Where We Left Off (20 page)

Chapter 34

They quickly rushed him into surgery.  Sydney fell into the chair behind her, happy but still very afraid.  She was young, but seasoned enough to understand loss and uncertainty.  She’d seen her share of grief and, at the rarest times, miracles.  She wasn’t ready for this, though.  She wasn’t sure which way it would turn. 

The uncertainty she felt not only rested with her, but also with others who had witnessed the event.  One of the nurses who assisted the doctors in reviving Mason stood off to the side, shy of being noticed.  She gradually inched towards Sydney, turning away and towards her again, wanting to say something but not sure how to begin.  Maybe this wasn’t the time or place.  Maybe she should just leave Sydney sobbing in her own solitary sadness, but she couldn’t.  Seeing tears fall from Sydney’s eyes caused her to wipe away her own.  The warmth of her hand lightly grazed Sydney’s shoulder as she lifted her head to see the nurse taking a seat on the edge of the chair beside her. 

Speechless as she sat, the nurse still didn’t know what to say, but she wasn’t going to let that be an excuse for her to stay silent, or appear any more insensitive than she had when Sydney walked up to the registration counter.  “Is there anything I can get for you?” she asked.

Sydney glanced at the nurse and then fixed her eyes back to the carpet between her feet, watching her tears saturate the as pattern they fell.  “No,” she whispered. “I’m fine.  Thank you.”

The nurse nodded and stood up from the chair.  Sydney wanted to ask if he was okay, if he was going to
be
okay, but she had only seen him as long as the nurse had. He had been there one moment and gone the next, and then he was back again.  As badly as Sydney hoped her response would have been,
oh yes, of course he’ll be fine; he had a few minor scrapes and bruises but nothing major,
she knew that was far from being the case.  She also knew he was far from being okay. 

Her eyes were swollen, reddened by the tears that seemed to come and go as they pleased.  “How bad
is
it?”  she asked, hesitantly dragging out her words. 

“It’s pretty bad,” the nurse answered, as honestly as she could. 

She didn’t want to frighten Sydney, but she didn’t want to lie to her either.  Most, if not all, of the patients she had seen in a motorcycle accident that bad never made it out of surgery.  Knowing how critical he was, how much blood he had already lost, she feared he wouldn’t survive either. 

“He has a number of injuries that will require more than one surgery.”

“What about his helmet? Why didn’t they remove his helmet before they brought him in?”

She cleared her throat and dropped her head frantically, searching for the right way to answer.  “They didn’t remove it in the ambulance because they didn’t want to expose his spinal cord to any additional trauma.”

The nurse could see the added fear that had just overshadowed her but Sydney didn’t say anything.  She placed a tight fist to the tip of her nose, trying to hold back an outpouring of tears; even then, some still fell slowly down her cheeks.

“Is he your husband?” the nurse asked

“No, we’re just dating,” she answered, sniffling into a tissue. “Stupid, right?  I’m here bawling my eyes out for my
boyfriend
.”

“It’s not stupid at all.  It’s pretty obvious you two are close.  Whether he’s a boyfriend or husband doesn’t matter, he’s lucky to have you.”

Sydney looked up at the nurse, glancing at her nametag as she held the tissue tightly in her hand. “I need him to be okay.  Meghan,” she said her name, “I need him to be okay.”

“Listen, we have a team of some of the best surgeons-”

“Then that also means you have a team of some of the worst too, doesn’t it?” she lightly joked. 

Meghan gently placed both of her hands to the sides of Sydney’s arms, squatting down in front of her as she stared into the tattered pieces of napkin in the palms of her hands. 

“I know you are scared, and I know you have no idea how this is going to turn out, but all you can do right now all
we
can do right now is stay strong for him and have a little faith that he’ll come through this. 
Okay
?”

Sydney was hesitant, but she understood and ultimately agreed.  “Okay,” she nodded, the corner of her mouth turning to a slight smile.

“You’re as much our patient as he is right now.  So if you need anything, let one of us know.  I’ll check in on you and keep you posted as I find out more.” 

Over the next few hours Meghan kept her promise.  Although most of the updates didn’t change from hour to hour, Sydney found comfort in knowing he was still in surgery.  At the very least that meant he was still alive, still breathing, still fighting. 

