Resuscitation (13 page)

The captain turned on the PA system and announced that for the next fifteen or twenty minutes, the ride would be a little bumpy.

“Great,” Al whispered. There were few things he dreaded more than turbulence at 37,000 feet. Second to that, he abhorred being wedged between two overweight people in a center seat. But when you book a flight hours before it takes off, you should feel lucky that you even got a seat.

Halfway to Charlotte, where he’d catch his connecting flight to Rio, he couldn’t relax or clear his mind of troubling thoughts. When the flight attendants stopped right next to him with their little serving cart, and asked if he’d like something to drink, for a fleeting moment he wanted to scream “yes.” This moment represented a true test of his sobriety, seven miles from the ground and fifteen hundred miles away from Sami.

But he did not fail. Not yet. He worried more about his nine-hour flight from Charlotte to Rio. On that flight, he would have more time to think. More time to be tempted. More time to justify having just one drink. How many “just one drinks” had he had over the years? He couldn’t even begin to count.

Sami, of course, weighed heavily on Al’s desire to remain sober. He had promised her that he would never touch another drop of alcohol no matter what the circumstance. But he never thought he’d be faced with a situation like this. If he made it to Rio without having a drink, it would be a miracle.

Al tried to sleep, but all he could think about was his sister lying in intensive care in a coma. In their younger years, Alberto and Aleta were very close. With both of their parents long gone before either reached adulthood, they clung to each other for support and companionship. For a period of time, they even shared an apartment.

But when Aleta took a Caribbean cruise and met Ricardo, an older Brazilian gentleman with charm, money, and a breathtaking mansion in Rio de Janeiro, everything changed. Aleta, quite to Al’s dismay, had always been a gold digger, a woman searching for a sugar daddy. She had found this with Ricardo, but in the process had compromised her relationship with Al.

Al could never understand why his sister didn’t visit him frequently. She had the means to do so. Although he never blatantly asked the obvious question, he’d hinted numerous times that he wanted to see his sister more often.

If Aleta didn’t make it, if she never regained consciousness again, Al would not be able to speak the words he needed to speak. Words that lived quietly in a dark corner of his subconscious. He would be forced to relive the loss of his parents all over again. There were so many things he should have said to them, but he waited too long. Al’s mother and father both died never knowing how much he loved them and appreciated all their sacrifices when he was growing up. He had been a selfish, rebellious little shit. It wasn’t until they were both gone that he realized how much they had done for him.

Al—tired, troubled, and regretful—leaned back in the cramped seat, his knees rubbing against the seat in front of him, closed his eyes, and tried to fall asleep.

Just at the point in time when Julian began to doze off on the leather sofa, he heard Connor moaning. Julian shook his head, and slowly walked toward the bed.

“Well,” Julian said, “glad you returned from your little nap.”

Not yet realizing that his wrists and ankles were bound to the bed, Connor tried to sit up. “What the fuck is going on?”

“At this moment, not much.”

“Are you out of your
fucking
mind?” Connor screamed. “Cut me loose, you fucking asshole!”

“There, there,” Julian said. “No need to be uncivilized. It would be much easier for you if you just relaxed.”

“You’re a sick, twisted
fuck
!”

Julian ignored his rant and walked past the kitchen and into a small storage room. He wheeled out the heart monitor and positioned it beside the bed. Still dazed and foggy from the effects of the sedative, Connor squirmed like a man covered with spiders. As Julian shaved his chest, Connor opened his mouth, but nothing came out. When Julian finished connecting the ten electrodes to Connor’s chest, wrists, ankles, and shoulders, he stepped back and surveyed what he’d done as if he were appraising a beautiful painting.

“Perfect,” Julian said. He turned on the heart monitor and studied the screen carefully. Connor’s pulse rate was over ninety beats a minute. The elevated reading seemed perfectly normal under the circumstances, so Julian did not feel alarmed. But he also noticed signs of an irregular heartbeat. At this point, the abnormal sinus rhythm did not pose a problem. In fact, most people under severe stress experience mild arrhythmias. This could turn out to be an unexpected bonus. If Connor suffered from a benign case of atrial fibrillation, it might reveal critical data Julian did not anticipate.

