over a week, not just a few hours.
A lump in her throat made it difficult for her to swallow as she stood
at the side of the bed, and she was unable to speak. Though he was
unconscious, she didn't want to talk to him until she was sure she
could control her speech.
She'd read somewhere that even patients in comas might be able to hear
people around them, on some deep level, they might understand what was
said and benefit from encouragement. She didn't want Jack to hear a
tremor of fear or doubt in her voice--or anything else that might upset
him or exacerbate what fear and depression already gripped him.
The cubicle was unnervingly quiet. The heart-monitor sound had been
turned off, leaving only a visual display. The oxygen-rich air
escaping through the nasal inserts hissed so faintly she could hear it
only when she leaned close to him, and the sound of his shallow
breathing was as soft as that of a sleeping child. Rain drummed on the
world outside, ticked and tapped against the single window, but that
quickly became a gray noise, just another form of silence.
She wanted to hold his hand more than she'd ever wanted anything. But
his hands were hidden in the long sleeves of the restraining jacket.
The IV line, which was probably inserted in a vein on the back of his
hand, disappeared under the cuff.
Hesitantly she touched his cheek. He looked cold but felt feverish.
Eventually she said, 'I'm here, babe.'
He gave no sign he had heard her. His eyes didn't move under their
lids. His gray lips remained slightly parted.
'Dr. Procnow says everything's looking good,' she told him. 'You're
going to come out of this just fine. Together we can handle this, no
sweat. Hell, two years ago, when my folks came to stay with us for a
week? Now, that was a disaster and an ordeal, my mother whining
nonstop for seven days, my dad drunk and moody. This is just a bee
sting by comparison, don't you think?'
No response.
'I'm here,' she said. 'I'll stay here. I'm not going anywhere. You
and me, okay?'
On the screen of the cardiac monitor, a moving line of bright green
light displayed the jagged and critical patterns of atrial and
ventricular activity, which proceeded without a single disruptive blip,
weak but steady. If Jack had heard what she'd said, his heart did not
respond to her words.
A straight-backed chair stood in one corner. She moved it next to the
bed. She watched him through the gaps in the railing.
Visitors in the I.C.U were limited to ten minutes every two hours, so
as not to exhaust patients and interfere with the nurses.
However, the head nurse of the unit, Maria Alicante, was the daughter
of a policeman. She gave Heather a dispensation from the rules. 'You
stay with him as long as you want,' Maria said. 'Thank God, nothing
like this ever happened to my dad. We always expected it would, but it
never did. Of course, he retired a few years ago, just as everything
started getting even crazier out there.'
