Impact (28 page)

“I'm sorry,” he said, struggling for more.

“So is everyone. Except maybe Mr. Chambers.”

“I wish you'd let me loan you some—”

“I won't borrow money from you, Keith. Things always fell apart when money's involved.”

It's
already
fallen apart, was what he wanted to say, but instead he established a charade. “I've found you some funds.”

She looked at him suspiciously. “From where?”

“I came across an insurance policy that pays off in Jack's situation.”

“But you told me he didn't have any—”

“I only found it the other day, when I was down at his office on the conservatorship thing. It's not much, but it'll help a little.”

“How much is a little?”

“Twenty thousand. It should be available in about three weeks, when the papers are processed.”

Her sigh made harmony with the road noise. “I can keep the house. Thank God. I was afraid the first thing I was going to have to tell him when he came to was that—”

“House or not, you still have to sue the bastards, Laura,” Tollison interrupted. “They won't negotiate until you do.”

Her spirits slumped. “Fred Fitch called today.”

“What for?”

“To remind me that he's been handling Jack's business affairs for the past five years.”

“And?”

“That Jack always had the utmost faith in his professional competence.”

“And?”

“That since that was the case, I was honor bound to engage him to pursue Jack's claim against the airline.”

“And?”

“That if I didn't retain him within a week, he would be forced to consider having me removed as Jack's conservator. He said I would be particularly interested in the grounds for removal.”

“Which would be?”

“Moral turpitude.”

“What the hell is he talking about?”

“I assumed he was talking about you and me.”

She waited for him to speak, but he was imagining the reception their secret would receive as it spread throughout Altoona. “Can he do what he says?” she asked after a moment.

“I don't think so.”

“But maybe?”

He shrugged. “Do you think he really knows about us?”

“I think everyone who wants to know about us knows about us,” she said cavalierly. “Fred offered a deal.”

“What?”

“He said he could be persuaded to withhold his objections if you would associate him with you in the case. As ‘of counsel' or something like that. With a split of the fee.”

“Fuck him,” Tollison blurted. “It's just a bluff, like all Fred's threats.”

“I also got a call from Channel Eight. They want to do a feature on Jack and me. The SurfAir crash—six months later.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because they'll get you all smiling and stalwart and show their little clip on the nightly news, then a year from now the insurance company will show the tape to a jury and claim it proves how nicely you've recovered from what happened to your husband.”

Laura shrugged. “I also got a letter from Larchmont Productions.”

“Who the hell is that?”

“TV people. They want to buy my story.
Our
story.”

“Yours and mine?”

By the time he knew his question was absurd, Laura was laughing at him. “Mine and Jack's. For a movie of the week. They're offering twenty-five thousand.”

“It sounds uncouth.”

“Uncouth or no, back when everyone was hounding me for money, I'd have done it in a minute. But since they've eased up lately, I—” She frowned. “Why do you think that is, by the way?”

He concocted a lie that would cover the deep depletion of his funds that had resulted from acting as a surety for Laura Donahue. “I told them your case is in litigation and that you'd eventually recover a large sum and would pay them off completely.”

“Some of them didn't seem the sympathetic type,” Laura said dubiously. “Oh well. We can discuss the movie later. They may not want me, anyway. Apparently there was a super saleswoman on the plane as well, a legend in her field or something. If her parents agree to sell
her
story …”

“This is fluff, Laura. What's important is that you get your lawsuit on file.”

When she didn't respond, he glanced her way. Her jaw was set in a level line. “I don't want that Hawthorne man to represent me.”

“Why not?”

“Because he
wants
things from me.”

“Like what?”

“I don't know, I guess what I feel is that he wants me to surrender, somehow. He wants me small and helpless, so he can play the white knight and gallop in to rescue me.”

“Well, that's sort of the way it is, isn't it?”

