Between Lovers (37 page)

Behind me another shrill voice rises. A cry of distress comes from the driver of that death carriage. She's telling people that she tried to stop, that Nicole came out of nowhere, setting up her story, placing blame on Nicole, the one others only know as the woman on the pavement.

The man in the fatigues talks on, “—said damn dat lady flew up in the air I said oh shit den this udder lady was screaming
ahhhhhh
‘den other people start screaming
ahhhhhh
and everybody people started screaming
ahhhhhh
like dey had a screaming disease and—”

I yell,
“Shut up shut up please shut your ass up.”

A jolt of electricity pours through me. I yank off my gloves, throw them away, move Nicole's honey-blond hair, try to remember how to check a pulse, put two fingers on her neck, feel nothing, no rise, no fall, then put my face close to hers.

Ayanna asks, “What are—”

“She's not breathing.”

I snap, “Don‘t, Ayanna. Don't lose it. I need your help.”

“Okay, okay.”

“You know CPR?”

“Yes, yeah, CPR, of course.”

“Help me.”

Water beads off Ayanna's chin. She fidgets, reaches for Nicole, wipes water from her face, trying to contain her own agony.

“—yelling her please help her I mean ‘cause she was up in the air like a bird a plane like she was damn Superman so I just sat my ass down and waited 'cause I knew dey was gonna need somebody to tell ‘em what happened 'cause ‘dem people was too damn hysterical.”

Ayanna moves to Nicole's mouth. I stay at her chest, my hand on her heart.

Five compressions.

One breath.

I'm Nicole's heart. Ayanna is Nicole's lungs.

Then we change.

Ayanna becomes the heart; I become the lungs. Rain runs through my hair, dampens the gel, rinses a bitter taste into my mouth.

Five compressions.

One breath.

Seems like we do that forever before a siren makes its way through the rubbernecking traffic, seems like years go by before flashing lights brighten up the Tube like rainbows. EMT comes through the crowd. Oakland Police Department gets here too.

The man in the fatigues hurries to OPD. “Seent the whole damn thing she went BOOM and flew like she was a superhero she ain't gonna make it that woman ain't gonna make it she went BOOM too damn hard to make it somebody got a cigarette ‘cause I sho' been traumatized and being traumatized makes me wanna smoke don't tell me ain't none of y'all got a smoke hell it's my damn lungs.”

I move back and stand at the edge of the overpass, rain beating down on me.

Ayanna is close to me. Her bracelets jingle as she trembles.

I try to shake Nicole's mother's voice out of my head, but it won't go.

Ayanna whispers, “Don't let our girl go on the concrete. At least let her get to the hospital where she can be warm and dry. Not in the rain, not on nasty-ass Broadway, not in front of a fucking Probation Department in front of all of these people. Not in front of strangers. Please, please, please.”

EMT does their checks. Things I don't understand, but I watch with critical eyes.

Ayanna watches too. Watches and moans and prays.

I'm speechless. Own no words, not a single coherent thought runs through my mind.

A police officer puts blankets around us as the EMT does a complete physical assessment. Complete physical assessment. That's the term I hear them use. The EMTs, they become our gods, the ones we defer to, the ones with all the power, our only hope for a miracle.

My insides are folding, tightening, waiting for them to cover Nicole's face.

I don't feel the cold anymore. Don't feel the rain anymore. No wind. Only the numbness.

I want to make a deal with God. Want to tell him to let her stay and take me.

Ayanna holds my hand. Something is going wrong with me and she feels it. She puts both of her arms around me.

Head injuries, punctured lungs, a lot of things could be wrong. With every thought my insides are folding, never unfolding. I'm in agony.

Ayanna holds me tighter.

I'm overwhelmed by images; I see bits and pieces of our past. Seven years that have been mostly good. These last few days have been too intense, too confusing.

All of that plays over and over, plays until I can't take it anymore.

