A Family To Cherish (3 page)

It was nearly six a.m. when they entered the hospital lobby. Daylight was already filtering through the windows, giving the room a smudged, hazy cast, as if the darkness were reluctant to relinquish its hold. Doug went straight to the information desk and asked where he could find his sister. The receptionist checked her charts and directed them upstairs, to the third floor, the Intensive Care Unit. “Dr. Glazier is on call.”

They took the elevator upstairs to the ICU nurses' station, and Doug asked to see his sister, his voice tight with anxiety and impatience.

“I'll page Dr. Glazier,” said the nurse. “Please have a seat in the waiting room.”

Doug held his ground. “I just want to know if my sister and her family are okay. Can't you tell me that much?”

“I'm sorry. You'll have to speak with the doctor.”

Doug's tone hardened. “Listen, I
am
a doctor. A surgeon. And I want some answers. Now.”

“Dr. Glazier is on his way, Doctor. Please have a seat.”

Doug was about to protest again, but instead he
threw up his hands in a gesture of futility and muttered something under his breath. He and Barbara crossed the hall to the waiting room and sat down on a green vinyl couch beside a tall potted palm. Nearby stood a table with a carafe of coffee and foam cups. Barbara got two cups of black coffee and handed one to Doug. “Maybe this will help.”

“Thanks. Some news would help even more,” he snapped. “All I want is a little information about Nan, and you'd think I was after top government secrets or something.”

Barbara thought of something. “What about Pam and Benny? I wonder if anyone's called them.”

“Let's wait until we have some news to report.”

Finally, a lanky man in a white lab coat approached; he had a narrow face, thinning hair, and a small black mustache. He held out his hand to Doug. “Mr. and Mrs. Logan? I'm Dr. Glazier.”

“It's
Doctor
Logan,” said Doug. “How's my sister?”

“I won't sugarcoat it, Dr. Logan. It's serious. Your sister has sustained multiple injuries, including a lacerated liver and spleen. We operated immediately, but there was too much damage. She'll need further surgery, but at the moment she's too weak. If she can gain some strength in the next day or two…”

“What about her husband, Paul?”

Dr. Glazier's brow furrowed. “I'm sorry. Your
sister's husband was killed on impact. A drunk driver crossed into their lane and hit them head-on.”

“And their daughter?” asked Barbara, choking back a sob. “Did she make it?”

Dr. Glazier's voice brightened slightly. “Yes. She was asleep in the back seat. She sustained only minor injuries. She's in the pediatric wing. Barring any complications, we should be able to release her in a few days.”

“When can I see my sister?” asked Doug.

“The two of you can see her now, but just for a few minutes. She's in module 2A.”

Barbara and Doug instinctively clasped hands as they entered the small, unadorned room. In the large hospital bed lay a pale figure connected to a maze of blinking, whirring machines. Barbara clasped her hand over her mouth and whispered, “Oh, Doug, she looks so bad.”

Doug approached the bed and put his hand on Nancy's arm. His voice rumbled with emotion. “Hey, sis, it's me, your big brother.”

Nancy's eyes fluttered open, but her gaze remained unfocused. “Doug?” she murmured through pale, swollen lips.

“Yeah, it's me, baby. Barbara's here, too.”

Nancy struggled to speak, her lips forming a faint smile. “Didn't think…you'd see me again…so soon…did you?”

“Can't say that I did,” said Doug, his voice catching.

“You know me,” whispered Nancy, closing her eyes. “Always doing…the unexpected.”

Barbara slipped over to the other side of the bed and gently smoothed back Nancy's mussed hair. “Now we need you to get well, Nan. Show us how quickly you can come back to us, okay?”

Nancy moistened her dry lips and gazed up urgently at Barbara. “Janee? Is she…okay?”

Barbara nodded. “She's going to be fine, Nan. The doctor says she'll be out of the hospital in a few days, good as new.”

“Thank God.” Nancy lifted her hand weakly to Barbara. “If Paul and I…don't make it…take care of Janee.”

“Don't be silly, Nan,” said Barbara, forcing a smile. “You're going to be just fine.”

“Promise me, Barb. Just in case. Take care of my little girl.”

Barbara blinked away sudden tears. “Of course we will.”

Nancy swallowed hard and groped for words, her voice growing faint. “Teach her about art…and music…and poetry. Take her to church. Show her God's love…like you showed us.”

Barbara fished for a tissue in her purse and blew her nose. “We will, Nan. I promise.”

