Taking his hand, I place it across my stomach. “We’re having a baby, Jess.”
A tear slips down and I smile at his unmoving face. Maybe I thought hearing those words would flicker some form of recognition, an emotion or just a sign that says he could hear me babbling in the room. “I wish you could talk to me right now. I’m scared. I’m scared I won’t ever hear your voice again. I’m scared to do this by myself. I’m just scared right now and I need you.”
Letting out a deep breath, I swallow back the burning in my throat. “You deserve to see him grow up. He deserves to have you with him. I don’t know if it’s a boy. He just feels like one. He’ll look like you with those big, blue eyes and silly smile. Just like you did when we met. I’ll never forget it, you know. Seeing you leaning back against the wall with your hair falling down in your eyes. You were something else back then…my crazy boy. You became the love of my life that day.”
Leaning over, I touch my lips against his mouth. I hover in place, next to the tube, waiting for them to move. I wait for Jess to respond in that familiar push-pull of our lips and tongues. Giving up, I lean back, feeling a wet tear drop from my eye and splatter on his neck. The tear rolls off his skin and soaks into the hospital mattress. I cling to his fingers again, pulling them up to my lips and kissing each one.
“I love you, Jessup Mason. You hear me. You are the best thing that ever happened to me. So that means you can’t die. It’s not the way this ends. You pro…promised. You promised me…so don’t go and break it.”
I choke back an ugly sob. My tongue balls into a thick clump on the roof of my mouth. The pain sears like broken glass through my skin and through my bones. He would always be my boy. My happiness. My sunshine. My forever.
Curling up in the chair next to his bed, I would wait. I would not leave. No one could pry me from this very spot. Fatigue slams into my body; after the night of restless and drug-induced fits, I drift off in a peaceful sleep absent of dreams. I sleep through the faint images of nurses coming and going. I feel the soft folds of a blanket drape over my skin.
My eyes open to see Dr. Mason, looking down at me. His ever-present boyish looks seem old and fragile. A bearded shadow graces his jaw, showing off a mix of black and gray.
“How is he?”
“Holdin’ in there.”
“He…he’s going to die, isn’t he?” I whispered the haunting words I had avoided since the accident.
“He could, Alex. He should already be gone. But I don’t know. He might not wake up for a few days or he might not wake up at all. But I’m not givin’ up hope. You shouldn’t either. Jess got hurt real bad, but he’s made it this far.”
Pulling up a seat beside me, his hands shake as he tries to relax against the plastic. I reach over and take his fingers between mine. “How bad are the injuries?”
“They’re about as bad as they can get. We got Jess to the hospital in Arlis to wait for the helicopter to bring him here. He was drug by that horse. They both went down the side of that hole. She fell on him. We know that because they had to pull him out from under her. They had him on a ventilator all the way here. His chest and pelvis are crushed, and he wasn’t really breathin’ on his own. I wasn’t sure he’d even make it to Dallas, you know. He should’ve died out there on the meadow.”
He stifles back a cry. The strong doctor clutches my hand as he continues. “They did surgery and tried to fix him up as much as possible. He’s got a lot of internal injuries and some swellin’ in the brain. I thought he’d die on the table. That’s what usually happens. The body can’t handle that much trauma. But he didn’t. He’s holdin’ on. He’s alive. It’s like a…a…”
“Miracle,” I mutter, feeling the tears fall down on our clasped hands.
“Yeah,” a nervous laugh comes from his lips. “I’m a doctor. But I’ve never seen anythin’ like it before in my life. It’s like a damn miracle is holdin’ Jess together.”
That absurd word echoes like a pulse in my life. My father believed in one side of it and Dr. Mason believed in the other. They both embraced the idea with a full heart and equal trust; a miracle for my mother with the arrival of the Masons and another that beat in the literal heart of Jess.
My thoughts flood in twisted confusion. “You really believe that?”
“I have to, Alex. He’s my son. I have to believe it until there’s not a reason to anymore. And right now, he’s here. He’s breathin’. Every time he does, I know he shouldn’t be.”
“That’s…that’s…” The wave of emotions overtakes my words. “It’s just hard for me to think about.”
“It’s hard. But you have to hope, Alex. You have to believe in the impossible.”
I swallowed hard nodding my head. “I…I know.”
He grips my fingers tighter. “I think he already knows you’re here.”
“You do?”
“I do. Everythin’ just seems better now that you’re with him.”
I glance over the side of the rail. His chest moves up and down under the white sheet. His overall presence seems more relaxed, despite all the tubes and monitors. “You’re right. I think he does.”
“I’ll see about gettin’ you somethin’ better than this chair.”
“Ok.”
Dr. Mason returns with a small cot. It fits snuggly in the corner amidst the equipment and his bed. Lying on my back next to the railing, I watch the tiles on the ceiling. Once again, all the same players scatter across the same, terrible board of life, sitting in a hospital: Dr. Mason, a mother, a father, and a child. We all hang in limbo, waiting for the verdict in a plan much bigger than all of us.
I reach up and touch his hand through the bars. I need reassurance that his heart still pumps life through that ripped up body. I need reassurance he is still breathing. I need the facts but those just are not possible.
Sometimes all we have is faith and hope and you just have to trust it.
I understand that now. Closing my eyes, I clutch his warm fingers and whisper in the darkness, asking for the impossible. I ask for a miracle. I ask for Jess to come back to me.
Chapter 52
Eight days later…
The room is cold and haunting. I drift in and out asleep, never gone for any extended amount of time in case he wakes up. Jess improves a little more each day even though he’s in a coma. The doctors are still hopeful and still perplexed at his ability to stay alive.
My father tries to convince me to leave and stay in a hotel, but I refuse. I believe with everything inside my heart that Jess will wake up, and I will be here when it happens. So I rinse off in the hospital bathroom each morning. I sit in the chair all day talking to Jess, like he can hear me. I sleep next to his bed each night, listening to the tubes and monitors.
I hope for him. I pray for him. I wait for him.
Chapter 53
Fifteen days later…
I rest on my back, watching the sun reflecting on the ceiling. They moved Jess out of ICU yesterday and into his own room. I don’t notice the sounds of the machines anymore. They blend into the background noise of the hospital. I still talk to him each day. I tell him what Skeeter says about the ranch. I tell him about the visitors in the lobby. I tell him more about the baby. I have pretend arguments about names. I talk until my throat gets hoarse and scratchy.
Sometimes I think about his voice. Sometimes I imagine I can hear his pancake syrup words. I can hear Jess laugh. I can hear him tease me. I can hear him say I love you.
Chapter 54
Nineteen days later…