Heartbeat (27 page)

I
T SOUNDED AS THOUGH THERE WERE SIRENS EVERY
-where as Bill came back from the bait shop. He set his bag down outside the tent, and stretched his legs in the sun as he waited for them, and as he sat there, an ambulance roared past him. He had an odd feeling for just a moment as he watched it disappear, and then almost instinctively began walking toward the swimming hole where he had left Adrian and the children. And as he got there, he found Adam, running up and down on the riverbank, crying hysterically and waving his arms in the direction of the river.

“Oh my God …” Bill felt his whole body trembling as he ran to him, and several adults were already standing there trying to console him. Adam was calling Tommy's name and when he saw his father he ran to him. Bill clutched Adam to him and then pulled him away just as quickly. “What happened? What happened?” He shook him trying to calm him so he could understand, but Adam could only wave in the direction where the ambulance and two forestry jeeps now stood, and Bill left him and ran frantically toward them.

There was a huge crowd of people near them now, and people from the rafts were shouting something, just as Bill reached the spot where a cluster of rangers stood, several of them half in the water, and Bill saw them grab a small lump of flesh with a patch of bright blue, and he realized with horror that it was his son, unconscious and blue, and they laid him quickly on the ground, checked his breathing, and one of the men began breathing for him, as Bill sobbed, watching. He was dead … he had to be …people were staring in horror as Bill pushed past them to the boy and dropped to his knees next to the rangers.

“Please …oh …God …please … do something…” All he could think of was the boy, the baby he so dearly loved, and as he watched him, suddenly there was a terrible splutter and a cough and a explosion of water. He was still gray, but he moved, and a moment later, he opened his eyes and looked up at his father. He seemed a little dazed at first, and then he started to cry, as Bill leaned his face down next to his and sobbed as he held him. “Oh, baby …oh, baby …Tommy., I love you …”

“It …I …” He gagged again, and vomited what looked like gallons of water, but the paramedics were watching him closely and he was going to be all right. He looked bruised, and there was mud in his hair and there were scratches all over him, but he was alive. He kept looking at Bill frantically, and when he stopped vomiting he spoke, and Bill's heart almost stopped when he heard him. “Where's …Adrian?”Adrian. Oh my God. He turned, suddenly realizing that he hadn't seen her anywhere, and as he turned, he saw the men lifting her limp form from the water.

“Watch him!” Bill said to one of the men standing near the boy, and in two strides he was next to her, but she looked dead. She was pale gray, and there was a terrible gash on one arm and one leg. But it was the look on her face that was so frightening. It reminded him of a highway accident he had seen once, and the woman had been dead in the car when he got there. Oh my God …can you do anything?” he asked, but no one was listening to him. They were trying to resuscitate her, and there was no response from her.

“Is she your wife?” someone asked him quickly, as he started to shake his head, and then nodded. It was simpler than explaining the situation. “She saved the boy,” the man explained. “He would have gone over the rocks in another minute. She kept him up near the surface till we got him, but I think she hit her head.” And there was blood gushing from the cut on her arm. There was blood everywhere as Bill watched in horror.

“Is she breathing?” Bill asked as he stared at her. There were four men bending over her body, and tears rolled down his cheeks as he watched. She had died trying to save his son …she had saved him and …they were trying to resuscitate her, but nothing was happening. And suddenly the siren was on again, and two of the men shouted to the driver.

“We've got a heartbeat!” She gave a small gasp then, but she still looked terrible, as they continued to give her artificial respiration, and then they looked victoriously at Bill. “She's breathing on her own again. We're going to take her to the hospital Do you want to ride with us?”

“Yes. Will she be all right?” he asked, as he looked frantically in the direction of where he had left Adam.

“We don't know yet. We don't know what kind of head injury she has, and she's lost a lot of blood from the wound in her arm. It's right near an artery. It's going to be close.” He looked at Bill honestly, as he wound a tourniquet around her arm, and he was keeping pressure on it. Adam had just come running up to him, he was still crying and he clung to his father, as the paramedics lifted Tommy into the ambulance on a stretcher. Bill hopped in after him, and someone helped Adam in and handed him a blanket, as two of the paramedics lifted Adrian in. She was still deathly white, and there was an oxygen mask on her face. Bill knelt down beside her.

