The Last Hour (40 page)

So I got dressed and walked out into the living room.

The first thing that happened when I walked into the living room was everyone went silent. An awkward silence, the kind where no one had any clue what to say, what to do. What was there to say? Sarah and Ray were still in a great deal of danger, and there was no doubt that everyone on this entire floor had heard me wailing in there. I’ve never been one to fall apart, to let my emotions get out of control.
 

My parents were sitting together on a couch at the coffee table, my mother leaning against my father. They both looked exhausted, worn out, frayed, old. Julia had told me they’d spent much of the night after their arrival from the airport taking turns watching Sarah. Across from them, Dylan and Alexandra were drinking coffee. Crank was outside on the balcony, staring into space. Sitting at the bar, as far as she could get from my parents, was my sister Andrea. Julia was with her.

Jessica was out of sight, maybe still in the shower.
 

My parents stood when I walked into the room, and they approached me slowly. My father put his arms out and hugged me.

“It’s good to see you, Carrie. I’m so sorry about ... all of this,” he said. His voice was rough.
 

I returned the hug, then the same with my mother. What else could I do? All I really wanted at this point was to be left alone, for once to not have to calculate and navigate my parents’ emotional minefield. This was a good start. We separated, and I walked over to the bar where Andrea and Julia sat.

Except for Alexandra’s wedding, I hadn’t seen Andrea in almost three years. She was sixteen years old now. She’d grown very tall, almost my height, and wore a knee-length lavender dress with large black panels, a vaguely European cut, with nearly knee-high black boots. Her hair was lush, wavy like Julia’s, but with deep red undertones, and she wore pink lipstick, too much blush and didn’t look much at all like I remembered her. Andrea slipped off the stool. I put my hands on her shoulders and stared in her big brown eyes and said, “I’ve missed you so much.”

“I’ve missed you too, Carrie,” she said. She stumbled a little on her words, as if speaking English had become out of the ordinary, just a slight Spanish accent. I pulled her to me, and she said, “I’ve really missed you,” and sniffed as if she were about to start crying.

“How is Grandmother?” I asked.

“She’s doing well,” she replied. “She asked me to tell you that she wants you to come visit. When you can.”

“I’d like that,” I said. We stepped back from each other, but I didn’t take my hands away from her arms. I couldn’t believe how different she was. “I’m so sorry I haven’t come before now ... it’s been ... too many years, and we hardly got to talk at all at the wedding.”

I met Julia’s eyes. Sad eyes. I reached out and took her hand, but didn’t say anything. My sisters meant the world to me, and it was hard to believe that we’d all drifted in so many directions that it took a tragedy to put us all in the same place again.

Julia slipped off her stool, and put her arms around us both. And I was mortified, because suddenly I wanted to cry again. I bit my lip, hard, trying to push back the grief that was overwhelming me.

I think Julia sensed what was going on with me, because she let go, and said, “Let’s eat. And then we’ll head over to the hospital.”

I knew if I insisted on leaving immediately for the hospital, I’d have a fight on my hands from everyone. So I sat down and mechanically started to eat. Someone had called room service and ordered a huge amount of breakfast food, piled on platters on the coffee table. It was tasteless, but I suppose nourishing, and as I ate, it occurred to me that I might end up having to worry about eating for two. That Ray might never even know he was a father. I had to squeeze my eyes shut at that thought to keep them from overflowing again. Once I felt like I had it under control, I opened my eyes. Everyone was staring at me. Like I was a ticking bomb about to explode, or a delicate vase that had fallen from the mantel and cracked, but not fallen apart yet. I ignored them and started to mechanically stuff my face again. Maybe if I pretended they weren’t there, they’d all go away.

It didn’t work. I finished eating in silence. By that time Crank had come back in, and he sat down next to me and said, “You hanging in there, chica?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Trying to hold it together.”

“We’re here for you,” he said. “Whatever you need. Whenever you need it. I don’t care if we’re in Africa or some place, you call, we come running.”

I swallowed and tried to keep my chin from quivering.
 

“Right now, I just need to get to the hospital and check on Ray and Sarah, okay?”

