Breath of Life (9 page)

Paxton saw Ella collapse in her uncle’s arms. She buried her face into his chest. Paxton ached for her friend. She did not imagine the night ending like this. The doctor answered a few more of Ryan’s questions then left. Paxton ran and hugged her best friend.

“Ellie-bear, I am so sorry.” Paxton felt her own tears falling now.

Susan and Greg were like a second set of parents to Paxton. She squeezed Ella. Her best friend’s world just fell apart and there was nothing she could do to help her. No words could console her.

“It’s all my fault Pax. They were out because of me,” she said between sobs.

“No, just the wrong place, wrong time Ella,” Ryan piped in. 

“Andrews?” Another voice entered the room. Paxton released Ella. She turned and looked at them.

“Here,” her Aunt Louis replied. They stayed seated and Paxton walked over and stood beside them.

“I’m Dr. Santes. I’m in charge of Jenny Andrews’s case. She’s doing well. We were able to stop all the internal bleeding. She was shot a couple times in the abdomen but the bullets missed major arteries. We had to repair her small intestines and pancreas but she should be fine. I expect her to make a full recovery.”

Paxton breathed a sigh of relief. “And my father? Do you know how he is doing?”

“I’m sorry. I am not on his case. If you haven’t heard anything that might be good news. That means they are still working on him.” She offered a slight smile trying to reassure Paxton. 

“I have to make some rounds. Just have me paged if you need anything. You should be able to see your mother as soon as she is in her room. Right now she is in recovery. I have her in room 513. It’s a private room.”

“Thank you,” Aunt Stacy said as the doctor turned and walked away.

The aunts smiled with relief. Paxton’s thoughts turned back to her best friend. She was crying still probably trying to deal with the news that was just delivered. Her uncle was trying to comfort her the best he could but Paxton could see the pain in his face. He just lost a brother. He would never be able to mend their broken relationships. Paxton could see some sort of regret in his body language. She went and sat beside her best friend. Their pinkies linked again. That small connection they made did more than anything they would say to each other. That link they made said they are there for each other no matter what. Paxton sat there making silent pinkie promises to her best friend.  

It had been an hour since the doctor came in to tell Paxton about her mother. She still hadn’t heard anything about her father. She started to worry. She should have heard something by now and Paxton found herself pacing the floor in the waiting room. Her aunts went to see her mother. Paxton wanted to stay here to wait for her father’s doctor to come in with an update. She looked over at Ella who cried herself to sleep. Ella told her uncle she wanted to wait her with Paxton. Ryan was watching the flat screen that was in the waiting room. It was some sitcom that was on. It was now after midnight. They had been here almost three hours now. Paxton’s other aunt and uncle were flying in. They called and checked in before they were about to board for their flight. They should be here in the next few hours. Paxton couldn’t take the wait any longer. She went to the nurse’s station down the hall from the waiting room.

“Is there any update on Jared Andrews?” She asked as soon as she hit the counter. Paxton didn’t bother waiting for the receptionist to acknowledge her when she got there. The receptionist took a moment.

“Andrews, you said?”

“Yes, Jared Andrews.”

“I see that he is still in surgery. That is all I have.”

“Thank you,” she said defeated as walked back to the waiting room.

“Any news?” Ryan asked her as she entered.

“No.” Paxton sat back down in a chair.

She pulled her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. She started rocking and tried to hold back the tears. Paxton knew something was wrong if he was still in surgery this long. Paxton then laid her forehead on her knees. She was still slightly rocking herself as she wished for someone to give her an update. She prayed for her mother’s recovery and comfort for her best friend. Paxton pleaded with silent promises to God hoping He would save her father.

“Andrews?” Paxton looked up quickly at the young doctor.

“That’s me,” she said quietly.

“I’m Dr. Williams, I have been working on your father.”

“Is he going to be okay?” She quickly cut off the doctor.

