A Feather in the Rain (29 page)

Later, in a private room, Jesse sat on the edge of the bed holding her hand. Doctor Adashek had taken Ruby to see her grandson. He squeezed her hand and said, “Well done, Holly Marie. You did a helluva job. I'm so proud of you. We've got a son. We've got a Harley.” He felt his eyes well up and turned to look at her.

Her hand had felt lifeless when he squeezed it. Her eyes were closed. He pressed her hand again and said, “You want to sleep?” A sharp panic surged through him as he sensed something wrong and called her name. “Holly?!”

There was no response. He reached for her shoulders and moved her gently, calling her name. There was nothing. He flew from the bed and ran into the hall calling for help. A nurse came quickly to the room. In minutes, Doctor Adashek, the Indian woman, another doctor and several nurses hovered at her bedside. Jesse had turned to stone, out of their way, letting them work. Ruby came to his side. They put their arms around each other, stunned.

Doctor Adashek, rigid-faced, came to them and very quickly said, “She's in coma. We're taking her to intensive care immediately.”
With that, he turned to a flurry of activity that sped her from the room leaving Jesse and Ruby mute, frozen fast to their place.

The emergency team moved with elegant precision at a furious pace. Complex procedures were carried out with astonishing dispatch. Blood pressure, pulse, temperature, heart rhythm, and blood oxygen monitors were attached. Electrocardiogram, electroencephalogram, and a CT scan of the brain were performed. Within minutes, computerized blood tests were completed to evaluate for the possibility of various organ or gland malfunctions or chemical imbalances in the blood—all unlikely in a young woman so healthy, but Doctor Adashek took nothing for granted. He knew he stood in the presence of a grave complication.

He called in an intensivist to manage the myriad details involved in caring for a comatose patient and a neurologist for the specialized evaluation of the possibility of a central nervous system disaster. After his examination and reviewing test results, it was determined that his clinical suspicion was correct. The CT scan had shown an intracerebral hemorrhage, bleeding into the substance of the brain. It was confined to the right frontal lobe. A neurosurgeon arrived promptly, performed a neurological examination, reviewed the test results and confirmed the diagnosis.

Abbie had met Bear at the airport by holding up a sign saying, GRANDFATHER BEAR? She drove him straight to the hospital where their bright expectant faces turned immediately to clay.

Four white-coated doctors came through doors and arced around Jesse, Ruby, Bear, and Abbie. The family faces, drawn and creased had taken on the color of the walls.

Doctor Adashek spoke first, then deferred to the neurosurgeon. He was patient, compassionate. His eyes went to each family member as he spoke. “At this point, the exact cause of this event can only be a matter of speculation. Intracranial hemorrhages occur very rarely, and totally unpredictably in normal, healthy women. Some recover with residual disability of varying degrees, and some make total recovery with no permanent effects at all.” Then his calm,
educated face took on another hue as his poise crumbled some. He fiddled with a nonexistent itch at the end of his nose as he said, “And you do need to have the full picture, at least to the extent that we do. In some instances, these events…they can prove fatal. I'm sorry to have to say that, but I'd be remiss if I didn't. Now we've got a lot more testing to do and we're going to get right to it. We need to do a cerebral angiogram. She could have an aneurysm that ruptured. We just don't know.” He scanned the pained faces before him and smiled as warmly as he could. He stepped close to Ruby and touched her arm saying, “We'll take care of her.” He placed his hand on Jesse's shoulder for an instant, then turned and left followed by two doctors.

The cold sparseness of his form belied the warmness of Doctor Adashek's heart. “Doctor Wilson is one of the best neurosurgeons in the country. If I had a problem, he's who I'd want. Have you seen your new grandson, Mr. Bassett?” Bear shook his head. “Come. We'll show him off to you. And for whatever it's worth,” he turned back over his shoulder as he led the way, “her hemorrhage had nothing to do with the pregnancy or the delivery.” They all fell in behind, Bear with his arm around Ruby. Abbie mustered enthusiasm for what should have been a pure and joyous thing, corrupted now with fear and anxiety.

Doctor Adashek put the baby Harley back in his tiny chamber. “It's going to be some time,” he said. “So if you want to leave, get something to eat, whatever…I'll call you the minute we know anything.”

