Saving Jessica (13 page)

Jeremy had to hand it to his father. The man certainly had clout and knew how to use it. He and Marilyn had rushed right over when Jeremy called, and after Jeremy’s brief reunion with his tearful mother, he watched his father go to work.

Frank called prominent people, barking orders and threats into the phone. By nine o’clock the police had put out an all points bulletin on Jessica’s car. “If any officer spots it, we’ll know,” said the detective who’d come to Jessica’s house.

“What if she’s been carjacked?” Her mother was nearly hysterical.

“We’ll find her,” the detective said.

Jeremy’s mother tried to comfort Jessica’s.

Earlier, while they’d waited, he’d told Don and Ruth about having his parents’ consent to donate his kidney. The news fell flat. How could he donate an organ to a girl who was missing? One who could be in serious trouble?

    The country road had turned into a trail of rutted red clay and weeds. “Don’t panic,” Jessica told herself, forcing down waves of fear.
All she had to do was turn around and go back the way she’d come. She’d return to the highway; surely by now the traffic would have cleared. She backed the car over the rough, hard Virginia ground and felt a rear tire sag. The sun was dipping low—soon it would be dark.

Her mouth felt dry as cotton. If only she had a sip of water. Medications! With a start, she realized she hadn’t taken her evening medicines. At least she had a pill bottle in her purse with a dose of the most vital prescriptions. She looked for a place to stop that was friendlier than the rutted road. It was terribly hot since now the air-conditioning seemed to be blowing hot air and wasn’t working properly. She saw a large tree in the middle of a field; it looked cool and inviting. Maybe if I rest awhile, I’ll feel better, she told herself. Carefully she drove toward the tree, hearing the thump, thump of the tire.

Beneath the tree’s branches, the air was cooler. Her shoes pinched, and she knew her feet were swollen. Still she got out and limped around to the back of the car and saw that her right rear tire was flat. She didn’t have either
the strength or expertise to change the tire. She fought down panic. Someone would find her. Sooner or later, she’d be found.

She returned to the car, where she fumbled in her purse until she found the pill bottle. Her mouth was so dry she couldn’t swallow, so she said to herself, “I’ll take a little nap.” Things would look better after some sleep.

    Jeremy’s father called the local media at ten o’clock, hoping to get a story about Jessica on the late news. Jeremy drove to several local stations with photos of Jessica and a brief description of her medical condition.

A reporter from The Washington Post came to the house and did an interview with Jessica’s parents, telling them he’d have the story on the front page of the morning edition. He asked, “Was your daughter depressed? I mean, about her condition and all?”

“She was coping,” Don McMillan said.

“She wouldn’t have simply run off, would she?”

“No!” He sounded angry. “She knows she can’t survive without dialysis. Besides, we’ve
just learned that she is to receive a kidney transplant. It’s what she’s been waiting for.”

Jeremy was thankful that Don hadn’t looked toward him. At this point he didn’t want the press to know he was to be Jessica’s donor. He didn’t want to answer a hundred questions. Didn’t want them to know about the lawsuit. It might only add fuel to their speculation on her running away.

At eleven the local news channels ran the story about Jessica along with her photo. At midnight the detective who had remained with them at the house suggested they all go to bed and promised he’d keep them apprised of any new information.

Of course, no one went to bed. Jeremy waited by the phone with both sets of parents, drinking coffee and willing the phone to ring. But it didn’t—not once during the long and arduous night.

    Jessica awoke with a start. She’d fallen asleep across the seat of the car. The lights on the dashboard had gone out. With a sickening sensation, she realized that she hadn’t turned off
the key, and the interior lights and radio had run down the battery. Her heart thudded wildly.

She tried to start the engine, but it made a grinding sound and she knew the battery was dead. A flat tire and a dead battery. Not good, she thought. She imagined her parents worrying about her. And Jeremy. She’d give anything to see his face, have him hug her. She wondered how his meeting with his father had gone. She hoped she got out of this mess in time to find out.

Outside, the moon drifted from behind the clouds, and in its weak light she squinted at the face of her watch: 3:00 a.m. By now, she hoped, people were out looking for her. The night air was humid, and the dampness made her feel chilled. She mumbled a prayer, curled up in a ball and fell into a fitful sleep.

