Sammy Keyes and the Kiss Goodbye (6 page)

And Gregory, who seemed to understand that this was serious, did not press the slobbery carrot he’d retrieved on Hudson in an effort to get him to play fetch, but rather sat quietly with his paws touching, as if doing what he could to help get the word up to God.

When they’d all murmured “Amen” (and Gregory was free to focus again on the wonders of his carrot), Rita and Hudson gave Father Mayhew their sincere thanks and the priest, in turn, assured them that he would “continue to pray for young Samantha.”

Then the seniors stepped out into the cool dawn air and drove toward the hospital, unaware that Sergeant Borsch had kept a night watch or that Billy Pratt had snuck into Room 411.

It was a new day.

A new shift would soon begin in the ICU.

And the hospital staff were about to realize that, although they’d attended to everyone from gang lords to the governor, they’d never experienced anyone like Samantha Josephine Keyes.

Even in a coma, the girl was trouble.

Before it flared up again at Community Hospital, trouble sparked to life at William Rose Junior High School. It began with concern—with Holly and Marissa and their good friend Dot DeVries worrying aloud among other classmates.

It ended with students ditching school.

After all, who cared about mathematics or history or the rules of constructing a multi-paragraph essay? When a life hung in the balance, it was hard to fathom how mastering negative exponents or understanding the framework of an agrarian society or even how to write a general statement of commentary could possibly matter. (It was hard to fathom regardless!)

It didn’t seem important to these students that the life in question belonged to someone most of them didn’t really know. Or someone they’d spent most of seventh grade (and a good stretch of eighth) ridiculing.

Or whispering about.

(Or, at least, tolerating the whispers about.)

It was still … upsetting.

Sammy was one of
them
. And she’d been thrown seven
floors (according to the growing rumors) to her near (and impending) death! It was unreasonable for anyone to expect them to concentrate on schoolwork at a time like this! They needed to support their classmate!

So by midmorning an exodus had begun. And as texts flew and word got around, the vacant seats grew in number until some classrooms were so woefully empty that by lunchtime teachers began questioning the use of being at school themselves.

Now, many of these students (ditchers though they were)
did
go to the hospital. But the reality of being inside even the main lobby of an institution for the injured and infirm freaked them out. Tears welled. Friends hugged. Whispers swirled.

And then they got the heck out of there.

And regrouped at the mall.

In the food court.

Where fries were cheap and Pepsi refills were free.

Marissa, Holly, and Dot were not the first ones to reach the hospital (because Dot had never ditched and it took some real convincing). So the senior volunteers sitting behind the reception desk had already seen a revolving cast of teens and had a good idea what these three girls wanted.

“Here about Samantha Keyes?” one of the volunteers asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” Holly replied.

“Are you actually staying?” the volunteer pressed. “Because if you’re not, save me the name badges, would you? I’m getting tired of throwing them away.”

When you’re a volunteer, you can get away with being
a little snippy (especially to teenagers). But after the girls assured her that they were indeed staying, the volunteer lightened up a little and instructed them to sign in, then issued those valuable badges (which were nothing more than your basic Avery #8395 label with
VISITOR
printed in blue across the top). “The elevator’s down that way,” she said, motioning to her left. “Go up to the fourth floor, follow the signs to ICU. She’s in Room 411.”

For anyone who has not done it before, moving beyond the reception desk of Santa Martina’s Community Hospital is like stepping over a threshold into a different realm. The paint scheme changes from warm, earthen tones to a pale (or—let’s just say it, shall we—
ghastly
) green. The flooring switches from carpeting to a hard, epoxied surface (probably cement), and instead of large, bold murals of local landscapes, Sani-Foam dispensers adorn the walls.

The smell also changes.

As do the sounds.

“It’s so quiet,” Marissa whispered as they waited for the elevator. “And … sterile.”

Holly whispered, “Well, you want a hospital to be sterile, right?”

“Maybe we should have brought something?” Dot said. “Like flowers? Or balloons?”

Marissa gasped. “We should go back and get something!”

