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"Brenda, please don't do this now?" Scott shook her gently.
"What happened?" Pamela came running onto the ice. "Oh no! What happened?"
"Pamela, I'm sorry. She wanted to do another. Just one more."
"Scott, we've got to call an ambulance! Henry!" Pamela shouted to the older man, who was never far from the ice. "Call 9-1-1! Right now!" Henry waved his hand in the air, turned, and hustled quickly down the hallway toward the offices and locker rooms. Within minutes, he was back.
"The paramedics are on the way!" he yelled, maneuvering himself along the ice like a seasoned professional to where Pamela was kneeling beside Scott, who had Brenda's head elevated in his lap. She was murmuring, but her eyes wouldn't open.
"Brenda! Come on!" Scott said, his fear coming out as anger. A memory from his childhood rushed into focus. It was like he was thirteen years old again and at the vet's office with his mother. The terrier dog they'd bought as a puppy and proudly named Bruce three years earlier had started to have epileptic fits. The vet, a kind man, named Dr. Maurice Horsted, had given Scott's mother pills that she wrapped in a piece of bologna or a little chunk of cheese for the dog to gobble up happily. For the most part, the medication worked. But sometimes, if the dog played too hard or overheated, he'd stop in his tracks, fall over, and begin to shake uncontrollably. Froth would form on his lips, and his eyes would sometimes roll over white. The seizures only lasted a couple of seconds. Then he'd snap out of it. His first steps would be a little wobbly, but then he'd be his old self, licking faces and barking like normal.
After much trial and error, the family learned that Bruce needed to live a calm life. He couldn't be chased around the backyard when the fall leaves were in huge piles or play tug-of-war with his knotted socks, which he'd grasp in his teeth, shaking his head from side to side. Instead, he had to enjoy lying on the cool grass while Mom read a book, or he got a tummy rub while the kids watched television before bed.
These were okay pastimes for a dog, and Scott's family made sure Bruce was loved and well cared for, but, deep inside, Scott always felt lying on the grass or getting tummy rubs weren't what Bruce was supposed to be doing. He was supposed to be running until he collapsed in a happy, contented heap, sloppily lapping up water and giving thankful, wet kisses. He should have been barking at squirrels by the back screen door, chasing them into the trees where they'd come from.
Bruce lived a long time. And, up until this moment, Scott thought he and his family had provided the little hairy beast a good life. But the hard fact was that it wasn't a dog's life. It was a sick dog's life.
And now Scott feared that Brenda was going to suffer the same fate. She could skate with the little kids, who were unsteady on their feet. Around and around the rink, she could go as long as she kept the speed slow. No jumping. No twists or leaps or any of the things that made her look and feel beautiful. She wouldn't be able to do those anymore. And what would her life be?
With tears in his eyes, Scott called her name again. Finally, just as the ambulance arrived and the EMTs came on the scene, Brenda opened her eyes. She looked up at him with that same confused look that Bruce would often have. For a moment, Scott knew she didn't recognize him or know where she was. But, in just a few seconds, everything came back. And now Brenda was crying too.
"Where is she?" It seemed like Cindy Wagner had arrived at the hospital emergency room before Scott had even hung up the phone.
Light gray curtains separated the patients in the ER so the doctors and nurses could easily maneuver between stations. Intimidating emergency equipment was in plain view, attached to rolling tables, or mounted on the walls. There was no time to be discrete when someone was bleeding or in pain or having some fit. No one strolled in the ER either. If a visitor had a question, they just had to wait. The staff sometimes had no choice but to ignore a request for information when someone needed an anesthetic injection.
There was no lonelier place on the planet. Scott knew this. Brenda lay in the hospital bed, her eyes red with tears and her cheeks red with embarrassment. The doctor on duty had come to see her when she'd first been brought in, but since Scott had filled out the paperwork and returned to her, he hadn't seen anyone or was told anything.
All Scott could do was hold her hand. Whenever a man or woman in blue scrubs walked by, his eyes widened in hope, but no one came in to check on Brenda. Had they forgotten about her? How could they? A beautiful woman was lying in one of their beds, yet no one came. On top of that, he was confronted by Cindy Wagner's terrified face.
"Scott?" she called, her voice crackling and tired. Lawrence was always a man of few words and seemed on autopilot. Scott could have sworn Lawrence's hair was grayer than the last time he'd spoken to him.
"I don't know, Cindy. No one has stopped to look at her again."
"It's okay, Mom. I'm fine. I'd just like to leave," said Brenda.
"No!" Scott, Cindy, and Lawrence all said in unison as Brenda began to swing her left leg over the side of the bed.