“If it's all the same, Doctor,” Bear responded, “we'll stay.”

T
he night arrived without notice. Phone calls were made to Dr. Walter Nalls, Kevin Bradley, and Billy Diggs. Abbie called Charlie the therapist who had developed a special bond with Holly in their work with the kids. He arrived with a stack of deli sandwiches, coleslaw, potato salad, pickles and soft drinks. He spread it out for them to choose their preference. Whether they knew they were hungry or not, it served as a distraction and supplied nutrition for bodies stressed.

Doctor Adashek was the first coming down the hall with Doctor Wilson half a step behind. Everyone tried to read their faces as they came to a halt. Wilson told them that the angiogram revealed no demonstrable abnormality of the cerebral circulation and therefore no indication for surgery. He explained that it was not possible to surgically remove a blood mass from within the substance of the brain. “So we're going to set up a maintenance program of support and then we're going to monitor her progress.

We'll have her in a room pretty quick and you'll be able to see her…and be with her as…much as you like. Do you have any questions?”

They had many. Doctor Wilson answered them as well as he could. Walter had arrived to lend his personal and professional support, confirming Doctor Adashek's regard for Wilson's skills. An hour later, they gathered around her bed. A feeding tube had been passed through her nose into her stomach through which a liquid formula was fed at a calculated rate. A catheter had been placed in her bladder. She lay there amidst a web of tubes, wires, and patches connected to a network of gauges and graphs like some fragile prey ensnared for future devouring by a monster arachnid. For Jesse, it was the dreadful reenactment of the torturous days sitting next to Zack before they pulled the plug.

There was a difference. With his son, he soon came to know that the form in the bed was no longer inhabited. It breathed mechanically. At the flip of a switch, it would have ceased to move. Holly was not invaded by a ventilator. The shallow rise and fall of her chest were her own.

A quiet strength from an unknown source began to grow inside of Jesse. It seemed as if the more he was assaulted, the stronger grew his resolve. Ruby looked as if a breeze would cause her to disintegrate like a cone of burnt incense. She had already lost a son and now stood held together by will alone.

Sometime in the middle of the night, Bear and Ruby kissed Jesse and allowed Abbie to take them back to the ranch. A nurse's aide had provided Jesse with a folding bed next to hers. But he remained on the edge of her bed, leaning close to her face, trying to feel if heat would rise to his cheeks as he spoke to her—words of love, any words, any sounds, structureless phrases, all with one intention, one definition. In the still dark just before dawn, he moved from her bed and found his way to the glass wall behind which his son lay sleeping. He stayed for a time looking through the glass and then left. As he made his way back to her room, he thought, she might just be awake.

He sat on her bed and wrung a cloth into a steel bowl, then moistened her lips and wiped her brow. He kissed her face, fixed her covers, and moved off her bed to curl up on the cot. He punched up the pillows under his head and pulled his knees to his chest. He closed his eyes. In the darkness behind his lids, a thousand thoughts and pictures ran amok.

Six days and nights fused as one dark torment of time without relief from the sun. It was a heart-stinging, stomach turning, mind-wrenching roller coaster ride through an inferno of emotions. Ruby had become a shadow of her fragile self. Bear, always big and bright, grew dark and drawn. At wide unexpected intervals, a mirthless, nerve-driven laugh would escape. Had they been required to face the onslaught of emotional pain without nature's armor plate of shock, anguish might well have been their executioner.

Jesse almost never left her room. Only at Ruby's insistence would he go home to shower and change, then he'd come right back. What little sleep came upon him happened in the small bed next to hers. He sat there all the days in a bedside chair, his arm on the bed and his hand over hers. His fingers moved on hers to let her know that he was there. He had his headphones and a stack of magazines and books and the TV. But most of the time, he talked to her. He told her about the music he was listening to, the articles he read, the horses that were waiting for her at home, who had called, who had been to see her, and who the flowers were from. And he would describe the flowers in finest detail, holding one inches before his eyes and then offering it under her nose. And he told her about their son. What a perfect treasure he was and how she had to get well to enjoy him. His voice grew ragged from the unfamiliar marathon of chat. But he believed that she could hear him.

