Brooke & Ben: Before Fate Interrupted (26 page)

Chapter
Twenty-Eight

Doctor Goldstein
shut the door and took a seat behind a large desk with little clutter. He
rested his elbows on the shiny surface and stroked his gray beard. His white
lab coat set off his lavender necktie and suddenly Brooke wasn’t so thankful
Irene had insisted she come along. Brooke wanted to know what was happening,
but after seeing the look on the good doctor’s face, now she didn’t. The heat kicked
on, sending a low blast of warm air wafting over them from above. She still
wasn’t convinced this all wasn’t just some bad dream. She closed her eyes and
tried to wake up.

Doctor Goldstein
coughed into his fist and drew in a deep breath. “I’m sorry to pull you from
the chapel but I wanted to catch you up on where we’re at before we go see
Ben.”

She opened her
eyes and the good doctor was still sitting across from them.

 
He spread his hands and continued. “As you
know, we removed a small piece of Ben’s skull to relieve the pressure on his
brain, which is still swollen, but it seems to be working. That’s the good
news. His head has gone from three times its original size to twice its original
size.”

Brooke’s heart
hitched, threatening to never beat again. The doctor’s idea of
good news
didn’t sound all that
good
to her. The room began to spin. The
lights buzzed.

Doctor Goldstein
forged a professional smile, hand carved from years of experience. “He has a
tube inserted into the crown of his head to remove excess fluid, as well as
tubes in his mouth and arms. While he is already looking better in the short
amount of time he’s been here, it’s important to prepare yourselves for the
coming days. They will not be easy and he is not breathing on his own yet.”

“Will he live?”

The doctor’s
cool eyes fell on Irene. “He is stable but a long way from being out of the
woods. We’re keeping him in a self-induced coma for now and if he pulls
through…”

“When he pulls
through,” Irene interrupted, bringing back the doctor’s professional smile.

“There is still
a chance for brain damage and loss of mobility in his extremities. We don’t
think total paralysis is likely but there is a very distinct possibility for
some loss of function in his limbs.”

Irene brought a
wadded tissue to her eyes.

“We’re also going
to limit his visitations for a few more days but if you’re ready we’ll go down
the hall and see him. I just wanted to prepare you for what you are about to
see. Just know that he is making progress. It’s minimal, but it is progress.”

***

Out in the
hallway, nurses and doctors shuffled past, some with folders in their hands and
others with medical equipment. Brooke wanted to turn and run. The sterile
smelling hall seemed to stretch longer with each heavy step she took. Her legs
felt like rubber, her eyes refusing every window’s cry for attention they
passed. One step forward two steps back. Door after door, her heart thumped
harder as they approached the next. One of them was the door to Ben’s but she
couldn’t be sure which. They were the first visitors allowed to enter and she
was scared to death at what they would find on the other side of that door,
whichever one it was.

Doctor Goldstein
stopped at
the
door. Brooke stared at
the nameplate.

Ben Kramer
.

“Just a few
minutes today, okay?”

Irene nodded but
Brooke couldn’t move.

The doctor
flashed a tight-lipped smile and pushed through the door. At first, Brooke
thought he had made a terrible mistake and entered the wrong room. Then she saw
the green tail curling around Ben’s wrist. Her heart plunged. The wheezing
respirator giving him breath stole hers at the same time. Tubes protruded from
him like a science project, and the gauze coiling around his forehead made her
knees weak. A wave of faintness rushed through her, seeming to lift her into
the air. The swelling told her everything she needed to know. He would never be
the same. It was impossible.

Brooke burst
into tears and Irene surprised her by taking her in her arms.

“Hey Ben,”
Doctor Goldstein said in a loud voice, rubbing Ben’s tummy. “You’ve got some
visitors, buddy.”

Brooke wiped the
tears from her eyes only to have more take their place. She struggled for
breath, hating the doctor’s phony upbeat tone. There was nothing upbeat about
any of this.

“Your mom is
here, and so is Brooke.”

She watched Ben
for a sign of life, wondering if he could hear the doctor or not, wondering if
the man she had come to love was still in the room. Wondering if she would ever
get the chance to tell him how she really felt. Her knees buckled and Irene
steadied her with a strength she dug down deep to find.

The doctor
checked two computer monitors, their different colored lines and numbers
resembling a convoluted power point presentation more than anything else. He
turned back to Ben and fondly studied him. “He looks a lot better,” he said in
a lower voice – the one reserved for Brooke and Irene to hear. He leaned in
closer to Ben and raised his voice again. “Try not to talk their ear off,
okay?”

An image of
Brooke and Ben in their Halloween attire shot through her mind.
Do you ever shut up?
she had jokingly
asked him on Mandy’s patio.

“Five minutes,
okay?” the doctor asked, even though it wasn’t a question.