Jackson was the first to arrive shortly after she had spoken to the nurse, followed by Reign, a friend of both Jackson and Mason, and then Keri, Jackson’s wife.  Keri wasn’t too happy to see Reign there, especially not before she had arrived, but given the situation they didn’t get into any altercations.  She and Jackson had a few choice words but they were brief and by the end neither one of them said much else to the other.  Their focus was on Mason, or at least Jackson’s was.  Keri spent most of the time on her cell phone or browsing her email, making it obvious that she wasn’t there really for Jackson or Mason, but rather to say she was, there. 

The nurse moved them all into a smaller, more private waiting room just outside of ICU.  There were a few others in the room, but after a while it was just the four of them.  The lights weren’t as bright as the ones downstairs in the main waiting room had been, and the chairs were a lot more comfortable. It was almost as if the doctors knew they would be there a while and were trying to accommodate them.  They watched the clock move second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour. 

The nurse should have been in here by now. 
Sydney grew increasingly worried.  It had been over two hours since she had last heard anything.  Was there something she wasn’t being told –some reason the nurse had stopped coming in all of a sudden?  She promised she’d be checking in from time to time, but it had been far too long without an update of some kind. 
Something is wrong.  Something has to be wrong,
Sydney thought. 

She glanced over to Jackson, whose eyes had been fixed to the window for the last hour watching the rain move along the street like a shallow stream.  He tried hard not to show his emotions, but she could see tears that he couldn’t hold back.  He was just as afraid as she was. 

Moments later the door finally opened.  It wasn’t the nurse, or anyone she recognized.  The man was tall and very thin with specs of grey in his hair and mustache.  Behind his glasses his eyes looked as if he hadn’t slept in days. 

He walked in staring into a blue folder, but closed it before he spoke.  “Mrs. Everett?” he asked, looking to each of the ladies, not knowing who was who.

Sydney stood up cautiously, both out of fear and remembering that she had previously mentioned to the officer on the phone that she was Mason’s wife. 

Keri, on the other hand, looked extremely confused.  “Why is she standing up?” she whispered.

With so few people in the room, her whisper was much louder than she intended.  The doctor, now equally confused, took a small step back looking into his chart again.  “Are you Mrs. Everett?” he asked Sydney.

“No.  I’m not but…”

“Ma’am,” he interrupted, “I’m sorry, but if you’re not family I can’t speak with you,” he insisted.

Jackson immediately stood from his chair. “I’m his brother, Jackson.  How
is
he?” he presumed to ask as if he could direct the outcome of the conversation. 

The doctor closed the folder and took a deep breath before speaking.  His demeanor was unreadable, but enough to be unsettling for everyone around him.  “Mr. Everett, your brother –”

“Mason…his name is Mason,” Jackson insisted.

“I’m sorry, Mason,” he corrected himself.  “Mason suffered a number of serious injuries.  There was massive internal bleeding, along with fractures in his legs.  A few of his ribs punctured one of his lungs. While we were able to stop the bleeding-”

“Sir, I’m sorry.  I get everything you are saying.  I mean, I know the accident was bad, but I need to know right now,
is he okay?”

“He’s not in the best shape, but he’s fighting,” the doctor said adamantly.

Neither Jackson nor Sydney noticed the uncertainty in his tone. 

“Can we see him?” Sydney asked, pushing the tears from her face as she made her way to the door.

The doctor moved in front of her, putting both of his hands out to slow her down.  “Everyone, please!” he got their attention.  “Mason is fighting, but like I said, his injures are
very
severe.”

“What exactly are you saying?” Jackson asked.

“I’m saying you can see him, but right now he may not know you are there.  And I’m not sure if he ever will.”

Chapter 35

We’re not saying he’ll never wake up, we’re just saying you have to be patient. 

Over and over those words replayed her mind, as they had for the past few weeks.  Still in disbelief, and still in denial, Sydney was angry: angry at Mason for buying that stupid motorcycle, angry at the doctors for not doing enough, and angry at herself for somehow feeling like it was all her fault.  If she hadn’t asked him what had happened to him growing up, he would be here sitting next to her, laughing and joking.  He definitely would not be in the hospital lying on a bed,
asleep
. The doctor’s raspy, unapologetic voice lingered in her head like a bad migraine.

Mason suffered a head injury that caused cerebral edema, or severe swelling on his brain.  The surgeon performed an emergency craniotomy.  That’s when we removed a small piece of his skull to release the pressure on his brain.  We’ve placed him under general anesthesia, but….

There’s always a
but
and at the end of the doctor’s was
Mason never woke up. 
They had expected him to come to an hour or so after surgery, but one hour had turned into to two, then three, and then days and weeks.

