Get You Good (15 page)

She heard JJ sigh again. She didn't know how long they sat there. Every moment waiting to hear something, anything, felt like eternity. When the phone rang again, Sydney didn't even check the caller ID before answering.

“We're in the emerge waiting room on the first floor, Fell Pavilion,” she said. “If you get lost, ask for nursing station 4.”

“Syd?”

Sydney's eyes flew open and she sat up.

“Hayden?”

Hot and cold feelings ran through her at the sound of his voice. More than anything, she wished he was there right then. But there was something else there. A sudden resentment that she couldn't explain. The emotions were too much for her to handle and she felt herself break. She tried to cover her mouth to hold it in, but her sobs betrayed her.

“Syd, Syd? Baby, why are you crying—what's going on?”

Instead of soothing her, the tenderness in his voice sliced Sydney through with grief and anger.

“My brother's in the hospital. He's lying unconscious on an operating table fighting for his life because of what your sister did to him—that's what's going on.”

“Whoa, Sydney, wait a minute. I don't even know what you're talking about. What did Sheree do? I don't understand—”

“Yeah, me either,” Sydney said hoarsely. “Look, I can't talk to you right now.”

“Hold up. Sydney, wait—”

But Sydney didn't hear the rest. She ended the call and tossed her phone on the empty seat next to her. She looked up and caught JJ staring at her. But when she met her gaze with a scowl, JJ looked away.

Time seemed to move in slow motion as they waited. Lissandra showed up next. JJ and Sydney took turns retelling whatever they knew and they all took turns crying as they came to grips with the reality of what had happened already and the possibility of what could happen in the next few hours. The real crying began, however, when Jackie showed up.

The other residents of the waiting area, whom Sydney had caught watching them curiously as their party grew in number, watched intently as Jackie came in leaning heavily on Josephine. She already looked weak, as if she had been in an accident of her own, and they immediately made space at the center of their huddle for her to sit. But when she looked up, Sydney knew that her mother still had a lot of fight left in her.

“What happened?” Jackie asked. Her voice was steady and sure, and had taken on the deep quality it did whenever there was a situation to be dealt with.

Sydney stared into her mother's expectant eyes and tried to construct the least painful version of the events as she understood them.

“Don't try and sugarcoat it, Sydney,” Jackie said. “I've outlived two husbands. I'm not going to fall apart. Just tell me what happened.”

Sydney nodded and took a deep breath. Then she related the details to her mother exactly how she knew them. She watched her mother's jaw tighten and her eyes close as she listened. When Sydney was done, Jackie let out a deep, shaky breath. With her eyes still closed, she opened her hands, and Sydney saw that they were shaking. She gripped one firmly as JJ grabbed the other, and she felt her mother's fingers close tightly around hers. The shaking intensified, and Sydney held Jackie's hand between both of hers as her mother began to rock back and forth. Jackie had lost husbands. But she had never lost a child. Sydney knew that the thought of losing her only son was too much for her mother.

Josephine, Zelia, and Lissandra wrapped their arms around Jackie while Sydney and JJ continued to hold her hands as she moaned quietly and shook.

Then, with her eyes still closed, Jackie did the last thing Sydney expected.

“Father, I know that all life is in your hands. I know that you see my son on the table and I know that by faith, you can heal and restore him. And so I claim your promise, trusting that you will heal him, believing that my son . . .”

Jackie's voice broke as she choked back a sob.

“The only one that you gave me. That he will not die.”

When Jackie was done, JJ went next. Then Josephine, then Zelia. The air in the waiting room grew thick with her sisters' prayers, and as Sydney listened to them, something stirred inside her. Something that had been dead a long time, but was now starting to wake up. When the chain of prayer was over, JJ began to sing softly. The sound of her voice was so haunting that it triggered the tears that Sydney had been trying to hold back.

