He hit the power button on her phone. There were no missed calls or texts. Her battery was showing at seventy-five percent which was more than enough. He swapped batteries, getting his phone powered back on. He knew there was a very small chance Ellie would not have her phone on her. He waited for what seemed like forever watching the phone turning on, loading up, connecting to the internet and taking its sweet God damn time. Frank slammed his hand down on the counter. "Hurry up, you stupid ass phone!"
At the peak of his anger the phone finally started buzzing on the counter. He looked at it and saw twenty missed calls and six new voicemails--four from Shaun and two from Ellie. He took the charger off of the wall and pocketed it in case he needed it.
He ran to his truck, plugged the phone into his jack and hit the telephone icon on his steering column. He listened in horror to the messages that followed.
"
Message one ... three forty-five a.m.: 'Dad! It's Shaun! You need to call me ASAP, please!
"
"
Message two ... three fifty a.m.: 'Dad! Why aren't you answering your phone!? Pick up your damn phone!'
"
"
Message three ... three fifty-four a.m.: 'You can't ignore this, dad! Ellie is scared to death! They're on their way to the hospital!'
"
"
Message four ... four fifteen a.m.: 'Frank, it's Ellie. Please call my phone when you get this. Mom's not doing good!'
"
"
Message five ... five forty-five a.m.: "Dad, I'm on my way to Mercy hospital! I'm just so glad you can't set out a second time. Don't worry, Greg's dad is giving me a ride to Des Moines!'
"
"
Message six ... six fifteen a.m.: 'Frank! It's Ellie! Call me if you get this! They don't know if mom's going to wake up again!'
" It was a little difficult to make out what Ellie was saying in the last message through her stifled sobbing.
Frank was flying down the interstate. There were no cars on the road in town being so early, and no one was on the highway that led him to the interstate where he could get to Mercy Hospital in less than twenty minutes.
He made it in fifteen doing ninety on every straight stretch of road he could hit.
He tried calling both kids back but couldn't get a hold of either of them. He kept looking in his rear view and was blessed with no sirens, although the thought of stopping for a speeding ticket didn't seem likely. He kept saying under his breath, "Please, God, don't take her from me. Don't take another one. Don't let me be too late. I'm not strong enough for this again. If you ever do anything for me, let this be it. Just please don't let her pass. I just need a few more hours ... a few more days and I will have her cured." He slammed his hands down on the steering wheel. "You can't take her! I promised her I'd save her! We are so close!"
Frank took the off ramp at the hospital and a right turn toward the emergency department, fishtailing the truck and almost taking it up on two wheels. A security guard was waving a frantic arm at him to slow down and already on a walkie-talkie. Frank slid to a stop in front of the building, grabbed the vapor and his phone, and sprinting into the office. A receptionist looked at him in alarm--he'd been up for the last twenty-four hours and was dripping with sweat from the stress. Thoughts of the good and bad were flying through his head--a million what ifs which could be why Karen's here. The worst was not knowing.
The receptionist smiled nervously at Frank as he sprinted up to her desk. "Sir, are you all right?"
Frank shook his head. "No! I mean, yes! I'm fine. I'm here for a patient. I believe she was brought in a few hours ago--my fiancé ... and my son and her daughter."
"I'm sorry, sir.... Your entire family was admitted? I don't believe we've had anything like that. Are you sure you're at the right hospital, sir? Lutheran Hospital is just down the--"
Frank slammed his open palm down on the counter, startling the receptionist and making the armed security guard rise. Frank held up the hand for him to stop and took a long deep breath, composing himself. "Please, let me try again." He was breathing unevenly and still sweating. He wiped his brow with a handkerchief. "I'm sorry for this. My name is Dr. Frank Fox. My fiancé was brought in. She is sick with cancer and her name is Karen Randall. She was probably accompanied by her fourteen-year-old daughter, Ellie. My son, Shaun, came later I believe. I haven't been able to reach anyone on the telephone, though."
The nurse nodded slowly, looking down at her keyboard and pecking away, not saying anything. Finally, she looked up at him. "Yes, I do have a Karen Randall admitted. It doesn't say if her daughter is with her, of course. She's on the ninth floor ... room 540. Take the second set of elevators up there and turn left. Do you need an escort, sir?"
Frank shook his head, stammering out, "Thank you. I appreciate it." He was instantly feeling better, but was feeling sick from the adrenaline coursing through his veins. The feeling of it made him feel he was going to vomit everywhere. The one fact which made him calm down was that corpses aren't admitted to a hospital room. He jogged to the bank of elevators trying not to cause too much commotion among the staff. People get a little nervous when a crazy-looking man comes ranting.
Frank thought about how elevators are much like traffic lights. The bigger a hurry you are in, the harder it is to get a green. The elevator stopped at every floor on the way up. He was cursing and waving his arms, telling people to hurry up. He had an entire side of an elevator to himself--the other occupants huddled closely and tried to keep their eyes from meeting Frank's. When Frank finally got to the ninth floor, he stepped out and heard a large collective sigh from the passengers behind him.
He hustled down to Karen's room and entered abruptly. He did not like what he saw. Karen was lying there looking like she was in a state of deep comatose. He then took in the whole picture. She had a breathing tube coming out of her mouth taped in place to her cheeks, and different IVs coming out of her arms and wrists. Frank dropped to his knees looking at the disheveled woman that he was madly in love with. He stood up again feeling like all the energy had been sucked out of him, but walked to her bedside, tears freely falling. He laid his head on her chest feeling her shallow heartbeat on his forehead. "I'm so sorry," he whispered. "I can't believe that I let you get to this. There just wasn't enough time. Will you forgive me? I need you, Karen."