Her anger filled the car. “No, it
isn't
. If I never get a
dime
from the airline people, I can deal with it. I don't
need
your Mr. Hawthorne. And I don't want him to think I do.”

“You talk like he's a shyster, Laura. He's not.”

“I know he's not a shyster. That man Scallini.
He's
a shyster. But I don't want
either
of them; I want you.”

Moved by her tribute, Tollison blurted a commitment he had sworn to never make. “I suppose I can give your case a try. If you really want me to.”

She nodded wearily. “Then it's settled.”

As quickly as that, he had jumped to another league, one he had aspired to for thirty years. Sweating from the ramifications, Tollison guided the Mercedes off the freeway and followed the labyrinthine route to the hospital. When he was finally parked in the lot, he put his hand on Laura's shoulder to prevent her from getting out. “You need to tell me something.”

“What?”

“If Jack is better, if he's even approximately normal, will you divorce him?”

She avoided his eye. “I don't know.”

“In other words, you're going to give him another chance.”

“God's given him one, Keith. I keep thinking maybe I should, too.”

Laura asked for the keys, then got out of the car and opened the trunk. By the time he joined her, she was holding a cardboard box filled with odds and ends. “I'll carry it,” he offered, then asked her what it was.

“Stuff,” she said.

“What kind of stuff?”

“For Jack.”

He took a sniff. “Vinegar?”

She nodded. “We decided to go for broke to bring him out of it. Some doctors claim it doesn't work, but I thought it was worth a try. Reticular activity formation, it's called.”

“Which means?”

“I bombard him with sensation. I put vinegar under his nose, ice on his neck, peanut butter on his tongue. I blow a whistle in his ear, prick his finger with a pin, wear as much perfume as I can stand. I even tape open his eyelids and show him pictures of naked women.”

He had to laugh. “Has it worked?”

She looked at him. “I think we'll know in a minute.”

She led him through a rear door, up the fire stairs, down narrow corridors and mammoth wings through the door marked
NEUROLOGY
to the door to 414. This time, Laura pushed through without slowing down.

There were two beds in the room. One was empty and stripped; three white coats were huddled above the other. For the first time since entering the building, Laura hesitated, as though her husband's health would be imperiled by the slightest sound. “Dr. Ryan?” she whispered finally.

The tallest figure turned. When he saw who it was, he smiled. “Laura. Good. Come here.”

Uninvited and ignored, Tollison remained in the doorway, his view of the patient obscured but for the lower extremities, which were bare and slick from salve.

“See?” Ryan spoke again as Laura edged beside him at the bed.

“See what? I—
my God
. Is he really? …
Jack?
Can he hear me, Dr. Ryan?”

“I don't know yet. We just hooked up an EKG and some other monitors, and they should tell us whether he's responding to verbal stimuli. So far he doesn't appear to be, but—” The doctor shrugged. “That's why we wanted you to come down. If he responds to anyone, he'll respond to you.”

The truth of the statement made Tollison retreat to a corner of the room, where he kept company with an IV rack and a blood pressure cuff.

“Jack?” Laura said again. “It's me. Laura. Hi, Jack. I—” She turned to Ryan once again. “Is it okay if I talk to him like this?”

He nodded. “That's what we want you to do. We'll leave you for a few minutes, then come back and check out our machines. They may tell us something and they may not. If not, we'll do a scan. In the meantime, we'll hope for the best.”

Laura placed her hand on the doctor's arm. “This is a good sign, isn't it?”

“Of course.” The doctor paused. “You look dubious.”

“It's … I guess I expected something more dramatic.”

“I'm sorry if you're disappointed. Perhaps I should have given you more details on the phone. Progress in these situations is invariably slow.”

“But this
is
what we've been waiting for, isn't it?”

“It's too soon to say for certain. Even if it's a definite event, it doesn't mean all the problems are solved; it just means we're closer to finding out what they are.”