Julian went into the closet and opened his leather satchel. He pawed through a myriad of medical paraphernalia and sample bottles of various heart medications: Coumadin, Toprol XL, Bystolic, Cardizem, Lipitor. About to give up, he found the last plastic bottle: amiodarone.

Julian opened the bottle and removed four 200 mg tablets. This amount, called a loading dose, would hopefully stabilize Connor’s heart and return it to normal sinus rhythm. Julian filled a twelve-ounce glass with water and sat on the side of the bed. “You need to take these pills, Connor.”

“Do I look fucking stupid to you?”

“My, oh my, we certainly have a foul mouth, don’t we though?”

“Cut me loose, you asshole, and I’ll show you foul.”

Julian stood up and pointed to the heart monitor. “See this wavy line at the bottom of the heart cycle? Without getting into technical definitions, it represents an irregular heartbeat, which could lead to what we call A-Fib. If that happens, your heart rate could reach two hundred plus beats a minute. If the blood pools in your left ventricle, it could result in a blood clot to your brain, or cause a pulmonary embolism. Either way, you’d be dead in less than five minutes.”

Connor processed the information. “Why do you know so much about hearts? Are you a doctor?”

“You could say that.” Julian grabbed a pair of scissors sitting on the nightstand and cut the nylon strap securing Connor’s left wrist. He placed the pills in Connor’s free hand. “You need to take these pills and you need to take them
now
.”

Connor wasn’t sure what to think. In this particular situation, his options were few. Never in his wildest dreams had he expected Julian to be a nutcase. He’d met lots of men in local bars and nightspots. And once in a while he’d picked up a guy who was a little kinky. But this was more than kinky. Whatever Julian—if that was even his real name—had planned for him, Connor feared that it wasn’t going to be pleasant. Maybe Julian was into bondage and just wanted rough, submissive sex, which was fine with him. But why the heart monitor?

Now that Connor’s brain was nearly wide-awake, a wave of panic crashed over him. He was in a predicament he never imagined possible. He could either cooperate with Julian and hopefully survive this ordeal, or he could continue to yell expletives and provoke him further. It seemed like a lose-lose situation.

“So,” Julian said, “are you going to take the pills or risk a stroke?”

“Tell me what I’m taking.”

“It’s called amiodarone, and it’s used for various types of irregular heartbeats.”

“I don’t get it,” Connor said. “You’ve got me strapped to this bed like an animal, and it’s pretty obvious you’ve got some sick, twisted agenda. Yet you’re concerned about my health? How can I be sure that this amio—whatever it’s called—is what you say it is?”

Julian walked over to the cocktail table and returned with his laptop computer. Once booted and connected to the Internet, he Googled “amiodarone.” He clicked on the link to Wikipedia and set the laptop on the edge of the mattress so Connor could see the screen. “If I wanted to kill you with lethal drugs, I’d be sticking them in your veins,” Julian said.

Connor read the first few sentences and concluded that the drug was a legitimate treatment for an irregular heartbeat. “If I take these pills and it stabilizes my heart, then what?”

“You and I will conduct a little experiment.”

“Emily?” Sami said into the phone.

“Please tell me your mom’s okay.”

“She’s stable. At least for the moment.”

“Thank God.”

“I’m really sorry to call so late, Emily.” Sami told her cousin about Al’s sister and his hasty departure to Rio.

“That’s terrible. Anything I can do?”

“I just needed to hear a friendly voice. That’s all.”

“Hey, that’s what cousins are for.”

Sami regretted making the call. “Get some rest, Cuz. We’ll talk in the morning. Okay?”

“I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t I drive over and spend the night?”

“That’s sweet of you, Honey, but I’m okay. Really. Just feeling some overwhelming emotions. Between my mom’s surgery and Al—”

“Hey, it’ll be like a sleepover. We can make popcorn, throw down a few brews, and watch old movies.”

“You’re sweet, Honey, but—”

“I’ll be there in less than an hour.”