“Is she dead?” Adam asked in a voice full of grief, and Tommy just stared at her. There were still leaves in her hair, and one of the men was keeping pressure on her arm, as Bill shook his head in answer to Adam's question. She wasn't dead, but she was barely breathing.

They made it to the hospital in ten minutes flat, with Bill praying as he stroked her face and watched her. Twice he saw the paramedics checking her more closely, and he could see they didn't like what they saw, but there was a team waiting for them when they got to Truckee. Tommy was lifted out after that, and Adam climbed out of the ambulance. They all looked as though they were in shock, and an elderly nurse spoke quietly to Bill.

“I'll stay with the boys so you can be with your wife. They'll be fine. We'll find some warm clothes for them, and they want to keep an eye on the little one for a while anyway. They'll be fine.” He nodded, and told them both he'd be back in a little while, and he pounded the pavement as he ran into the building where Adrian had been taken.

“Where is she?” he asked as soon as he was inside. They knew whom he meant, she was the most critically ill patient they had at the moment, and a nurse pointed to a pair of swinging doors almost at the same moment as he flew through them. He found himself inside a high-tech emergency room, and there seemed to be a thousand knobs and dials, a flood of bright lights, and a dozen people in green pajamas working on her still form. They seemed to be doing ten thousand things at once, and they were watching half a dozen monitors and reporting things in codes he didn't understand. It was like watching a science fiction movie. And inside he felt numb. He still couldn't understand what had happened. All he knew was that something terrible had happened to Tommy, and she had saved him, but at what price, and if she lived, he would be forever grateful. But for the moment that appeared to be less than likely. This woman whom he barely knew, the girl he had fallen in love with, was lying there like someone in a bad dream or a rotten movie.

“What's happening?” he asked them repeatedly, but they were too busy to answer. He saw them sew up her arm, start a blood transfusion, an IV, and administer an EKG, and still she was gray and unconscious. And he couldn't get near her. There were too many of them, and she was too injured, and there was too much they had to do to try to save her.

Finally, as he began to feel sick watching it all, one of the doctors took him aside and asked him if he would come outside for a few moments.

“Would you like to sit down?” He had noticed how desperate Bill looked, and Bill sank gratefully into a chair, thinking of what was happening in that room, the desperate fight for life that she appeared to be losing.

“What's happening?” he asked again, and this time he got the answers.

“As you obviously know, your wife almost drowned. She's taken a lot of water into her lungs, and she lost a great deal of blood from the cut on her arm. She hit an artery and that alone could have been fatal. There must have been something awfully sharp under the surface of the water. In addition, she appears to have sustained a considerable blow on the head. At first we were afraid of a fracture, but I think that's not the case. We think she's got a concussion, and of course things are complicated further by her condition.”

“What condition?” He looked horrified and confused. Her medical history was a complete mystery to him, and all he could think of were things like diabetes. “Will she be all right?”

“We don't know yet.” He looked even more serious then as he looked at Bill. “And given the extent of her injuries, it's a distinct possibility that she could lose the baby.” Bill stared at him in stupefaction as he said it.

“The baby?” He felt totally confused and like a complete fool.

“Of course,” the doctor went on, assuming he was in shock and having trouble remembering anything after almost losing his son, and still being in danger of losing his pregnant wife. “She must be, what …four, four and a half months pregnant?”

“I …of course …I …I'm just so upset, I …”It was insanity, why was he pretending she was his wife? And why did he feel like this? Why did he actually feel as though she were his wife and this were his baby? And why in God's name hadn't she told him? He felt as though he had had yet another shock, as the doctor asked him to stay where he was. He was going back to check on Adrian again and he would report to Bill the moment there was any change in the situation.

He sat there alone for a long time, trying to absorb what had happened and what he had just heard, and for a long moment, he just couldn't. It was impossible to understand what had gone on, except suddenly little pieces of the puzzle began to fit into place …her enormous appetite …the fact that she looked as though she had gained a little weight since he first met her …but far more importantly, Steven's leaving her …but why, if she was having a baby? He had to be some kind of son of a bitch, Bill thought to himself. And that was also why she kept thinking he might be coming back, and why she still wore her wedding ring probably …and it was why she was loath to get into a relationship with him. Suddenly, it all made sense.Except now she might lose the baby. Four and a half months was serious …and she might die herself, which was a great deal more so. He felt as though his heart had just been torn out, as another doctor came slowly toward him. He looked ominous as Bill stared up at him, afraid of what he was going to tell him.