“Gotcha. I think we’re all ready. Just say the word.”

I stood up. “Let’s go.”

So everyone got up, and we picked up Ray’s parents across the hall. After introducing them to my parents, we all headed downstairs and out on to the street. Andrea and Jessica walked together, ahead of the rest of us, both of them talking in an animated way that made me ache for Sarah. Behind them walked Michael and Kate, both looking uncomfortable in the crowd of my family. Alexandra and Dylan were behind them, Dylan limping just a little bit, Alexandra holding his arm.

I walked with Crank and Julia on either side of me. We talked about inconsequential things, things that were far away from court-martials and accidents and ethics investigations. Julia told me a crazy story about the girl in New Zealand who had evaded security and tackled Crank on the stage in Wellington last month. The poor girl fell off the stage when the security guards grabbed her, and ended up breaking her leg.

“Oh my God,” I said. “I saw something about that in the news.”

“We went to visit her in the hospital,” Crank said.

“I thought she was going to have a heart attack,” Julia said. “Crank signed her cast, and then gave her a kiss on the cheek. She’s been posting the picture all over the internet.”

I laughed. And the hell of it was, it felt good to be walking with them and talking. I missed my family terribly sometimes, and walking with Julia reminded me so much of that summer ten years ago, when we drove across the country together, it almost brought tears to my eyes.

She took my arm, and said, “Do you remember when we visited the Grand Canyon?”

“I thought you were going to push Crank off the edge.”

She snickered. “I almost did. But ... I was just thinking about how little I get to see you now. I’m sorry it took ... all of this ... to get us together.”

I sniffed and tried to suppress the emotions that seemed to be running through me out of control. But our conversation got cut short a moment later, when Crank muttered, “Fuck me dead.”

Ahead of us at the entrance to the hospital, were three news vans, and reporters were crowded around the front entrance.

“Just ignore them,” Julia said. “Dylan!”

Dylan turned around at her call.
 

“I want you, Crank and Dad to escort Carrie into the hospital. Don’t pause, don’t speak to any of them. Mom, you come with me. Mr. and Mrs. Sherman ... I’d suggest you go in with Carrie. We don’t want to feed the press any more than necessary. I’ll get rid of them. Alexandra, you take Jessica and Andrea with you.”

Michael and Kate looked rattled. I don’t think either one of them had dealt with anything like this before. So Dylan and Crank took the lead and pushed their way through the reporters to make room for Dad and me. As we headed for the front door, I heard Julia stop and say in a loud voice, “We’re not going to make any statements or answer any questions. This is a family tragedy, a personal tragedy, and you need to leave us all alone to deal with it.”

A bunch of reporters called questions to her, but she ignored them, coming in the door with our mom on her arm right behind the rest of us.
 

The reporters didn’t follow us past the police officer posted at the entrance, and as we walked to the elevator, I couldn’t help but think how much Julia reminded me of Ray and how he could take command of a situation without thinking. I closed my eyes on the elevator, imagining his strong features, his eyes, his arms around me, and I think my heart broke just a little bit more.

I wish I could sleep.

Not because I was tired. I wasn’t, at least not physically. I was tired emotionally, spiritually. It felt as if my soul had been dragged through a wood chipper, and it didn’t help that every once in a while I would glance down and see that I was still fading.

I felt ... tenuous. My body lay a couple of doors down, and I didn’t think there was much life force left in there.

But I still had hope. Not much for me, but Sarah ... for the last hour, she’d been stirring. Groaning every once in a while. Sweat beaded on her forehead and upper lip. According to the monitors, her pulse was high, her temperature was 103 degrees, and the doctors had increased her antibiotics and painkillers two hours before.

Daniel and I spent the first part of the night hanging out in the PICU. His mother slept in the chair next to his bed, the body on the bed looked tiny, frighteningly delicate next to the spirit Daniel that walked and talked and goofed off near me.
 