She had forgotten JJ's voice. She had forgotten how JJ used to sing almost every week in church when they were teenagers. Even then she'd had that deep, husky, soulful voice. The kind that should be coming out of a robust life-weary black woman and not a skinny cocoa-colored young girl. It was the kind of voice that made you feel everything you didn't want to feel and think about everything you wanted to ignore. But as she sang Jackie's favorite hymn, “I Must Tell Jesus,” it made Sydney want to dig inside herself for some faith—even if she knew she didn't have any.

They huddled together in a cluster of clinging arms and hands until a nurse appeared to inform them that the surgery was over and that a doctor would be with them shortly to give an update. Moments later he was.

“Hello.” The young man in scrubs and sneakers had freckles on his nose and couldn't have been much older than Dean. “I'm Dr. White, and I was one of the surgeons working on your son.”

He clasped his hands together. “The good news is that we have managed to stop the bleeding in his brain and repaired the damage caused to his lung by the fractured ribs.”

“And the bad news?” Lissandra asked.

His brow furrowed. “As you know, your brother came into the hospital unconscious due to head trauma sustained during his accident. Though we have managed to repair some of the damage, he is currently not responding to external stimuli and is showing no motor movement. . . .”

“Translation?” Zelia asked.

“He's comatose,” Josephine said weakly from where she was sitting.

They all glanced from Josephine to the doctor.

“She's right. Your brother is in a coma.”

Sydney felt her chest tighten as the doctor dropped the bomb on them.

Coma?

She could barely breathe.

Sydney drew a long, shaky breath before she could speak. “Will he come out of it?”

“We hope so,” the doctor said. “He could wake up tomorrow, or next week, or it might be longer. It's just too early to tell right now. We've put him in a room on this floor and are having him closely monitored.”

Sydney felt like the room was spinning. This couldn't be happening. Her brother was in a coma? How? This was for other people. People who were careless and who drove one hundred miles per hour over the speed limit on the highway. People who were alcoholics, who didn't care about anyone but themselves. This was not for people who followed the rules. This was not supposed to be happening to her family.

Jackie, who had been silent throughout the exchange, suddenly stood. “I would like to see him.”

The doctor nodded. “That's fine. But keep the visit brief. And only two people at a time.”

Josephine jumped up. “I'll go with you.”

Sydney and her sisters watched as Josephine and their mother followed the nurse to Dean's room. Almost as soon as they left, Lissandra was on her feet.

“I need coffee.” Without waiting for anyone's response, she headed down the hallway.

No one seemed to be able to speak. It was as if the doctor's words had robbed them of their voice. So instead, they held on to each other, joining hands like they had when they were little girls, Sydney holding JJ's hand on one side and Zelia's on the other. If only life was as simple and painless now as it was then.

Sydney hadn't even realized her eyes were closed, until she felt the pressure on her fingers from JJ. She opened her eyes and there he was. Sydney's heart fell into her stomach. The conflicting emotions that had run through her before took on greater force as his compassion-filled eyes met hers. Seeing him was worse than hearing his voice.

“You found me.”

“There aren't that many hospitals with a Fell Pavilion,” Hayden said, his hands in his pockets.

Sydney stood up and began to walk away. “I didn't ask you to come here.”

“You didn't have to ask me,” he said, less than half a step behind her. “You know I wouldn't let you go through this alone.”

“I'm not alone,” she said, doing double time down the corridor. “I have my sisters.”

“And you have me,” he said.

“I don't need you,” she snapped, lashing out at him with pain and anger that she couldn't account for. “I don't want you. Since you and your family came into our lives it's been nothing but chaos. You let your sister take everything from me. Everything. And now my brother might die. So as far as I'm concerned, you can all go straight to hell.”

He grabbed her arm to stop her, but she pulled back, beating her fists against his strong frame. She knew her blows hurt. She saw him flinch a couple times, but he never let her go. Instead he put his arms around her.

“It's OK, Syd. . . .”

