Promise Me

I sighed. “I don’t know,” I replied honestly. “We lost him twice tonight. He’s stable right now. Whatever he took was bad shit.”

I watched my mother crumple towards the ground but my brother Fionn caught her in his arms. He pulled her in tight and held her. My dad just stood there staring at me. How had this happened? I could see it on his face.

Shock.

Hurt.

Confusion.

They were feeling all those things. The same gamut of emotions that I had been feeling. My parents were occasional drinkers on the weekend. We never had seen either of them drunk. They were careful about what they did preferring to teach us by example. “Let’s sit down,” Gramps suggested. He was the rock of our family.

I followed them to an area where only a few people were sitting. There we could talk privately. I sat next to Ciaran. Mom sat between Fionn and Gramps. Dad was sitting next to me on the other side.

“When can we see him?” Mom asked me. I heard the desperation in her voice.

“It will be a while,” I didn’t want her to see what I had seen. She nodded as if she understood but I don’t think she did. She just needed to see her son. I got it but how do you really understand something like this?

It was a shock to all of us. Your son, your highly successful son, grandson, brother who just finished law school at the top of his class; studying for the bar; overdosed on heroin most likely. None of us knew that he took drugs. Was this a one-time thing? An ongoing problem? We didn’t know what we were facing with him if he pulled through. Dad asked that very question. “Did you boys know he was doing this?”

We all agreed that we did not. We were as shocked as they were. He nodded. I saw his Adam’s apple bob in his throat as he swallowed hard. I glanced across the ER when I saw my uncle Noah racing through the doors with Shawn Martin right behind him. Shawn apparently drove Uncle Noah downtown.

“Is he all right?” Noah asked when he reached us. He was panicked too. We were all as important to my uncle as his kids were to my mom and dad.

“He’s stable,” I replied. “For now.”

Noah sat next to my dad. He laid his hand on Dad’s back and that is when my Dad lost it. He went into my uncle’s arms and laid his head on his shoulder. I watched my father cry for probably only the third time in my life. The first time would have been when Grams told us she was dying and the second time was when she actually died. He was not a person who let his emotions show easily.

Mom rose from her chair and walked across the small space to him. “Declan,” she said his name. He turned away from Noah and laid his head against her stomach, squeezing her hard. “We’ll get through this like we have everything else,” she told him.

“This is my fault,” he said. “I was too hard on the boys.”

“No Declan,” my mother reassured him running her fingers through his hair. “It isn’t your fault.”

“I agree with Stevie,” Noah said.

“He can’t die,” my father cried shaking his head back and forth against her body. “I can’t bury a son too.” I was fighting my own tears at that point. We had actually been pretty sheltered when I thought about it. I realized that they had buried two mothers and a father. They were afraid they were going to bury a son.

**

Alex came out to the ER waiting area and I stood to greet him. He was much smaller than me and was practicing for much longer, maybe ten years. He patted my shoulder. Alex knew how upsetting this was to me and my family who stood behind me waiting for word on Ronan. Alex addressed me.

“Liam, your brother is stable right now so we’re moving him to ICU. It will be a while before the lab results come back showing us what he took. We expect it was the animal tranquilizer laced Heroin. In about half an hour your family can see him. You know the rules for ICU. Two at a time, besides you. You can go in anytime being a doctor of the hospital.”

“Thanks Alex. I’ll take them up to ICU. Greg made it in to cover for me?” I asked.

He clapped his hand on my back. Even he was surprised that Ronan Moore OD on something. He knew that my brother was on his way to a lucrative career in law. His life was planned out in the grand scheme of things. We had talked about our families. He was married with his first kid on the way while I was a struggling young doctor who had nothing but my family.

“Yeah, he’s already on the floor. Don’t worry about anything. Go with your family.”

“Thanks Alex.” I didn’t want to leave him shorthanded on the weekend. That is always when the shit hit the fan at our hospital.

I wrapped my arm around Mom’s shoulders and led the parade of Moores to the elevator. She was being the strong one for a change. I admitted, I was shocked by this. My dad stood in back of all of us with Noah and Shawn. When the elevator doors opened I guided them to the waiting area outside of ICU while I went to see if Ronan had arrived yet.

Scanning my badge got me through the first set of doors. As soon as they closed behind me, I leaned against the wall and pressed my hands into my thighs; just trying to breathe. “Hey,” I knew whose voice it was before I looked at her. “He’ll be up here in a minute. You okay?”

I straightened and looked into the most amazing green eyes. Her long, black hair was pulled back in a wavy ponytail. “Are you his nurse?” I asked.

“I am and so is Amelia. We’ll take good care of Ronan, Liam.”