This time Brooke
managed a slight nod, barely noticing the doctor exit the room in her
peripheral vision. She stared at Ben, her eyes repeatedly dropping to that
green tail on his wrist for validation that it was actually him. When Irene’s
walls came down, Brooke wrapped an arm around her on automatic pilot, not
taking her eyes from the sleeping man in the bed before them.

“That can’t be
him,” Irene said under her breath, trying to show strength for her son and
failing miserably. She took a bold step closer, leaving Brooke to stand on her
own two legs. Her wrinkled hand found Ben’s lifeless one. “Benji? Can you hear
me? It’s your mother.”

He laid there
without moving, eyes closed.

“You come back
to us, Benjamin. Do you hear me?”

Against all
hope, Brooke watched his fingers for any sign of movement.

Irene’s face
fell further into despair as she registered the same results Brooke did. She
rubbed his chest and felt him take in lumbering breaths of air, her hand rising
and falling in rhythm with the respirator’s undulating whir. “I love you, baby
boy,” she whispered, kissing his cheek and leaving the room without another
word.

Brooke stood in
the same spot, heart wrenching, suddenly alone and wanting to flee. Her feet
felt glued to the floor when she forced them to move closer to the bed. The
respirator filled her ears with a labored sucking sound followed by a short release,
again and again. By the time she reached his bed, she was certain her five
minutes had to be up. Her hand found the same one Irene had. It was warm and
that kindled her hope, but the tube coming out the top of his skull was a
different story. It wasn’t right, having a tube come out of your head like
that. There wasn’t a hole up there. She imagined them making one, could see the
good doctor pressing a whining drill into Ben’s head, the smell of burnt bone
filling the room. It wasn’t right.

“You are going
to beat this.” The strength in her voice surprised her. “You hear me, Ben?” She
squeezed his hand and his lack of response sent a shiver down her spine. “You
can beat this.”

She ignored the
tears clouding her vision, preferring the blurry version of Ben to the one
lying before her. She bent closer, trying to breathe him in but only coming
away with hospital smell. “I love you,” she whispered, studying his face,
trying to latch onto something familiar. Even his scruff was gone. The urge to
see a picture of him struck with a heavy blow. All of the sudden she couldn’t
remember what he looked like. She went to pull her cell phone from her purse
because there were pictures of him on it but her purse was with Evy out in the
waiting room.

If she had more
time she didn’t want it. The uneasy quiet between them was broken only by the
incessant respirator’s sucking sound. In and out. In and out. Her stomach churned.
The door called to her. She glanced at it and turned back to Ben. “I’ll be
right outside, sweetie. You take as long…” She stopped short to let a heavy
load of sobs run their course. “You take as long as you need and I’ll be right
here when you wake up.”

Even his hand
seemed swollen. She studied it, wondering if the next time she held it, it
would be cold and gray. With one last squeeze, she released Ben’s hand and
watched his fingers retake their flaccid half-curled position. She pulled his
blanket up and made it to the doorway much faster than she had made it to his
bed. She pulled the door open and turned, willing him to wake up, demanding he
come back to her. Seeing it happen. When he didn’t she left the room.

***

Ben’s apartment
was just as cold and gray as she had imagined his hand being the next time she
held it. But Evy had been right. She needed some sleep. In a bed. Brooke also
needed to be around his things, but found herself alternating between sweet
memories and the realization that Ben may never see his apartment again. Never
see her again. She recalled when she had stepped foot into her grandma’s house for
the first time after losing her battle with leukemia. Brooke remembered looking
at the old upright her grandma had loved to play
Happy Birthday
on whenever someone turned a year older. It had looked
so different knowing her grandmother would never touch its keys again. As did
her favorite recliner and the cane she used in the grocery store they took her
to after church.

Ben’s apartment
felt haunted and he wasn’t even gone. Yet.

She pushed the
foreboding thought from her head and went into the bedroom, shedding her itchy
clothes and hopping into a hot shower long enough for her skin to prune. The
shower would cut into her sleep time, as she had sworn to return to the hospital
as soon as possible, but it was a fair trade. The hot water felt good against
her skin but couldn’t wash away her heartache. The tears came again, mixing
with the water and vanishing down the drain in a counterclockwise swirl of
doubt.

After toweling
off, she threw on one of his t-shirts she had dug from the hamper – the black shirt
with his smell still on it – and climbed into bed.
His bed
. The pillows smelled like him, too, bringing back a flood
of memories. It seemed like just yesterday they were arguing over which movie
to watch while cooking a DiGiorno stuffed crust pizza. Not a worry in the
world. Things had unraveled so quickly. They had barely had time to even think
about him losing his job. In comparison to what she had just seen with her own
two eyes, that seemed like a walk in the park. She wondered if he would ever
sleep in this bed again and before her dark thoughts could carry her much
further, sleep took her in its arms, wrapping her in a blanket of gloom and
doom that would leave her feeling even more tired than she had before.

