“What’s he been doing today? Are you weaning him off the ventilator?”
“No. He needs it.”
“I don’t understand how that can be. Where is his doctor? Has he shown any signs of being okay?”
She blinks. “I don’t know. We can’t sit in here with them all day.”
I know I promised to be in and out, but now that I’ve seen Cross, I just can’t do that. “What nurse is watching him this shift?”
She’s defensive now. “I am.”
Obviously. I swallow, putting my hand on Cross’s bed railing. Suddenly I’m feeling faint. I glance at Cross. He looks so pale and...dead. He looks dead. Helplessness floods me, and I want to scream, but I can barely whisper. “So he’s just...lying here?”
It’s a stupid thing to say, but I’m fighting back tears.
“That’s what they do mostly.”
My blood boils. Did this woman go to nursing school? There are ways that you can tell if someone’s going to be okay. He had some kind of minor stroke, apparently, but he’s going to be okay. If this was serious, someone would have told me.
“He’s been getting N-therapy. He opened his eyes and talked to me the other day.” Tears fill my eyes, and I do my best to blink them back as her frown deepens. “He’s not in a vegetative state. He’s responded to stimuli, just this week. He’s doing the same therapy here, like N-therapy, right? You have something similar?”
I look at the guy in the bed, still wide-shouldered, still handsome, even with his pale face and the tube taped to his mouth.
The nurse dips her head again, and when she raises it, I can see pity in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I shouldn’t have said it like that. I don’t know about him yet.” She shifts the bag, holding her soiled shirt, from one hand to the other, looking contrite. “Why don’t you stay here a minute. Talk to him. You can come back Monday, when hours are open again.”
“I can’t come Sunday?”
She shakes her head. “Tomorrow we’re closed for therapy.”
“What do you mean?”
“We have a physical therapist come one day a week.”
“Only one time a week?”
The nurse shrugs. “I have to go but I’ll be watching on a monitor.” She points to something over my head, and I struggle with the urge to grab her arm and hold her until she tells me something I want to hear.
Somehow, I force myself to turn around and face Cross’s bed. I step over to it, starting to quietly cry as I scan the machines, analyzing the numbers I came to know so well during the first few weeks after the accident.
I check his blood pressure—136/95—and then his pulse—102. The ventilator is taking 24 breaths per minute for him, which means she’s right—he needs it. I tell myself they gave him sedatives, so his body can rest and recover.
I stretch out my arm to touch his face, vowing to do something to make this situation better. As I do, the door behind me opens and I turn.
Standing in the doorway is a woman in pale pink scrubs with her hair pulled into a tight French braid. She’s shorter than I am, but everything about her exudes power.
“You must be Pushy.” She sticks her hand out. “I’m Frankie. And I know this SOB doesn’t have a sister.”
I balk. “Did you just call him a son of a bitch?”
She shrugs. “Governor’s son, hurt himself riding a motorcycle drunk. I could call him worse things, but I’m sorry all the same. You need to get off my floor. Visiting is closed today.”
I shake my head. “Not until you tell me what happened.”
“I can’t do that. What I can do is promise that if you don’t leave now, I’ll be sure you see the inside of a jail cell.”
I put my hand over my chest. My heart’s trying to burst through my ribs.
“I’ll leave,” I rasp, “but I have one question.”
She presses her lips together like a disapproving teacher.
“Do you have N-therapy?” I sound composed, and Frankie’s expression loosens a little as her mouth turns down.
“N-therapy?” She looks like she’s never heard of it. Of course she hasn’t.
“They call it N-therapy. I don’t remember the full name. It stimulates the brain and makes them want to wake up.”
“Neurostimulation?” She shakes her head, still brisk but not quite as stern. “I know it helps, but we can’t afford to purchase those machines. This is a county treatment facility. Just the basics.”
She steps closer, her hand closing around my elbow. “I’m sorry, but it’s time for you to go.”
Chapter 8
Elizabeth
IT TAKES ME almost seven hours to drive home to Napa, and the whole time, I feel like I’m in a trance. Dusk has come, chilly and blue, by the time I park my car in the cul-de-sac at the end of Brison Way and walk half a block to the gray stone monstrosity behind the pointy, black iron gates. Surprisingly, the gates are open, so I walk down the long drive and up the pale staircase Cross jumped off so many times when we were kids.