Faultlines (4 page)

Dr. Showalter was last to the meeting. He was tall and silver haired. Distinguished looking, was Sandy’s thought. His eyes were blue, arctic blue, and as quiet as ice. He sat down across from them, and after the introductions, he began to address them, speaking in medical terms, the universal language of calamity, tossing out words like
hematoma
,
hemorrhage
,
subarachnoid
, and
intraventricular
as if they should know. Emmett stopped him finally and asked if he would tell them in plain English how their children were hurt.

Showalter looked vaguely impatient. “Basically, both kids have suffered a good deal of trauma, in particular to their heads.”

“At Wyatt Regional, Dr. Dermott said the air bags only deployed partially.” Emmett sounded angry, but Sandy knew it was fear that clipped his tone.

“I don’t know the details,” Dr. Showalter said in a tone that was equally truncated.

“We were told Jordy’s brain is bruised?” Sandy watched Showalter, hunting for signs of denial.

There weren’t any. He said a follow-up CT scan had confirmed the bruising, and then he dismissed Sandy’s concern with the wave of his hand, repeating Dr. Dermott’s opinion, that in most cases such bruises—he used the word
contusions
—healed on their own.

Emmett asked where the damage was located. “What part of the brain?”

“Right frontal lobe.”

“What does that mean?” Sandy asked. “How will he be affected mentally?”

“Probably not at all in the long run. Right now and in the immediate future, there may be difficulty with memory. He might be confused. His motor skills, language, and emotional expression might be affected. But whatever symptoms there are shouldn’t last. Neither should there be sustained damage to his vision.”

“His vision?” Sandy asked faintly.

“You haven’t seen him?”

“No,” Emmett said. “By the time we were allowed into the ER at Wyatt Regional, they’d already put him on the helicopter.”

“Well, Jordan sustained a number of severe lacerations to the right side of his face and scalp. Possibly from the air bag, but more than likely from the steering wheel and the windshield. His vision should be fine, as I said, but we did remove a large piece of glass from his right eye.”

Emmett found Sandy’s hand. “We were told his ribs are broken and his shoulder was dislocated. Is that right?”

“His shoulder is back in place now.”

“It’s been dislocated before,” Sandy said.

“He played football in high school,” Emmett explained.

“He and Travis were cocaptains their junior and senior year.” Sandy felt more than saw the look Emmett gave her. She clamped her mouth shut.

Showalter cleared his throat. “It’s good you’re familiar with the injury. You know there could be subsequent fallout—what to watch for.”

They did, Emmett said.

Dr. Showalter flattened his palms on his knees, looking almost cheerful. “All right, then. That’s about it. There’s no sign of internal bleeding; he’s breathing on his own. He’s responsive to stimuli, and he’s wakened several times since his arrival here. It doesn’t mean something can’t happen down the road, but he looks good for now. He’s a lucky young man—”

“Travis.” Jenna leaned forward, and Showalter switched his glance to her. They all did. Her tremors were obvious. “Is Trav breathing on his own?” she asked.

“I’m afraid not.” Dr. Showalter looked away, looked back, reluctance written all over his face. There might have been the slightest softening of his expression. “Your son’s injuries are numerous and severe—”

“They said at Wyatt Regional that his leg might have to be amputated?”

“It’s possible, but that’s not the most concerning issue at this point.”

“It’s the head injury, right?” Troy spoke up.

“Yes,” Showalter said. “It’s one of the more serious types, I’m afraid. He has what’s called a basilar skull fracture.”

“Bas—what?” Jenna sat back.

Sandy capped her hand over Jenna’s shaking knee.

“Basilar refers to the base of the skull.” Showalter drew his hand across the back of his neck. “In Travis’s case, the fracture is across multiple areas of the brain. There’s pressure on the stem, which has created a number of intraventricular hemorrhages that are also adding pressure. The skull is a very small space—imagine a room with fixed walls. In its normal condition, it’s already packed as tightly as an overfull closet. There’s nowhere for the swelling to go. Do you understand?”

Jenna said yes, but she looked dazed. Her knee trembled.