    Jessica’s picture and story were all over the morning news shows and papers. A headline read: missing girl needs dialysis. Jeremy rubbed his eyes, bloodshot from lack of sleep, and read every word. The phone at Jessica’s house started ringing as concerned friends and neighbors
called. The detective cut the callers short, telling them the line had to be kept open for important police calls, and just in case Jessica called home herself.

Jessica’s mother had been given tranquilizers, so she slept. When Jessica’s father felt heart palpitations, his doctor insisted on bed rest or immediate hospitalization. Don McMillan chose to remain in bed. Jeremy’s parents became responsible for cooking, fending off reporters, doing whatever needed to be done. He himself was torn between going to look for her and staying close to the phone in case she was found. One call that got through in the late afternoon was from Dr. Witherspoon. “This isn’t good,” the doctor told Jeremy. “She probably doesn’t have her medications with her.”

Jeremy could confirm that. The bottles stood upstairs on her dresser. He told the doctor that his parents had relented and that when Jessica was found, he could donate his kidney to her.

“Let’s just hope she’s found in time,” Dr. Witherspoon said grimly. “She needs to be stable for the surgery. And you’ll need to be prepped for it too.”

In a trembling voice, Jeremy asked, “How long can she go without dialysis?”

“Maybe a week,” Dr. Witherspoon said. It had already been over twenty-four hours since she’d left the dialysis unit. “We’ve got to find her soon.”

J
essica woke when the sun slanted into her eyes. She felt hot and sticky all over. She groaned as she tried to sit upright. For a few dazed moments, she attempted to figure out where she was; then, in a jumble of memories, it came back to her. She was stranded in a field out in the middle of nowhere.

She thought about walking up the road, but quickly realized she hadn’t the strength. What day is it? Her head was in a fog and her skin itched like crazy. She needed dialysis. She was panting, and it hurt to breathe deeply. “Jeremy,” she called weakly.

Why didn’t he come for her? Why was he
staying away? “I need you, Jeremy. I need you.”

    “It’s been four days,” Jeremy wailed to the detective. “Four days! You should have found her by now.”

“You’re assuming she wants to be found,” the man countered.

“Of course she wants to be found. What kind of idea is that? She’s somewhere suffering from uremia. She can’t get to a phone. She’s probably hurt. Her doctor says she may be in a coma someplace.”

The detective put a hand on Jeremy’s shoulder. “I don’t need you to freak out on me, son. Stay calm. Every clue, every lead is being followed up. It takes time.”

“She doesn’t have any time.” Jeremy felt desperate, crazy with worry. Jessica’s time was running out.

    In her dreams, she drifted in a sea of lapping water. If she came too close to the surface, she hurt. It was as if her body were on fire. Thirsty. So thirsty. All she had to do was turn her head
and lap the cool water, but when she tried, the water receded and the pain was excruciating.

She was hot. She was cold. She thought another day and night passed, but she wasn’t sure. She wondered if she was dying. Poor Jessica, she heard imaginary voices say. Poor, poor Jessica. She drowned on the way to the beach in a field of grass in a car that would not start.

    “It’s the first break we’ve had,” the detective told them with a tremor of excitement.

The news about Jessica had become a national story. Calls came in from all over about supposed sightings of her car. Jeremy’s father said, “We’ve heard from people as far away as California. How do you know this one is the real thing?”

Jeremy listened with mounting excitement as the detective said, “A woman called who’d been stranded on U.S. Seventeen by that overturned tanker truck five days ago. She remembered a girl who looked like Jessica standing on the shoulder of the road near her. She described the clothes Jessica was wearing exactly, and we haven’t released all those details to the press.”

“U.S. Seventeen,” Jessica’s mother said, confused. “What was she doing out that way?”

“No idea,” the detective said. “But at least we can concentrate our search in that area.”

Jeremy called Dr. Witherspoon with the news. “The minute they find her, you call the hospital,” the doctor said. “We’ll send the Life Force Helicopter for her. And you get here fast too. We’ll do the transplant just as soon as she’s stable.”

For the first time in days, Jeremy dared to hope they might find Jessica in time.

