The End of Forever (6 page)

The glare stung Erin’s eyes, and the room seemed to take on a surrealistic glow. She picked up the telephone receiver and punched her number. “Where’d everybody go?” she asked, counting the rings.

“I sent the girls home, but I promised to start the phone chain once we heard something.” The phone chain was Ms. Thornton’s method of dispensing information to the dance troupe. She called one person,
who called another, and so on down the line until everyone got the message.

By the tenth ring Erin realized no one was going to answer. A hard, heavy sensation lodged in her stomach. “No ones home,” she said.

“Had your parents planned to go out?”

“No.” Erin’s voice had become a whisper. She hung up the phone. “Something’s wrong, Ms. Thornton.”

Ms. Thornton put her arm around Erin’s shoulder. “Let’s not jump to any conclusions. There’re lots of possible explanations—” She was interrupted by the sound of someone banging on the back door.

The three of them ran toward it, but Travis got there first and yanked on the handle. A blast of wind and rain blew in with a short, plump woman.

Erin blinked. “Inez!” she cried, recognizing her mothers sales assistant from the boutique. “What are you doing here?”

Inez wrung her hands and grabbed Erin by the forearms. She was crying. “Erin, there’s been an accident.”

“Mom and Dad?” Erin almost gagged.

“They’re at County’s emergency room. It’s Amy, Erin. Amy’s been in a terrible wreck.”

Erin would remember the ride to the hospital with Travis as a series of dreamlike impressions—rain falling, the red gold aura of mercury vapor lamps flashing past the windows, the stuffy heat in the car, the silence between her and Travis, the thudding of her heart. None of it seemed real. Yet when Travis turned the car into the entrance marked Emergency Only, Erin recoiled. The building loomed tall and forbidding, not at all friendly. Somewhere inside Amy lay, hurt and maybe in pain, and that frightened Erin even more.

The emergency waiting room was a zoo, with too many people crammed into too small an area. Babies cried, and people who looked very sick slumped in wheelchairs. Erin searched for her parents. “Where are they?” she asked.

“Maybe we should ask someone,” Travis suggested.

“I’d rather look for them myself,” she told him, darting up a hallway like a mouse caught in a maze. The smell of alcohol and disinfectant was making her nauseous. Nurses passed her, too busy to stop, so Erin ventured up another corridor, where she saw her mother and father huddled outside a closed door.

She ran toward them. Her fathers face was the color of chalk, and her mothers mascara made dark smudged rings beneath her eyes. Erin threw herself into her mothers arms. “What happened? How’s Amy?”

“No ones sure what happened,” Mrs. Bennett’s voice sounded tight and very controlled. “The police said that she lost control of the car, it hit a tree, and her head hit the steering wheel. Evidently she didn’t have her seat belt on.”

“Amy hates the shoulder strap,” Erin mumbled. “Have the doctors told you anything? How long has she been in there?”

“Maybe an hour. The ER doctor came out once and said that since it’s a head injury, they’ve called in a neurologist. We’re waiting for him to tell us something now.”

“But she’s all right, isn’t she? I mean they’re probably just stitching up cuts or something, right?”

“All they told us is that it’s a head injury,” Mrs. Bennett said again. She let go of Erin and stared at her full in the face. “What was she doing driving in the rain at night anyway?”

Erin’s voice began to quaver, and she clenched her fists to control her shaking. “She went out for sodas for the party. We ran out.”

“What’s the matter with Ms. Thornton? Why would she send Amy? She’s only had her license for a week. I always considered Thornton to be a responsible person.”

Erin squeezed her mother’s arm to stop her angry
tirade. “I–it wasn’t her fault. I was supposed to go, but Amy begged me to let her go instead.” Erin dropped her gaze to the floor, where shiny tiles marched in neat, clean green-and-white formations. The pattern began to blur as tears filled her eyes. “I–I let her take my car.”

Mrs. Bennett grabbed Erin’s shoulders and shook her. “Erin! How could you have been so thoughtless? You know Amy’s not an experienced driver.”

“I know.… I’m sorry.…”

“I’ve always counted on you, Erin, to have common sense. I would expect Amy to be careless, but
you!”

Her mother’s face was livid, and Erin shrank back toward the wall as her father stepped over and put his arm around her. “Stop it, Marian. It’s not Erin’s fault. It was an accident.”

Erin huddled against her father’s side, watching her mother’s eyes blaze and her lips compress into a line. Mrs. Bennett turned and walked away down the corridor. “D-daddy …” Erin buried her face in her father’s coat. It smelled of rain and pipe tobacco.

“It’s all right, Princess,” he said soothingly. “She’s upset. She doesn’t really blame you.” He stroked Erin’s hair absently. “We were getting ready to watch the eleven o’clock news when the cop came and told us. He gave us a police escort down here.”

“Inez came to the theater to tell me.”

“We figured it would be better than having the police come tell you. And even if I could have reached you by phone, I didn’t want you to hear it that way.”
He glanced both ways down the hall. “Where is Inez anyway?”

“I guess she’s out front with Travis. I rode here with him. Maybe I should tell them something.”

“Go on. I’ll talk to your mother.”

The waiting room was even more crowded now. It was warm too, heavy with the distinct odor of pain and sickness.

“Erin, what’s happening?” Travis asked. She felt her knees buckle, and he guided her to a chair that was miraculously vacant.

“We don’t know much yet. Amy lost control of the car, and it hit a tree. A specialist is in with her because it’s a head injury.”

Travis knelt beside her, and Inez hovered at her elbow. Erin twisted her hands in her lap. They felt like blocks of ice. “She’s hurt real bad, Travis. I can feel it.”