Chapter
Twenty-Nine

Day five

Brooke took
Ben’s hand and pulled. The shark fin came closer behind him, rising out of the
water like a periscope. She grunted, using both hands to pull and planting her
feet against the boat’s wall. He kicked and splashed and together they got him
onto the deck. But before his legs could clear the water, the massive great
white severed them from his torso in a single bite. Brooke woke up and screamed.

Her eyes scanned
the hospital room and she wasn’t sure if she had actually screamed out loud or
not. She stared at the slender window in the door, expecting doctors and nurses
to come rushing into the room like it was on fire. When they didn’t, she wiped
sweat from her brow and turned to Ben, who was still lying in bed with no
indication he had heard anything. She sat up in the chair next to him and grimaced
with the kink in her back. Putting both hands into the small of her back, she
stretched until she heard a loud pop. Then she reached over and took his hand,
her heart immediately lifting like it did every time she found it was still
warm. After a minute or two, her eyelids grew heavy again. She fought it off,
afraid of what would be waiting for her in her dreams. Afraid of what was
leaving black circles around her swollen eyes. But it was no use. Like the past
few days, sleep had its way with her, again and again.

***

Day seven

The toilet
flushed and Brooke washed her hands in the sink, wondering if Ben would ever
use this toilet with its support bars running the walls like train tracks. The
respirator wheezed just outside the door. She splashed water onto her face and
toweled off before daring to examine her reflection in the mirror for the first
time in she didn’t know how long. Her heart sank. Her reflection was almost as
unrecognizable as Ben had been one week ago today. She must have lost ten
pounds and her eyes had gone from a sparkling green to a dull black. Brooke
slung the towel on one of the metal bars, vowing to never make that mistake
again.

The doorknob was
cold in her hand. She hesitated before turning it, imagining him being awake
when she came back out. She spent a few seconds convincing herself it could
happen, psyching herself up for a miracle. Hell, for all she knew, he might be
wondering where she was right now. She could hear him calling out her name in
her head and it sounded like the most wonderful thing in the world. The door
clicked open. She stepped out of the wheelchair friendly bathroom and
disappointment greeted her once again. Ben stared at the ceiling with his eyes
closed, the respirator still doing all the heavy lifting.

His face – what
she could see of it – looked a lot more like Ben again, which gave her hope. The
tubes keeping him alive were another story. She couldn’t stop wondering what would
happen if the power went out.

We have many generators
, Doctor
Goldstein had assured her two days ago.

What if those go out?
she had hit
back.

They won’t.

But…

Brooke, they won’t.

A reflective
sigh deflated her chest. She stretched before checking the messages on her cell
from her mom and dad, Evy, Tasha, and Mrs. Randall. Even Janna had left a
message. Brooke didn’t bother listening to any of them, let alone responding,
opting to slip the phone back into her purse instead.

The vases of
colorful flowers dotting the room reminded her of a funeral parlor and she
wanted to throw them away. He didn’t need them. Her gut told her he would be
just fine. She saw a flash of him a wheel chair, thin and drawn. Brooke blinked
it away. The flashes had started coming more often over the last two days and
it was getting tougher to hold the door against them much longer.

She pushed back
tears she didn’t know she still had and approached the bed. Ben’s warm hand
felt good in hers but its limpness did not. She rubbed circles into his belly
and spoke loudly, like the doctor had done the first day she had entered this
God forsaken room.

“Ben? Can you
hear me, sweetie?”

She waited for a
response that never came, her glassy eyes checking him up and down for movement.
Anything.

“Sweetie, you
need to come back home now. You’ve been gone for too long.”

He stared at the
ceiling with his eyes closed, chest rising and falling in sync with that
hideous machine. A lone tear made it over her stubborn walls and spilled down
her cheek.

Options.

Doctor
Goldstein’s words now took turns poking her with sticks. Two days ago, the good
doctor had begun talking about
options
.
Brooke had insisted there was only one
option
available: wait it out.

Irene, on the
other hand, was beginning to have her doubts.

Brooke’s eyes
followed the tubes in Ben’s mouth to the respirator on wheels. From there, her
eyes traveled the long, black cord to a plug in the wall behind the bed. The
clock was ticking. She set her jaw. It wasn’t her decision but they would have
to get past her first.

She patted his
stomach. “Come on, baby, I know you can hear me.” More tears laid glistening
tracks down her pale cheeks. “Ben, you wake up right now!”

Nothing.

An image of Ben
controlling an electric wheelchair with his chin came out of nowhere. She shut
her eyes until white spots replaced it.

A nurse popped
her head into the room and asked if everything was okay. Brooke nodded with
barely a turn and waited for her to leave before kissing Ben on the cheek,
wishing she could kiss those lips just one more time. Just move the mask out of
the way for two seconds so she could taste him again.

Instead, she
dropped heavily into the chair at his side and pulled up an itchy blanket,
opting to return to the nightmares she could never outrun.