CHAPTER Twenty-Five
Dean’s head was swimming with too many concerns to go to work.
Katie had called and woken him just after five in the morning. They were all on their way to the hospital. She promised to call when she could.
Their conversation was kept short. Dean offered a play-by-play of his time with Savannah since Katie left. He could tell she was already missing her.
Dean spent the morning playing dad and called his mother to see how his sister was doing. They all still lived in Texas. At times like this, he would have liked to be closer. Visiting his brand-new niece would have to wait. At least for a little while.
The image of his niece and Savannah were stacked back-to-back on his cell phone. He flipped between the pictures so many times since the night before he should have worn out the function on his phone.
But no…the pictures kept coming up.
And the questions he’d started asking himself weeks ago doubled.
He was probably stabbing in the dark, but he had to know.
Dean wasn’t much for doctors, but he called his and asked to come in. A few clicks on the Internet provided him with enough information to know that finding out if he was Savannah’s father could be confirmed within a day.
Dean sat in the reception area of the doctor’s office with Savannah kicking away in the car seat. There was plenty of admiration from those around him.
“Oh, isn’t she precious.”
“Your daughter is beautiful. I’ll bet her mommy is, too.”
Dean accepted their compliments and kept his distance from those with obvious colds.
A nurse called him back and placed him in a room. With his chart in her hand, the nurse asked why he was in today.
“It’s kind of private. I’d like to keep it between the doctor and me.”
“Everything you do here is confidential, Mr. Prescott. But I’ll send in Dr. Ellis and await his instructions.”
“Thank you.”
Dean avoided sitting on the exam table and took the chair.
Savannah started to protest after being in the car seat for a half an hour. She wasn’t due to eat, but being cooped up probably wasn’t pleasant either.
The handle to the door twisted and Dr. Ellis slipped into the room.
“Hello, Dean.”
“Doctor.”
Dr. Ellis closed the door behind him and peeked into the car carrier. “And who is this?”
“Savannah.”
“She’s adorable.”
“Ah, thank you.” Dean squirmed in his seat, feeling all kinds of awful for doing this without Katie knowing. He told himself she couldn’t handle the additional stress. And if he could take one more question about Savannah off her plate, he’d do it.
“My nurse tells me you’re here for a private reason. I take it you don’t need another tetanus shot.”
Dean gave a grunt of a laugh. “No, I’m good there for another five years I think.”
“OK. Then what can I do for you?”
Savannah let out a cry that threatened to escalate. Dean found the clasp holding the pacifier and popped it into her mouth.
“It’s about Savannah. I need to know if she’s mine.”
Dr. Ellis’s gaze moved to the baby and back to Dean. “The mother says she is?”
“It’s complicated.”
The doctor leaned over Savannah and made a cooing sound before tapping on her nose. “She has your nose.”
Dean stiffened. “Yeah…I noticed that. But I need to be sure. And I’d like a rush on the lab work…if that’s possible.”
“Not a problem, Dean.”
Dr. Ellis removed two sterile swabs and proceeded to take a saliva sample off the inside of Dean’s cheek before doing the same on Savannah. Savannah sucked on the swab, squished her nose, then tried to spit it out.
“Not what you’re used to, is it?” Dr. Ellis teased.
After placing the swabs in vials and marking on the labels, he turned to Dean again. “I should have the results tomorrow afternoon, the next morning at the latest.”
Dean handed him his business card and circled his cell phone number. “Call me on this number.”
“I won’t leave a message,” he said. “I’ll wait until you pick up. If it’s easier, you can call here. I have a busy afternoon tomorrow.”
Dean stood and shook the doctor’s hand.
“Paternity tests can be emotional things, Dean. Are you prepared for whatever answers we’re going to find?”
Dean lifted the car seat and smiled at Savannah. “I’m taking care of this little girl regardless of what the tests say.” That he knew without a doubt.
“And the mother?”
The images of Katie and Maggie popped in his mind. “My feelings for Savannah’s mother aren’t going to change. I’m in this for the long haul, Doctor. For my own peace of mind, I need to know all the facts.”
Dr. Ellis patted him on his back. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow. I hope it all works out the way you want it,” he said.