"Don't you move." Cindy's eyes were furious. "This isn't something you can just shake off when it happens anymore, Brenda. Falling on the ice? Blacking out? You aren't like you used to be. And you're going to kill your—" Her mother stopped mid-sentence as she broke into hysterical sobs.
Brenda lay there stunned. Her head barely even hurt. Nothing an aspirin couldn't cure. This was all so unnecessary. But, deep down, she felt the tiny seed of doubt and fear start to take root. She was scared. When she'd gone into the air, she didn't feel right, and then everything had gone black except for a tiny white dot. She swam and struggled toward it, but it was like she couldn't move fast enough.
It was Scott's voice that had guided her. She listened and followed it. She wanted to see him and see what had happened. She had felt her body before her eyes opened. It felt heavy, and she almost wanted to slip back into that darkness and rest, but something said she'd better not.
Cindy spun around angrily, and Brenda watched her mother-bear instinct kick in. "Excuse me! Excuse me!" She grabbed the sleeve of a woman wearing white pants and a printed blouse with a clipboard in her hands. "My daughter is lying here, and no one has come back to check on her. We want to get her home."
"Someone will be right with you, ma'am."
"No. You don't understand. We've been waiting, and no one has come to tell us what happened and what we need to do. We want to take her home."
The nurse looked at Cindy and patted her hand. She was a kind-looking, older woman with short, salt-and-pepper hair. Her blouse had a rainbow of flowers, and the nametag on a lanyard around her neck read "Jesse."
"The doctor just took a look at some men in a car accident. I'll get him over to you right away." She nodded and hustled to the far end of the massive emergency room, peeked around a curtain, spoke to another woman who looked in Cindy's direction, and pointed. Both women nodded, and, as one walked off in one direction, the other woman with brown hair tied in a ponytail and thin lips—came to talk to Cindy.
"My daughter. No one has told us what happened. We want to take her home."
"What happened to her, ma'am?" the woman asked as she pulled out a penlight from her pocket and made her way to Lawrence and Scott.
"I'm not sure. I wasn't there. Scott, you can tell her."
"I can tell you what happened," Brenda said as she pushed herself up on the bed. "It was no big deal. I just—"
"Brenda. You need to be quiet now," her father said in a grave tone. He looked at Brenda with a steely gaze. Brenda sank back onto the pillow and folded her hands across her abdomen.
The woman with the ponytail shined the light into Brenda's eyes as Scott told her exactly what had happened.
"Well, I can already tell you have a slight concussion. The reaction of your pupils is slow. Is your vision blurry?"
"Not really," Brenda answered.
"Do the bright lights hurt?"
"Maybe a little bit, but I can take it."
"It isn't a matter of can you take it. It's a symptom. I'll send over the doctor and have him give his professional opinion. Meanwhile, you just relax here for a minute. You don't want to make your headache worse." The woman patted Brenda's hand and then quickly bustled back in the direction she'd come.
"Well, that does it. You're not skating anymore," Cindy Wagner stated emphatically.
"Mom! Don't say that! I just overdid it; that's all." Brenda reached out for her mother's hand. "Please. I just overdid it."
Cindy took her daughter's hand and leaned close, hugging her tightly. "You're so stubborn. I just don't know where you get it."
"It was my fault, Cindy," Scott said, his eyes rimmed with red and creased with worry. "Pamela told us to stop and rest, that we'd had enough practice for one day, and Brenda wanted just one more go-around."
Cindy and Lawrence regarded him steadily.
"I'm so sorry. We wouldn't be here if I'd only listened to my gut." Scott looked at Brenda, who lay staring at him in surprise.
Just then, the physician on duty strode up to the edge of the bed, pulling the thick gray curtain shut behind him in a dramatic flick of the wrist.
"Hello, Miss Wagner," he said briskly. He had a ring of gray hair around the perimeter of his head, wore round glasses, and had to be about six-foot-six and a hundred and fifteen pounds, if that, soaking wet. "Care to tell me what happened?"
Before Scott could step in, Brenda began to speak.
"I blacked out while I was skating and hit my head. I injured my head a little over a year ago the same way when I tried to skate on a bad ankle. I'm feeling okay. There's a little pain behind my eyes, but it's more of an annoyance than real hurting. The light hurts a little, and everything was blurry when we first got here, but it's been getting clearer and clearer as we've been here."
"Is there anything else?" The doctor looked at Brenda and then glanced at the faces of the people around her.
