Distant Shores (13 page)

TWELVE

The first thing Elizabeth did was call Jack.

Oh, baby,
he'd said softly,
I'm so sorry. I can be home in thirty minutes. I've got
blah blah blah
to do yet. Will you be okay by yourself until I get there?

Of course she would. Her husband had never handled tragedy well. Even when he showed up, Elizabeth knew she'd really be alone.

Next, she called her daughters. Stephanie was loving and accommodating; she'd probably gone on-line during their phone conversation and ordered plane tickets. Jamie didn't say much. She'd been hit too hard by the unexpected news. She and her grandfather were so close …

Elizabeth heard the fear in Jamie's voice when she said:
Maybe he'll be okay. You think he'll be okay, don't you?

Elizabeth wanted to rush in then, to salve her daughter's pain, but this was no time to make promises.

After that, Elizabeth concentrated on the details. By the time Jack got home, she'd made most of the necessary arrangements and packed his suitcase.

It took them more than two hours to get to the airport, go through security, and find the gate. Once there, they sat side by side in silence.

Finally, the flight was called and they boarded the plane, finding their seats in first class.

When they were in the air, a flight attendant appeared in the aisle in front of them. A loudspeaker reeled off emergency instructions.

Elizabeth didn't hear a word of it. When you were flying across several states to see your father, who might or might not be dying, it was impossible to think about much else.

Thank God for Christmas.

(Don't think that way.)

“Are you okay?” Jack asked again.

Elizabeth squeezed his hand. “No.”

Finally, the plane landed in Nashville. She and Jack hailed a cab and headed north.

Forty-five minutes later, the taxi pulled up in front of a sprawling gray hospital.

“This entrance okay?” The driver asked, turning around to face them.

“Fine,” Jack answered, handing a wad of bills to the driver.

Elizabeth got out of the cab and crossed her arms, waiting while Jack gathered their bags.

She was close to falling apart, but she wouldn't allow herself that luxury. If there was one thing motherhood taught a woman, it was how to hold herself together in a crisis.

Still, she clung to her husband's hand as they walked through the electric doors and into the sterile, antiseptic-scented lobby.

At the front desk, she said, “We're looking for Edward Rhodes, please.”

The receptionist looked up. “The Colonel's in intensive care. Sixth floor west.”

Jack squeezed her hand. “The elevators are right there.”

She looked up at him, wanting suddenly to be alone with her fear. “Do you mind if I go alone?”

“What if you need me?”

“That's really sweet, but I'd rather be by myself. Besides, you hate hospitals. And they don't let many people into the ICU.”

“You'll come and get me when you know something?”

“Of course.”

He pulled her into his arms and kissed her hard. Against her lips, he whispered, “He'll be okay.”

“I know.” She was unsteady by the time she turned away from him. Without a backward glance, she headed toward the elevators.

On the sixth floor, she stepped out.

The ICU was a hive of white-coated activity. Elizabeth went to the main nurses desk and asked for her father. The nurse—an elderly black woman with hair the color of cold ashes—immediately sobered.

“Hello, Miss Elizabeth. I'm Deb Edwards. I reckon you don't remember me. I used to work for Doc Treamor.”

“Hello, Deb. It's nice to see you again.” She was surprised by how strong her voice sounded. “How is he doing?”

“Not well, I'm sad to say. But you know your daddy. He's stronger than ten ordinary men.”

Elizabeth managed a tired smile. “Thank you.” Then she walked down the hallway toward his room.

It was walled in glass on three sides. Through it, she saw a bed sitting amid a cluster of cranelike machines. Lights blinked from ugly black boxes; green lines graphed the unsteady beating of his heart.

There was a man in the bed, lying perfectly still and straight, his legs two parallel lines under the white blankets, his hairy, age-spotted arms pressed in close to the hump of his body.

He didn't look like her daddy. Edward Rhodes was a man who was always in motion, a man who took up
space
.

She moved toward him, her footsteps loud on the linoleum floor.