But just then the wide steel elevator door opened, and the cool, gaping hole it exposed seemed to suck them forward. Any thoughts of flowers and balloons were abandoned in the hallway.

“Even the elevator’s creepy,” Marissa whispered after Holly had pressed the 4 button.

Holly nodded. “Big enough for a gurney.”

Dot’s eyes darted around. “Do you think Sammy was brought up in here?”

It was a thought that sent shivers down the three girls’ spines, and all three were glad to step out of the giant steel box and into a fourth-floor hallway, where there was (at first) only one direction to go:

Left.

Then (after navigating a maze of corridors and asking directions twice) the girls turned a corner (to the left) and discovered they were not the first ones of their friends to arrive in the ICU waiting room—a quiet area between open corridors and a nurses’ station.

“Billy!” Marissa whispered (as whispering still seemed to be the proper mode of communication). “Is there any news? How long have you been here?”

Billy’s eyes were rimmed in red, and his face looked pale. It was as though all the blood that normally ran through his cheeks had been diverted to his eyes. “No change,” he said bleakly. “Casey’s in with her now.”

A surge of jealousy rushed through Marissa. She tried to stem it, telling herself that she was being ridiculous, but she couldn’t entirely stop it. Casey had only been in the picture for about a year.
She’d
been Sammy’s best friend since the third grade.
She
should have been the friend to see her first.

And then things got worse.

After talking to Billy for a bit (and learning that Lana
and Darren had been there earlier with Rita and Hudson), Marissa noticed two people walking toward them from down the ICU corridor.

Casey was one of them.

Heather was the other.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Marissa cried (and it was not, I assure you, a whisper).

“Down, girl,” Billy warned her.

But Holly was shaking her head in complete solidarity with Marissa. “That is so not right,” she whispered.

“Check your weapons,” Billy said. “This is not about you or Heather or your stupid war. This is about Sammy.”

Which, Marissa knew, was right.

But still.

It was so wrong!

“How is she?” Billy asked when Casey and Heather were upon them.

Casey couldn’t seem to make eye contact with anything but the floor. “The same,” he said, his voice hoarse and tired.

And then, to everyone’s surprise, Heather threw herself into Marissa’s arms and sobbed, “It’s horrible! There are tubes and monitors everywhere, and she’s just
lying
there!”

As Heather sobbed, her globby mascara ran and her foundation smeared, and Marissa’s shirt (which was a lovely pastel yellow) became smudged and splotched and (thanks to Heather’s runny nose) snotty and, well,
disgusting
.

Compounding the undeniable grossness of the hug was the weirdness of it. Marissa tried to remember if she’d ever so much as touched Heather.
Sammy
certainly had (usually
with a fist). But even in softball Marissa couldn’t remember having had any sort of physical contact with the wild redhead.

And certainly not a hug!

Plus, Heather only turned on the spigots in front of males. Friends, teachers, parents … anyone on whom the ol’ tear routine worked.

Which pretty much excluded the female students at William Rose, and it certainly excluded her!

So Marissa was dumbstruck. And (although awkward and gross) the hug threw her enough that before she could shove the snotty redhead off of her with a “What are you
doing
?” Heather sniffed and pulled back on her own. “She looks awful!” she wailed. “Just awful!”

Casey stepped in with a sharp “Heather!” then turned to Marissa. “Sammy looks like she’s sleeping, that’s all.”

“With tubes and wires and bandages everywhere!” Heather cried.

“Quit it!” Casey snapped.

With a huff, Marissa grabbed Holly and Dot and said, “We’re going to go see for ourselves.”

“Better wait a few minutes,” Casey said. “They kicked us out so they could … do stuff.”

“And it’s only two visitors at a time,” Billy called.

Marissa might have pressed on regardless, just to get away from Heather, but a nurse was heading their way. A nurse who was wearing a smock with a colorful pattern of guitars. Blue ones, green ones, yellow ones, red ones … it was a cheerful assemblage of six-strings, and it made for a pleasant pre-introduction.

As did her name badge, which said
FAITH
.

