Long May She Reign (63 page)

“How did you sleep?” Dr. Brooks asked.

Meg didn't look at him, ashamed all over again about having reacted so badly to the prospect of a few hours without water. “Fine, thank you. The, um, the pills helped.”

“That's why we have them, Meg,” he said.

It was still embarrassing to have
needed
them. “Is my mother okay?” she asked.

“Of course,” he said. “She's in a meeting in the conference room right now, but I'm sure she'll be in shortly.”

Odds were, her mother was feeling even more mortified than she was this morning.

Which was pretty god-damned mortified.

“So,” Dr. Brooks said. “Do you want us to proceed with the operation, or—”

She nodded.

“Okay, then. I think that's the better plan,” he said. “Do you have any questions?”

In fact, she did, but she needed to be quick about it, before either of her parents showed up. “Um, I wanted to ask you about amputation,” she said.

He looked very unhappy. “Oh, honey, is
that
what you've been worrying about? This is just a routine arthroscopic procedure, and they're going to evaluate your hand, too. But, that's it, I promise.”

“Actually,” Meg swallowed, “I wanted to request one.”

He shook his head. “I'm sorry, Meg. I don't think I understand what you mean.”

“Look, we both know it isn't working out,” she said, gesturing towards her leg. “And I thought—well—”

He looked so upset that she was hesitant to broach it any further.

“If you all went ahead and did it, we'd know where we were, and I could just, I don't know, start living my life again,” she said.

“Do you want us to take your hand, too, while we're at it?” he asked.

She hadn't thought about that, but it wasn't necessarily a terrible idea. She frowned. “Well, maybe not on the same day. But, yeah, okay. If you think that would be good.”

He sat down, heavily, and it occurred to her that that chair had been getting one hell of a workout during the past twelve hours or so.

“I don't know what the high-tech options are, but they could at least probably rig me up some sort of pincer appliance, right?” she said.

He stared at her.

Maybe she should have done some research on the Internet about the various types of prostheses before bringing any of this up. “Well, I mean, if I weren't a good candidate for that, either, they could just make me something, I don't know, cosmetic.” Which would be a lot better than, say, a
hook
. She looked at him uncertainly. “Do you think it's a bad idea?”

He nodded.

The door opened, and when Dr. Brooks saw that it was her mother, he stood up—as, of course, everyone always did.

“Good morning,” her mother said, but then slowed her pace, reading the mood in the room. “I'm sorry, am I interrupting you?”

Yes, but would Dr. Brooks be willing to say so? She definitely didn't want her mother to get involved with any of this, although he probably did. “Would it be okay if we had a few more minutes, Mom?” Meg asked. “We're kind of—I'd rather.”

Her mother was caught off-guard by that, and she gave them both an anxious look, but then nodded, and left.

“Picture, if you will,” Dr. Brooks said, “the conversation during which I told your parents that you'd made a unilateral decision to undergo an amputation—or even two amputations, and that I'd agreed to go along with it.”

Ouch. It would be all kinds of ugly. Meg frowned. “It wouldn't bode well for your staying in this job.”

“It wouldn't bode well for me remaining in this
profession
,” he said. “And rightly so.”

Great. As usual, the fact that she was an adult, and should be able to make decisions about her own life, was being ignored. She shouldn't even have bothered asking.

Dr. Brooks sighed, put his head in his hands briefly, then straightened back up. “I know you had a very bad night, Meg. Is that where this is coming from?”

“It's the soldiers,” she said.

He looked confused. “I'm sorry, I don't understand. How so?”

“When we were making visits yesterday, there were some amputees,” she said. “And a few of them were telling my mother stuff like that they were going to be learning how to ski again, and go running, and everything. One of them had already
competed
in a 5K, since he lost his leg.”

He nodded.

“And because I still
have
my stupid leg, the best I can do is try to make it in and out of my dorm without tearing anything,” she said.

He nodded again. Nodded several times, in fact.

What kind of fucked-up world did she live in, that she felt sorry for herself because she
wasn't
an amputee? “If you'd taken it off last summer, when everyone thought it might be getting, you know, necrotic, I would have been able to ski this winter,” she said. “I'd probably be playing tennis a little, too.” Maybe not very well, but playing.

Dr. Brooks sighed, looking older than usual. Elderly, even. “Yes, I see your point. In some ways, you might have been better off, but we just can't. It's a viable limb, and as long as there's a chance you're going to regain some function—well, it just isn't a realistic possibility.”

She nodded, feeling—as always—tears come into her eyes.

“It's healthy to cry about it, Meg,” he said, his voice very kind. “You've had some terrible things happen to you, and we don't have any easy solutions. I wish we did.”

That made two of them.

He handed her some Kleenex, and she pressed it against her face. “I'm not going to lie to you,” he said. “No matter how hard we try, I'm afraid we can't bring you back to the person you were. But, we're going to get you on skis again.”

She looked up.

“Given the complication of your hand, it may take some creative thinking,” he said, “but, at the very worst, we could put you in a mono-ski.”

Those weren't skis; they were
sleds
. She had to cover her eyes again.

“Dr. Hammond—” one of her surgeons, who worked with the U.S. Ski Team— “and I have been discussing all of this a great deal during the past few months, and there are plenty of options,” he said. “Three-track skis, outrigger poles—any one of a number of things. He's been gathering some material together, and—” He paused. “In fact, I think I'm going to have him come here this afternoon, and we can all discuss it.”

Except, wait. “Isn't he in Utah?” she asked. Since this operation was supposed to be routine, he wasn't scrubbing in.

Dr. Brooks shrugged. “That's hardly insurmountable, Meg.”

“Yeah, but I don't want him to have to drop everything, just because I'm kind of upset,” she said.

