Authors: G.M. Ford
A moan rose in her chest. Without thinking, she began to move, running along the gutter, in the space between the tires and the curb, rolling her ankle at one point, hopping, then limping along, favoring the sprain and wailing as she cleared the end of the van just in time to see Shirley flash by.
She watched in horror as the speeding wheelchair launched itself over the curb. Not one of those modern concrete curbs either, but a full-blown chunk of granite over a foot tall, the kind they used back when the houses were built. Helen Willis threw out her arms as if to somehow cushion the collision. She fully expected the chair to come down at a severe angle and then topple over onto Shirley’s face. She held her breath as the chair bounced hard on the tiny front wheels, cartwheeled sideways for a moment, and then miraculously righted itself without seeming to lose momentum. She heard the screams and cries of the others rise to a crescendo as the chair rolled out into the street; she forced herself forward in the seconds before Paul flashed through her field of vision, parallel to the ground like a cruise missile, flying like Superman until his fingers hit the handles and his knees hit the street with one of the most dreadful sounds Helen Willis had ever heard.
Paul’s weight swung the chair in a half circle. The wheelchair stopped on a dime, leaving Paul hanging from the handles amid the sighs of relief and the squeals of appreciation. After that, everything happened in slow motion.
A ragged cry rose from Shirley’s throat. The sound must have meant something, because Paul turned his head in time to see the car bearing down on him. The chorus swallowed its tongue as Paul heaved the wheelchair away, sending Shirley rocketing toward the curb. He had time to get one hand on the street and was struggling to regain his feet when the chorus emitted a mournful sigh.
Paul turned toward the Lexus, his eyes searching the tinted windshield for relief . . . except the driver didn’t see him. White teeth flashed as the driver spoke into the cell phone. He was still chatting away when Paul ducked his head and disappeared beneath the front bumper of the Lexus with an ear-shredding scream.
Helen knelt at Paul’s side after they’d pulled him from beneath the car. She’d gagged as one of the EMTs folded Paul’s face back down where it belonged.
She’d ridden in the ambulance with him. Watched as the technician worked to stabilize Paul’s vital signs inside the aid car, engine roaring, light bar flashing, the whoop whoop of the siren clearing the way as they covered the three or so miles to Harborvista Medical Center, bouncing and screaming across the crest of the hill, rocketing toward whatever hope of survival Paul Hardy might still have. Her suspicions were validated when a full trauma team met them in the driveway. She climbed out and stood aside as they worked to save his life. Above the hiss of traffic, she heard a whispered “holy moley” as Paul’s head came into view.
They were rolling him off now. Helen got to her feet and began to follow. The only member of the crew not wearing scrubs peeled off and started her way. Younger than Helen, flowered blouse, fawn-colored wool pants. She introduced herself. The name went in one of Helen’s ears and out the other. Started with a B maybe.
“Mrs. . . .” It was a question.
“Willis . . . Helen Willis.”
“Are you his . . .”
“Mr. Hardy is a ward of the state. To the best of my knowledge, he has no living relatives.”
The woman made a note on the clipboard she carried. “Do you happen to know if Mr. Hardy has medical insurance?”
“Through the state,” Helen answered. “Very basic.” Helen watched as the double doors at the end of the hall opened and closed. The bed, the staff, the rolling, clattering forest of IV stands, moved as one and then disappeared from view.
“Where are they taking him?” Helen asked.
“To ICU. They’re trying to stabilize his vital signs.”
“Is he . . . ? Will they . . . ?” She couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence.
The woman put a firm hand on Helen’s shoulder. “I’m not going to lie to you, Mrs. Willis,” she said. “It’s touch and go.” She paused.
“He’s in very serious condition.”
Helen thanked her for the candor. “If they save him—” She stopped. “When they save him,” she corrected herself, “are they going to be able to do anything about . . .”
Helen took a pair of deep breaths and pointed at her own face.
“You know.”
The woman expelled a long breath of her own. “Whatever it takes to save his life and get him back on his feet. After that . . .” She shrugged. “The kind of work Mr. Hardy is going to need is generally considered discretionary.”
