was like being in a casino in Las Vegas. There were no clocks on the walls, as if to deliberately keep us oblivious as to how much, or how little, time had passed. We must have been there a couple of hours when exhaustion overtook Tara and she passed out on the couch. I was thankful she would have a few minutes of peace. I sat at the end of the bed, rubbing Taylor's foot, trying to keep my anger at bay, trying to prevent the situation from overtaking me. Finally, I couldn't sit still any longer.

“I'm going to get coffee,” I said to Bill. “Do you want to come with me?”

“Good idea,” Bill said.

I knew we would find coffee near the nurses' station, and as we walked past them I could see their eyes were as red and puffy as ours. It wasn't looking good for Taylor. “Tell me the worst-case scenario,” I said to Bill. I wanted to steel myself for whatever was going to happen, and I needed to be strong for my family. “If things don't go well tomorrow, what do I need to know?”

Bill took a deep breath and slowly stirred his coffee before answering. “If she is truly brain-dead, then they're going to ask you about taking her off the ventilator. They'll also ask if you want to donate her organs.”

“How does that work?”

“If the CT scan fails to show any signs of brain activity, they will remove her from the ventilator and you can sit with her until she dies. If you choose to donate her organs, they won't remove the ventilator in your presence. Instead, you'll say goodbye, and then they'll take her to an operating room to retrieve her organs.
They'll remove her from the ventilator there. The whole process might take a little longer because there are tests they have to do before they can harvest her organs.”

“I think that's what we'll do.”

“Are you sure?”

“That's what Taylor would want.”

“You need to discuss it with Tara,” Bill advised.

“Yeah, I'll talk to her.”

Back in the room, I could feel the anger building as I became lost in my own thoughts. It didn't look good for Taylor. This was all happening so fast. How would we live without her? In just a few hours, we'd gone from the best vacation ever to saying goodbye to our daughter. It didn't make any sense.

I don't know how long I had been thinking about Taylor's life coming to an end—maybe an hour or more—but the weight of my thoughts eventually just snapped something inside of me. I felt loaded down with heavy burdens. Trapped. I could do nothing to stop it from happening, and I could find no way to escape. At the same time, I couldn't just sit and let this burden crush me. I had to do something. I needed an escape from the darkness and pain. I needed a way out.

Then it occurred to me: I had one.

I was scheduled to be in San Francisco next week. I started to think about the board meeting and other things that were already planned for the trip. I had a lot of work to do before I left, and more that needed to be done once I got there.

How would I get it done? What does work even look like now?

I glanced at Tara asleep on the couch.
How will I ever be able to leave my family with this going on? Could I even work again?

My mind started spinning with the possibilities. I was supposed to leave for San Francisco the following Monday and return on Thursday.
I'll just tell Tara I won't be home until Tuesday.
She wouldn't
know the difference.
And maybe I won't come back. Maybe I'll just stay on the road.
At any given time, I had about eight major projects going on.
San Francisco, New York, Denver, and then that thing in Hawaii. I could just separate myself from all of this pain.

I shifted in the chair, and for a second, the noise of the squeaky pleather overrode the hospital sounds—the steady beeping of the machines, the hum of the heating system, and the whoosh of the ventilator. Just like the noises from the chair made the hospital sounds disappear, I wanted to do something that would make it
all
go away.

Maybe I could leave this all behind.

I could run.

With my job, I had a great excuse to be on a plane to any major city in America—I had clients in all of them. I could leave early every Sunday and come home late on Friday. Or even Saturday. In fact, I could line up so much travel that I would never have to be home. The thought was tempting.

I could go a step further.
I could vanish.

I'd tell Tara and the kids I was going to work. Then I'd take a flight somewhere and disappear off the grid. There was money in the bank. With three or four days of withdrawing the maximum amount, I'd have enough money to make it to an island. I could start over doing something—anything—else. I started to think through the details of how I could make it happen.

I don't know how long I let the fantasy play out in my mind. Minutes? A half hour? More than an hour? Whatever it was, I indulged it longer than I care to admit. It seemed so attractive. If I left, I'd be free of the pain. Then Bill came in and pulled up a chair next to me, and I looked over at Tara sleeping—and I thought how hurt she would be if she knew what I was thinking.

I can't leave. I'm stuck and there's nothing I can do about it.
I looked at her again.
So what?
What
does it matter? I'll be gone and I won't even know how they're feeling.

I thought about family members and friends who'd chosen to run when faced with a crisis. In their wake, they'd left hurting spouses, broken kids, and troubled friends. In some cases I was the one who was hurting, broken, and troubled. I knew what that felt like, and I didn't want to do that to those I loved. I thought about Ryan and Peyton.
Right now, they're alone in a hotel room with Kristin, who is practically a stranger to them.
My heart burst for them. No matter how much I wanted to escape, I didn't want to hurt them.