Dr. Showalter continued nonetheless. Maybe he didn’t notice Jenna’s agitation, her bafflement, Sandy thought, or if he did, he couldn’t take time to deal with it. Or perhaps he felt it was better to deliver horrible news as quickly as possible and have it over. Like ripping off a Band-Aid in one motion.

“While he was still at Wyatt Regional, Travis was started on medication to reduce the pressure and prevent seizures, but the CT scan we did when he arrived here indicated there’s been—” Showalter paused before he said the word
little
to describe Travis’s level of improvement. He might just as well have said there was
no
improvement.

“What are you doing for him?” Sandy asked, because Jenna didn’t or more likely couldn’t. Her jaw was so tightly clenched, the white knot of bone at the corner was visible.

“The medication he was given that we continued for a time after his arrival here was helpful, but ultimately we didn’t get the result we were looking for.” Showalter took another moment.

“So?” Troy prompted.

“So we performed a surgical procedure called a craniotomy. It’s used to extract tumors, but it can also be very quickly effective at relieving pressure on the brain, much like opening the door on a too-full closet can give the contents somewhere to go.”

“You cut into his brain?” Jenna’s voice rose.

“It was our only option.”

“Did it work?” Sandy asked.

“He’s still not wakened, nor is he responsive to stimuli.” Dr. Showalter stood up. “It’s a waiting game for now.”

“I want to see him.” Jenna pushed herself from her chair. Troy was on his feet instantly to steady her.

Sandy and Emmett got up, too, and the four of them trooped after Dr. Showalter, ducklings in a row. Once they entered the ICU, Showalter handed them off to a nurse, an overtly cheerful young woman dressed in pink scrubs printed with green-and-yellow kites. She was Claire Overman, she said, smiling adamantly. Travis and Jordy were her patients. “This way.” She led them along yet another nearly featureless corridor. “Since they’re family, we’ve put them next to each other.” She pushed open another door, holding it, allowing them to pass.

Sandy crossed the threshold, and her heart faltered. She found Emmett’s hand. She had an impulse to pinch her nose against the harsh, astringent smell of disinfectant that overlay a darker odor of terrible harm to bodies too fragile to be thoroughly washed, the wasting stench of disease and death. The glass-fronted rooms loomed like giant fish aquariums and were crammed with every possible kind of machine, beeping and whooshing. Yards of tubing hung from silver poles like party garlands. Thick electrical cords snaked the floor. The sense of dread was pervasive. She felt ill with it. In here, she could no longer imagine that Jordy was less mortally wounded than Travis, or that either of them would survive.

Claire stopped midway down the hall. “This is Jordy”—she indicated the cubicle on her left—“and Travis is here.” She nodded to her right.

Sandy looked at Jenna and saw her own panic reflected in her sister’s eyes. There was her accusation, too, stronger now. Jordy had been driving. Jordy had done this. Brought them here to this nightmare place. What if it was true that Jordy had been driving and Travis or Michelle—or both of them—died as a result, and Jordy lived?

Sandy’s head swam. She put her fingertips to her temple.
Don’t. Don’t go there,
warned the voice in her brain.

She felt Emmett’s hand on the small of her back, gently prodding her. She managed to cross the threshold into Jordy’s room, but then she stopped only steps inside to get her bearings, to stare at the body lying so still in the bed. A monitor on the opposite side dinged, and she glanced at it, for a moment spellbound by the numbers and lines that rose and fell across its face in life-measuring increments.

Behind her, in a low voice, Emmett asked, “Is he awake?”

“That’s not him,” Sandy said, because Jordy was never so still. He twitched even in sleep. And that face, that poor swollen face, could not be Jordy’s face. There must be some mistake.

“What is the gauze on his eyes for?”

Sandy raised her glance to Emmett, who had gone around her and was now standing at the bedside, looking down. She walked to the other side of the bed and looked down, too, at the boy lying there. A sheet and thin blanket were tucked around his chest and under one arm. Only one hand was visible, with strong fingers and flat, square fingernails, bitten to the quick. She recognized that hand and slid her palm over it. Her gratitude, her relief on feeling Jordy’s warmth, brought her to tears. She announced it to Emmett, a celebratory whisper. “He’s warm.”