“But—”

After a glance at Tollison, Dr. Ryan crossed his arms. “As I've told you before, I believe your husband can come out of this, Laura. But he can't do it on his own. Someone will have to help him, night and day, directing his therapy over what will probably amount to many years. I suggest you start thinking about whether that someone will be you.” He paused, then patted her shoulder. “Come on, troops. Let's leave the Donahues alone for a minute. If he responds in any way, be sure to let us know exactly how. Blinks, nods, tears, twitches, anything.”

“Of course. I … thank you, Doctor.”

“Hey. This is what we get paid for.”

After another glance at Tollison, Ryan and his entourage vacated the room. When they were gone, Laura bent over the bed and began to whisper in her husband's ear. Since she had not indicated otherwise, Tollison stayed where he was, gripped by emotions that were mostly inappropriate.

“Jack? Honey? I'm here, Jack. Right beside you. You're
okay
now, Jack. Everything's going to be fine. You've been hurt very badly, and you've been unconscious for a long time, but now you're back. You're back and everything's going to be
wonderful
again. You can smile if you want to, you know. You can even
talk
to me. Here. Feel my hand? We've been poking and pricking you for months, haven't we? And you just lay there, didn't you? But now you can
feel
it. I know you can. There. That felt good, didn't it? How about that? You must be so
sore
, lying there all that time. Oh, Jack. I love you, Jack. I love you very much. Please tell me you can hear me say that.”

At her back, Tollison put his face in his hands and his fingers in his ears. As though she could sense his anguish, Laura suddenly fell silent. After a long minute she backed away from the bed and closed her eyes and rubbed them, her body slumped in a tired parabola. When she opened them again, her look was trained on Tollison. “I didn't mean … I was just trying to do whatever—”

“It's all right,” he lied.

“Come here. Please. Come look at him.”

Tollison joined her at the bed. Mouth open, cheeks sunken, flesh flat and ashen, skull a peeled potato sliced at its crown, someone—far more a gargoyle than anyone he knew—stared up at them from behind a marble mask. Breaths rasping as a crone's, eyes as recessed as the dregs in teacups, Jack Donahue stared at the ceiling with utter desolation, as though a patron saint had broken a promise to appear above the bed.

“See?”

The cheery query startled Tollison out of his astonishment. “See what?”

“His eyes. They're
open
. They were never
open
before.”

Tollison gulped, glanced, then looked away from their dumb fixation. “Great.”

She sought his hand. “I've prayed for so long. For
something
. Now at least there's this. I think I'll stay down here for a few days. To watch him come back.” She handed him her keys. “There's a motel across from the hospital. I'll call you when Jack's ready, and you can drive down and pick us up. Would that be all right?”

He nodded.

“I'm going to get Dr. Ryan,” she continued quickly, “so they can complete their tests.” She took Tollison's hand and squeezed it, then left him with her husband.

A minute passed, then another. Machines ticked and clicked and whistled softly. Tubes ran from them into Jack Donahue's throat and nose and arm; others disappeared below the bedclothes. Tollison crossed his arms and uncrossed them, shifted from one foot to another, moved to where he could inspect the intravenous contraption more closely. As he did so, something happened—two frozen eyes thawed, then moved in the direction he did.

Tollison took another step and then another, watching closely, but this time the darkly dotted spheres failed to track him. He backed up, then stepped forward once again. The eyes stared back, then blinked, then closed.

Tollison looked around to see if there was anyone to call to, but the room was empty. When he looked back, it was in time to see the mouth make its rigid ring a softer oval, then form the framework of a word.

“Hwwah waawaa.”

The shock of sound was a fist against his heart. “Hey. Jack. What was that? Say it again.”

Jack Donahue lay inert, oblivious, as though the moment had been but a frame from Laura's dream.

Tollison hurried across the room, shoved open the door, and found Laura and the doctors huddling right outside. “He said something,” he blurted into their whispered conference. “I don't know what it was, but he definitely said it.”