“Maybe not. Maybe she just needs stitches, or some bones are broken. It takes time for them to check her over and figure it all out. I came here with a broken arm once, and it took forever for them to check me over and send me to X-ray and everything.”

“This hospital has a good reputation,” Inez interjected in a soft Spanish-accented voice. “The trauma unit was featured in the newspaper last month. You know, they have a heliport on the roof, and they fly in patients from all over Florida because the best doctors work right here.”

“I hope she isn’t hurting,” Erin whispered.

“Don’t worry, they give you a shot for pain,” Travis said.

“Amy hates shots. When we were little, I always had to go first, and if I cried, nothing could make Amy take her shot. One time it took two nurses and Mom to help hold her down. After that I didn’t cry again.” The memory was so vivid that Erin could suddenly smell the isopropyl alcohol and hear Amy shrieking. “Maybe I should go back to Mom and Dad.”

“You’ll let us know when you hear from the doctor, won’t you?” Travis asked.

“Yes.” Erin saw fear in the darkness of his eyes. “As soon as I know anything.” She hurried out of the waiting area and returned to her parents.

“I didn’t mean to blame you, Erin,” Mrs. Bennett said the minute Erin appeared.

“I know, Mom.” But truthfully Erin felt guilty. She never should have let Amy talk her out of going to the store, or she should have at least gone with her.

Mrs. Bennett leaned against the wall. Mr. Bennett asked his wife, “Would you like some coffee?”

“No, I’d like a cigarette.”

Erin knew that her mother had stopped smoking three years ago. “There’s a soda machine in the other corridor,” she said, trying to take her mother’s mind off the nerveracking wait. “I could get you something cold.”

“No. Thanks,” she added as an afterthought. “What’s taking so long?”

Erin was wondering the same thing. Her stomach felt queasy, and her head was throbbing. Down the hall doors swung open, and a tall man in a white medical
coat emerged. Erin tensed. She knew he was coming for them.

“I’m Dr. DuPree, your daughter’s neurologist,” the man said when he approached. Introductions were made, but then the doctors attitude turned crisp and professional. “Your daughter has suffered a massive head trauma.”

“Amy,” Erin blurted, not sure why she wanted him to know. “My sister’s name is Amy.”

Through black-rimmed glasses his blue eyes studied her kindly. “Amy is stable now. We’ve got her on a ventilator—that’s a machine that breathes for her.”

Erin’s heart squeezed as if fingers had grabbed it. “Why?”

“We’ve done a CAT scan. That’s a special X-ray of her brain,” he explained. “Right now there’s a great deal of swelling, and we can’t determine the extent of her head injury. But she can’t breathe on her own.”

Erin’s mother gave a little gasp, and Dr. DuPree turned his attention to Erin’s parents. “I believe in being completely honest with my patients and their families. I won’t lie to you, but I won’t give you false hope either. Amy’s condition is very serious. I’m having her moved up to Neuro-ICU, where she’ll be monitored around the clock. We’ll run another CAT scan in a couple of days.”

He used such phrases as “severe contusion” and “intracranial pressure” and “diuretics to reduce fluid,” but the words slid around in Erin’s mind. The only
thing that made any sense was when Dr. DuPree said, “She’s stable, but comatose.”

For a moment no one spoke; then both her parents began to talk at once, questions upon questions, which Dr. DuPree answered. Erin backed away, picturing Amy in a hospital bed surrounded by strangers. “I want to see my sister,” she demanded, interrupting the dialogue between Dr. DuPree and her parents. “I want to stay with Amy.”

Dr. DuPree took one of her hands. His palm was warm, and she noticed that his fingers were long and immaculate. “Theres a waiting room next to Neuro-ICU for families of critical patients. All of you can stay there tonight.”

Erin’s dad said he’d talk to Inez and Travis, then meet them upstairs. Her mother kept firing questions at the doctor during the ride up the elevator to the seventh floor. Erin steeled her body and emotions with her dancer’s iron discipline.

Hospitals and doctors help people,
she told herself as she approached the solid door of the Neuro-ICU area.
Amy will be out of here in no time.
She stared at the door, while behind her Dr. DuPree and her mother waited for her to push it open.

“People come out of comas don’t they, Dr. DuPree?” she asked. Erin shoved open the door, not waiting for his reply, because deep down she was too terrified to hear his answer.

Neuro-ICU was a large room with seven beds and a central desk where nurses kept close watch over patients who had head and brain injuries. It was a netherworld of shadows illuminated by green and amber blips, of machines linked with lines and tubes, and of hissing sounds and electronic beeps keeping perfect cadence. Erin met the night nurse, Laurie, who took her and Mrs. Bennett to a more private room, separated only by a glass partition from the larger area.

“We have three other patients up here now,” Laurie said, but Erin only half heard her because she couldn’t take her eyes off her sister. Amy’s head was swathed in gauze, and a tube protruded from her mouth. Too overwhelmed to speak, Erin stood by the bed and blinked back tears. Her hand reached out, then drew back.

“Don’t be afraid; you can touch her,” Laurie said.

“She doesn’t even look hurt. She just looks like she’s asleep.”

“The only damage is to her brain. By tommorow you’ll be able to see swelling in her face. Her eye area will probably turn black-and-blue.”

Erin gently stroked Amy’s cheek, careful not to brush against the apparatus. She hoped to see her sister’s eyelids flutter, knowing that Amy hated being tickled. “What are all these tubes and wires for?”

“The oral tube is her ventilator. That wire is taped to her chest and leads to her heart monitor, and that tube in the back of her hand is an IV. She has a catheter too.”