Jack squeezed her hand. “The elevators are right there.”
She looked up at him, wanting suddenly to be alone with her fear. “Do you mind if I go alone?”
“What if you need me?”
“That’s really sweet, but I’d rather be by myself. Besides, you hate hospitals. And they don’t let many people into the ICU.”
“You’ll come and get me when you know something?”
“Of course.”
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her hard. Against her lips, he whispered, “He’ll be okay.”
“I know.” She was unsteady by the time she turned away from him. Without a backward glance, she headed toward the elevators.
On the sixth floor, she stepped out.
The ICU was a hive of white-coated activity. Elizabeth went to the main nurses desk and asked for her father. The nurse—an elderly black woman with hair the color of cold ashes—immediately sobered.
“Hello, Miss Elizabeth. I’m Deb Edwards. I reckon you don’t remember me. I used to work for Doc Treamor.”
“Hello, Deb. It’s nice to see you again.” She was surprised by how strong her voice sounded. “How is he doing?”
“Not well, I’m sad to say. But you know your daddy. He’s stronger than ten ordinary men.”
Elizabeth managed a tired smile. “Thank you.” Then she walked down the hallway toward his room.
It was walled in glass on three sides. Through it, she saw a bed sitting amid a cluster of cranelike machines. Lights blinked from ugly black boxes; green lines graphed the unsteady beating of his heart.
There was a man in the bed, lying perfectly still and straight, his legs two parallel lines under the white blankets, his hairy, age-spotted arms pressed in close to the hump of his body.
He didn’t look like her daddy. Edward Rhodes was a man who was always in motion, a man who took up space.
She moved toward him, her footsteps loud on the linoleum floor.
“Daddy?” Her voice cracked. She smoothed the gray-white hair away from his eyes. Her fingers lingered on his wide, creased brow. Even now, unconscious, he seemed to be thinking hard, planning some new adventure that only he could devise.
Her legs gave out on her for a second. She clutched the bedrail for support. The metal made a jangling, jarring noise.
She leaned forward. “Hey, Daddy, it’s me, Birdie.” At first, she said all the standard things, the familiar soundtrack that is said to all people in all hospital beds every day. Things like, You’re going to be fine … and, You’re strong, you’ll make it.
But he was so still and pale. The skin that had always looked tan, even in the dead of winter, was grayed now, pale as the pillowcase. There was a breathing tube in his nostril and an IV needle in his white, veiny arm.
He looked older than his seventy-six years. Not at all like the man who walked his fields every day because “a man should touch the ground he owns.” It seemed impossible that last year he’d trekked to Nepal, or that the year before that he’d run the rapids on the Snake River.
“Hey, Daddy,” she whispered, stroking his forehead. She bent low and kissed his temple. Gone was his usual scent of bay rum and pipe smoke. He smelled of stale perspiration and sickness. She closed her eyes, wondering how to reach him.
Gradually, she became aware of the smell of flowers. Gardenias, to be precise.
Slowly, she straightened, knowing she wasn’t alone anymore. She turned around.
Anita stood in the doorway, wearing a tight yellow angora sweater and straight-legged black pants with high-heeled black-and-yellow ankle boots. “Birdie,” she said in a quiet voice, not her usual tremblin’-with-excitement sound at all, “I’m glad you could get here s’ quick.” She went to the bed. “Hey, Daddy,” she whispered, touching his face.
“How’s he doing?”
When Anita looked up, her gray eyes floated beneath a dome of electric-blue eye shadow. “They’re hopin’ he’ll wake up.”
Elizabeth steeled herself. “But he might not?”
“The longer he’s … out, the worse it is. They’re pretty sure he’s paralyzed on the left side.”
“God,” Elizabeth whispered.
She pulled up a chair and sat beside him. Anita did the same thing, positioning herself on the opposite side of the bed. Elizabeth supposed there was a simple truth to be found in their choices. Two women who loved the same man. He’d always been between them, loving them both but unable to bring them together. For the first few minutes, they muddled through polite conversation, talking about nothing—the weather, the flight—but after a while, they gave up. They’d been there almost two hours when the door opened.
A short, stocky man in a white coat walked into the room.
“Hey, Phil,” Anita said, trying to smile. She stood up. “He’s still restin’.”