Beautiful Illusions (37 page)

He paused for what seemed like forever
.

“I want you to have a successful office to come back to. And you’re coming back. Do you hear me? You’re coming back.”

Then he grabbed my hand. I could feel his head on my stomach. I vaguely heard the steady beeping of a machine, which made me realize that I was in a hospital bed. He now had both his hands on my stomach, along with his head.

Why couldn’t I open my eyes?
Again, I felt that I was dreaming, but I was in one of those dreams where you are halfway conscious and halfway unconscious. You know that you’re in a dream, but you simply cannot come out of it.

Then a female voice. “You’re still here? You haven’t gone home, I see.” Alexis.

“No. She’s in that bed because of me. If she never would’ve met me, she would be living her life somewhere, carefree. I should’ve never sucked her into my crazy life.”

“And still blaming yourself. This is getting boring.”

“Well, then, if you’re bored, you can leave.”

“Hey, hey, now. Don’t get defensive
. I care about her, too. That’s why I’m here.”

“I know, I’m sorry.” He sighed mightily. He put his head back down on my stomach.

“Well, here. I brought you a change of clothes.”

“Thanks.”

“I don’t know how your job puts up with your constant leaves.”

“They probably won’t much longer. That’s ok, it's run its course.”

“So, what’re you going to do, become a full-time trust fund baby?”

“I don’t know yet. That’s the furthest thing from my mind right now. The very furthest. It’s like I am on Tatooine and that concern is on the Alderaan System.”

“
Star Wars
? Really? Now I remember why we broke up,” she said, but I could tell that she was teasing.

Then “Hey, lighten up, I was teasing you.” Then she paused. “Ryan?”

I could hear him snoring.

“Well, now we have two unconscious people on this bed.” Then I could feel Ryan’s head being pulled off my stomach
. “Come on, I’m going to arrange to have a cot for you so you can sleep. Poor guy, you must not have slept much for the past three days.”

Then she addressed me. “You better wake up, Iris. This guy needs you.” Then I heard her leave the room, but she was talking to a nurse outside the hallway
. “Could we get a cot in there?”

“Certainly. We’ll bring it up in about five minutes.”

Then I heard my mom, dad and sister in the room. My mom said “I still don’t understand what happened to her. How could she overdose? She has never done drugs in her life.”

My sister talked next. “Well, maybe she had a secret life. I was addicted to crystal meth for years, and you never suspected a thing.”

My mother. “But it just isn’t like her. She’s always been a good girl.”

“Sometimes people just lead double lives. It happens,” my sister said.

I could hear chairs being pulled up around the bed. Then a male voice that I didn’t recognize. “Her vitals are stable. There really is not a reason why she can’t come out of this.” I could feel a blood pressure sleeve tightening over my arm, then loosen. “110 over 70. Pulse 65. Everything’s normal.”

My mother was crying. My dad was saying “dear, she’s going to be fine
. She’s just going to wake up out of this and ask for a piece of pizza or a bar of chocolate.”

“You don’t know that!” Now she was really sobbing. Hearing her sobbing made me want to come out of this, to wake up, but somehow I just couldn’t
. It was so frustrating, hearing everybody around me, and not being able to engage.

At this point, I heard Ryan’s voice. “Uh, Mrs. Snowe, Iris is not an addict. She isn’t on drugs. As far as I know she’s never done drugs in her life.”

“So what happened to her?” asked my mother.

At this Ryan said “I was involved with a woman years ago. She’s obsessed with me. She, uh, kidnapped Iris and shot her up with black tar heroin
. Because Iris is not used to drugs, at all, let alone a large quantity at once, she overdosed.”

He paused. “I’m so sorry. I tried to save her, but I got there just a little bit too late. Rochelle already had her thumb on the plunger by the time I got there to try to save her. There wasn’t anything I could do. However, the second that Rochelle plunged the drugs into Iris’ arm, I tackled her to the ground and called 911.”

“Where’s Rochelle now?” asked my dad.

“She’s in custody. She was arrested and charged with kidnapping and assault.”

My mother was sobbing, and my dad was saying “Dear, she’s going to be ok, she’s going to be fine. Shhhhhh.”

Then the doctor’s voice “Visiting hours are coming to an end.”

I felt a bit of panic. I wanted somebody to stay there. I was scared, now, not being able to communicate or even open my eyes, and I didn’t want to be abandoned.

Ryan asked “Can I stay here? I have a cot to sleep on.”

“Who are you?”

“Her husband.”

“Oh, ok. Yes, sure, you can stay here as long as you like.”

“Thanks.”

My mother. “You lied about that, but that’s ok. I don’t want her to be here alone.”

To this, Ryan said “me neither. She needs to see a familiar face when she wakes up.” He paused. “Besides, I might be her husband sooner than you think.”

My sister. “I hope so. She needs somebody nice to take care of her.”

Ryan said “I take care of her, but she takes care of me, too.”

My mother. “She's a sweet girl. You take care of her. And don’t blame yourself for what happened. You can’t help what happened.”

I didn’t hear Ryan’s response, but I figured that he was nodding
.

Then the rest were gone, and I heard Ryan’s voice. He was reading from my favorite book
The Thornbirds,
from page one. My heart soared. I love this book, and I loved him for reading this to me.

“Beautiful, I'm going to read to you from this book, and other books, too. Hopefully you’ll wake up before I end this book, though. It’s over 500 pages long.”

For the next few hours I heard the story about the Cleary family, their clashes with Mary Carson, and their friendship with Ralph De Bricassart. I thought about the first time I knew about this story, and was exposed to it – I saw it on a cable channel when I was little girl, and I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. I must have read that book 100 times.

