‘How is she today?’ Ben asked, as he and Thomas took a seat. The girl’s mother, Vera, was at the windowsill arranging flowers in several of the large glass vases that stood sentinel over the motionless figure in the bed beside them. The endotracheal tube was gone, removed two days ago by the respiratory therapist, and the room seemed oddly quiet without the sound of the ventilator to which they’d become accustomed. The room itself was also different, no longer the bright lights, frequent alarms and bustling tempo of the ICU; this was a more sedated step-down unit for less critically ill patients.
‘She spiked a fever last night,’ Paul Dressler advised them. ‘Dr Elliot says it looks like a urinary tract infection. They started her on antibiotics and removed the bladder catheter.’ He looked at his daughter. ‘She seems better today.’
Ben nodded. ‘The Foley catheter makes UTIs inevitable. It’s good that it’s out.’
‘She wears a diaper now.’ Vera spoke up from where she stood at the window. ‘We change her every few hours. They said we should …’ She hesitated, glancing at Thomas for a moment. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘You don’t need to hear about that.’
‘Has she woken up at all?’ Ben asked, moving on to another subject.
‘No,’ Paul replied. ‘Nothing yet.’
‘They said she’ll probably wake up very soon,’ Vera told them. There was a hint of desperation in her voice, her eyes taking in each of their faces in turn. ‘Dr Elliot says there’s no reason she shouldn’t.’
The girl’s father sighed. ‘They did an MRI of the brain three days ago,’ he reported. ‘It was completely normal.’
‘Well, that’s promising,’ Ben told them. He tried to sound reassuring. ‘These things sometimes just take some time. I’m sure the doctors—’
‘“Very soon,” is what they said,’ Vera repeated, as if Ben had been disagreeing with her.
‘Well,’ Paul interposed, ‘we’ll just have to see, Vera.’ His wife gave him a contemptuous look, then turned her back on them and began sorting the flowers once again.
They were quiet for a moment before Paul turned to Thomas. ‘How’s school?’
‘Fine,’ Thomas said. ‘But we all miss her.’
Paul smiled. ‘She’d be glad to hear that. You know,’ he said, ‘I’m amazed at how many of her friends made it all the way up here to Pittsburgh to see her. Funny … she never thought she was that popular.’
Ben rose from his chair. ‘I have an appointment with Dr Blechman in a few minutes to go over some findings from the DNA analysis. Mind if Thomas stays with you while I’m gone?’
Paul nodded. ‘Happy to have him.’
Ben excused himself from the room and made his way through the hallways in the direction of the forensic odontologist’s office. He knew the hospital well, having rotated here during his intern year of residency, but also having spent a considerable amount of time at Children’s Hospital during his younger son’s own stay in the pediatric ICU in December 2010.
It had all happened so quickly, as he remembered. Joel and Thomas had been playing upstairs – goofing around, taunting one another, racing down the hallway. Even now, as he walked down the hospital’s familiar corridors three years later, Ben could still almost hear their footsteps pounding on the floorboards above him.
‘Quiet down, up there!’ he’d yelled from the kitchen doorway. ‘I’m on the phone!’
Who had he been talking to? He couldn’t remember. The boys hadn’t quieted down, though. In fact, they’d kicked it up a notch. Ben could hear the sound of small plastic action figures striking the walls. They were throwing them at one another. Joel started to shriek in protest to some unseen torture his older brother was likely bestowing upon him.
‘Listen, let me call you back,’ Ben said. He hung up the phone and started for the stairs. He’d ascended only three steps when he heard the rail from the second floor balcony groan in protest. A moment later, Joel’s body came hurtling past him from above.
Ben was completely stunned. All he could do was to watch his son fall. Joel went headfirst, and when he reached the bottom his skull contacted the wooden floorboards with a sickening crack that echoed through the open foyer.
Ben never recalled descending the stairs and running across the room, but he must have done so because at the next moment he was kneeling beside his son, calling out his name, asking if he was hurt, telling him not to move. There was no need for those instructions. The boy’s body lay splayed across the floor, quiet and motionless.
A few seconds later Thomas was also there, kneeling next to his father and gazing down at his brother in disbelief. ‘Holy crap,’ he whispered. ‘He fell. I … I don’t think he saw the rail. He ran directly into it – didn’t even slow down. Just hit it and flipped right over. Joel? … Joel, are you okay?’
‘Go get the phone,’ Ben instructed him. ‘Call 911. Tell them we need an ambulance. Go!’
The ambulance had rendezvoused with a medevac helicopter, which had brought Joel here, to Children’s Hospital. His son had remained unresponsive for ten days. They had begun to lose hope. And then, just like that, he had awakened.
‘Thom – as.’
‘Joel. It’s Dad, Joel. Open your eyes. I’m right here.’
‘Daaad?’
‘Yeah. It’s me, son.’
The boy’s brow furrowed. He ran his tongue across dry, cracked lips. He started to speak, then stopped, reformulating the question in his mind. ‘Did … did I fall?’
Ben tried to answer and faltered, the words hanging stubbornly in his throat. ‘Yes, son. You fell.’ He watched Joel try the idea on for size. The boy’s eyes searched the room, taking it in for the first time.
‘I fell a long way down. Didn’t I, Dad?’
‘Yes. You did.’
‘But … but now I’m back,’ Joel announced, although his inflection was uncertain, as if he were making a statement and asking a question at the same time.
‘Yes,’ Ben answered, needing to reassure himself as well as the boy. ‘Now you’re back.’
‘Okay,’ Joel said, then closed his eyes for a moment.
Don’t close your eyes, son, Ben thought. Don’t slip away from me again. He was on the verge of saying something when the boy’s lids fluttered open.
‘Dad?’ The voice was barely more than a whisper.
‘Yeah?’
‘Were you scared?’
Ben felt his face contort as if he’d been struck. His lips tightened into thin white lines that he pressed firmly together. He looked back at his son solemnly and nodded.
Joel seemed to consider this carefully for a moment, then he looked up once more into his father’s eyes and told him, ‘You don’t have to be scared anymore.’
‘—floor?’
‘Hmm?’
‘What floor?’ a female voice asked again, pulling Ben from his reverie.
He looked around. He was standing in front of an open elevator. A young woman was perched just inside, her right hand preventing the door from sliding shut.
‘Oh … Yes, thank you.’ He stepped across the threshold. ‘Fourth floor, please.’
The woman reached forward and pressed the button. She appeared to hesitate for a moment, then asked, ‘Are you all right?’
‘Fine,’ Ben replied. ‘Why do you ask?’
She smiled at him. ‘You were talking to yourself.’
‘Oh. Sorry about that,’ he apologized. ‘I was just … thinking of something that happened a few years ago.’
She nodded.
Ben glanced down at his feet, slightly embarrassed. Joel’s voice (‘You don’t have to be scared anymore’) still echoed inside of his head. He looked up at the woman standing beside him. ‘What did I say?’ he asked.
‘I think you said’ – she paused, frowning uncertainly – ‘“But I am.”’