“Give her all the love…Paul and I gave her. She needs…a lot…of love.”

Doug bent over the bed and kissed his sister's pale forehead. “We'll take good care of her, Nan,
until you're well again and can take care of her yourself. You just concentrate on getting better, okay?”

Nancy turned her eyes to Doug, her sallow skin taut against her high cheekbones. “Say a prayer. Please.”

Doug hesitated for a long moment, giving Barbara a look that said,
Get me out of this.
She stared back unflinchingly and waited. Finally Doug bent over the bed, his face close to Nancy's, and whispered a simple, heartfelt petition for her healing. Halfway through he stopped and drew in a deep, shuddering breath. In the silence Barbara could hear the
whoosh
and
click
of the machines monitoring Nancy's vital signs. After a minute, Doug spoke again, his voice broken, the anguished words rising on a sob as he begged God to spare his sister's life.

It was the first prayer Barbara had heard Doug utter in over four years.

“W
e've got to look in on Janee,” Doug told Barbara as they left Nancy's room.

Barbara felt a tight, choking sensation in her chest. “I don't know if I can. Oh, Doug, it brings everything back.”

“We've got to go in, Barb. We're responsible for Janee until—until Nancy's well again.”

They were already walking toward the pediatric wing. Barbara took Doug's arm, fearing her legs might buckle. Quietly they entered the small room with its frilly curtains and bright animal decor. A nurse was jotting something on a chart. Barbara drew in a sharp breath and forced herself to gaze at the sleeping child. In the large bed with its raised guardrails, Janee looked small and pale and defenseless, like a broken porcelain doll, her head bandaged, bruises on her face and arms.

Like another child so long ago.

“Oh, Doug, she looks so bad,” Barbara whispered, clutching her stomach. “I think I'm going to be sick.”

“How is she doing?” Doug asked the nurse.

“The child's sleeping soundly. I don't expect her to wake for several hours. You may want to get some rest and come back later.”

“But someone should be here if she wakes,” said Barbara.

“Leave a number and I'll call you the moment she stirs.”

Barbara looked at Janee, then nodded. “You're right. She's sleeping soundly. We'll come back later, but please don't hesitate to call.”

As they headed back down the hall, Doug said, “I've got to phone Pam and Benny. They should be here.”

“Then what?”

“I don't know.” Doug ran his fingers distractedly through his thick, curly hair. “The nurse is right. We need some sleep. Paul and Nancy's apartment isn't far from here. Twenty minutes maybe.”

“Then let's go. We'll need to contact people and…make arrangements.”

Barbara waited on a sofa in the lobby, while Doug crossed the room to a pay phone and called his older sister Pam in Oregon. Barbara didn't want to hear him repeat the painful news, didn't want to imagine Pam and Benny's shock and grief. She just wanted
to be back home again, with everything normal, the way it was yesterday. But then again, what was normal? Barbara's life hadn't been normal for years.

Nothing was normal without Caitlin.

“Barb, they're taking the next plane out of Portland.”

Barbara looked up, startled that Doug had already finished his call. “How did they take the news?”

“The way you'd expect. Shock. Disbelief. Tears.”

Neither Barbara nor Doug said much as they drove the twenty miles to the renovated Victorian house in south San Francisco, where Paul and Nancy had an upstairs apartment.

As Doug unlocked the door, Barbara murmured, “It feels strange coming here like this. Like we're trespassing.”

“I know, Barb, but it's got to be done.” Doug opened the door, and they stepped tentatively into Paul and Nancy's world—a quaint, cluttered apartment that embodied a diversity of styles, from traditional to modern to garage-sale chic. Floral wallpaper, dark mahogany woodwork and intricately carved cornices and moldings were counterbalanced by vinyl beanbag chairs, a leather recliner, a rattan sofa, pine bookcases, and a simulated black marble entertainment unit. Plants abounded—from ceiling to floor, on every table and windowsill: creeping ferns and climbing vines, small pots of violets and hanging baskets of petunias, and plant stands with
large, leafy philodendron, all badly in need of watering.

“Your sister made an art of clutter,” said Barbara, noting the books, magazines, canvases and sheet music strewn around the room. A guitar was propped in one corner, an easel in another. “I'd forgotten what a creative person she is.”

“When I was growing up, she was always dabbling in something,” said Doug wistfully, picking up an unfinished still-life. “Always writing a poem, painting a picture, picking out a tune on her guitar.”

“And what were you doing?” asked Barbara softly as she examined a charcoal rendering of Janee.