"No," Brenda said matter-of-factly. But she felt something liberating inside her heart sweep over her. Looking at Scott, she smiled. This was her fault. Not Scott's. She pushed him into it, knowing he was willing to do just about anything for her. Was it out of guilt for the wedding that never happened? Was it because he still had feelings for her? Maybe it was a little bit of both. But why he agreed was nothing compared to her insidious motive. It was selfish. And she never felt more sorry.
"Well, let's take a look." The doctor stood up quickly and examined Brenda's eyes as the female nurse with the ponytail had done just a few minutes earlier. He had her follow his fingers with her eyes. Stand up slowly. Touch her toes. Recite her name, address, the state she lived in, the name of the President, and a half a dozen simple facts. When he asked her who the Prime Minister of Chad was, she choked.
"That's just a little humor to lighten the situation," the doctor said, his shoulders shaking as he chuckled at his joke. "I don't even know the answer to that one. But, Miss Wagner, you have a slight concussion. We'll need a CAT scan to see what's going on there, but I'm sure you'll fully recover from your accident."
"Whew!" Brenda smiled and wiped her forehead with her hand, looking for the same excitement and relief from her family, but getting none.
"Not so fast," the doctor said, his eyes blinking behind his spectacles. "I reviewed your medical record about your past injury, and it seems that the abrupt movements involved in skating caused the blackout. The hard ice contacting your head caused the concussion."
Everyone was silent and looked at him like dogs hearing a high-pitched noise.
"You can't do that anymore," he said.
"Do what?" Brenda asked. "Hit my head? I think I've got it." She grinned sheepishly, wondering if the doctor was just joking around.
"No. I mean skate. I'm sure Dr. Grayson advised you of the same."
"But I'm a skater, and that's what skaters do," Brenda said. She felt like she'd been here before, and arguing with these doctors was useless. They didn't understand. They didn't want to. But Brenda wasn't as hard on this doctor as she'd been on Dr. Grayson. The major difference was she could still move her legs, for which she thanked God.
"If you insist on this extreme form of sport—" the doctor began.
"Extreme?" Mr. Wagner said aloud, looking puzzled at the doctor's choice of words. He looked at his wife, who'd stopped crying and shrugged her shoulders, shaking her head and seeming just as confused as her husband.
"Yes, extreme," replied the doctor firmly, looking at Lawrence.
It seemed to Brenda as if, at that precise moment, the entire emergency room had a lull in activity. Everyone, including her parents and Scott, was shrouded in a comical silence. It took a few seconds, but Brenda finally recovered from her stupor.
"I'm not trying to be mean. I'm being honest," the doctor continued, addressing Cindy and Lawrence. "Your daughter may be figure skating on borrowed time. Another accident like this, and we won't know how severe it might be to her brain until it's too late."
"Thank you, doctor. We appreciate your time and advice," said Lawrence. "We'll leave the decision up to our daughter. She's a grown woman and can think for herself."
Brenda looked at Scott and thought she would pass out from shock.
The doctor nodded his head respectfully. "I'll get that CAT scan ordered."
Cindy Wagner nodded and sniffed back the last of her tears. Then, slipping her arm through her husband's, they followed the doctor out of the cubicle and spoke quietly with him, out of earshot of both Scott and Brenda.
"I'm going to go," Scott said as he gave her one last smile.
Brenda nodded as if she didn't mind. However, she'd secretly hoped he'd stay with her for a bit longer. The loud sounds of the emergency room distracted their attention. Within a few minutes, a short, petite technician in turquoise scrubs came in. Her eyes were kind and sat narrowly above a thin nose. "I'm here to take you on a little trip to the imaging department for a CAT scan. Is that all right with you?"
"Yeah." Brenda sighed.
Scott waved and began to leave. "I'll be back soon," he said.
"Good," Brenda replied, but she wasn't sure if he'd heard her. The way he squared his shoulders and didn't look back at her made her second-guess how he might be feeling about her.
Brenda was wheeled on a gurney down several hallways to a room with a massive tube into which she laid horizontally, head first. As she waited for what came next, her mind raced. You scared him to death ... again. Her conscience was brutal, reflecting the truth right at her.
Within twenty minutes, it was over. When Brenda exited the tube, the technician informed her that the doctor wanted her to stay the night for observation.
"Stay the night?" said Brenda. "Why?"
"Just to be safe. Nothing to worry about."
Two aides wheeled Brenda down a couple of corridors, keeping her to one side of the hallway while other physicians, nurses, office administrators, and visitors hustled past her. They were alone inside the elevator, and no one spoke for the short ride to the third floor.
The elevator doors opened with a swish, and before Brenda could get a good look around, she was in a room that was different from the room she'd stayed in before. The main difference was an older woman in the bed closest to the window.
