I nod, appreciating it more than anything. I look over at Nikko and give him a soft smile.
Nikko is the second oldest, a really smart software engineer with a wife and a toddler. He’s always been the quiet one, the calm one, the old soul, and I’m glad he’s the one who came to get me. Nikko always provides the right amount of comfort.
“Kayla,” he says, embracing me. “I should have been there. We should have done more.”
I shake my head. “No. I was wrong to leave.”
“No,” he says adamantly, pulling back. He stares intently at me. “Kayla you have done so much for her. So much. Her sons just haven’t been there and we should have been. We should have never let you take on so much by yourself.”
Oh god. Now his eyes are watering. I can’t do this.
I turn away. “Let’s just go. Please. I need to see her.”
The drive to the hospital feels surreal. It just doesn’t seem like anything other than a bad dream. Then again, the last twentyfour hours have been a nightmare, with Lachlan starting it all. My eyes pinch shut at the image of him dropping to his knees, holding onto me for dear life as he sobbed his apologies. I knew he meant it all. I knew he did. But the damage was already done.
My beautiful beast. I don’t think I’ll ever see him again.
I lean forward, curling over the pain and Stephanie reaches forward from the back seat, rubbing my arm, telling me it will be all right. She doesn’t even know the half of it.
Once at the hospital, we go upstairs and I’m hit by the painful wails, the sterile smells, that heaviness in the air. Each step we take down the hall seems longer than the first and there’s a part of me that starts to panic, wondering if it will all be too late by the time I get there.
Eventually we get to the ICU and see Paul and Brian in a small waiting room, talking to the doctors. I give them quick hugs as they tell me Toshio is on his way, had to drop off Sean somewhere.
The doctor, a tall blonde woman with a no-nonsense face, proceeds to tell me everything as Steph holds my hand.
My mother appeared to have a major stroke, blood clot in the brain.
Toshio came over to the house and found her unresponsive on the kitchen floor, called an ambulance.
They’d said the damage so far points to her being on that floor for a very long time.
In the back of my head I think about when I rang her to tell her my news.
And she never answered.
Could that have already been it? Could I have been so selfish in my desire to stay with Lachlan that I was calling her up to tell her this while she was suffering from a fucking stroke?
Loathing myself has reached another level.
The doctor then tells us that she’s been put into a medically induced coma in hopes of keeping the swelling down. The coma shuts down everything in the brain so that in extreme cases such as this one the brain has a chance to recover.
“And what are the chances of recovery?” I ask quietly. I glance around at my brothers’ faces and I’m hit with how grim they look. They already know. Of course they already know. The chances aren’t good.
The doctor gives me a tight smile. “We can’t say for sure yet. It depends…if the swelling recedes, then we can try and lighten up the coma and see if she can come back and what her level of function is.”
“If she can come back?” I ask incredulously.
“Our goal is to get her out of the coma as quickly as we can. We don’t want to have her under for any more than we should. But it’s still a risk to put her there. We never know if the patient will come out of it, even if we lessen it. But sometimes it’s the only chance we have.” She tilts her head sympathetically. “When we decide to put a patient into a coma, we’re already talking about extremes. Your mother has a very tough time ahead of her. You’re all going to need to be very strong.”
I almost faint. Steph tightens her grip on my arms, keeping me upright. “Can I see her?” I whisper.
The doctor nods. “Of course, follow me.”