She heard a dog barking. The sound came from far, far away. She wanted the animal to hush. Didn’t it know she was trying to sleep? A gray fog shrouded her now, beckoning her ever deeper into its depths. She wanted to slip inside its soft gray arms and find peace, but something kept her from going.

She vaguely heard a pounding sound. And a voice. “Wake up, girlie! Unlock the door. Wake up.”

She couldn’t move.

She heard a noise—glass cracking? She felt the wet, cold nose of a dog and a man’s hands
lifting her. And a voice saying, “I got you, girlie. Don’t you worry. Old Luther’s got you.”

    “An old man going fishing found her in a field. Her car had a flat tire and a dead battery.” The detective relayed the information to Jeremy and both sets of parents. “An ambulance is taking her to the nearest hospital—it’s just a small community facility. I’ll dispatch the helicopter from here.”

“How is she?” Jessica’s mother’s voice trembled.

Jeremy held his breath, waiting for the answer.

“She’s alive. But not by much.”

    Jeremy gazed at Jessica through the window of the intensive care unit, hardly recognizing her. Tubes and wires seemed to be growing out of her body. She was swollen with water weight, and her skin had a ghastly greenish tinge.

“Are you all right, son?”

He turned to see his father, who’d come up beside him. “I’m all right. Dad,” he said pensively,
“nobody should have to die of kidney failure. It’s a terrible way to die.”

“I never had an appreciation of dialysis the way I do now. Seeing her like this …” Frank didn’t complete his thought.

“And nobody should have to live their life hooked to a machine if they can get a transplant. That’s why I know I’m doing the right thing by giving her my kidney.”

“I’m still afraid for you.”

“I’m going to be fine.”

“Dr. Witherspoon says the incision on your back to remove your kidney will be about fifteen inches.” He held out his hands to demonstrate the length for Jeremy. “You’ll have a scar there all your life.”

“Jessica will have one too,” Jeremy countered.

“Your recovery won’t be easy.”

“Hers will take longer.”

“Nothing I can say will dissuade you, will it?”

“Nothing.”

His father sighed. “I didn’t think so. You’ve already missed the start of school, you know.”

“It won’t be a problem.” He’d already decided
to finish his senior year. The schoolwork was easy for him. It would give him more time to be with Jessica while she recovered and adjusted to her new kidney and antirejection medications.

“I’ll be glad when this is all behind us,” his father commented.

“Me too.”

“Just for the record”—his father gripped his shoulder—”I’m proud to call you my son.”

His father left, and Jeremy turned to gaze once again at Jessica as she slept. He pressed his forehead against the glass partition and said a prayer of thanks to God for sparing her. Then, for the first time since the ordeal had begun, Jeremy allowed himself to cry.

    After she left intensive care for a private room, Jessica learned that she’d become a minicelebrity. “You mean I was on national news?”

“Yes,” her mother said. “The mail still hasn’t stopped coming.”

“And your room looks like a florist shop,” her father added.

Jessica felt embarrassed.

“We saved all the newspaper clippings for you to read,” Jeremy added.

“I would have rather become famous some other way,” she admitted. “It was so weird when I was stuck out in that field. I wanted to do something to help myself, but I couldn’t. My brain felt fogged in.”

“It’s just as well,” her father said. “The police said the smartest thing you did was to stay with the car. If you’d tried to walk away and collapsed—”

“Well, it’s over.” She interrupted him. “And now the real work begins.” She looked up at Jeremy. “Dr. Witherspoon told me the transplant is set for day after tomorrow. You sure you don’t want to change your mind?”

“What? And miss my chance to make the national news?” he kidded. “Maybe they’ll want to make a TV minimovie about us.”

She rolled her eyes.

“They could get a hot young star to play me. And who could they pick to play you?” he mused.

“Willy the Whale?”

He chuckled, then sobered. “No matter how this turns out, Jessie, I don’t have any regrets.”

Two days later their beds stood side by side in the preop room as they waited for the transplant teams to assemble. Jeremy would be in one operating room and Jessica in another. One team of surgeons would snip out his healthy kidney and sew him up, and the other team would place the organ in Jessica’s body. The whole procedure would take four to five hours.