“No! Let me go,” she screamed, not caring who was looking at her as she struggled against him.

“It's OK. Do what you need to do. Hit me if you need to. But I'm not going anywhere,” he said gently near her ear.

She hated that he wouldn't get angry with her. She wanted someone to shout at, to scream her frustrations at, to wear herself out fighting with so she wouldn't have the energy to hurt for Dean.

“This is your fault,” she sobbed, her blows growing weaker and more far apart. “You did this, this is your fault.”

She finally gave up and let him crush her against his chest. Then she cried the deep, angry sobs she would never let her sisters see. Her eyes hurt and she knew they were swelling up like tennis balls, along with her nose, but she didn't care. It didn't even matter that he was about to see her at her worst, because after tonight, he wouldn't see her at all.

But for the time being, she was content to drench his shirt and let him massage her head gently as he tried to convince her it would be OK. Then he started to pray over her, and it occurred to Sydney that this was the most prayer she had heard in one night in a long time.

As her sobs faded away, she felt his hold loosen, and she pulled away and moved toward a bench against the wall a few feet away. She sat down and rested her elbows on her knees as she covered her face with her hands. A few moments later, she felt him sink down beside her.

“So you're telling me you don't know anything about what happened,” Sydney said hoarsely after a long moment.

“No,” Hayden said, shaking his head.

Sydney sighed and sat back.

“Sheree took off about a week ago with everything Dean had,” Sydney said. “Dean came back from his trip and the house was stripped bare. So were his bank accounts. She took everything, Hayden, even the money from the sale of the shop.”

Sydney watched Hayden tense up right before her eyes. His jaw tightened and he closed his eyes as his head fell back against the wall.

“That's why you haven't been taking my calls.” Hayden rubbed a hand over his face. “Let me guess, you can't get in touch with her.”

Sydney nodded. “No one has seen her since she walked out of the bank. She might as well be a ghost.”

Hayden let out a frustrated sigh. “That's why your brother's here.”

“He took it hard. At first he thought something might have happened to her. But when he realized the money was gone”—Sydney shook her head—“that's when things got really bad. He was drinking tonight.... That's how he ended up in an accident.”

“Syd . . . I . . . I don't know what to say.” He leaned forward and turned to look at her. “I'm so sorry. I had no idea Sheree would pull something like this. I wish I could have stopped her.”

He reached for Sydney's hand, but she pulled away. “Syd . . .”

“You told me she wouldn't hurt him,” Sydney said, staring straight ahead. “I asked you, and you told me we could trust her.”

Hayden's eyes widened and he leaned forward to try and meet Sydney's gaze.

“Syd, I never thought she would do something like this. . . .”

“When Dad died, Dean took it hard. Really hard. But he was finally starting to deal with it. He had his whole life ahead of him,” Sydney continued, her voice calm and even. “We had the shop. And I had a plan. And then you all came along.”

“Sydney . . .”

“And now we have nothing.”

Hayden clasped his hands in his lap and looked down.

“I know you feel like you've lost everything—”

“You don't know how I feel,” Sydney said, cutting him off. No one knew how she felt. How she'd felt for the past two years as the life she planned slowly crumbled like a hill of bread crumbs. First she had lost her dad. Then the shop. Then her savings. And now her brother. There was nothing left for anyone to take from her. It was all gone.

“You told me it would be OK,” Sydney said, willing the tears that burned at the back of her eyes to stay at the back of her eyes. “You said it would work out; that it would all be fine.”

She stood up. “This is not what fine feels like.”

“Don't do this, Sydney,” he said as she began to walk away. “We can find her. We can fix this.”

“No, we can't,” Sydney threw over her shoulder. “There is no more ‘we.' ”

Sydney kept her gaze straight ahead as she walked back to where her family was. She could feel his eyes on her with every step she took, but she didn't look back. Sheree and everything connected to her was toxic to Sydney's family.