Family had never played a big part in Rae’s life-unless you counted the people at All Souls and, later, at the agency. Her parents had died in an accident when she was just a kid, and she’d been raised by her grandmother in Santa Maria-a cold, begrudging woman who had died of a heart attack while trying to murder a perfectly good rosebush.
Maybe that was why she could put up with the trials and tribulations of the Little Savages: they were so much more of a family than Nana, as the old lady had insisted Rae call her.
Of course, there was Jamie’s abortion last year: Rae had finessed that so Ricky hadn’t made it more stressful than was warranted upon his second daughter. And while Brian’s OCD, which had surfaced shortly before Charlene and Ricky divorced, was difficult to deal with, he was a sweet-natured boy and lately Rae had become close to him. Brian seemed better all the time; he did get manic once in a while, dusting and washing everything in sight, but Rae kind of appeciated that. In spite of their having a full-time housekeeper and a maid, chores at the Kelleher-Savage home were often left undone, what with the band members and recording company people and friends constantly traipsing through the house.
Back to the search for Bill Delaney. She’d called his cellular minutes ago. Same lack of response. No way of knowing whether it was Callie who’d written down the number or when. The phone could’ve been a throwaway or the account canceled long ago. With no information on Delaney, an ordinary name in this city with its high Irish population, locating him wouldn’t be easy.
Okay, if a hooker had his cell number, what could he be?
A fellow sex worker. A pimp. Someone in the porn industry. A lawyer…
Yes!
Google search of ABA members. Many Delaneys. She worked her way through them, both in the city and around the state. Narrowed it down by type of law practice. Came up with two possibles, one on Forty-eighth Avenue near Ocean Beach, the other on Shotwell Street, close to where the former All Souls Victorian stood on Bernal Heights. It was Saturday, but ambulance chasers who bailed hookers out of jail were always reachable.
As she passed through the living room on the way out, she called to Ricky, Molly, and Lisa, “When you go to the zoo, tell the baby giraffe hello for me.”
Ricky had an arm around either daughter. They were watching something on TV that sounded nonsensical. He grinned and said, “Good hunting, Red.”
HY RIPINSKY
She has got to be told today, before the visitors start coming,” he said to Dr. Saxnay.
The older man sighed. “You’re right, of course. We’ll give her the weekend to take it in, then allow the first visitors on Monday.”
“I’d rather they start coming right away.”
“The diagnosis is going to be a shock.”
“She’s aware it’s bad. All that time when she could hear and no one knew it. Besides, with Sharon, even knowing the worst is better than uncertainty.”
Ralph Saxnay said, “Well, you can attest to that better than I.” He got up from the desk and led Hy toward McCone’s room. “You go in first.”
It was an attractive room-he hadn’t paid attention to that before-with pale blue walls and matching blue upholstery on the visitors’ armchair near the high hospital bed. None of this backache-making plastic hospital-room stuff that he could swear was designed to drive family and friends away. Today the room was fragrant, filled with the flowers and plants from well-wishers that had arrived steadily since word got out that she’d been admitted here. The blinds were raised, giving a view of the silver-leafed eucalyptus grove, and the nursing staff had apparently completed their morning routine.
Shar was awake, propped against the pillows. He went to her, kissed lips that were moist with Chap Stick. Looked into her eyes.
She was blinking frantically.
Saxnay had come up behind him. He seemed to intuit what was going on.
“I’ve come to talk with you about your CT scan results,” he began, moving to where Sharon could see him.
McCone blinked once.
“Frankly, they are not as good as we’d hoped. Now that we know you’re conscious and aware, we can put a name to your condition: locked-in syndrome.”
The doctor proceeded to explain: the same litany of symptoms and causes Hy had been given: awareness, ability to reason, to feel emotion and touch. Saxnay didn’t downplay the seriousness of the prognosis, and throughout his speech, McCone’s gaze remained fixed and unblinking on the doctor’s.
“I don’t mean to say your condition is hopeless,” Saxnay concluded. “Patients have made partial recoveries. Much depends on you-your spirit, your determination. And, of course, you have friends and family to rally round you. That means a lot.” He paused. “Have I explained clearly enough for now?”
McCone blinked once.
“Then I’ll leave you two alone.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Hy said, and pulled the upholstered chair close to the bed.
A single tear slipped down his wife’s right cheek. Gently he wiped it away, then did the same with one that appeared on her left cheek. He touched her arm, wished he could take her hand, but it was under the covers, stuck with an IV.
“This isn’t as bad as he made it sound,” he said.
No blink or eye movement.
“We’ll get through it.”
No response.
“Doctors don’t know everything.”
Eye movement-questioning the statement, he thought.
“Would you like me to go? Be alone for a while?”
Two blinks.
“Then I’ll stay and tell you what the folks at the agency are doing to ID whoever did this to you.”
SHARON McCONE
Tears slipped down my cheeks again. God, I hadn’t cried this much in my life!
Actually, what I felt like when the doctor was talking to me was a lab rat in a cage. Saxnay seemed like a good surgeon, but in my case he didn’t have much to work with and he knew it.
A lab rat. No, that wasn’t right. Lab rats could move, make sounds, eat on their own. I was more like a mummy. I liked that term better than the
The effort the agency people were putting into my case touched me, though. At least I was a cherished mummy. Hy said they’d be coming by and starting to report to me tomorrow; relatives would arrive, too.
Ma… At first I’d thought, Jesus Christ, not Ma on the first day! But Hy had said he’d arrange for the RI jet to pick her up in San Diego tomorrow afternoon; he’d take her to dinner and put her up at an expensive boutique hotel