Doug chuckled ruefully. “I was putting splints and bandages on my sisters' dolls. I even tried operating on Pam's favorite Raggedy Ann. Cut the thing nearly in two. Stuffing everywhere. Told her I was doing a heart transplant. She wasn't amused.”

Barbara gave him a gentle smile. “Even then you were preparing to be a great surgeon.”

Doug grimaced. “And where'd it get me?”

“You're still a great surgeon. You just refuse to see it.”

Doug let the unfinished canvas clatter on the coffee table, and countered, “How did this get to be about me?”

Barbara looked away. She couldn't handle this rift today. Some other time. “We're both exhausted, Doug. Let's get some sleep and talk later.”

“Okay by me. I'll grab a glass of water first.” He headed for the kitchen, and she followed. It was a clean, compact kitchen with more plants in the garden window and lots of curios and handmade knickknacks on the counters. Janee's colorful drawings covered the refrigerator door.

“Looks like Janee has some of her mother's talent,” he said with a catch in his voice. He turned on the spigot and ran the water until it was cold.

Barbara got two glasses from the cupboard and handed them to him. “Do you want me to fix us something to eat? I'm sure there's something I could whip up.”

He filled her glass and gave it to her. “No, I couldn't eat. You go ahead.”

“Maybe later.” They went down the hall to Paul and Nancy's room and hesitated for a few minutes before lying down on the neatly made queen-size bed. “It feels strange being here like this,” said Barbara, easing herself down so she wouldn't muss the chenille spread. “I'm too tense to relax. Maybe we should have stayed at the hospital.”

Doug rolled onto his side and ran his hand soothingly over her arm. “Try to sleep, Barbie. We need our rest. We've got a long, hard road ahead of us, and we've got to be strong.”

Stronger than we were when Caitlin died?
she wondered silently.
How can we be strong now when we still haven't got past that loss?

Barbara fell into a fitful sleep punctuated by vivid,
exhausting dreams. She and Doug were climbing a mountain, trying to reach Caitlin, who stood perched on a precipice, crying for help. No matter how high they climbed, there was always more rugged terrain waiting to be scaled. When they finally reached the spot where Caitlin had stood, she was gone, and they were alone on the mountain, just the two of them, buffeted by dark winds, with the precipice yawning like a black hole below them. “We'll fall unless we hang on to each other,” she told Doug, but when they tried to embrace, the winds and the darkness drove them apart.

Barbara woke suddenly, her heart pounding, her face wet with perspiration. Doug was no longer in the bed beside her. An irrational fear seized her, coupled with the lingering memory of the black chasm. She bounded off the bed and rushed into the living room, her breathing ragged.

Doug sat on the rattan sofa, talking on his cell phone. “Thanks, Jim, I'd appreciate anything you could do.” He hung up and looked at Barbara, his eyes shadowed with weariness. “I asked some of my old colleagues who are practicing in San Francisco to take a look at Nancy. See if they can help.”

“Do you think they can?”

“They're going to talk with her physicians.”

Barbara sat down beside her husband. “Did you get any sleep?”

“Enough. How about you?”

“I dreamed mostly. More like nightmares. I feel as if I don't want to close my eyes again.”

Doug took her hand and caressed it gently. “I'm going back to the hospital, Barb. Why don't you stay here and try to rest.”

“No, Doug. I want to go with you.”

He squeezed her hand and smiled faintly. “Okay. Let's freshen up and head back.”

They arrived back at the hospital just as the sun was lowering, a pale orange ball on a hazy, salmon-pink horizon. In the ICU waiting room they found Doug's sister Pam and her husband, Benny Cotter, talking with a physician.

“It's Dr. Glazier,” said Doug. “He must have news.”

With hushed, solemn words Barbara and Doug greeted Pam and Benny. Pam was an attractive, sophisticated brunette in her mid-thirties, and Benny, a balding, impeccably dressed man with a ski nose and a booming baritone voice. They owned a used car dealership outside Portland. Benny sold cars; Pam worked for an accountant and helped keep the books for Benny in her spare time. Doug always said they were an unbeatable team; they knew how to make money and how to keep it.

The two couples embraced briefly, then turned back to the doctor. “How is my sister?” asked Doug.

Dr. Glazier was stony-faced as he said, “Dr. and Mrs. Logan, I was just telling Mr. and Mrs. Cotter
that your sister has slipped into a coma. I'm sorry. It doesn't look good.”