Like a wounded dog I pull at my hair and stagger in circles, howl to the heavens and ask for mercy, ask for our overseer to take me, to leave Nicole be. Ayanna cuts me off, slows my roll, pulls me underneath the overpass, out of the rain, puts her arms around me, and holds me tight. Pulls my head to her chest. Shushes me like I'm her child. Tells me that everything will be okay.

The winds sing, but no voice comes from above. No deals are being made today.

They put a neck collar on Nicole. A leg splint. EMTs call the emergency room.

Ayanna asks them, “Where are you taking her?”

“Alameda County.”

“No, do not take her to County—look, if we can bypass Alameda and Kaiser—”

“Have to take her to the closest.”

But that doesn't stop Ayanna from putting on her lawyer's voice. “Alameda is the ghetto and Kaiser's an HMO, which is worse. If she's stable, you have to take her to UCSF.”

“Have to take her to the closest.”

“She has medical insurance.”

“Ayanna,” I snap, raising my voice, “let him do his job. Let him do his job.”

She doesn't back down. “She has insurance. Anywhere but County.”

This time I become strong, put my arms around Ayanna. A stranger walks over with a box of tissues. I thank him. Or her. It's all a blur. I give some tissues to Ayanna before I blow my own nose. I hold her. Let her tears fall on my damp sweatshirt.

Someone gives us his or her umbrella. We thank that person as well.

The paramedics come to us, come to get us.

Seems like forever has gone by, but ten minutes ago we were all running.

Soaking wet, we ride in the ambulance with Nicole. Siren on. Lights flashing.

Watch her life signs, watch them work on her, watch each other.

I ask, “Is she ... she going to make it?”

The paramedic can't say. Maybe doesn't want to say.

Ayanna dabs her eyes and mumbles, “Didn't mean it. Was mad, that's all. Don't leave me. Please don't. Anything but this. Anything.”

My own guilt has me by the neck, won't let me go.

At the hospital we wait.

Time becomes ice. I'm a glacier floating at sea.

We sit in a room filled with people who are waiting for news, wet, refusing to leave, and we wait.

At some point, when so many tears have fallen, when she's paced as much as she can pace, Ayanna comes to me and pants out her words, “My husband. He died on the street. On the pavement. In the rain.”

I put my hand on hers. She holds my hand. Holds it tight.

She says, “Don't know if I can handle this twice in one lifetime.”

And we hold each other.

I say, “Don't know if I can handle it once.”

Finally there is news. The kind of news that brings no smiles; dries no tears.

Nicole is in a coma.

Not here.

Not there.

Somewhere in between.

With the exception of the humming of machines, the room is quiet. A catheter drains the fluid from Nicole's bladder. IV in her bruised arm. Blood being taken. Neurological tests being done. So much poking and probing, so much has been done to her damaged body.

Nicole's not on a respirator. She's breathing on her own. Breathing as if she refuses to let a machine do the work for her. Still stubborn, even when she's drifting in the twilight zone.

Outside of her leg, outside of a few bruises, considering the circumstances, everything is in order. Not good, but not as bad as it could be. The main thing is that there isn't any internal bleeding.

She's on oxygen. In a private room. Away from others. Ayanna has all the information about Nicole's insurance, all the things it takes to make a place like this give you real service, makes sure they know she's a lawyer. I make sure they know that I'm the son of a very powerful man.

Ayanna and I are the hospital's nightmare; we ask too many questions. We want details. Want to know what is going on, what to expect, what not to expect. There are a lot of questions, but the answers are few. Hard to get answers for what they do not know.

Time holds all the cards.

I leave long enough to catch a taxi to my hotel, change, grab Ayanna's bag and come back.

My cell phone keeps ringing. So does Ayanna's. Everybody is calling everybody.

My father calls. My mother is on the other line. The phone beeps and on the other end are people who have known Nicole over the last seven years. People who still consider her family. The calls pour in non stop, just like the rain.

André calls. The word has spread to him, and he's just waking up in L.A.