Not an hour passed without the coming and going of medical personnel. Her vital signs were monitored on a fixed schedule. She was turned at regular intervals to different positions to prevent mucous collections in her lungs. She was moved and massaged to prevent blood clots in her legs.

Twice in the week, on his way home and on the way back to the hospital, he stopped at Holy Rood Cemetery. He prayed, then stood and waited, but he felt no sense of a presence there. So he left, after having implored God for mercy, to please give him back his wife.

A constant stream of friends flowed through with kindness, hope, and love. Larry Littlefield came down from Colorado and sat with his friend. He was there when the neurosurgeon and Doctor Adashek came in, and just behind them, the woman from India. Instead of hope and aid, they had come to represent to Jesse a cold, damp wind heralding the horror they were in. They checked the charts and graphs. They touched her here and there. Dr. Wilson ran a key along the soles of her feet. Her big toe moved upward. He lifted her eyelids and shined a light in her eyes. His face gave nothing away. Jesse wanted to say something, ask him something, but he couldn't form the thoughts. He also sensed the answers might be better left unsaid. Wilson made some friendly comment, words with no meaning other than to try to show compassion. The doctors left. Jesse had caught his lip between his teeth and held his breath. He felt the tightness in his chest and let the air out.

Ten minutes later, Doctor Adashek returned and asked if Jesse would come with him. The doctor led him to an office, ushered him in and shut the door behind him. Doctor Wilson sat, staring at a sheaf of papers. He stood and asked Jesse to sit. They all took chairs. Wilson took off his glasses and ran his palm from his brow to his chin as he placed the papers on the desk. He looked at Jesse directly. “We need to talk about a couple of things, Jesse. Holly's heart could quit at any moment. In which case there are decisions that fall into the province of the family. In the event that were to occur, do you want us to do CPR?”

“Which is what?” He felt his guts writhe.

“Resuscitation to restore a heartbeat.”

“Is that a mechanical thing?” He tried to strangle a newborn agony.

“Well, it involves calling in the resuscitation team. They
surround the patient and start chest compression to mechanically get the heart pumping blood. They would put a tube in the wind-pipe and hook her up to a ventilator and then they would use various intravenous medications to support the blood pressure…”

“Then she would be on that mechanical support system at that point?”

“Right. The upside is that we can perhaps restore the heartbeat. The downside is that if the circulation has been stopped long enough, and no one knows what long enough is, there can be permanent brain damage.” Wilson stopped and waited, looking at Jesse, giving him all the time he needed to absorb the devastating information.

Jesse tipped his head down and shut his eyes. He gripped his temples between his thumb and middle fingers as if to forestall the explosion of his brain. When he looked up, he said, “I want you to do whatever it takes to keep her going.”

“We have to tell you, Jesse, things do not look good. There is absolutely no encouragement to us, objectively, that she is going to come out of this. So at some point, you'll have to give some thought to whether you want us to terminate life support and let nature take its course.” Again he paused to let it sink. “I am not recommending that at this time, but we do need to prepare you for the possibility.”

Jesse walked from the office feeling like Mamacita with her guts on the ground, only he was still alive. Larry was pacing the hallway. He knew, as did Jesse, that when Doctor Adashek led him away, it wasn't good. The proof was there on Jesse's face. He asked Larry to give him a few minutes alone but not to leave.

He went into the room and shut the door. He climbed onto the bed, with a knee on each side of her. He took her hand in his and leaned close to her face. He told her he had a plan. He needed her help. “I know you're there. I know you can hear me. You can come back. I know you can. You have to want to. I'm going, for just a little while. Going for help to talk to God. And when I get back, you're going to come back to me…and our son, Harley. You wanted him so much. You've got him now. You can't leave him, Holly. You can't.”

He called Larry in and told him what the doctors had said and what his plan was. They got on the phones and made a bunch of calls. They climbed into the pickup and drove to Holy Rood Cemetery. It wasn't long before the assembly convened. Jesse had asked Ruby to conduct. There was Walter and Helen, Billy Diggs, Kathy Sue, Lucas and Mason, Abbie and Charlie, Ricardo and Nellie, Kevin and Carley, the judge and Leona, Kelly Dale and her son, Wiley, in his wheelchair and half a dozen more who had been summoned by the network of friends, and Bear and Ruby, Larry and Jesse.