The Accidental Existentialist (6 page)

All time stopped. Who would
do this? Why? Her blood stained my shirt. Her dying words resonated
in my mind. Then I remembered.
The
kids
. I bolted up and ran straight to
Bethie's room.

Bethie's door was ajar. If my horror hadn't
been complete, it was now. I found her exactly like Jenn—face down,
blood and gashes covering her body.

Though I tried to cry out, nothing escaped the
vice-grip on my throat. When I turned her over, I felt her arm.
Still warm, but only slightly. Her eyes were shut, her face wet
with blood.

"Bethie! Oh, sweetie, no!" I whispered, as I
wrapped the blanket around her.

I kissed her head. Held her hand. Rocked her
back and forth. "Come on, baby girl. Help's on its way, you hold
on," I said, voice and hands trembling. She lay there unconscious
but breathing.

Aaron.

Gently, I lay Bethie back down then got up and
flew across the hall. To Aaron's door. His night light was still on
and I saw his outline in the bed.

Oh God, please.

I flipped the switch.

Nothing.

I dashed over to the lamp on his nightstand,
nearly slipping on one of his Thomas Train toys on the carpet.
Broken glass crackled under my shoes.

I switched on the lamp on his nightstand. When
I looked down to his bed, my legs nearly gave out. Aaron was still
under his covers, but blood drenched his pillow. His aluminum
baseball bat lay on the floor, dented and bloodied.

Dropping to my knees, I called his name. Over
and over, I called, but he didn't stir. This can't be happening.
It's got to be a nightmare. I put my face down into Aaron's blue
Thomas Train blanket and gently rested my ear on his
chest.

I felt movement under the blanket. Breathing.
But slowly—irregular and shallow.

Don't move his body. Dammit, where are the
paramedics?

I heard something from Bethie's room and
dashed out the door. Stopping in the middle of the hallway, I
clutched the handrail over the stairs. Thought I heard Aaron crying
now. Or maybe it was the wind.

My eyes darted from one side of the hallway to
the other. Which room?

Faure's Requiem continued to
play, now the
In
Paradisum
 movement.

Aeternam habeas
requiem.

Something out in front of the house caught my
attention. The police, the paramedics! Propelled by adrenaline, I
crashed through the front door and ran out into the middle my lawn
which was slick with rain. I slipped and fell on my
side.

Nobody. Where were they!

Like a madman, I began screaming at the top of
my lungs. My words echoed emptily into the night.

"Help! Somebody, please!"

A dog started barking.

"Please, ANYBODY! HELP!"

Lights flickered on in the surrounding
houses.

Eyes peeked through miniblinds.

No one came out.

I don't know if I was
intelligible at this point. I was just
screaming,
collapsed onto the
ground, on my hands and knees getting drenched in the oily
rain.

Just as the crimson beacons of an ambulance
flashed around the corner, I buried my face into the grass. All
sound, light, and consciousness imploded into my mind as if it were
a black hole.

Chapter
Two

It's never been clear to me when my neighbor,
Pastor Dave Pendelton scraped me off the lawn and brought me back
into my house. Outside, neighbors all gawking through the blinds in
their windows, not one of them had come out.

Except Dave, of all people. Pastor Dave of
City on a Hill, Jenn's church. He seemed nice enough, but I never
completely trusted him. This was due in no small part to my
absolute distaste for organized religion. Ironically, Jenn had
become born again soon after we got married and began attending not
only Sunday services at Dave's church, but their weekly small group
Bible study as well.

I sat on my sofa in a chilled stupor, a
blanket draped over my shoulders while paramedics worked feverishly
around both of my children upstairs. According to Dave, they had
arrived just as he came out to get me. I was so shell-shocked that
I didn't recall their arrival.

Another team had gone to the master
bedroom.

"Jenn?" I bolted up. "Jenn!" They carried her
down in a gurney, a white sheet over her face. The anguish within
couldn't crack through the frozen wall of shock around my
mind.

Next came my kids, but they were not covered.
The paramedics worked on them as they brought them down and wheeled
them to the ambulance. "Bethie! Aaron!" I shouted and tried to run
over. Dave held me back.

"Let them, Sam."

I was trembling, shaking my head, as they
raced off. Jenn couldn't be gone. It couldn't be my kids in that
ambulance. It was like watching a movie. Flashing lights,
sirens.

"Let's go." Dave grabbed my arm and rushed me
into his car. We chased the ambulances, leaving behind a pair of
squad cars, their red and blues groping out into the rain like a
lighthouse in a hurricane.

My home had become a crime scene.

___________________

As soon as we arrived at Children's Hospital's
Trauma Care Center, a medical team rushed Bethie into one room and
Aaron into another. Frozen, I stood, chest rising and falling, eyes
darting between the two rooms.

"Bethany's a lot worse," Dave said.

I nodded and went for the door to Trauma One.
He caught me and turned me around to the correct room. Dave went
into Aaron's room just as I entered Bethie's.

The next thirty minutes were torturous. About
a dozen doctors and nurses crowded around Bethie, two of them
squeezing a plastic bag to assist with her breathing. Instruments
rattled in the crash cart as the trauma surgeons surrounded her.
IVs webbed around her, into her arms.

Speaking in rapid succession, overlapping each
others' words, yet somehow maintaining some form of intelligible
communication, the team's dialogue all meshed together.

"Epi's in."

"She's bradying down."

"Atropine in."

"We're losing her!"