Ryan took a break, just as the action was heating up. Meggie had grown up, and she was about the embark on the romance of her life, with Ralph the priest
. “We’ll pick this back up tomorrow. It’s getting pretty good.” Then I heard him sigh mightily. “Please come back to me. I need you in my life. Things aren’t the same without you.”

I tried to open my eyes. I tried mightily, but I just couldn’t
.

Ryan picked the story back up again sometime later. It must have been morning, but was impossible to tell. Time had no meaning to me anymore
.

I found myself involuntarily drifting away from the story, away from the book, away from the hospital, away from Ryan
. I was in a city all at once, in the downtown area. I looked up and saw the Twin Towers, intact. Then I realized that I was in a large baby carriage being pushed down the street. There were little beads above my head, and I batted them while I restlessly punched the air and moved my hands and feet in the carriage. There were loud sounds all around me. My diaper was wet, and I started screaming.

There was a voice telling me that this was real, and this was an actual memory of mine. Then I remembered in my adult mind that when I was very small, my family lived in Rhode Island, and my mother had a cousin in New York City, and we visited often. This was one of those visits, and I realized that I had actually seen the Twin Towers in my lifetime. I just couldn’t remember it, because I was only a few months old
. And I somehow felt at peace about this, because one my biggest regrets in life was never getting to see those towers.

Then, I was back at the hospital bed. Ryan was still there, and so were my friends, Richard and Debbie. I heard Debbie speak. “Any improvements?”

“None,” Ryan said.

“It’s been three weeks. Have you left for any period of time?”

“I pretty much stay here in case she wakes up.”

Then Richard spoke up. “She’ll wake up soon, so it’s a good thing that you’re here all the time.”

Three weeks? The last I knew, I was here for a matter of days. Where did I go?
I still had my sense of smell, and I could smell Ryan's scent. He smelled like soap, aftershave and mouthwash.

The three of them were talking some about people in comas, and how they come out of it being no worse for the wear. “I knew this guy with meningitis who was in a coma for a year,” Richard was saying. “He said that was the best year of his life, because he literally travelled the world in his head and it was like he actually was there at a Stones concert or in London or wherever it was that he was imagining.”

To this Debbie said “I wonder where Iris is traveling right now?”

Ryan said “I don’t know, but I am sure that I will hear all about it
. Maybe she is in Amsterdam, sampling all the pot in the red light district.”

Ha, I wish! 

But I did feel myself drifting away again. This time I was on a beach, and the water was warm. I was playing in the water, the waves crashing over me time and again. I leaped over the waves and swam under them. I looked on the shore and saw my cousin Terry picking up sea shells. She looked to be about 15 years old. I, myself, was extremely skinny, and I realized that this was another memory of a time that I went to the beach with Terry and my uncle Justin. We used to go to South Carolina every year.

I started to worry. Was I dying?  My life seemed to be flashing before my eyes. It was like God was showing me some of my favorite memories, or at least memories that were previously lost to me, such as the Twin Towers. What if I couldn’t come out of the coma?

I was back at the hospital bed again. Ryan and Alexis were arguing.

“Ryan, it’s been two months. You have to come back and join the living. Everybody’s worried about you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? I’m here in the living. In case you haven’t noticed, she isn’t dead.”

“I know, but every day that she’s like this makes it more unlikely that she’ll come back. You have to accept this.”

“I’ll do nothing of the sort. I’m not going to give up on her.”

“You may not have the choice.”

“Meaning?”

“You might have to say goodbye to her.”

“Oh, and wouldn’t that be convenient for you?  Then you can have another chance, is that what you’re thinking?”

“Of course not!  Number one, I like her too, if you didn’t forget
. And number two, things are going pretty good with Todd.”

Todd was the guy that Alexis had started seeing before I became like this.

“Well, I’m glad that things are going well with Todd. Why don’t you go and see him and leave me alone?”

“Because I care about you, and I know that you need a friend.”

Just then, I heard another voice in the room, a male voice. Alexis addressed the new guy. “You talk to him. He might listen to you more than he would me.”

“Hey Ryan, buddy,” the new guy said.

“Nick, if you're here to say anything negative, I swear to god, I will get in your face.”

“Nothing negative, but you need to take a break here. You haven’t been at work for the past two months, and everybody is concerned.”

“I’ve taken a leave of absence for an indefinite period of time. If they fire me, they fire me. I don’t really care about that right now.”

“Ok, then, let’s at least go down to the cafeteria and get something eat, ok?”

Oh, so this is the infamous Nick? 
His voice was very nice, very deep and masculine. He sounded like a jock for some reason, and I could imagine that he was. After all, he was also on the football team in high school and he also rowed with Ryan. I knew this because I saw Nick in Ryan’s yearbooks. Nick was a very good-looking guy from the pictures, and his voice matched his image very well.

I heard them leave the room. I concentrated on trying to open my eyes or moving some of my muscles
.

After what seemed like forever, Ryan and Nick were back
. “I do feel a bit better,” Ryan was saying. “Thanks for coming by and taking me to the EBT.”

EBT was the r
estaurant by the St. Joseph’s Hospital, so I now knew which hospital I was in. That was a good thing. I felt more oriented to time and space now that I knew where I was.

“Not a problem, buddy, but I’d like it if you would spend the night with me and Rielle. I know that you don’t want to go home to your empty house, which is why I’m making this offer now. Hell, you could even move in with us until she wakes up.”

“You always come through for me, but no. I need to be here for her when she comes to.”