The Healing (11 page)

“It's a rite of passage,” Mike informed her. “Your father did it to me, God rest his soul.”

“He did not.”

“He most certainly did, when you weren't around to call him on it.”

Karen took a fast swig of wine and then cut the Italian bread. “You're making that up. What did my father ever say to you?”

“He used to call me things like Mr. Biceps and Pretty Boy,” Mike told her. “Then he got a little nicer about it and started calling me Rasputin. But only when he thought I needed a haircut.”

She grinned tightly. “I do remember Daddy calling you Rasputin,” she admitted as she placed the basket of bread on the table. “Until you went into the fire academy. They gave you a haircut he liked.”

Mike's eyebrows did that little jump again. “If I remember right, you liked it, too.”

Karen recalled the night so many years ago when Mike came to pick her up after his first week of firefighter training at Randall's Island. His collar-length mane of hair had been shorn in military style, flaunting his thick masculine neck and perfect flat ears. She couldn't take her eyes off him all night long, and Mike kept asking her why she was blushing. He teased her about it for years . . . how she had kissed him so feverishly that night and how they had almost violated their agreement to abstain from going all the way until they were married.

Now he brought it up yet again, and they laughed comfortably over their glass of wine. It was such an ordinary moment—ordinary conversation over an ordinary dinner—yet Karen cherished it. Mike was acting a little bit more like himself after nearly a year of zombielike grief over what had happened to his fellow rescue workers at the World Trade Center. That old twinkle in his eye was like a flame being rekindled. Lori was acting like a normal teenager caught up in the euphoria of first love. It was almost too good to be true.

Karen berated herself for the cynical thought. Yet it left her with a feeling of foreboding.

The telephone rang shortly after they finished their dinner. Karen picked it up, assuming she was going to hear her mother-in-law's voice. Nora Donnelly had a sixth sense about calling whenever Karen's backside was within inches of the sofa cushion, just as she was about to settle down and watch television in her drawstring cotton pants and oversized T-shirt.

“I'm in the shower,” Mike said from his recliner. Obviously he was having the same premonition about who was calling. “I love my mother dearly,” he used to say. “I'm just not always in the mood to give a detailed description of my uneventful day.”

But it wasn't Mike's mother on the phone. “Mrs. Donnelly?”

“Yes?”

“I'm calling from the emergency room at Nassau University Medical Center. Your daughter's been in an automobile accident.”

Karen didn't wait to hear the rest. She was so accustomed to shifting into crisis mode that her own emotional turmoil was easily stifled by her well-trained automatic pilot. “Is she okay?”

“She's being evaluated as we speak.”

“We're on our way,” Karen stated without pause, and hung up.

The next few minutes were a blur.

Karen didn't allow herself to speculate about what awaited them at the hospital. She grabbed her car keys and her purse. “The kids were in an accident,” she said to Mike, but he was already struggling to get up on his two canes. She helped him to his feet, knowing that haste and anxiety only made his tremors worse. He dropped one of the canes and sagged sideways, catching himself on the arm of the chair. “Easy,” Karen said, even though she felt like picking him up and carrying him out the door. The more he tried to move in a hurry, the less his afflicted body cooperated.

She left the cane on the floor and supported him on one side. On their way to the front door, she threw a rain slicker over his head.

“Which hospital?” Mike asked in a surprisingly steady voice, moving one foot in front of the other despite his sweating and trembling.

“Nassau,” she replied, stealing a glance at his profile but careful not to meet his eyes. His mouth was set in a resolute line and his face was strained, reflecting his determination to be strong for Lori's sake. They both knew that Nassau University Medical Center was a level-one trauma facility.

The rain had let up a little, but it was still coming down as Karen helped Mike into the passenger seat of her Jetta. “Did they say how bad?” he probed.

“They didn't tell me. They're still evaluating her.”

Karen didn't realize her heart was pounding until she settled behind the wheel and started the engine. It didn't let up for the duration of the ride, which took about fifteen minutes despite the inclement weather. Karen wasn't reckless by any means, but she wasn't about to cruise along cautiously when her daughter was lying injured in an emergency room.

Mike hung on to the handle over the door and didn't utter a word.

Karen tried not to pull her husband along beyond a pace he could manage, but she was anxious to get to the desk. Out of breath, she searched frantically for someone in charge. “Excuse me,” she said, addressing the first person who looked like she could help. “We got a call that our daughter was in a car accident. Her name is Lori Donnelly.”

With both arms clutching Mike, it was hard for Karen to tell who was supporting whom.

Lori's name was passed along between four busy staff members before someone approached them. A soft-spoken nurse in pink scrubs said gently, “Mr. and Mrs. Donnelly, your daughter is in surgery. If you'll come with me, I'll bring you to a more comfortable room where you can wait for the doctor.”

Karen felt the shudder of relief that passed through Mike's body and almost caused his legs to give out. He leaned heavily on his cane and gulped a few times, considerately shifting the burden of his weight because Karen had her own buckling knees to contend with.

Lori wasn't dead, and anything beyond that could be confronted rationally.

Karen reached for Mike's quaking hand. Her fingers interlocked with his and held on tight as they followed the nurse down the hall. She led them to an empty room that was furnished with upholstered chairs and floral paintings. On the door were the words
QUIET ROOM
. Karen knew what this room was for. It was for people who had to scream and sob. It was for coming undone when the doctor had bad news.