“The state considers toothpaste discretionary,” Helen said. “I have to fight them tooth and nail for every little thing my people need.”
“It’s not just the state,” the younger woman said. “Your health insurance company . . . my health insurance company . . . when it comes to plastic surgery, there isn’t an insurance company on the planet wants to pay for it. They claim it’s not ‘health related.’ ” She made quotation marks in the air. “They insist it’s ‘not a medical necessity.’ ” Helen fought to remain in control of herself. “The people who decide these things . . .” she began. The woman took her gently by the elbow. Helen’s voice took on a bitter quality. “. . . these are the same people whose kids are wearing braces on their teeth and whose wives are getting a little nip and tuck every five years or so in order to look young,” she groused. “I can’t believe . . .”
The woman guided her back through the swinging doors. The noise level increased threefold. The muted whir of electronics, the clank of metal against metal, multiple conversations, the grunts and groans of the two dozen assorted souls waiting for help. After a moment the sounds melted into a single musical note, jarring and out of tune, like the big finish of some atonal symphony. Helen interrupted her tirade and looked around.
“You can wait here,” the woman said, offering a padded institutional chair along the nearest wall. “But . . .” she cautioned, “it’s probably going to be a while. You might be better off leaving your name and number with the ICU desk. They’ll give you a ring whenever there’s something to report.”
Helen thought about it. “He doesn’t have anybody,” she said finally.
“You sure?” she asked Helen.
“He’s alone,” she said again. “He shouldn’t wake up with nobody here.”
The other woman nodded her understanding, patted Helen twice on the shoulder, and disappeared back into ICU surgery. Over the next three hours, Helen went outside twice for air. On the first occasion, she stood in the circular drive and watched the bright orange sun as it spilled down over the distant mountains, her mind blank of everything other than postcard platitudes about setting suns and faraway peaks. Second time the sun had been swallowed by the jagged mouth of the mountains and the air held a promise of impending weather.
Helen shivered and wondered again if anybody was any more alone than her Paul Hardy who wasn’t even Paul Hardy. If anybody . . . That’s when the doctor came out. Five o’clock shadow. Late thirties, hair just starting to go gray around the edges. Big white hands that seemed to have a life of their own. He didn’t seem to be interested in offering one as a greeting.
“Paul Hardy?” East Coast accent.
Helen got to her feet. She could feel herself vibrating. “Yes.”
He made a slight sideways movement with his head. “He’s alive,” he said. “We’ve stabilized his vital signs.”
Wasn’t until that moment when Helen realized she’d been holding her breath.
“He’s going to make it,” she gasped.
He held up a long white finger. “That’s not what I said. I said he’s alive. That’s all.” He waited for the message to sink in.
“But . . . you know . . .” Helen began.
“He died in there,” the doctor said. “Three times.” He relaxed his face. “I thought for sure he was gone.” He met her eyes. “We see a lot of this stuff. We kinda get a feeling for what’s gonna happen next. You could see it in everybody’s eyes. They all thought he was a goner.” He shook his head. “. . . but that SOB just kept coming back.” He smiled. “Guy’s strong as an ox.”
“Can I?” she began.
The doctor made a rude noise with his lips. “Be serious.” He frowned. “He’s out of it.” He cut off her objections. “The only exciting thing Mr. Hardy’s going to do between now and morning is to die.” He checked his watch. “Come back around nine a.m. If he’s still alive in the morning. Well then . . . who knows.”
Asked to explain her unnaturally accommodating manner, Helen Willis would have related the tale of her personal moment of epiphany, how rounding the corner of Harding Avenue and Broadway on her way to Mass one misty morning, she’d spotted a bumper sticker on a blue Volvo station wagon. It read: you’re only as good as what pisses you off.
How, two hours later, she couldn’t recall a thing about morning Mass. Not even the subject of the sermon. Instead of listening, she’d ruminated her way through the forty-five-minute service wondering how a two-dollar message tacked to a rusty car bumper could have affected her so deeply. In the end, as she always did, she attributed it to God. She reasoned that walking to Mass was part of the religious experience and that the message on the back of that car was surely as important and as divinely inspired as anything Father Crowley might have uttered that winter morning.
