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back to mine as he stands. He slowly walks toward
me, as if afraid that any fast movement will change
what he thinks he’s seeing.
He comes near, his own eyes shiny with tears as
he reaches out a finger, catching my tears on his
fingertip. He rubs his thumb and fingertip together as
if to reassure himself that the tears are real.
“Kate?” My name is a question. His hand
caresses my cheek and I lean into it. He bends
down, laying his forehead against mine, his eyes
inches from mine.
“Kate,” he breathes, relief evident in his voice. He
closes his eyes and swallows loudly. “Please be
okay,” he whispers, opening his eyes to look into
mine again, and there I see love mixed with the
relief, and something else, too. Guilt?
“I’ll just go call the doctor, let him know you’re
awake,” the nurse says. We both hear her but neither
of us looks away, absorbed in each other.
“I didn’t think…I thought you might not ever wake
up, Katy.” He swallows, blinking as he reaches down
blindly for my hand with his free hand, enfolding it in
his own, gently. “I would have died.” I try to shake my
He looks at the nurse, and she nods. His eyes come
head fiercely at the thought of Henry dead, impeded
by the tube in my throat. I can’t begin to imagine him
dead—beautiful, vibrant, kind, caring, very alive
Henry.
The nurse comes back into the room, trailed by a
respiratory therapist, and the doctor who had just
been coming in to see me anyway. Henry stands up,
stepping slightly back, but keeping hold of my hand.
“You gave us quite a scare, young lady,” the
doctor tells me. I don’t know him, have never seen
him before, wonder if he’s as good a doctor as Dr.
Jamison, though he probably wouldn’t appreciate
being compared to a veterinarian.
“Let’s try to get that tube out of your throat, huh?” I
nod, wanting to talk to Henry. “We’ll pull it out, but
you’ve been dependent on it for a while so it might
be difficult for your body to breathe on its own. We
might have to put it back in,” he warns.
He and the nurse step forward, forcing Henry to
step back. He moves to the end of the bed where he
can see me. They pull the tube out, me coughing and
gagging at the sensation. The respiratory therapist
steps forward and places a mask over my face,
pumping a big bulbous thing on the end, forcing air
into my lungs. For a moment I feel as if I’m
suffocating, then my body’s instincts kick in and my
lungs pull in a small breath of air on their own, then
another and another.
The three medical people beam, looking like
proud parents. A canula is placed in my nose and
oxygen begins flowing.
“Henry,” my voice comes out thick and raspy,
barely above a whisper. Henry smiles his wide smile
that I love so much.
“It’s going to take a few days for your voice to
work right,” the nurse tells me.
Henry comes back to my side, leaning down to
kiss me softly on my freed lips.
“I love you,” I mouth.
“I love you so much,” he returns.
It’s a slow, painful recovery to even get to the point
that I can get out of bed. I have respiratory and
physical therapists every day. My lungs seem well on
their way to recovery. I’m informed that one lung had
been punctured by a broken rib and the other
collapsed when it filled with fluid. My body is weak
from disuse, so the physical therapy is harder,
especially since I still have many broken bones.
It was two weeks from the time of the attack to
when I woke from the coma. There are scans and
tests performed by an occupational therapist that
determine there’s no obvious brain damage.
Henry never leaves my side.
His parents, Claire and Amy have all come in to
see me, Emma and Claire crying when they see me.
Claire promises to make me a special outfit to wear
when I leave the hospital, and Amy silently slips a
four-leaf clover into my hand. Emma later tells me
she had found it the year before and has been
keeping it for luck. I’m touched that she would want
me to have it; I need all the luck I can get.
I see the way Emma looks at Henry, concern
etched in her face.
“Henry,” my voice is still scratchy, but he hurries to
my side when I call. “Go home, Henry. Take a real
shower and shave,” I reach up, no small
accomplishment, rubbing my hand on his bristly
cheek. “Get a good night’s sleep in your own bed.
I’m not going anywhere; I’ll still be here in the
morning.”
Emma joins her voice with mine.
“Go, honey, I’ll stay here.”
He looks about to protest, but then he nods his
head wearily. I can see the toll it’s taking on him to
be here all the time. He agrees to go shower and
shave, but insists on coming back later this evening.
A week later I’m going stir crazy. I want some
privacy from all of the doctors, nurses and therapists
that are constantly in the room. I’m also afraid,
because I can’t go home.
I haven’t asked yet about my mother. Neither she,
nor my father, has been in to see me. It’s gotten to
the point where the not knowing is worse than
asking, so when Henry and I have a rare few minutes
alone together, in the deep of the night while he sits
in his chair and tries to get comfortable next to my
bed, I ask.
“What happened to my mother, Henry?”
He stills where he’s sitting, looking down at his
feet. Finally he exhales a loud breath and looks up at
me.
“I’m not sure it’s my place to tell you, Kate.”
I laugh scornfully.
Emma joins her voice with mine.
“You’re the only one who should tell me, Henry.”
He doesn’t say anything.
“Are you mad at me, Henry? For not telling you, I
mean.”
He looks at me, confused.
“For not telling me what?”
“About…her. You know, for not telling you what
was going on at home.”
He comes over and takes my hand, pressing it to
his mouth.
“Of course not.”
I look up at him. “Not at all?” I ask.
He shrugs and grins sadly.
“Maybe a little, because I could have helped,
maybe. Because I hoped you trusted me enough to
know that you could tell me anything.”
“I do trust you, Henry, more than anyone. It wasn’t
that at all.”
“What was it then?”
“I couldn’t have stood it if you pitied me. I knew
you did a little anyway, because of the kids at school.
But if you had known about her, I would always have
wondered if you really loved me, or if it was
sympathy.”
“How could you wonder that? Don’t you know how
much I love you?”
I smile at him. “It’s a little hard to fathom, because
if there’s one thing I know, it’s that I don’t deserve
you.”
“Don’t say that,” he looks pained at my words. “I
don’t deserve you, especially now.” The last two
words are muttered low.
“What do you mean, ‘especially now’?”
His face is anguished as he squeezes my hand.
“This is my fault,” he says, his hand sweeping the
length of my body, which has been mostly freed from
its various tubes and straps.
“What? Henry, by what stretch of the imagination
do you think this is your fault?”
“Because I took you home. I had the feeling that I
needed to come in with you, but I let you talk me out
of it. If I had come in…” he breaks off, tormented.
“Henry, look at me,” I say, waiting until his eyes [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]