My heart broke a little seeing his parents. His dad was crashed across three chairs in the PICU waiting room, because the nurses would only let one visitor stay in the room at a time. The thought of that kind of utterly helpless feeling, knowing your child was in mortal danger, was something I couldn’t even contemplate. They must have had him when they were young: Daniel’s mom didn’t look much older than Carrie and me, maybe in her early thirties. Even asleep, she had a look of utter exhaustion and stress. The same look I’d seen on Carrie’s face all too many times in the last few months.

At midnight Daniel’s dad showed up at the door to the room. His gaze was like Afghanistan. Haunted, empty. Unshaven, exhausted, his clothes still dirty from the accident, he looked in the room, his eyes taking in his wife and child with a helplessness that gripped my throat.

She stirred and looked up at him, then whispered, “Is it midnight?”

He nodded, silently.

Daniel’s mother stood and walked over to her husband. She put up her hands in front of her, lightly touched his chest, and started to shake uncontrollably. A fierce expression on his face, he pulled her to him, and wrapped his arms around her.
 

“He’s going to be okay,” he whispered, his voice rough with unshed tears. “We’ll get through this. All of us.”

And then Daniel jumped to his feet, his insubstantial self running to his parents and trying to throw his arms around their legs. “I’m sorry!” he wailed. “I’ll wear my seatbelt from now on, I’m sorry I took it off! I want to go home!” And then his wailing turned to a howl when he couldn’t touch them, couldn’t feel them.

His mother’s knees sagged, and I realized that even though she didn’t know it and he didn’t know it, whatever he was transmitting was
hurting
her, so I stood quickly and snatched him up in my arms. “Come on, kid,” I said, trying to control my own tears as I yanked him out of the room.

Daniel struggled, trying to hit me on the arms and back, then slamming his little fists into the side of my head. I just said, “You’re gonna be okay,” over and over again, an echo of the same lies I’d spoken to Dylan Paris in an ice and snowbound valley a lifetime ago. In Dylan’s case, it worked out. But I didn’t have any reason to believe it would for Daniel.

Down the hall, twenty yards, then fifty, and Daniel finally started to calm, transforming his attacking arms into a vice around my shoulders and back. He was still shaking and crying, but the tears had evened out, no longer violent, and I crooned in his ears like he was a baby.

He hiccoughed and said, “You can let me down now.”

“You sure?” he asked.

“Yes.”

I eased the kid down the ground, and he looked up at me. “Thanks for staying with me, Ray.”

“Sure, kid,” I said.

Hours later, both of us sitting in Sarah’s room, I looked up at the clock. It was almost 6 a.m. The sun was up, and I’d stood for a little while, looking out the window. Sunday morning, and there was little traffic as of yet. It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours since the accident. But in that time, less than a day, less than an eye-blink really, everything had changed.
 

I turned back to Sarah as she let out another groan. Jesus, she was going to be in a lot of pain when she woke up. But it was clear she was recovering. It was clear she was
there.

If you can feel pain, that means you’re still alive.

I’d spent the last couple of hours here, occasionally pacing, occasionally sitting, watching over Sarah. Willing her to live. Occasionally putting my hands on her face, and pouring all the warmth and love I could into her. I’d figured out enough by now to know this weakened my own hold on my body. But sometimes you just have to do what you have to do.

The door to the room opened, and a nurse stepped in. She took the chart off the end of the bed, and wrote some notes on it, then walked over to the monitors and wrote down more numbers. Then she looked at Sarah and gave her a gentle smile, then touched her wrist.

Sarah’s lips moved, and her right eye opened, just a little. The left was still too swollen.

I leaned my head back, a rush of relief running through me. She was
awake.

“You’re awake,” the nurse said. “Well, hello there! I’m Nina. How are we feeling this morning?”

Sarah tried to speak, but the tube down her throat prevented it. Tears of frustration appeared in her eyes, and her right arm moved a little.

Daniel’s eyes went wide when Sarah started to move, and now he jumped up and down, a grin on his face. “She’s waking up!” he shouted. I winced. Incorporeal or not, I desperately wanted a cup of coffee.
 

I nodded. “She’s waking up,” I repeated.

“Do you think she’ll still be just as nuts?” he asked.

I chuckled, looking down at Sarah’s battered body, feeling a warmth and love for that girl, and said, “Probably even more.”