Chapter Eighteen
There came a point where life merged with death in a tug-of-war and the body in between could do nothing but grab a bowl of popcorn and watch. On one hand, death held a peaceful blanket of nothing left but an aching feeling that something was left out of place, something extremely important that needed to be done. On the other hand, there were the clawing nails of pain and anguish that instinctively you knew needed to be felt, to be triumphed over, in order to experience one more day.
That one day would be worth the struggle.
Images floated above Monica’s thin layer of consciousness. Trent smiled above her, his face lit up by the glow of his cell phone. He kissed her, told her they were going to be OK. Then she was floating, and the ceiling of the cave floated toward her and panic set deep inside of her. I’m not done, she yelled at whoever listened.
Faces floated around her, of those who she worked with and beside, her sister, her brother-in-law… strangers.
Where’s Trent?
The image of him inside the cave, alone, welled up inside her. “He’s in there. Help him.”
Then the water from the giant wave overtook everything and she couldn’t catch her breath.
She fought to find the surface.
Jessie held her sister’s hand throughout the flight. Not once did Monica wake long enough to utter one word that she was OK.
Walt flew with them to Florida where a team was waiting.
Jack kept telling her Monica would be all right. That she wouldn’t allow anything as simple as a broken leg to get the best of her.
“Monica’s tough,” Jack told her.
From Monica’s bedside, Walt chimed in, “We don’t call her the Ice Queen for nothing.”
“Ice Queen doesn’t sound flattering.”
“She’s tough, Jessie,” Walt told her. “She’s going to be all right.”
Yet there was a hint of doubt behind Walt’s eyes.
The private jet didn’t hold the necessary equipment to hold a gurney in place, so they improvised with what they had. The basket that had brought Monica to the surface was strapped into the couch of the plane. They secured an oxygen tank that helped deliver what Monica needed. Dr. Klein had met Walt at the airport with necessary medicine. Even to Jessie, Monica appeared as if she were sleeping and not struggling.
Yet when the constant beep of the monitor that displayed her sister’s heart rate to the doctor slowed, Walt adjusted something… appeared frazzled. When Monica started to lose the contents of her stomach, the good doctor turned white.
Walt tried to hide his unease and mumbled under his breath, cursing the fact that he didn’t have enough of what he needed to make everything perfect for his patient. His friend.
They landed in Miami. A medevac team met them and helicoptered Monica and Walt to the hospital.
When Jessie and Jack arrived at the hospital much later, they were ushered into a private waiting room for the longest hour of Jessie’s life.
As much as Trent wanted to assure his brothers that he was alive, the desire to follow Monica and make sure she was being cared for was stronger.
“Where did they take her?”
Someone threw a blanket over his shoulders, which surprisingly he accepted. The cold night and rain should have been a comfort. They weren’t.
Jason hooked an arm around his shoulders. “The airport. Someone said Miami, but I’m not sure.”
Trent turned one-eighty and met with the bulk of a man he’d never seen. “Where did they take Monica?” he demanded.
“Miami General,” the man said with a slight southern accent.
Trent twisted around. The world lost balance and someone was holding him up.
“Hold on, brother.” It was Glen talking this time. “Let’s have someone check you out.”
“I’m fine,” he insisted. He patted his pockets for the keys of his Jeep. He remembered them on the floor of the cave next to their food supplies. “Damn.”
“Trent?”
Why were there two of Jason?
“What?”
Three… there were three of him.
The world tilted again and someone called his name.
Everything came into a fuzzy focus and then everything inside Trent’s stomach emptied.
Maybe I’m not fine.
Trent recognized the inside of the family jet. It had been years since he’d been there, and wasn’t exactly happy with being there now. Within one breath, he went from rescued survivor to patient. It was as if the mere mention of gastrointestinal issues made everything inside him twist on itself.
At some point, someone started an IV on him and he would swear that something soothing had been placed in his veins. The world dulled in flight. The noise of the engine lulled him to sleep. He hadn’t slept much in the past several days, afraid he’d miss the sound of someone passing by. He slept now.
An ambulance met them at the airport and took him to an emergency room. He noticed the faces of everyone there, pictured Monica in her environment, shouting orders… running around. “Is Monica here?” he asked the treating doctor.
“The other survivor?” he asked.
Trent nodded. “Yeah. The nurse.” It had taken Trent a few hours to follow behind her.
“She’s here.” The man didn’t elaborate, which made Trent even more uncomfortable. “What about the doctor who brought her in? Walt? Is he here?”
“I’ll see if I can find him.”