His eyelids fluttered then as if he’d heard her. She spoke his name, softly. “Jordy?”

“Mom?”

“Yes, honey, I’m here.” Bending over him, she tightened her hand around his.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and the words were heartbroken and hopeless.

“No, no. You mustn’t worry.” She smoothed his hair from his brow, taking care not to disturb the gauze lying over his eyes.

“Trav is—he’s hurt bad, Mom. I tried to help him.”

“Of course, I know you did. Everything you could,” Sandy added. “Dad’s here.” She glanced up at Emmett, her eyes intent on him; her message that he should speak was strong in her mind, and he did, but what he said appalled her.

“So, it’s true. You were driving drunk. Is that right?”

“Not now.” Sandy spoke over him.

“Wasn’t—” Jordy answered.

“Wasn’t what?” Emmett bent toward him. “Drinking and driving?”

But Jordy didn’t respond.

“Son?”

Sandy looked at Emmett. “He’s fallen asleep.”

“How could he? That quick?”

“Dr. Showalter said he would go in and out.” Sandy straightened. “How could you accuse him like that?” She kept her voice low, but she was furious.

“Do you have a clue what could happen to him, Sandy? To us?” Emmett’s whisper was equally heated. “If he was drinking and driving? Do you know the shit storm we’re facing?”

“You heard him say he wasn’t.”

“I heard him say the word
wasn’t
. What that was in reference to, I don’t know. Anyway, according to everything I’ve heard so far, the evidence says otherwise. He admitted himself that when he came to, he was in the driver’s seat, for fuck’s sake. What other proof do you need?”

“We’re not having this discussion here.” Sandy pushed her hair behind her ears. Fatigue bowed her shoulders, throbbed dully behind her eyes. “There’s only one thing that matters right now, and that’s for Jordy to get better.”

“And Trav? Michelle? If they don’t—”

Sandy locked Emmett’s gaze, and he had the good sense to stop and turn away.

“Aren’t you always pointing out to me that it’s ridiculous to speculate?” She spoke to his back.

He didn’t answer.

She looked down at her son, at the gauze hiding his eyes. She remembered when he was born, the nightlong hours of hard labor that had ended in a protracted and hazardous breech delivery.
Don’t take his diaper off,
the nurse who brought Jordy to her afterward had warned.
You’ll cry,
she’d said.

Sandy lifted a corner of the gauze that hid Jordy’s eyes now, the same as she had untaped his diaper then. He was her child. There was no possibility of blinding herself to the ways in which he was hurt. The damage was horrible. On seeing it, she lost her breath, and just as she had on the day of his birth, she fought a strong urge to avert her gaze. On the day of his birth, it had been his tiny lower torso that had been this severely bruised and battered. His scrotum had been the size of her fist, making it impossible to perform a circumcision until three days later. She still dreamed on occasion of his earsplitting screams, and her throat on waking would be packed with tears. She wanted to cry now at the hideousness of the injury confronting her—a radiant starburst of deep lacerations, centered at the outer corner of his right eye, gashed an arc across his brow and down to the bridge of his nose. Another network of cuts extended down across his right ear. A hunk of scalp at the hairline near his right temple was missing.

She could see the mangled edges of blood-crusted flesh had been sealed together, but it was impossible to detect how, whether with stitches or some type of glue. Both his eyes appeared swollen and were caked with blood and something yellowish. How could his vision be safe? Sandy couldn’t believe it was. Wouldn’t believe it until Jordy told her he could see.

Setting the gauze on a nearby cabinet, she carefully peeled back the sheet and blanket, exposing the shoulder sling. It was blue, a contraption composed of wide nylon bands and straps and Velcro. Jordy had worn a similar brace after his shoulder was dislocated during his sophomore football season, when he was broadsided by a monster lineman on the opposing team who had been built like a bull and looked thirty-five at the very least.