“I’m sorry we did everything we could. He’s in recovery but he hasn’t woken up yet. We just have to wait and see at this point. He hit his head pretty hard and there is swelling in the brain. We removed part of his skull to allow the brain more room. We also had to repair his liver. He took many bullets as if he were protecting someone or the main target. I can only speculate why he had so many bullets though.”

“What are his chances?” She seemed to sound older than what she was.

“We don’t know at this point. We did everything we could to get him stable and repaired. His injuries were extensive. We couldn’t keep him opened up any longer. There is some bleeding in his kidneys but we have to wait and let him recover some before we can go back in.”

Paxton held her breath. They had him open this whole time.
Please God, keep him safe and alive. I can’t lose him,
she prayed silently. “Can I see him?”

“As soon as he is out of recovery, which should be any moment now.  I have him in the room next to your mother’s,” Dr. Williams said. “Can I call anyone for you? You shouldn’t be here alone.”

“My aunts are in with my mother now. Ryan and Ella are in here with me,” she said looking over at her best friend who was still sleeping. Dr. Williams followed her gaze then smiled back at Paxton. She then turned and walked out of the room.

Paxton felt a heavy weight on her chest. Her father wasn’t out of the woods yet. Knowing he took more bullets than anyone else meant he was probably protecting her mother. She didn’t have many injuries. Her father sacrificed himself for her mother, now Paxton hoped he would wake up and make it through this. He was her rock. Paxton was closer to her father than her mother. She looked back at Ryan.

“I’m going to go see if my father is in his room yet,” she said.

“We’ll stay here. I don’t want to wake Ella and I’m sure she’ll want to be with you the moment she wakes up. I know how close you two are.”

Paxton smiled at him. She had a very heavy heart at the moment. She was glad that both of her parents were still alive but ached for her best friend. She turned and wandered back to the room where her mother was.

They were at the end of the hall, the last two rooms on the left. She saw the nurses wheel her father in his room. She walked in behind them. Once they were set up the nurse gave her a smile then exited. Paxton pulled up the vacant chair to the bed. She sat their looking at her father. Hoping he would open his eyes. She took his hand and squeezed it. It was colder than normal but still warm. The tears threatened.
 I cannot cry, I have to be strong for him,
she thought to herself. She stared at him for the longest time. The only sound in the room was the heart monitor. It was steady. That gave her hope.

“Please come back to me Daddy. I need you,” she whispered to him. She laid her head down on her arm, not letting go of her father’s hand.

Paxton awoke to an alarm. She opened her eyes slightly as people fluttered around her. She opened them wider remembering where she was.

“Daddy?!” she said alarmed.

She heard the flat line of the heart monitor. “No daddy! Please don’t leave me!”

She yelled as someone grabbed her and pulled her out of the room. Nurses and attendings scurried around the room. Her aunts came to her side hearing the commotion from her mother’s room. She watched them as they moved and shouted orders. Things were going in slow motion again.

She saw them pull the defibrillation paddles to start his heart again. “Clear!” One of them shouted. The tears started streaming down Paxton’s cheeks. She didn’t care.

“Daddy…” She said putting her hand up to the window, trying to reach out to him. “Please, please.”

Her Aunt Stacy put her arm around Paxton. Paxton shrugged her off.

“No, please daddy come back.” Both her hands pressed into the window. She wanted to reach out to him.

They tried several more times. CPR in between.  Eventually people stopped moving.

“Time of Death 4:07a.m.,” the attending with the paddles called.

“No, Daddy no!” Paxton screamed from the hallway.

Her aunts were trying to hold her back and she was struggling to go to her father laying on the bed.

“Try again! Try again!” She screamed.

She broke loose and ran towards her father. She picked up his hand and continued begging him to come back. She beat on his chest, “You can’t leave me!” Anger surged through her. 

Her aunts rushed to her noticing the change. She sobbed as they grabbed her. She just lost her father, who was one of her best friends. She sagged in the arms of her aunt, crying uncontrollably. Her Aunt Louis held her trying to soothe her but her attempts failed.

“Come we have a hotel right down the road. We got you the room right next to us. You need to rest,” her aunt said after a few minutes.