But then came the actual introduction.

Or, rather, request for information.

“Are y’all related to Samantha Keyes?” the nurse asked.

“We’re … friends,” Marissa said.

“But … you can probably verify … the man that was here before … her dad …”

The assemblage of six teens stared at her, not believing (and yet absolutely knowing) what was about to come out of her mouth.

“… is he really
the
Darren Cole?”

For the others, a protective shield of lies (or strategic non-answers) began to form, but Heather (in a strange and ironic twist) told the truth. “Yes, he is.”

It would take less than an hour for it to become clear that it would have been better—much, much better—to lie.

Lana Keyes and Darren Cole had arrived together at Community Hospital shortly after Rita and Hudson had been allowed to enter Sammy’s room (where they had displaced a solemn Billy Pratt, who had convinced a day-shift nurse that a night-shift nurse had taken mercy on his poor pummeled heart and let him stay).

And later, after a nurse (with panting puppies on her smock) had come in to enforce the two-person rule, Rita and Hudson had graciously exited, telling Lana and Darren to meet them down in the hospital cafeteria when they were done.

With Hudson’s reasoned influence over Lana gone, what occurred next was the stuff of which soap operas are made. Demands. Tantrums. Tears. Threats. Cajolery.

Your basic diva-driven drama.

And while Lana whipped the ICU staff into a soapy froth, Darren struggled with the nauseating sense that he’d already been robbed of the first fourteen years of Sammy’s life and couldn’t bear the thought of being robbed of the rest. He’d made peace in his mind (and with Lana) over what had happened, but that was because he had the future
to look forward to. The next fourteen years and beyond, where he would make up for lost time.

But if that time was now gone?

If he’d been robbed twice?

There was no peace to be found in that scenario.

Plus, he was wrestling with the unshakable notion that he was somehow responsible for what had happened to Sammy. He should have been there. He should have taken charge of the living arrangements. He should have done something, anything, to keep her safe.

There was also the powerful urge to get the guy who’d done this. To drag him up three flights and hurl him overboard.

No bushes required.

Or desired.

So inside Darren, anger, regret, revenge, and remorse rang loudly, but like phase-canceling waveforms of emotion, the result was silence.

The silence of disbelief.

And after the doctor (a physician by the name of Dr. Jha) had at last been consulted, the recommended course of action was still the same:

Wait and see.

With this new non-news, Darren corralled his emotions and took to his phone, searching the Internet, contacting friends, finding specialists, pulling every string he could grasp, looking for something, anything, that might help.

Lana, meanwhile, sobbed at Sammy’s bedside, working herself into a positive frenzy of questions and indictments. “Oh, darling,” she gasped, between sobs. “How in
the world could this have happened? Why did you go back to that awful place? Who did this to you?” And then, after another makeup-messing bout with tears, “I just don’t understand why life has to be so horrible and hard and cruel! Samantha, please.
Please
, wake up!”

Overcome with emotion (and a conflicting desire to not become puffy-eyed), Lana sequestered herself in the bathroom, where cool water and a mirror were at her disposal.

Which left Darren alone with his daughter.

“Hey, kiddo,” he said, slipping his hand over Sammy’s.

“It’s your dad. Can you hear me?”

And then he just stood there with a rock (and no roll) in his throat.

He wanted to tell her that everything was going to be okay and that he was on top of tracking down a specialist. He wanted to sound optimistic and assured and strong. Like a dad was supposed to be.

But what he really felt was scared.

More scared than he’d ever been.

So again, he was silent.

And he was just standing there, silently holding her hand, when an orderly swept in. “Oh, sorry,” the orderly murmured, gazing through long black bangs. “I’ll come back.” And before Darren could collect himself to ask questions or encourage him to go about his business, the orderly made a graceful exit, leaving the rocker alone with his fears (and his daughter, of course).

Then Lana came out of the bathroom with her dark glasses on, and after another few minutes of hovering
around Sammy’s bed, she and Darren left the room and were almost immediately replaced by Casey and Heather.