A lack of sleep and the stress of seeing her mother for the first time in nearly a decade were thicker than the wet heat of a Florida summer.
The mechanical doors of the hospital opened automatically letting the three of them in. Katie kept her dark sunglasses on when they walked through the lobby. Both her father and her brother removed their cowboy hats in a sign of respect.
The volunteer at the visitor desk directed them to the ICU after taking down all three of their names. As it often was when the three of them were together, they walked through the hospital and people parted from their path as if they were water and the other people were grains of sand. It wasn’t that they were pushy, it was more like an energy other people could feel but couldn’t see. Katie had noticed the phenomenon by the time she was nine. Her friends would tell her it was because her daddy was rich. She disagreed. There was something much more primal influencing the wide berth people made around them. Something organic that wolves in a pack understood and people didn’t.
Instead of concentrating on the coming task, Katie noticed the people parting to let them through and drew in the scents surrounding her. The sterile smell of the hospital walls, part antiseptic, part floor cleaner, met with the unique scent of despair.
“Hospitals always smell so…”
“Awful,” her brother finished her sentence.
“Yeah.”
He offered a grin, grasped her arm, and linked it through his.
This is just as hard on him as it is me. She was more thankful for her brother in that moment than she’d been in a while.
One day I’m going to have to adopt a brother or sister for Savannah. Just thinking about her daughter helped dispel the sour mood she’d woken up with.
They rode the elevator to the fifth floor in silence.
A large waiting room sat outside a set of locked doors leading into the ICU. Several families gathered in the space, some with pillows cradling their heads. A television added background to the noise of the room.
“Mr. Morrison?” The man who approached them wore a suit and tie and stood a good two inches shorter than Katie. The man was dwarfed by her father yet he lifted his head and offered his hand in greeting. “I’m Dennis Nemo, the nursing director you spoke with last night.”
“Yes, thank you for meeting us.”
“Not a problem.”
Gaylord turned toward them, offering an introduction. “These are Annette’s children, Jack and Katelyn.”
Dennis nodded to both of them before returning his attention to her father. “There’s been a few changes since we talked last night.” Dennis opened the doors with a swipe of his ID badge.
He led them not into her mother’s room, but to a smaller waiting room where he asked them to wait. Dennis left the room and said he’d be right back.
“What’s going on?” Jack asked.
Gaylord shook his head. “I don’t know.”
Katie managed to sit, but she perched on the edge of her chair and jumped when a young woman in scrubs walked into the room beside Dennis.
“This is Valerie. She’s the nurse taking care of your wife.”
Katie’s gaze snapped to her father.
“We’re divorced,” he corrected Dennis’s mistake.
“Right, you told me that. Sorry. In any case, Valerie was here yesterday when Annette came in and has been here for a couple hours this morning.”
Valerie smiled at all of them and encouraged them to sit.
Dennis sat beside her and let her talk. The minute she opened her mouth Katie was reminded of Monica.
Valerie was warm, caring, and had a spark behind her eye that told Katie that she loved her job.
“It would help if I knew what you’ve been told,” Valerie started.
Gaylord repeated what he’d told them the night before. “There was a car accident. I was told she didn’t have a seat belt on and she ended up on the street.”
Valerie nodded. “Right.”
Katie placed a hand on her father’s arm as he continued. “The doctor said she had to have surgery right away to stop internal bleeding. Something about a collapsed lung. She was conscious last night…asking to see the kids.”
Hearing her father say that a second time set Katie back.
I don’t care.
Yet even as Katie heard her own words mumbled inside her head, she knew they were full of shit.
“When I left last night, she was groggy from surgery and heavily medicated for pain. She asked for you…all of you. I told her you were coming and she seemed to calm down. Well, later last night she had a setback. The night nurse report said that at three o’clock she started to drop her oxygen saturation. The X-rays indicated a fluid buildup in her good lung. We had no choice but to intubate her.”
“What does all that mean?” Jack asked.
“We placed a tube into her lungs to help her breathe.” Valerie paused and looked at each of them. “She’s on a ventilator.”
“A breathing machine?”