Julian wanted to take a little nap himself, while the amiodarone worked its magic and stabilized Connor’s irregular heartbeat, but his mind was filled with unsettling thoughts. He rested his head against the soft leather sofa and closed his eyes. He drifted back to a day he wished he could forget.

As if God had a vendetta against him, his mother was diagnosed with chronic atrial fibrillation on his eighteenth birthday. After five surgical procedures, the doctors concluded that her condition was irreversible and that another attack would ultimately be fatal. As much as Julian prayed for her to be healed, his plea fell on deaf ears. On the day she died, he stood outside her hospital room and watched in horror as the doctors frantically tried to revive her with CPR and an external defibrillator, no one realizing that the young man had a front-row seat to watch the event. After repeated attempts, the doctors pronounced her dead. While all this happened, Julian’s father sat in the hospital cafeteria.

He witnessed his mother’s death all alone.

He watched a nurse pull a white sheet over his mother’s face, and before the doctors and nurses filed out of the room, Julian ran down the hall, went into an unlocked closet, and cried his eyes out. After several minutes, he found his way back to his mother’s room. The room was still and quiet. A small fluorescent lamp on the wall behind his mother’s bed lighted the room. It cast eerie shadows across the floor. He stood by his mother, staring at the white sheet, feeling as if his body were frozen. Carefully, and as if the process were some sort of devout ceremony, Julian pulled the sheet far enough so he could see his mother’s face. Beautiful as ever, even in death, he kissed her on the cheek.

“Goodbye, Mom. I know you can’t hear me but I have to tell you something anyway. Something that’s been tearing me apart for years. I never tried to…hurt Cousin Rebecca. It was actually the other way around. Dad and you have been so distant. And I know it’s because of what you thought I did. But I swear to you, I’m the victim. I just wanted you to know that.”

About to cover her face again and leave the room, a strange feeling overwhelmed Julian. He couldn’t understand why the doctors and nurses with all of their medical knowledge could not save his mother. Then, as if some mysterious force controlled his actions, he removed the sheet, and began administering CPR, using the same technique he had witnessed earlier.

Over and over, he pressed on his mother’s chest, trying desperately to revive her. He heard cracking sounds, probably ribs snapping. But he continued thumping on her chest. Every so often he’d stop and put his ear near her nose for any sign of breathing and pressed his fingers to the side of her neck, searching for a pulse. He continued with the chest compressions until his arms were so fatigued he could hardly move them.

“Please wake up, Mom. Please.”

Just as he was about to give up and pull the sheet up over her face, his mother’s eyes opened, and she seemed to look right into his eyes. Before he could even begin to react, two nurses rushed into the room, each one grabbing an arm.

“You shouldn’t be in here, young man.”

“She’s alive. My mother is
alive
!”

“Please, son,” one of the nurses said. “You must leave this room immediately.”

“But she’s alive! Her eyes are open. She looked right at me.”

“I’m sorry, son, but she’s
not
alive. Her open eyes are merely a reflex.”

The nurses tried to lead Julian out of the room, but he wasn’t going anywhere. Noticing the commotion as he walked by the room, a security guard came in to find out what was going on. Once briefed, he secured Julian and literally dragged him out of the room.

Over the next few months, everyone tried to convince him that he had not resuscitated his mother. But he knew better. He
had
revived her, and no one could convince him otherwise. He now felt that he had a special gift. And to waste these extraordinary skills would be tragic. So, once wanting to be a college-level chemistry teacher, Julian accepted the event as a divine message, and felt absolutely certain that one day he’d be a gifted cardiologist specializing in A-Fib research.

When Sami heard a knock at the front door, she glanced at the clock above the TV. Wow, she thought. Almost two in the morning. Always overcautious and a little paranoid since her ordeal with Simon, she looked through the door scope and felt relieved when she saw Emily.

“Hey, you,” Sami said. “I feel like a seven-year-old kid who just saw a scary movie.”

Emily walked in and Sami closed and locked the front door. They both sat on the sofa in front of the TV.

“You’re dealing with a lot of shit, Cuz,” Emily said. “You’ve always been the Rock of Gibraltar for everyone. It’s time you get to lean on someone else for a change.”

“But you know how damn independent I am. I hate to rely on anyone.”