Paxton didn’t protest, she let her aunts lead the way. They stopped by the waiting room to tell Ryan and Ella. She was still sleeping but Ryan scooped her up and followed them out after giving his condolences. Once at the hotel Paxton threw herself on the bed and cried herself to sleep.

EIGHT

Paxton was pulled back to the present when Dr. Keeler sniffled. Paxton saw tears forming in Dr. Keeler’s eyes. Paxton didn’t realize that when she decided to open up to Dr. Keeler that would start out with that story. It just fell out of her. She saw the look on Dr. Keeler’s face that made that sadness almost tangible in the air.

“So you and Ella became closer that night with the tragedy that happened with your parents.”

“Yes. We grew a lot closer after that night.”

“Most people do after going through something like that.”

“Those next few weeks went by in a blur but I remember Ella and I never left each other sides. We were constant, where you would find one of us, the other wasn’t too far away. Her uncle stayed in her parent’s house through the funeral and taking care of other things at the house. Ella moved in with my parents because they were given custody in the will.”

“How did you feel about her moving in?”

“I was fine with it. We never wanted to be separated. The first few nights she just stayed in my room. We both slept in my bed. She cried herself to sleep and kept apologizing to me. She blamed herself.”

“Did she seek therapy?”

“No, about a week after her parent’s funeral, she stopped crying. She stopped apologizing. It was like she was done grieving. She started going out again. I couldn’t bring myself to start going out. I lost my father but I became worried about Ella and I worried about my mother. Every day afterschool, I came home and checked on her. My senior year didn’t go as Ella and I planned it. By the middle of September, Ella was back to her normal self and then some. She was going out almost every night, her grades slipped some but nothing less than a C. I studied hard and got a job to help my mom out. There were days when I would come home completely exhausted but I still had homework to do. I sacrificed my weekends to work and help my mother recover.”

“That’s a lot for someone who was still in high school.” Dr. Keeler noted.

“Yes. If I had to do all that today, I think I would drive myself to the ground. There were nights when I got less than four hours of sleep. I would go to school, work four to five hours a day, spend a few hours doing homework and squeezed in time for Ella. ”

“Did you resent her at all because she seemed to go out? Did she ever get a job to help out?”

“Her parents left her with a good chunk of money. Ella didn’t have to worry about a job unlike me who needed one to help out her mother. There were nights I just wanted to be carefree again. Be a teenager and sneak out but then I think of the night my father died and my mother was shot. I didn’t want to risk putting my mother in any situation like that again. I couldn’t put myself at risk like that. I kept tight control of my life.”

“Did you ever let loose?”

“Occasionally on my nights off, my mother urged me to go out. Those nights, I let Ella control me. She took me to parties, out with our friends. She even tried to get me to date but I refused because I told her I had too much on my plate to think about boys. By the time graduation came around, I felt like all my hard work paid off. I got several scholarships and my mother was back to her old self. Ella and I started doing normal teenager things again but I was always cautious.”

“I see.”

“Ella brought enough excitement to the table for both of us. She was out with different boys and she partied. She just lived like it was going to be her last day on Earth. I tended to pull her out of crazy situations but she was Ella again. I sometimes wish I could go back to being the girl I was before my father died.”

“Why couldn’t you be that girl?”

“Because she was selfish, she thought about herself and what she could get out of things. Not the consequences of her actions.  Long before that night, I was just like Ella. I was infatuated with boys, I would do anything. Ella and I went to parties starting freshman year of high school. We were the popular kids in school. We got away with anything because adults just loved us. They thought we were sweet. We would manipulate situations to get what we want. We were just careless.”

“You were being young,” Dr. Keeler interjected.

“We were being dumb teenagers.”

“Everyone has that phase.”

A buzzer went off of the table next to Dr. Keeler. Their time was up. Paxton sighed. She was thankful because she didn’t want to talk about who she used to be anymore. She didn’t want Dr. Keeler defending her old self. The one that died the night her father did.