“Daddy?” Her voice cracked. She smoothed the gray-white hair away from his eyes. Her fingers lingered on his wide, creased brow. Even now, unconscious, he seemed to be thinking hard, planning some new adventure that only he could devise.

Her legs gave out on her for a second. She clutched the bedrail for support. The metal made a jangling, jarring noise.

She leaned forward. “Hey, Daddy, it's me, Birdie.” At first, she said all the standard things, the familiar soundtrack that is said to all people in all hospital beds every day. Things like,
You're going to be fine
 … and,
You're strong, you'll make it.

But he was so still and pale. The skin that had always looked tan, even in the dead of winter, was grayed now, pale as the pillowcase. There was a breathing tube in his nostril and an IV needle in his white, veiny arm.

He looked older than his seventy-six years. Not at all like the man who walked his fields every day because “a man should touch the ground he owns.” It seemed impossible that last year he'd trekked to Nepal, or that the year before that he'd run the rapids on the Snake River.

“Hey, Daddy,” she whispered, stroking his forehead. She bent low and kissed his temple. Gone was his usual scent of bay rum and pipe smoke. He smelled of stale perspiration and sickness. She closed her eyes, wondering how to reach him.

Gradually, she became aware of the smell of flowers. Gardenias, to be precise.

Slowly, she straightened, knowing she wasn't alone anymore. She turned around.

Anita stood in the doorway, wearing a tight yellow angora sweater and straight-legged black pants with high-heeled black-and-yellow ankle boots. “Birdie,” she said in a quiet voice, not her usual tremblin'-with-excitement sound at all, “I'm glad you could get here s' quick.” She went to the bed. “Hey, Daddy,” she whispered, touching his face.

“How's he doing?”

When Anita looked up, her gray eyes floated beneath a dome of electric-blue eye shadow. “They're hopin' he'll wake up.”

Elizabeth steeled herself. “But he might not?”

“The longer he's … out, the worse it is. They're pretty sure he's paralyzed on the left side.”

“God,” Elizabeth whispered.

She pulled up a chair and sat beside him. Anita did the same thing, positioning herself on the opposite side of the bed. Elizabeth supposed there was a simple truth to be found in their choices. Two women who loved the same man. He'd always been between them, loving them both but unable to bring them together. For the first few minutes, they muddled through polite conversation, talking about nothing—the weather, the flight—but after a while, they gave up. They'd been there almost two hours when the door opened.

A short, stocky man in a white coat walked into the room.

“Hey, Phil,” Anita said, trying to smile. She stood up. “He's still restin'.”

The doctor looked at Elizabeth. “I'm Phillip Close,” he said, extending his hand. “Edward's physician. You must be Birdie. He talks about you all the time.”

Elizabeth imagined her daddy, sitting on the edge of an examining table, boring this stern-looking doctor with proud-father stories. It wounded her, that image, brought tears to her eyes. She stood up and shook his hand.

Phillip bent over Daddy, checked a few of the machines, then straightened. “It's still a waiting game. I wish I could do better than that.”

“He could be fine, right?” Anita said.

“I'd never bet against the Colonel. He could wake up in ten minutes and ask for a shot of Maker's Mark,” Phillip answered.

Elizabeth had to know the truth; it was the only way to prepare. “Or he could never wake up, is that what you're saying?”

“Yes,” Phillip answered. “There are a range of possibilities right now. It's really better not to anticipate too much, just to wait and see. As I told Anita earlier, the longer he's unconscious, the worse it looks, but he's always been a strong man.”

“Anita tells me he might be paralyzed on one side,” she said slowly.

“Yes. And it took the paramedics quite a while to revive him. He may have suffered some brain injury. But, as I said, we won't know much until he wakes up. The biggest concern now is his heart. Frankly, it's pretty weak.”

“Thank you, Phillip,” Elizabeth said, although it seemed ridiculous to thank someone for giving you more to worry about. Still, it was good manners. The way things were done.

“I'll give you two some time with him,” he said, then left the room.

Paralyzed.

Brain injuries.

Weak heart.

The words didn't follow him out; they stayed in the room.