On this particular morning, however, Helen Willis was as close to pissed off as she got. The frosted glass door read: surgery icu. In smaller letters, down at the bottom: Authorized Personnel Only. Helen Willis straightened her arm and sent the door flying back against the wall with a crash, revealing a brightly lit room, maybe fifteen by fifty, its gleaming white floor running along the front side of three operating theaters. The nearest doctor was up to his elbows in red. Helen turned away.
From the corner of her eye, Helen watched as a stocky Hispanic woman in a green smock walked her way. “Jew cain’t be in here, lady. Jew got to . . .”
Helen stepped farther into the room, allowing the door to hiss closed behind her.
“I’m looking for Paul Hardy.”
The woman untied the upper half of her surgical mask and let it drop down over her chest. “Lady . . . jew got to see the people upstair . . .”
“The people upstair . . .” Helen felt the hot blood in her face. She took a deep breath and started over. “The people upstairs said he was down here.”
“Jew got to—” “No,” Helen interrupted, louder this time.
“Jew—” “They finally come out and tell me he’s back in surgery. Now I’ve been sitting around here for . . .” She checked her watch. “. . . for over two hours . . . getting the runaround . . .”
She sputtered to a halt. The woman had walked off down the hall and disappeared.
“I’ve wasted the whole day, and I’m not going anywhere until I see Paul Hardy. Period. End of story,” she said to the empty hallway. She felt better for having said it and then foolish for having felt better.
A minute passed and then two. What had seemed to Helen’s ears to be silence was, in reality, far from it. The constant whir of machines filled the low end of the sound spectrum like a drone string, a dirge running like a stream beneath the muted chorus of rhythmic electronic beeps and buzzes and squeals sending their drumbeat messages through the sterile unmoving air. A lopsided panel of yellow light appeared on the floor at the far end of the hall. The woman in the smock reappeared, closing a door behind her. She’d tied her face mask back into place. When she stepped forward into the light, her brown eyes shone like a deer in the headlights. She gestured with her head for Helen to come her way and then, instead of waiting for Helen to arrive, began walking toward her. She turned her shoulders and walked right past, jerking a thumb back the way she’d come. “Last room,” she said over her shoulder. “Jew no sterile. Jew stay outside.”
Helen had a question she couldn’t quite put into words. She stood in the hall with her lower lip searching for a word. The woman disappeared from view. Other than the trapezoid of light at the far end, the rest of the rooms hummed and beeped behind tightly drawn shades. Helen squared her shoulders and marched forward. In the last room the shade had been raised. What the four of them reminded Helen of was one of those NASCAR pit crews on the racing programs Darl liked to watch on Saturdays. Everybody with a job to do. Everybody doing his job with fanatical precision. Each member allocated a certain amount of space and a certain period of time in the tightly choreographed dance taking place before Helen’s eyes.
Helen’s eyes moved to the figure on the bed. She checked the hands. It was Paul all right. No doubt about it. Oxygen tubes ran from his nostrils. Half a dozen other IV leads had been attached here and there to his arms. Three times around his head and the eye sockets suddenly came into view. The eyes were closed, the eyelids bruised a deep purple. Suture lines ran from his eyes like rays from the sun. God . . . how many . . .
A collection of monitors hung from the ceiling. She could hear the soft beeping of his heart rate and the periodic whirring sound as his blood pressure was taken automatically. They had him sitting up and strapped to the bed. The head was enormous. Size of the Jack in the Box guy. The mound of bandages were bright red here and there, tinged with pink along the edges most other places. She stood and watched as each piece of gauze was carefully unwound and dropped into the waiting metal tray for disposal. When the gauze stuck, Helen brought a hand to her throat and winced. Her movement caught the attention of the nearest doctor. He looked her way and held up a latex finger, as if to say wait a minute, and then went back about his business.
The unwinding of the gauze moved upward. They’d completely shaved his head. His skull was covered with a thick brown stubble. The tape came to an end.
Down below, they’d cut the bandages loose from behind Paul’s ears and were gently loosening the entire mask at one time. Inch by inch the bloodstained bandages were separated from the skin below, using forceps to loosen troublesome sections, until the whole piece could be pulled free.