When Walt didn’t come to his bed fast enough, Trent pushed himself off the gurney to search out the man himself. Wearing a blue and white hospital gown with his ass hanging out the back end, he stepped outside the curtained room, and came up against his brothers.
“What are you doing?” Glen grabbed Trent’s arms as he leaned up against the wall with an IV pole in his hand.
“Where’s Monica? I told her she’d be OK. No one’s talking to me.” He was getting damn tired of people looking the other way and not answering questions.
“Mr. Fairchild.” A woman appeared at his side. Her brown hair and pointed finger indicated a wheelchair someone had pulled up behind him. “Sit down before you fall and make everyone in this terribly busy ER work harder.”
Trent sat… OK he fell into the chair. The woman he had to assume was a nurse stood over him, her hands poised on her hips. “You’re looking for Miss Mann?”
“That’s right.”
“She’s in the ICU. And if you want to see her you’re going to have to let us stabilize you first. No one is going to let you go up there and fall all over her.”
He could envision that this was how Monica scolded her patients. “How is she?” he asked.
“Stable.”
Like that told him anything. “Is her family here?”
“In the waiting room. I’ll tell them you’re asking for them.”
Trent exchanged glances with his brothers. “Thank you.”
“Can I get you back in your bed now?” she asked.
Considering the fact that he didn’t have enough energy to pull his ass out of the chair, the gurney didn’t sound bad.
Back in bed, the nurse who’d put him in his place returned to hook him up to a monitor that sat above his gurney. His brothers sat in chairs at his bedside and watched him as if he were a fish in a flippin’ tank.
“What’s that for?” Glen asked the nurse.
“The doctor wants us to monitor his heart.”
“It’s still beating,” Trent joked. Yet he wondered why after he’d been in the hospital for nearly an hour they were hooking him up to machines. Seemed like the longer the stay, the less need there would be for wires and tubes.
The nurse patted his shoulder when she finished and offered a half-assed smile. “Maybe the doctor just wants to keep you in your bed.” She turned on her heel and walked out of the room.
Jason laughed and leaned back in his chair. “She’s a sassy thing.”
“Cute, too,” Glen added.
That she may have been, but Trent couldn’t think of any nurse save one. “Can one of you go and find Jack Morrison or even Dr. Eddy?”
“I’ll go.” Jason released a heavy sigh and headed out into the ER.
Several seconds passed in silence. When Trent’s gaze met his brother’s, he squirmed in place. “What?”
Glen’s appearance always reminded Trent of their father. They shared the same cocky smile and hazel eyes. Glen turned those eyes on Trent now with a mixture of love and remorse. “We’ve missed you.”
“Oh, Jesus, Glen. I was a few hours away by plane.”
“You know what I mean. Reynard said you were planning on leaving the island before getting trapped in the cave.”
“Yeah. I was.”
Glen smiled, flashed his father’s dimples. “Figure out where you’re going to settle?”
No, he just knew that home wasn’t on the island any longer. Jason and Dr. Eddy walked in the room. Walt shook his hand.
“How’s Monica?”
“Stable.”
Trent was starting to hate that word.
“Stable and the ICU sound like the ultimate in oxymoron.”
Walt pulled up a rolling stool and sat beside Trent’s bed. The doctor glanced over at Trent’s brothers. “You mind giving us a minute?”
Glen stood and smiled. “I could use some coffee.”
Trent flashed a smile at his family as they left the room.
Once alone, Walt’s smile fell. “She’s sick,” he said. “But we’ve managed to bring her blood pressure down. We’re jumping on the antibiotics.”
“Has she woken up?”
Walt shook his head. “Not yet. But her fever is coming down, slowly. She needs to rest and we need to get her white count down before we can fix her leg.”
“Is it bad?”
“Nothing that a few screws and a steel plate won’t fix. They have a great group of orthopedic surgeons here.”
That’s good.
Walt glanced up at the monitor above Trent’s head. “It’s going to take a little time for the lab results, but I have the doctor here checking for lead and mercury poisoning on both of you.”
Trent pushed his brows together. “That doesn’t sound good.”
“It’s not. And usually toxicity takes time to occur unless you bite into a thermometer or eat paint. Both of you show signs of liver and kidney involvement.”
Trent hadn’t thought of his liver since he was in college testing his beer limit consumption. “Anything serious?”
“We’ll want to keep you in the hospital to run some tests.”
“You didn’t answer my question.” And he wasn’t thinking of himself so much as the woman in the ICU.
“Serious enough to keep you here.”