Elizabeth stared across the bed at her stepmother. All that pancake makeup couldn't conceal Anita's pain.

“He'll make it,” Elizabeth said. “He's too ornery to die.”

Anita looked pathetically grateful for that small bit of comfort. “He
is
ornery, that's for sure.”

“I … am … not.”

Elizabeth and Anita gasped. They leaned down at the same time.

Daddy's eyes were open; one side of his face remained pathetically slack.

“We can hear you, Daddy,” she said. “We're both right here.”

“I … am … not … ornery.”

Anita took his motionless hand, squeezing it hard. Tears bubbled along her lashes. “I knew you couldn't leave me.”

He reached across his own body and touched Anita's face. “There you are, Mother. I've been looking for you.”

“I'm right here, Daddy,” Anita said breathlessly, crying softly. “I wouldn't go anywhere.”

Elizabeth knew it was childish, but she felt excluded by their love. She always had. There was something special between Anita and Edward, so special that everything around them paled in comparison.

“Our Birdie is here, too. She hopped on a plane the very second she heard,” Anita said, smoothing the hair away from his eyes.

Slowly, he turned to look at Elizabeth. In his eyes, she saw something she'd never seen before—defeat—and it scared her. “Hey, Daddy,” she whispered. “You've got a hell of a nerve scaring us this way.”

“Give me just a moment with m' little girl, won't you, Mother?”

Anita leaned down and kissed his forehead. When she drew back, the bright pink lipstick print of her kiss remained. “I love you,” she whispered fiercely, then left the room.

A second later, the door opened again. White-coated nurses bustled into the room. They shoved Elizabeth aside—politely—and busied themselves around their patient, checking machines, taking blood-pressure readings, listening to his heart. Phillip was the last to arrive. He rushed into the room, a little breathless, then saw his patient and smiled. “So, you decided to quit playing possum, huh? You had two beautiful women mighty worked up.”

Daddy's smile was sadly lopsided. “Just wanted you to earn some of that hellacious bill you're gonna send me. It'll probably stop my heart right then and there.”

Phillip listened to Daddy's heart, frowned briefly, then straightened. As he made a notation in the chart, he said, “I earn every penny putting up with your sorry butt, and you know it. I suppose I'll have to let you win at golf for a while.” He turned to Elizabeth. “Make the old coot take it easy. I'll be back in a little while to check on him. We'll want to run another EKG.”

Phillip herded the nurses out of the room and closed the door behind him. Through the glass wall, Elizabeth could see that he was talking to Anita.

“Damn doctors,” Edward said, breathing hard. “They won't leave a man in peace.” He tried to smile.

All the way down here, Elizabeth had been rehearsing what to say to him, and now nothing came to her. She was afraid that if she said a word, she'd start to cry.

“Where's golden … boy? And my granddaughters?”

“Jack is in the waiting room. Stephie and Jamie will be here in a little while.”

Edward's eyes fluttered closed. He took a few rattling breaths, then came awake with a start and shouted, “Anita!”

“She's just outside, Daddy. You said you wanted to talk to
me
.”

“Ah … yes.” He calmed down. Very slowly, he lifted his hand and touched her hand. “When I saw that movie,
Forrest Gump
, all I could think about was my little sugar beet. We were peas and carrots, weren't we?”

She squeezed her eyes shut, then slowly opened them. “Yes.”

“I didn't handle things well. I surely didn't.”

Elizabeth didn't know what he was talking about. Before she could ask, he went on:

“Anita. Marguerite. I shoulda done it differently, God knows. But your mama near killed me … I swear, I don't know what I should have told you.”

“What are you talking about, Daddy?”

“I thought it best you didn't know, that's all. To protect you. Memories … they're important sometimes, more important than the truth. But Anita paid the price. We all did.”

“Daddy—”

He started coughing hard, gasping.

“
Sshh,
Daddy,” she said. “There's plenty of time for talking. You just rest now.”

“You're the best part o' me, Birdie. You always were. From the moment your mama put you in my arms, I knew. I fell in love with you so hard I practically cracked my head. I reckon I should have told you more often.”