“We've done everything we can for her. She's breathing on her own, she's had a unit of blood. The concussion
is
severe but not necessarily fatal, there's no fracture of her skull …but we're just going to have to wait. She's still unconscious.” And Bill knew that she could just slip into a coma and die. Those things happened sometimes. “There's no reason to expect permanent damage from this, if she survives. But the big question is, will she? We just don't have the answer to that yet.”

“And the baby?” He felt a responsibility for the baby now too. For both of them. He wanted them both to live. He wanted both of them … or just her …anything …but please don't let them die…. He looked at the doctor, waiting to hear the answer to his question.

“The pregnancy is still viable. We have a monitor on her, and so far everything looks fine. We're still getting a fetal heartbeat.”

“Thank God.” Bill stood, waiting for more. But there was nothing more. Only time would tell what would happen. “May I see her?”

“Of course. We're going to leave her where she is, until we see what happens. She's still in an emergency unit. We'll move her to ICU later, if she improves.” It was difficult to believe. A few hours earlier she'd been making bacon and eggs, and now suddenly she was on the brink of death, after saving Tommy.

“Is my boy all right?”

“I haven't seen him myself. But the last I heard, he and his brother were having lunch in the pediatric ward.” He smiled at Bill. “I'd say he's going to be okay. He's a lucky boy. I understand that only her quick thinking and heroic maneuvers saved him. She's a very slight woman, it's amazing she was able to hold him up like that. She must have gashed her arm somehow in the process …” and hit her head …and almost drowned …and almost lost her baby …and she hadn't hesitated for an instant, even knowing that she was pregnant. He owed her everything. If she lived long enough for him to repay it.

He walked into the special emergency unit then, and sat down next to her. There seemed to be machines hooked to every part of her, and the oxygen mask obscured part of her face, but he gently took her hand in his own and kissed her fingers. The knuckles were cut and bruised, and there was still earth underneath her fingernails. She must have struggled ferociously to save him.

“Adrian …”he whispered to her still form. “Hove you, sweetheart. I loved you the first time I ever saw you.” He had decided that if he never got a chance to say it to her, he was going to say it all to her now, whether she heard him or not, and maybe she would hear him and it would make a difference. “I loved you right away, that first night in the supermarket, when I almost ran you down … do you remember that?” He smiled as tears ran down his face and he kissed her fingers again. “And I loved you the next time …when I saw you in the parking lot at the complex. Do you remember that? I think it was a Sunday morning …and at the pool at the apartment … I love you … I love everything about you …and the boys love you too …Adam and Tommy. They want you to get better too.” He just went on talking to her, in his strong, gentle voice, and holding her hand carefully in his own. “And I love the baby too …that's right …and if you want that baby, so do I …I want you and the baby, Adrian. Both of you …and the baby is going to be just fine …the doctor said so.” He watched her face then, he thought he had seen her wince, but when he looked more closely, he thought he had imagined it. She seemed as expressionless as ever. He went on talking to her for a long time, crooning her name, and telling her how much he loved her and the baby. He rested his hand on the baby then, and felt the small lump that he had never noticed before, that she had never told him about, and he told the baby that he loved it, and that it had better stick around, or it was going to make a lot of people very unhappy. “That's right …you don't think your mom has gone through all this in order to have you bail out now, do you? So settle down and take it easy … right, Adrian? You tell the baby to relax. …” And then he kissed her gently on the cheek and talked to her some more, as one of the nurses watched him from the doorway. She had never seen anyone so distraught, and she had never heard anyone talk to a woman like that. As she listened, she thought Adrian was awfully lucky to have a man love her the way he did. And as she watched, she saw something on the monitors that caught her attention. She frowned and walked into the room, and as she approached, Adrian turned toward Bill and opened her eyes and then closed them. For an instant of sheer terror, he thought she had just died, and he let out an almost animal sound of grief, as he stood up and looked down at her again in anguish. But as he did, she opened her eyes again, and the nurse checked her vital signs and smiled down at her, and Bill smiled at her as he was crying. He couldn't speak anymore. She had taken his breath away, and he was so moved, he had started to tremble.