He guessed he didn’t need to understand it any more than that. It sounded like there were unknowns at this point. “The water was bad, wasn’t it?”
“That’s my guess. The water you sent with Monica is at an outside lab and we won’t get the preliminary results until the morning.”
Walt stood and took Trent’s hand in his. “I’m going to check on Monica again, and then find a cot and some food. I’ll find where they put you in the hospital and keep you up to date.”
“So I can’t see her yet?”
“Let’s get you fixed up, fed. I’ll bet you’re starving.”
Trent tried to smile. “I could eat.”
“I’ll tell the nurses.”
“OK. And thanks, Walt.”
Muddy water threatened to pull her under again, but instead of allowing the thick desire for sleep to keep its death grip any longer, Monica forced her eyes to flutter open.
Bright, shiny light had her blinking several times, as the familiar smells and sounds of a hospital crept into her consciousness.
“Barefoot?” Her pasty lips tried to stick together as she spoke.
“Mo?”
Monica turned her stiff neck to the right to find Jessie on the other side of a guardrail of the hospital bed she lay in. “Jessie?”
Jessie lifted Monica’s hand to her lips, kissed the back of it. “Oh, God. You’re awake.”
Her sister had dark circles under her eyes, her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she huddled under a sweatshirt that looked like it belonged to Jack.
Monica squeezed her sister’s hand, surprised at the effort it took to close her hand. “Where am I?” She remembered snippets. Trent’s voice telling her they were going to be found. Him laughing at her attempt to sing the theme song to Gilligan’s Island. Then there was an airplane and faces… some named, many nameless. Then a whole lot of nothing.
“Miami General.”
“H-how long?”
“Only a day.” Her sister’s voice held a plea. “I was so worried.”
“Ha! You and me both.” Monica did a slow look around the room. The private room held every bell and whistle needed for a critical bed. A large glass door separated her from a center nurses’ station with the rush of nurses, technicians, and doctors milling about. She rested her hand on the bed and noticed the IV connected to her wrist. She followed the tubing and noticed several plastic bags hanging from above her bed. She narrowed her eyes and read the labels. “Pressers?”
“What?” Jessie asked as she moved to the other side of the bed and turned on a light above the bed.
“Am I in the ICU?”
“Yeah. I’m going to tell the nurse you’re awake. They wanted to know when you came around.”
Monica released a breath and tried to stop being the nurse. “Jessie?” she stopped her sister before she left the room.
“Yeah, Mo?”
“I love you.”
Tears welled instantly in Jessie’s eyes. “Don’t ever scare me like that again.”
“I’ll try.”
Then Jessie left the room and returned a few seconds later with a nurse. With help from a complete stranger, Monica sat up in her bed and waited for the treating physician to make his way to her bedside. By the time the poor man left she’d drilled him on every medication he’d given her, asked for details about her lab work, made suggestions for tests. Yeah, the guy had steam coming out his ears by the time he left the room, but there was something else in the man’s face. Admiration.
Jessie returned to the room and trailing behind her were Jack, and Renee, her mother.
“Hey, Mom.”
Their relationship had always been strained, but it didn’t mean her mother didn’t love her. They simply didn’t understand each other very well.
“Oh, baby.”
Monica accepted her mother’s kiss and offered a smile. “Sorry to drag you all the way across the country.”
“Damn inconvenient,” Jessie teased. “Be sure and think about that the next time you’re trapped in a cave and try to die.”
“No one is dying.”
“Could have fooled us,” Jack said. “Katie sends her love. She’ll be here tomorrow.”
Monica shook her head. “That’s not necessary.”
“Would you stay away?” Jessie asked.
Why did Jessie have to be so perceptive? Monica tried to roll her eyes and feign indifference. Instead, her eyes closed and she had a hard time opening them back up.
“I think maybe we should let you get some sleep,” her mother said.
She was wiped out after only being awake for an hour. It still felt wrong to push her family out the door after she’d scared them half to death. “They want to take me to surgery tomorrow,” she told them.
“Walt said something about that,” Jessie said.
“Walt’s here?” Monica opened her eyes again.
“He flew with us. You don’t remember?”
Monica shook her head. “I don’t remember much,” she uttered with a yawn. She remembered Trent kissing her forehead. “Trent. Where’s Trent?”
“Who’s Trent?” her mother asked.
“The man with her in the cave. He’s downstairs,” Jack told her. “They’re keeping him for a couple of days.”
“Is he OK?”
“Yeah.”
Good. That’s good.
Damn she was tired.
The next time she opened her eyes the room was empty and dark.