“Need me to come back up there?”

“Nothing you can do. I'll let you know.”

“Talked to her peeps in Memphis?”

“Not yet.”

“Call ‘em. When you get your head together, call 'em.”

The same madness is on Ayanna's phone. Friends. Relatives. And her mother. She ignores all other calls when her mother calls. They talk a while. A long while. They talk like mother and daughter.

I call Nicole's mother. Leave a message. Then I call her sisters, two of her brothers.

The nurse tries to explain to us that Nicole's hooked up to a telemetry machine, a heart monitor that keeps its eye on t-waves, s-waves, makes sure that a heart attack isn't in the horizon. My eyes go over the EKG machine, the TPN coming in through an IV, two liters of oxygen, a nasal cannula in her nose.

The nurse says, “Looks like she's in pretty good physical condition.”

I tell the nurse, “She's a runner. Runs marathons in four hours.”

“Her heart rate is low. Has a very strong heart.”

I keep going on and on, rambling to the nurse about Nicole, telling her how wonderful she is. That urge to say something may come from guilt, but most of it comes from fear.

I have to watch Nicole being given medication to keep fluids from building up. People coming in and probing her as if she's just another patient, bringing syringes to take away blood so they can check potassium and sodium levels.

“Yep. Good thing she was in excellent physical condition,” the nurse says to me.

They show us how to turn Nicole every two hours, how to keep her from getting bedsores. How to clean her when her bowels move. It reminds me of something my old man used to say: Once a man, twice a child. And now she is a child again. We are the parents.

The nurse asks, “Who administered CPR?”

At the same moment Ayanna and I say, “We did.”

I ask, “Did that hurt her?”

The nurse shakes her head. “That saved her. Kept the oxygen flowing to her brain.”

I ask, “What else can we do from this point?”

She explains to us that the last sense to go is the hearing. That what she hears gets to her mind, and the body is the servant of the mind. If we give her fear and hopelessness, that's what she'll respond to. We have to realize that she hears every word, and our verbal diets will be what feed her.

She says, “Keep that sense alive. She can hear you. Let her hear you.”

Before those words can settle, the EKG machine starts beeping; Nicole moves. Starts jerking. Twitching. Eyes roll. Her bowels move. The nurse runs to the displays.

Ayanna and I have to hold each other as we leave the room, stand in the hallway and watch people rush in from all directions.

Ayanna drags her fingers through her heart-colored mane and moans, “No, no, no.”

We stand. We wait. Then after we wait, we wait some more.

They bring Nicole out and wheel her away from us, take her down for another CAT scan. Check for respiratory distress, for heart rate, to see if she's about ready to stop running in this race.

An hour passes before the doctor comes to have that talk. To bring us that reality. I get a chill. Feels as if we're trying to save the Titanic by dumping water with a teacup.

We're told that she's stabilized, but this can still go one way or the other. We set up camp in Nicole's hospital room. I bring flowers. Pictures. Ayanna does the same.

We abandon our sadness at the door and talk to her in upbeat voices, talk to each other and include her in the conversation.

Ayanna brings music: Kravitz, Pru, Macy Gray, Marley, Prince, Santana, Kina, Pink, Sting.

Ayanna says, “Put on Prince. My girl has to have Prince.”

“She's a Prince-aholic. That was all she played when we met.”

“Who you telling? We went to his concert at the San Jose Arena in December. She played Prince for days.” She laughs at the memory. “Prince, Prince, Prince. Drove me mad.”

I laugh with her. Laughter sounds better when it has a friend. And music.

I say, “Time to turn her.”

We do.

We watch Nicole like she's a premature child, hold her hand, touch her, talk to her.

Sometime during the night, when insomnia is my friend, and that same insomnia is Ayanna's companion, I look around the room at all the flowers that have come so fast. From Siebel Systems. From Motorola. From GE. A lot of people have called. I realize what a full life Nicole and Ayanna have here in the Bay.