Lying across Mason’s bed, still a mess from when he had left the night of the accident, nothing was quite the same.  It was cold, it was empty, and it was sad.  Sydney hadn’t been back to work or to visit him in the hospital since the accident.  More than seeing him, she was afraid that if she went back she would be saying goodbye.  That thought, weighing like lead, was unbearable.  That thought kept her from going much of anywhere.

She heard the front door open downstairs, but she didn’t from the bed to see who was coming in.  She hadn’t been in the mood to speak to anyone, let entertain company.  The only other person who had a copy of Mason’s key, aside from the spare he hid beneath a rock by the front door, was Jackson.  The two of them hadn’t spoken since the accident.  In a way, she was avoiding him as much as the thought of seeing Mason.  She just needed time to process everything.

Jackson’s footsteps dragged heavier and fell louder than usual with each step he took up the stairs.  While he kept up his appearance with creased slacks and a heavily starched button up shirt, his eyes, the tightness of his mouth, and the weight of his breathing made it obvious.   He just wasn’t in the same frame of mind as he had been before. 

Until he walked into Mason’s bedroom, he had no idea Sydney was there.  She had parked her car in the garage and, aside from the occasional gusts of air conditioning coming through the vents, there was nothing else on to make a sound. 

“Hey!” he greeted her, as she lay across the bed. 

She glanced up at him with a smile, but said nothing. He walked into the room and straight to the closet to grab one of Mason’s overnight bags. 

“How have you been?”

“Good, I guess,” she muttered unconvincingly. 

“I haven’t seen you at the hospital.”

“…I know,” she responded.  “I just haven’t felt up to it.”

Jackson could hear the dread in her voice and didn’t push the issue.  It was hard enough for him to see Mason the way he was.  He could only imagine how hard it must be for Sydney.  She watched as he flopped the duffle bag onto the bed beside her and began pulling clothes from Mason’s drawers.  It was awkward for a brief moment, but overall she was happy to see a familiar face.

“I
miss him,
” she sadly murmured.

Jackson stood next to her, refolding the shirt he had just thrown into the bag.  “He’s not gone, you know.”

“I know, but…I just can’t see him like that.”

“None of us can, but we do; or I do I can’t speak for anyyone else.” He paused.  “Look, he’s not going to be in a coma forever-”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do.  And I also know that when he wakes up, my ugly face is the last thing he’s going to want to see.”

Sydney sat up from the bed with her fingers interlaced on her lap.  “I doubt that…”

“You doubt what, that he’d want to see you instead of me?  Why?”

“We had a pretty bad argument the night of the accident.”

Jackson shook his head. “It couldn’t have been all that bad,” he assured her.

She grimaced, “It was.”

That made him curious, noticing how taken back and almost ashamed she seemed.  An argument between Sydney and Mason was really none of his business, but she had made him interested.  “What was the argument about?” he asked, trying not to sound to nosey. 

He walked back and forth from the chest of drawers to the duffle bag, sensing her reluctance to go into it. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.  That
was
between you and Mason.”

“No, I don’t mind,” she paused.

Sydney sat up on the bed as Jackson moved about, not really sure if she should tell him even though she said she didn’t mind.  She honestly couldn’t remember if Mason mentioned that he’d told him or not.  They were already dealing with so much with him being in a coma; the last thing she wanted to do was to make things worse.  She wondered, though,
does it really matter at this point? 

“I asked him what happened,” she eased out.

“What happened with what?” Jackson inquired. 

“With your step father.  I asked him what happened.”

The silence that followed was razor sharp.  The air between them grew thick and tense almost as fast as the words traveled from her mouth to Jackson’s ears.  His silence was obviously because he was at a loss for words, in disbelief and shock at what he had just heard.

“Why would you ask him that?” he questioned.

“When I asked him I had no idea about your stepfather.  I just thought something stupid happened to him when he was young that made him react the way he did to my father.”

“Wait,” Jackson shook his head, making sure he had heard her correctly.  “He
told you
about Kevin?”

“I almost wish he hadn’t,” she uttered remorsefully. 

“Unbelievable.”

“What do you mean, ‘unbelievable’?”

“It’s no wonder he was acting the way he was.”  Jackson’s tone grew angry. “He never showed up for work that morning so I figured the two of you were just catching up, but then every time I called his phone it went straight to voicemail.  Mason always answers his phone. But wow, now I understand.” He shook his head. “Why the hell would you ask him about that!?”

“First of all I didn’t ask him about that in particular.  I asked him what happened to him as a general question, and that’s what he told me.  I didn’t expect him to tell me what he did.”