His son's voice startled him. "Better late than never, I guess."
Shaun was standing near a couch where Ellie was resting. He had removed his varsity jacket and covered her with it. He walked to his dad and, filled with rage, whispered, "Where the hell were you! I can't believe this! She has been sick for months and Ellie tells me you're never there! I know that you're never at home! Do you really think that you can cure everything with your old books!? Is anything important to you dad!? Anything at all!?"
Frank tried to put a hand on his shoulder, but Shaun never let it get closer. He smacked it hard. He pushed his dad, and began shoving him and punching at his chest yelling, "You don't get to explain yourself, dad! I'm past it! There isn't anything you can say that I'm sure you haven't said before! You knew I wasn't big on the two of you ending up together, but this isn't how I wanted it to end! She didn't do anything to deserve this!"
He did nothing to retaliate from his son's anger. "No one deserves it, Shaun. You want to know where I have been? Why I haven't been around? I haven't been working on a drug at work. I've been working on a cure for Karen. I was in my lab when you called, and I didn't know my phone was dead. Yes, I think I can cure her. I think I have it."
Shaun stopped hitting him and looked him dead in the eyes. "You can't cure terminal cancer, dad! Do you think you are a god!?"
"It's the Devil's work son. God wouldn't put people and their families through the pain of cancer. It's just too bad he can't step in and save the good ones."
Shaun laughed, pointing at Karen. "Wow, dad! Hell of a cure! Is that why she's lying in the hospital bed!? Do you have any idea what she's going through right now!?"
Frank looked at his son curiously. "She's in a coma, son. She can't feel anything."
"Not Karen, dad! Christ, I know she's gone! I was talking about Ellie! She was the one that found Karen! She was passed out and unresponsive, lying on the kitchen floor! She'd gotten up to get a glass of something.... Ellie had to call nine-one-one and ride down in the ambulance, watching the medics do all the work on her."
"I don't know what you want me to say, Shaun. It wasn't on purpose. I need you to understand that."
Shaun started backing up from his dad. "I don't have to understand anything! I was there for mom, and now I'm here for Karen and Ellie!" He checked on Ellie one more time. She was fast asleep from exhaustion. Shaun grabbed his wallet out of his jacket, then looked back at his dad. "I'm going to go buy some breakfast for Ellie. Do you think you can stay here long enough so if she wakes up she doesn't have to be here alone?"
Frank nodded and took a seat. He was going round and round about what to do. He still couldn't believe the original results from this new batch. He'd hoped for something good but never anything this wonderful. He couldn't believe he was going to give a trial drug to the woman he adored, but the way her medical chart he'd been studying for the last twenty minutes read, he didn't think he had a choice.
Frank pulled out the nasal inhaler, looking at it for a few minutes, moving it around in his hands. He pulled out the safety stop. He pulled Karen's air mask down to put the nasal injector in her nostrils. He pulled the switch emitting a double dose into her nasal cavity. He kissed her forehead, and sat back down.
He pulled out some sheets of paper he'd grabbed from the lab when he'd left. He was trying to figure out how often he could distribute the drug to her in case it was going to take more than one batch. He looked at the dosage results and they were identical to his calculations. He knew that in four hours he could give her a second dose.
First, he needed to monitor her vital signs by the half hour following the initial dose. Ideally, he would have liked to have given the drug out to others as well, but knew no doctor in his right mind would give this drug to a patient until it had been proven, tested, and cleared by the Drug Administration.
The first two hours passed, and her heart rate was steadily increasing and becoming stronger. Her blood pressure was rising to a good level as was her heart rate. Three hours later, Ellie woke up and saw Frank sitting there. She had a look of contempt on her face. She had never been rude to him before but today was a day of change. She sat up. "Frank, when did you get here?"
Frank was sitting in a trance. He was delirious from exhaustion and stress. Ellie stared at him and snapped, "Frank!"
He blinked and looked over, smiling tiredly. "How did you sleep, Ellie?"
She stared in disbelief. "How did I sleep? Oh, I don't know.... How about crappy!? I had nightmares that I was stuck in a room watching my mother getting sicker and sicker, and the man she loved wasn't there to help or do anything useful! I had to ride in an ambulance while they did God-knows-what to my mom, and then, to top it off, I had to call my best friend and ask him where his dad was!"
"That sounds like a horrible dream."
"No!? I just had to relive last night all over again which wasn't any better the second time! How could you not be there for her!? She told me you were going to be reliable! That you'd be better than my dad! She told me I could trust you to be there, and you weren't! You don't get second chances like these, Frank! The doctors told me that they don't expect her to wake!"
"I'm sorry. I was--"
Ellie cut him off. "At work, Frank! Yeah, I gathered that since you weren't at home when I called, and got Shaun who was there for me. My mom could barely get out of bed last night and you weren't there! It was amazing you didn't stay there overnight!"
Shaun was leaning in the doorway. He had been in and out of the room all morning unwilling to be around Frank any more than necessary. Frank noticed the breakfast Shaun had gone for was sitting in a little plastic bag on the table nearby. "Hey, Ellie," Shaun interrupted. "Come on. Greg's dad said that he would come get us and give us a ride home if we wanted. We get to go for a cruise in his police car...! Maybe we can get him to run some red lights for us." He was trying to get Ellie out of this awkward conversation.