They talked with the physician at length, Doug doing most of the talking, using medical terms Barbara couldn't follow. When there seemed to be nothing more to say, the two couples took turns checking on Nancy, who looked as if she were peacefully asleep. Then they visited Janee's room. She, too, was slumbering serenely and her coloring was better; the nurse assured them she would likely be awake and alert in the morning.

It was after nine when they went to the hospital cafeteria for coffee and a bite to eat. As she ate, Barbara's weariness deepened. Conversation around the table was sparse, forced, hollow. The four of them had never been close, held little in common in attitudes, beliefs or interests, and now it seemed even harder to find common ground, aside from this sudden tragedy they shared.

The truth was, Barbara had always considered Benny an insufferable boor and Pam a brittle, self-serving woman who could be catty and mean-spirited one moment and nauseatingly saccharine-sweet the next. Barbara always had the feeling she should be on guard around Pam, as if Pam were secretly comparing herself with others and looking for ways to undermine the competition. Such negative feelings made Barbara feel guilty and uneasy. Maybe she herself was the one making such comparisons and looking for ways to diminish Pam and Benny.
Maybe they had no idea how they came across to others. Maybe this whole undercurrent of dissension lay solely in Barbara's own mind.

That was what Doug said whenever Barbara had questioned Pam and Benny's actions or motives over the years. “What is there about Pam that makes you feel so inadequate, Barbie?” Doug had asked her after one of their rare visits. “Do you resent them for choosing not to have children because it would interfere with their freewheeling life-style? Do you dislike Pam because she's not the maternal, nurturing type? She's not you, Barbie. Why don't you just try to be friends with my sister instead of second-guessing her?”

Barbara had no answer. Maybe Doug was right. Maybe the problem was her own. And yet now, sitting across from Pam and Benny as the four of them commiserated, dawdling over lukewarm coffee and cold soup, Barbara knew her instincts were correct. She would never trust Pam and Benny with anything precious to her.

“I still can't believe this is happening,” Pam was saying as she stirred cream into her third cup of coffee. “I'm not good with things like this. I just fall to pieces inside. I'm a bundle of nerves.” She held her hand up, her red acrylic nails catching the light. “Look at me. I'm shaking.”

“We're all feeling that way, Pam,” said Doug, sipping his coffee.

Pam's voice grew shrill. “Nancy's not going to
make it, is she, Doug? You're a doctor. You know these things.”

“I'm not giving up on her, Pam, and neither should you.”

“And poor Paul,” Pam went on miserably. “Now we have a funeral to plan. I can't do it. I wouldn't know the first thing. I hate funerals. I never go, do I, Benny?”

He nodded. “This lady will skip her own funeral—I'm not kidding.”

“You don't have to plan the funeral, Pam,” said Doug. “Just be available. Barbara and I can make the arrangements, can't we, Barb?”

Barbara stared into her coffee cup, biting her lip to keep from saying what she really felt.

“Would you, Doug? I think that would be best,” said Pam. “After all, you and Barb have, uh, well, you know…had the experience already. You know what to do.”

Barbara's stomach knotted and a sour taste rose in her throat. Yes, she and Doug knew all about funerals. Four years ago Pam and Benny were out of the country on vacation and missed Caitlin's funeral. They sent an enormous bouquet of pink roses, but never again mentioned Caitlin's name, never even acknowledged in their conversations that she had ever existed. For Barbara, that was the worst sort of betrayal.

But then, she and Doug never talked about Caitlin either.

“We can't stay in town more than a couple of days,” said Benny. “You know how it is, Doug. When you're in business for yourself, you gotta stay at the helm or the ship sinks.”

“Will you be leaving, too, Pam?” asked Barbara.

“It depends on how Nancy does. But Benny's right. When he's away from the dealership more than a day or so, everything falls apart.”

Barbara dabbed at a water ring on the table. “The doctor says Janee will be released from the hospital in a few days. She'll need care until Nancy recovers.”

Pam stared openmouthed at Barbara, then flashed a quizzical glance at Doug and Benny. “My goodness, I just supposed…”

“What?” challenged Barbara. “That we'd take Janee?”

“Well, yes,” said Pam, her voice rising with a slight falsetto tone. “You'd know what to do. After all, you've had experience—”

“You can say it, Pam,” said Barbara ruefully. “We've had experience raising a child.”

“Yes, exactly. That's what I meant. And if you had to, um, keep Janee, well, you'd have a child again. You'd like that, wouldn't you?”