But the nurse had said Lori was in surgery. She was alive.

She was alive.

“Does anyone know what happened?” Mike asked.

The nurse was predictably professional and evasive. “The ER doctor will come in to brief you as soon as he can.”

“Did you see our daughter?” Karen asked.

“I didn't personally assist in her treatment, no.”

Questions flooded Karen's brain. She wanted to know what had happened, every moment, every detail of what her daughter had experienced. “And what about Nick? What about the boy who was with her? Did he come in, too?”

The nurse hesitated only slightly, but then she met Karen's gaze with a softness that scared her. “The doctor will be with you in just a few minutes. He'll tell you everything.”

The nurse left, closing the door behind her. Karen felt herself slipping into an altered sense of reality. Being removed from the bright white lights and echoing hospital corridors didn't keep her from feeling like she should be waking up from this awful dream.
This can't be happening.

Mike was the first to move. Karen followed robotically when he prompted her to sit on the small sofa. She clung to his hand, their fingers still entwined, and helped him sit beside her. The silence that descended on them was ominous. Karen had never been more terrified in her life. She could sense that they only had a few minutes before a whole new tragedy would reshape their world. Mike was staring into space instead of trying to reassure her, which indicated that he was just as terrified.

There was a soft rap on the door, and then it opened. The doctor stepped in, his expression grave. There were dark circles under his eyes and perspiration patches on his scrubs, indicating that he had been through more than one bout of extreme stress that evening. “Mr. and Mrs. Donnelly?”

They replied with a synchronized nod.

Karen thought her heart would stop beating in her chest. This man did not look like someone who was going to tell them their daughter was going to be fine. She felt Mike's hand tremble and then squeeze hers hard. When the doctor sat down across from them and leaned forward, they hung on his every word.

“My name is Dr. Whelan. I'm the attending who took care of your daughter when she was brought in.”

All the questions came flooding back to Karen's mind, but it felt like she couldn't get enough air to speak. “How is she, Doctor? Is she going to be all right? Was she awake?”

“The good news is she was conscious and showed no sign of head injury.”

Karen knew better than to sigh with relief before hearing the rest.

“But she presented with some rather serious internal injuries that warranted emergency surgery. We believe that cracked ribs may have punctured her liver, and her spleen may have to be removed, but the surgeon couldn't verify the extent of the damage or pinpoint the source of bleeding until he went in. Do you follow?”

Karen felt her eyes welling up. She glanced at Mike. He was growing pale.

They both nodded mechanically again.

“Now,” the doctor went on, “your daughter's condition was deemed critical when she went into surgery, and she'll be monitored very closely in the intensive care unit when she comes out. As you can imagine, the first twenty-four hours are crucial. I wish I could promise you more than a long, restless wait.”

Karen had more questions, but her throat closed up. An image of Lori as a plump and beautiful child embedded itself in her mind, contradicting the image of a young woman lying sliced open on a cold steel table with tubes coming out of her body. Maybe she
didn't
want to know every detail. This was her one and only baby. The one whose heart had pumped inside her, beneath her own. Karen only had to know what her daughter needed her to know.

If Lori had been awake when she was brought in, there was one question that needed to be answered.

Karen took a shaky breath, but Mike beat her to it, as if he had been reading her mind. “What about her boyfriend? What about Nick?”

A mild wince of anguish claimed the doctor's features, passing across his face like a shadow. “I'm so sorry to have to tell you this. I'm afraid he died at the scene of the accident.”

Karen gasped like the wind was knocked out of her. Mike groaned. They leaned into each other and pressed their heads together. Once again, the devastating news, delivered by a total stranger in an unfamiliar room, tempted Karen to believe it couldn't be true.

“What happened?” Mike asked. His voice was as thin and parched as hers.

The doctor spoke to them in appropriately quiet tones. “The paramedic said the car hit a telephone pole. The young man was killed instantly.”

“But how?”

“Apparently there was no other car involved. They said he might have been going a little too fast and the car hydroplaned. I'm sure the police will be able to give you more information on that.”

Karen continued to hope she was just having a nightmare. But by now she should've been able to wake herself up. When a small sob escaped her, Mike put his arms around her. She groped her way through the mental mist of denial to form the next dreaded question. “Does Lori know?”

The doctor's eyes met Karen's, and she clearly perceived a thaw in his professional detachment. Perhaps he had a son or a daughter the same age and identified a little too closely with the situation. He looked to be in his early forties, and he was wearing a wedding band. “Yes,” he replied solemnly. “Your daughter knew. But we sedated her soon after she arrived.”

The image of Lori going through such hell was unbearable to Karen. Having suffered so many of her daughter's agonies, Karen's well of maternal strength ran deep. But the thought of Lori sitting in that passenger seat and witnessing the violent death of the boyfriend she loved . . .

It was too much. Karen put her hands over her face and doubled over. She cried for Lori and the tragic twists of fate that hideously marred her young life. She cried for Nick Pappas and the knowledge that his puppy-brown eyes were closed forever. She cried because she realized that, while Lori was snatched from the jaws of death, the beast was still hungry. She cried for another mother whose heart would be irreparably broken that night. And she cried for all the tender moments that Lori and Nick would never get to enjoy—one future lost and one unraveled.

Karen wished she could take their doomed fate, with all of its misery and injustice, on her own shoulders and hand them their lives back, intact, joyful, and invincible as all young people were supposed to be.