Jackson cut his eye at her with a look of discord.  “Well, what did you expect, for him to tell you his life was a bed of roses?” 

Sydney stood up off the bed feeling highly irritated and alienated.  “I really don’t understand why you’re getting so defensive.”

“Of course you don’t, I really wouldn’t expect you to.”   

“Okay, I guess all of this is my fault.  I guess I let out the big bad family secret, right?”

“No, more like Pandora’s box, Sydney.  Do you have any idea how bad it was for him?”

“Yeah…he told me-”

“NO! He told you bits and pieces.  He didn’t tell you how this
secret
; him not talking about it none of us talking about it kept him from committing suicide when he was sixteen for the second time.” 

“So you all knew about what was happening to him and you just, what, pretended not to know what was going on?”

“No,
we
didn’t know about it.  I didn’t find out until he moved out right after high school.  But my mother…she knew.  She knew for years and never once did anything to stop it.  I don’t know if she was afraid, but I know she wasn’t there for Mason when he needed her.  I wasn’t there.  Our father wasn’t there.  No one was there.  So no, you didn’t let out the family secret,” he said sarcastically “You just reminded him that there was one.”

He shoved the top drawer of the wardrobe closed, knocking a few bottles of cologne onto the floor.

“So you really are saying this is my fault?” Sydney asked, shielding her tears behind a trembling voice.

“I’m saying Mason had his own way of dealing with things and he didn’t need anyone trying to…
help him
.”

“Jackson, I was only—”

“Trying to help…I know,” he cut her off, making his way towards the door.

If she hadn’t felt guilty before, she definitely did now.  Jackson was right.  She thought back on the way Mason exploded walking out of the condo that morning.  The look on his face, the sound of his voice had been angry but more than that he was ashamed, and it was her fault.  Had she not said a word to him had she not tried to be that person who thought talking fixed everything he wouldn’t have left, he wouldn’t have gone to that bar, he wouldn’t have gotten on his motorcycle, and he wouldn’t be in a coma. 
I did this
, she thought,
this is all my fault.

She picked up one of the bottles of cologne that had fallen on the floor, wiping away her tears with the back of her hand, and placed it on top of the wardrobe.  Jackson’s shadow hovered in the doorway.  He was angry but it wasn’t right to throw all of this on Sydney as if she was solely at fault.  He knew her, and she’d been the best thing that ever happened to his brother.  At the end of the day he
knew
all she really wanted to do was help. 

“Sydney…” he eased out, hearing her pull back her tears.  “It’s not your fault.”

“Yeah, but…
it is
.”

“No, it’s not.  You asked him a question and he answered.  Mason trusted you enough to tell you.  I just don’t think he was really ready to remember.”  He turned back into the room, leaning in the door frame.  “Sydney, you know as much as I do that Mason loves you.  What you don’t know is, he’ll never tell you and that’s because the last time he told someone he loved them they hurt him in the worst way possible.  And the last woman who told him she loved him sat back and watched it happen.  He’s never stepped foot in a church since that time because he blames God.  Before you, he never let himself feel much of anything for anyone because he blamed himself.  Mason is a good person but in more ways than you or I will ever know he kept his distance.”

“I could tell.  In the very beginning…I could tell.” she uttered.

Sydney kneeled down to pick up the other bottles of cologne that had fallen on the floor, gathering them in one hand.   The duffle bag was still open on the bed and Jackson was still hovering in the doorway.  She didn’t intend to, but she found herself in Mason’s top drawer taking out a few of his clothes to pack.  Pushing a few undershirts aside, her eyes fixed on a little box wrapped in lilac wrapping paper with a hand tied white bow. 

“Don’t open that,” Jackson said softly walking towards her. 

“What is this?” Sydney asked, barely letting out the words forced by the enormous rush of emotion that filled her.

“Sydney …that’s not a good idea,”  he began.

Before he could finish she undid the bow that was neatly centered around the box and tore into the wrapping paper.  She didn’t slow down to open the box, but once it was open she was at a loss for words.

“What is this?” she tearfully looked at Jackson as she turned the box towards him.

“It’s a ring, Sydney,” he nervously admitted.

As she held the box, Jackson’s words faded into the background.  Her eyes fell upon a two carat princess cut diamond set in a slim platinum band.

She looked up at him just over the rim of the open box.  “But why …does he have …a ring?” she asked.

Jackson knew he couldn’t avoid telling her.  There was no explanation why Mason would have a brand new diamond ring nestled in the bottom of his drawer.

“He was going to ask you to marry him.”