Only dimly through a fog of disassociation was Ruth aware of the urgent beeping, a piercing breedle to which she could assign no source, an alarm that persisted for an indefinite interval before Ruth was besieged by a scrum of nurses and orderlies, foreheads furrowed above masked faces, their movements harried, tones grave and calculated, though the words tumbled listlessly out of their mouths, as if time had slowed down.
“Blood pressure’s pluuummeting.”
“Acuuute hypotension.”
“Get her to I…. C…U staaaat.”
The last things Ruth perceived were the jarring sensation of movement and the dull distant throbbing in her brain as she was trundled at breakneck speed down the bright white corridor.
Startled awake by the bleating of his cell phone, Abe found himself momentarily disoriented in the darkness. Groping for the device atop the unfamiliar nightstand, he managed to retrieve it, but not before the call had gone to voicemail, that elusive realm beyond his access. Hardly had he snapped the lamp on and gathered his bearings in the hotel room than the phone sounded again.
“Hello,” he said.
The voice on the other end was inaudible.
“Hold on a moment, let me get my hearing aid.”
Abe fished the right earbud out of the plastic case on the bedside table and coaxed it into his ear.
“Hello?” he said, the device feeding back.
“Abe Winter?”
“This is him.”
“I’m calling from Swedish hospital.”
Despite the calming tenor that delivered the news, Abe was overcome by lightheadedness as the information was delivered matter-of-factly.
Twenty minutes later he was across the street in the ICU, where Ruth lay motionless, eyes closed and totally unresponsive. That her heart monitor bleeped at even intervals was little consolation.
“What happened?” Abe asked the attending physician, a young man, perhaps thirty-five, prematurely balding.
“Her blood pressure took a dive in the middle of the night, so we rushed her in here. She’s stable now.”
“She’s unconscious,” said Abe. “Is that stable?”
“She needs rest,” the doctor assured him. “She’s been through an awful lot.”
“Why did this happen? Why the blood pressure?” said Abe.
“We don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
How, with all this medical expertise, the sum of eons of scholarship, of research and observation, how amidst all this specialized equipment, tubes and needles and electrodes, all this miraculous gadgetry, could the definitive prognosis to a critical plunge in blood pressure possibly be “we don’t know”?
But there it was, right beside bad luck, not knowing.
For three hours, Abe remained at Ruth’s bedside as she faded in and out of consciousness. On those occasions when she emerged fully from her stasis, Abe got to his feet and stood over her, speaking softly as he rested his hand upon her cool, blanketed shoulder.
“You had us all worried,” he said. “Thank God you’re okay. Are you in pain? What can I do? Should I call the nurse?”
But for all Abe could tell, these queries fell upon deaf ears, for Ruth offered not so much as a nod or a groan. If it weren’t for the occasional lolling of her eyeballs or the gentle, almost imperceptible rise and fall of her chest, she may have been comatose.
Still, Abe waited another half hour by her side, wringing his hands, consulting his wristwatch fitfully, until the attending nurse came by on her rounds, checking levels and changing out the nearly depleted banana bag dangling from the IV pole.
“Is she going to be okay?” said Abe.
“We think so,” she said.
There it was again in a slightly different guise, the great consolation of uncertainty.
We think so. We don’t know. Why did Abe bother asking questions at all? What if the surgery only served to shorten her time on earth? Maybe she would have lived longer, suffered less, if they’d let the cancer run its course and exact its mortal toll. How could it be any worse than this?
Looking down at the ravaged visage of the one person whom he had no intention, nor even the slightest notion, of living without, intubated, senseless, swathed in bandages, Abe searched in vain for the mother of his four children, his best friend, his confidante, his confessor, his moral compass, and his better half in every way. He knew she was in there somewhere; she had to be.