They began CPR. Then the whine and snap of
defibrillator shocks. Jolted me as well. One of the nurses
announced that they'd gotten a pulse back, but a very weak one.
Bethie just had to pull through.

Doctor Yang, one of the doctors not completely
engrossed in the code, came over, pulled down her face mask. "She's
lost a lot of blood. We're doing everything we can, but you should
prepare yourself."

"For what?"

"Is there anyone you'd like to
call?"

I wanted to scream that her mother had been
murdered, less than half an hour ago. I could not accept the fact
that my little girl was within moments of death…"Please, you have
to save her!"

Doctor Yang nodded and returned to the team.
Seconds later an alarm from the EKG blared again. Bethie's pulse
was gone.

The lead doctor called out something about
joules. "Clear!"

Again, with the defibrillator. Bethie's torso
arched up and fell. The EKG blipped, but the line remained flat,
the tone static. The lead doctor was now performing chest
compressions with both hands. Gently! I wanted to cry out. But I
knew they had to do this to help her. This went on for a while, but
it was clear that her pulse continued only because the doctor's
efforts.

"Bethie?" I managed to whisper. It was
starting to hit me. Not even an hour after Jenn's death, I was
about to lose my daughter.

"Mr. Hudson," Doctor Yang said as she
approached. "Do you want to be with her now?"

Tears stung my eyes like acid. Gradually, the
cacophony of voices died down. I could now discern something that I
had vaguely heard earlier through all the commotion—one of the
doctors in the background announcing each elapsed minute since
Bethie's heart had stopped.

"Thirty-seven minutes since arrest." The chest
compressions continued.

"Mister Hudson?" Doctor Yang
said, again, her tone
sympathetic, but a
bit more urgent. Less and less of the team were looking at Bethie
now. They kept eyeing the clock.

The lead doctor had been doing chest
compressions for some time now. He looked to his team. "Shall
we?"

"He just lost his wife," one of the nurses
replied. "Can we try a little longer?"

He nodded and continued the compressions.
After a while, they tried the defibrillator again. No response. A
solid green line slithered across the screen. The nurses looked up
at the other doctor. He stood still for a second, glanced at the
wall-clock and shook his head. "Time of death..."

"We did all we could, Mr. Hudson," Doctor Yang
said. "I'm so sorry."

"NO! Save her, dammit!" I rushed for the table
on which Bethie lay as still as silence. "Don't let her go!" I
reached for the defibrillator paddles. A large orderly grabbed and
pulled me away. I shouted at the top my lungs. He didn't release me
until I stopped thrashing. The nurses stepped back.

When I calmed myself, the lead doctor
approached me.

"We did everything possible, but her injuries
were too severe. I'm sorry."

I couldn't speak. First Jenn, now Bethie.
Anger ebbed, giving way to despair. I walked over to my little
girl.

"Sweetie..." I held her lifeless hand, brushed
the hair out of her face and kissed her forehead. "I'm sorry.
Daddy's so sorry." Before I knew it, I was curled up on the floor
and sobbing, still reaching up and holding her hand. The orderly
tried to help me to my feet but I couldn't do it. Eventually, they
managed to get me up and pour me into a chair.

"Sir, do you need a moment?"

I nodded.

They drew a curtain and left me alone with my
daughter. That's when I lost it. I don't think I'd ever cried so
hard, or pounded my fist so many times into a wall, or screamed so
loud in my entire life.

Aside from the wounds and blood, Bethie looked
like she could have been sleeping. How could she be gone? How could
Jenn? I felt disembodied.

The activity outside the trauma room
increased. Walkie-talkies, intercom pages, hurried footsteps,
gurneys rolling.

The doctor emerged from the
curtain.

"I'm sorry, but there's someone outside you
need to speak to." Outside the room, an officer from the Sherriff's
department tipped his hat.

"My condolences on your loss, sir. But I need
to ask you a few—"

"This isn't the best time."

Dave Pendelton arrived.

I gripped his sleeve. "Aaron?"

"He's still in surgery. Trauma
One."

Behind him was one of the TCC
doctors.

"Is he going to make it?" I asked.

"Too soon to say. He's suffered severe trauma
to the head and internal organs."

"Can I see him?"

"Not yet."

I spent the next hour answering the deputy's
incessant questions.

What was my name, date of birth, social
security number, place of employment, phone numbers? He asked for
identification.

"Do we really have to do this now!" I huffed,
fumbling with my wallet.

Dave helped take it from my shaking hands and
gave the deputy my driver's license and social security
card.

The officer asked for the same type of
information for Jenn, Bethany and Aaron—the victims. My mouth
became bitter. Dryness impeded my words. The deputy was sympathetic
and seemed genuinely sorry to put me through this. I couldn't
concentrate.

Dr. Salzedo, the trauma surgeon
arrived.

"How is he?" I asked.

"We've stabilized him. He's been moved to the
Pediatric ICU."

I exhaled in relief.

"PICU's on the third floor."

I got up immediately and turned to Deputy
Schaeffer. "If you'll excuse me." If there was anything to hold
onto amidst the devastation, it was the hope that Aaron had
survived.

I wasn't prepared for what I saw when I got to
his room.

___________________

For some delusional reason,
I had expected to find my son sitting up, with a few bandages and
other dressings, but smiling at me. He would call out, "Daddy!" and
we'd embrace, holding on to each other
as
the last surviving remnants of our family.
When I entered,
however, I
found
him unconscious. Tubes of all sorts
invaded his body. A ventilator assisted his breathing and all I
could hear was hissing, buzzing and beeping medical
equipment.