Dr. Brooks smiled at her. “Which do you think is preferable? My calling and asking him to come here for a consultation, or the President
ordering
him to be on the next plane to Washington?”

“I don't think she'd do that,” Meg said. Although, given her mother's apparent overall testiness and generally frayed temper of late, she probably
would
. “Could you maybe have him wait a few days, though? Since I probably won't be feeling very good tonight?”

“Sure. We'll arrange for it sometime at the Residence, later this week,” Dr. Brooks said. “Is there anything else you'd like to talk about?”

There was plenty, but she was tired, and about to have surgery, so she shook her head.

Her parents came in, staying until it was time for her to be wheeled into the actual surgical suite. And even then, she could tell they weren't happy about not being able to accompany her the rest of the way. But they promised that they would see her as soon as the operation was over, and she was lethargic enough from the Valium or whatever it was she'd been given to do nothing more than nod vaguely and attempt to smile at them.

After that, they must have started the anesthesia, because she couldn't remember anything until she was suddenly aware of herself saying, “
Ow
,” followed by “Fuck!,” and then waking up just long enough to apologize before drifting off again.

The next time she opened her eyes, her knee hurt, her throat hurt, and her
hand
hurt. The lights were so bright that it made her head hurt, too, and she wasn't sure where she was. Back in her room, maybe? Still in the middle of the operation? In the Recovery Room? All she knew for sure was that she was in intense pain, and she groaned.

Her mother was by the bed, and she instantly got up.

Meg nodded at her, fighting the urge to go right back to sleep.

Her father was also in the room, because now he was coming over, too. They were asking how she was, and if she needed anything, but it took her a minute to make any sense of what they were saying, which gave her time to notice that she also felt very dizzy and nauseated.

A nurse was doing something to her IV, and when she smelled Old Spice, she realized that Dr. Brooks was there, too.

All of which was just too much activity to process.

More people seemed to be coming into the room, mostly wearing surgical scrubs, and she heard a series of numbers—blood pressure? her pulse?—and a jumble of voices saying things like “should expect that” and “we'll monitor the—” and “normal to feel—”

She closed her eyes again.

*   *   *

WHEN SHE WOKE
up the next time, she still felt awful, and for a terrible minute or two, she thought she might be about to throw up. A nurse was ready with a basin, but by concentrating as hard as she could, and swallowing a few times, she managed to get her stomach under control, and then moved her head away from it, upon which, the nurse withdrew.

The lights were less glaring, and she looked around, finally figuring out that she was back in the Presidential Suite, and her father was next to the bed. There was a bunch of medical people standing around, too.

Her father said something, and there was a lot of movement, along with several voices, in response. Then, a minute or two later, the door opened, and her mother hurried into the room, holding her glasses in one hand and some papers and thick folders in the other, all of which she handed to Frank, before bending over to kiss her on the cheek.

“I have a catheter, right?” Meg whispered.

Her mother glanced down at the side of the bed, and then nodded.

Good. She wouldn't have to worry about a bedpan anytime soon, then.

Everyone seemed to be asking her how she felt, and given the negative slant to the answer, she decided to avoid saying anything at all, and just sipped the ginger ale her father was holding out, trying to regain some semblance of her mental and physical equilibrium.

After a while, she found enough energy to look at Dr. Brooks. “How'd it go?” she asked.

“Well—” His hesitations were always a bad sign. “You had done more damage to your knee than we'd hoped, but your hand has shown some minor improvement, and they elected to remove the last of the external pins.”

It was hard to tell, with the new splints and bandages. She tried moving her hand and wrist, which hurt so much that she didn't bother attempting to do the same with her leg.

“Am I, um,” Christ, it was infuriating that her voice always shook, “hooked up to my morphine thing?”

Her father nodded, putting the little pump near her left hand.

She
wanted
to push it, and give herself a good strong dose, but there were too many people watching, so she sipped ginger ale, instead.

It was a great relief when they all finally cleared out, and she was alone with her parents—and could take advantage of the morphine without witnesses. Then, something or other happened—she was too tired to pay much attention, except the telephone kept ringing—and her mother had to go back to the White House for a while, instead of just working in the conference room. Regardless, it was nice to take a nap, while her father sat and read
The Washington Post
.

She didn't wake up again until about six-fifteen, when Trudy arrived with her brothers. They only stayed long enough to have a fast supper—none of which she ate, except for the vanilla pudding. She had used the pain medication pump more than once, although it didn't seem to be accomplishing much, beyond making her feel sleepy.

It was just before eight o'clock when there was a knock on the door and Garth came in, holding an impressive bouquet of roses and tulips. A lot of other arrangements had already been delivered, but almost all of them were from people who didn't know her personally, and were almost certainly just trying to curry favor with the President.

“Good evening, sir,” he said, formally, and he and her father shook hands.

“You, um, you brought me flowers?” Meg asked. It was really thoughtful of him, but also unexpected. “Thank you.”

Garth's already-ruddy face reddened more. “Well, no. I probably
should
have, maybe, but, uh—no.”

“It would be crossing professional lines,” Meg said, in an effort to bail him out.

“Yes.” He nodded gratefully. “Yes, it would. Although—well, obviously, I hope you're feeling okay?”

She felt like the very devil, but no matter. “Yeah,” Meg said. “Thanks.”

None of which changed the fact that he was standing there, looking awkward and holding a bouquet of undetermined origin.

“I guess I'm
facilitating
a flower delivery from someone,” he said, then set the vase down on her bedside table, and handed her a small card.

She opened it with some difficulty and found a note which read:
“Good-bye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square! —Jack.”
Not his handwriting, so he must have dictated it. “Oh,” she said, and grinned, suddenly feeling a lot less like the devil.