“Yes. But since we put her on it, her vital signs have been stable. I know it sounds bad, and I’m not suggesting her condition isn’t critical, but right now she’s as stable as she can be in the ICU.”
Having spent nearly two months living with a critical care trauma nurse, Katie asked what Monica told her to. “Valerie. How long have you been a nurse?”
“Ten years.”
“How is she?”
Valerie looked at Dennis then back at her. “Like I said, she is as stable as—”
“No.” Katie took off her glasses and met Valerie’s eyes. “One of my best friends works the ER. She told me to ask you what your gut says.”
Valerie rubbed her hands on her pants and sat forward. “Your mom’s fighting right now. I’m hopeful.”
Katie drew in a deep breath and looked at her dad and her brother. “Can we see her?”
“Of course.”
Valerie stood and the rest of them followed.
The short walk through the department felt like a mile. Every doorway they passed held another patient. All of them were lying in hospital beds surrounded by machines. A series of beeps and dings was a constant reminder that lives hung in the balance. Nurses and doctors walked around them, nearly ignoring them. The professionals in this department couldn’t be influenced by their position, their wealth, the Morrison name. They didn’t part the way like those outside the ICU doors. This was a place where any and all of them could end up and it seemed everyone here knew that.
Valerie paused outside a door and turned to the three of them. “There is a machine helping her breathe, lots of tubes going into her, coming out of her. She’s pretty bruised up with a cut on her forehead.”
Why was it the closer she came to seeing her mother the worse she felt? On the plane on the way to Florida, Katie couldn’t have cared less, or so she kept telling herself. Now, standing outside a room that only emitted the sound of equipment, Katie felt her throat clog and her eyes start to fill. She reached for the emotionless state she’d managed for years when she thought of her mother and couldn’t find it.
Valerie walked into the room and opened the curtain.
Annette lay still on the bed. The ventilator made a hissing noise with each breath she made. A tube protruded from her throat at an awkward angle.
“Damn,” her father muttered under his breath.
“Oh, shit,” Jack whispered.
“Hey, Annette. Your family is here.” Valerie walked into the room as if Annette were awake.
Annette didn’t twitch, didn’t blink. The only indication that she was alive was the consistent beep of the machine monitoring her heart rate and the hum of another that worked for her damaged lungs.
Katie’s eyes swelled and tears started silently falling.
The three of them sat around the room and watched the slow rise and fall of Annette’s chest.
Hours later, Katie stood outside the hospital with her cell phone cradled to her ear.
“I hate feeling like this, Monica.”
“Yeah…I know. It’s hard. My mom makes me crazy as hell but I wouldn’t handle her being jacked up and in the ICU either.”
It felt good talking to Monica. She answered questions that only she could.
Her mother was critically stable…whatever the hell that was supposed to mean. According to Monica, it meant she had a snowball’s chance but every hour and day made the snowball bigger and the temperature in hell drop. She had a chance.
“She’s so small. I remember her being so much larger.”
“She’s older,” Monica reminded her. “And you were a kid the last time you saw her.”
“She’s so helpless.”
“What did the doctor say?”
“Broken ribs…messed up lungs, spleen ruptured. I don’t know…bunch of crap I didn’t understand.” Katie waved her hand in front of her face to find some relief from the heat.
“What about the nurse, what did she say?”
“She’s hopeful.”
Monica paused. “Good. Your mom has a chance, then.”
“Really? I mean…that’s good. God, I shouldn’t care.” Katie hated that she did.
“Yeah…but you do. It’s OK. I’d probably feel exactly like you if something happened to my dad and I knew about it. Hell, I don’t even know if he’s alive or dead.”
“That might be better.”
“I don’t know, Katie. Listen, I’d be happy to talk to the nurse, get a grip on what’s going on, if you want.”
“Would you?” Not that Katie thought Valerie was keeping anything from her, but it would be nice hearing something from someone who knew more than she did.
“You’ll have to tell the nurse she can talk to me. All those HIPAA laws keep lips sealed in hospitals.”
“OK. I’ll let her know you’ll call.”
Katie gave Monica the number to the ICU and hung up.
She placed a call to Dean but it ended up on voice mail. She lied and told him she was fine and that she’d call him later.
Later didn’t come for several hours.