The aides lifted Brenda onto the bed and then grabbed hold of the thick yellow drape that separated the beds. They helped Brenda change into a cotton gown, encouraged her to lie down, and spoke briefly with her roommate. The woman had a soft voice and told the aides she was fine and needed nothing. With that, the aides quickly left the room.
"All alone," Brenda whispered to herself. The day's events paraded through her mind, and she wondered if she'd just tried to slow down a bit on the approach to the axel, she might have been able to avoid the whole incident. But if she'd slowed down, she might not have gotten enough momentum for the spin.
Brenda skated around the question that remained. Should she risk it all and try again? This was the first time she blacked out. Maybe she just needed to test that limit? A couple more tries, a little slower, a little safer for starters, might be just what she needed. Had she listened to Pamela, she wouldn't be where she was. Did the fact that she was tired cause the blackout? Yes. That had to be it because she'd done it once without even a slight feeling of imbalance. She had done it once.
She focused on that thought. Not the fall. Not the mistake. She'd done it and done it perfectly. That was what she kept in her mind.
"God, once again, I'm asking for patience." Folding her hands and lowering her head, Brenda squeezed her eyes shut. "Please help me remember that all things will come in Your time. Bring me to that stillness in my heart where I know that trust is my best option. In your name, Lord." Opening her eyes, she looked around the plain room. "Oh," she remembered, folding her hands and closing her eyes again. "Please watch over Scott. He's been so ... reliable." She couldn't say any more. A heavy feeling of guilt tugged at the back of her mind when she recalled how she'd bossed and bullied Scott into another spin. She squirmed in the bed. As she fell asleep, she practiced what to tell him when she saw him again at the rink for practice.
Scott made his way home in a daze. He didn't know what to do. The Wagners were aggravated with him. Pamela was ready to kick both of them out of the rink, banning them for life for not listening and causing physical and emotional damage to themselves and her. She'd left a voicemail that Scott was scared to return.
"Lawrence and Cindy called and told me Brenda was going to be all right and able to skate. We need to talk."
He'd had his fair share of being called into the principal's office as a kid. Of course, back then, it was for minor infractions—being late for chemistry class, his least favorite course was a common occurrence. Loitering at his locker and watching the cheerleaders walk by, catching up on the gossip developing along the grapevine, and checking in with his friends always seemed much more important than Bunsen burners and chemical reactions.
Sometimes, if an assignment hadn't been turned in or he was caught talking during class, Scott would find himself sitting outside the office of Mrs. Murray, the principal of Lincoln-Way High School, getting judgmental looks from the other students or playful looks and jabs from his friends.
"What did you do this time?"
"Are you in huge trouble?"
"Is she going to call your parents?"
It was that last question that stuck in Scott's throat every time. If a student were sent to the principal's office, that student's parents would get a call, no matter what. And with everything going on with his father, Scott hated that the only recourse was to contact his mother. She didn't yell. She didn't cuss or become hysterical. What Scott's mother would do was worse than that. It would start with a look and go downhill from there.
Her eyes would fill with concern, and if Scott could have read her thoughts, he would have realized that she wasn't as mad at him as she was at herself. Every trip along his path was her fault. She wasn't available enough. Scott didn't have the foresight to know how much his father hated hearing when his son was sent to the principal's office. Was she losing control of him? Were his friends becoming a bad influence? Plus, a million other possibilities that terrified every mother from the beginning of time as their child grew up and tried to spread their wings and test their boundaries.
But Scott couldn't read her mind. He just felt guilty that he'd let her down again. She had so much to worry about already with Daddy gone. He'd have to figure out how to make things right. He'd probably be grounded, but that was okay. He'd take his lumps and not complain.
Yup. That was precisely how Scott felt now. Even after being out of high school for almost ten years, the idea of going in to explain everything to Pamela made his heart sink to his shoes. He'd probably be grounded. That was okay. He'd take his lumps and not complain.
And what exactly was he going to tell her? The truth. He'd tell her about what actually happened. That Brenda was so excited, so rejuvenated, she wanted to try just once more. Sort of like pinching herself to ensure she wasn't dreaming the whole thing. That was what happened. Instead of a pinch, she got a blackout and another concussion on the head. Sure, Scott could have told Brenda no, but he loved her. He told her no once in his life and had been paying the consequences for years. Had Pamela been in his shoes, was she so confident she wouldn't have done the same thing? If she had hoped to see that familiar joy in Brenda's eyes, would she have told her no? Probably. Pamela was much tougher than Scott, and he knew it.
That was why his knees were shaking just a little two days later when he stepped into her office.
Pamela looked up at him.
"Close the door," she said, expressionless.
