While My Sister Sleeps (11 page)

“But if this girl is in physical danger …”

“That's where I'm torn,” he said. “Being a good guy can backfire. Like with your sister. If she's brain dead, I didn't save her at all. I only prolonged the agony.”

“You had no way of knowing which way it would go. You can't fault yourself for that.”

“Do your parents agree?” he asked and went on before Molly could come up with a diplomatic response. “Sometimes a person is damned either way. Is it better to err on the side of commission or omission?”

Molly didn't know. She was torn herself. She might have driven Robin out for her run and been sitting with drinking water five minutes down the road, waiting, listening to the radio while Robin's brain tissue died.

“The difference,” she said, “is that you tried. Your intentions were good. You acted because you cared.”

“But there's an irony here. I became a teacher to stay out of the fray. My family is in publishing, high-profile, definitely A-list. They get recognition for everything they do, good or bad, so I've seen the underside of the spotlight. The pain isn't worth it. I'm the youngest of their kids and have always been the least visible. I like it that way.”

Molly totally identified. She was the youngest and least visible, too. “Very comfortable.”

“Cheating, anorexia, heart issues—I don't go looking to interfere.”

They were kindred spirits in this, making Molly like him all the more.
He
would understand her reluctance to be the family spokesperson.

But who else could do it? The circumstances were dire. “Keeping a low profile isn't always possible.”

“My dad says that. He equates being proactive with being courageous, and I agree to some extent. That's probably why I confronted my boss about his son.” His eyes drifted toward the parking lot, then suddenly returned. “I'm sorry. I'm going on about me, when you're the one who's in crisis.”

She smiled. “It's nice to think about something else. Besides, there are parallels. Do we act, or don't we? Do we know we did our best, or do we die of regret?”

“Do we die, period?” he remarked somberly. “That haunts me. Look at your sister. Do any of us ever know when something
like this might happen to us?” He snorted. “Pretty selfish thinking.”

“But it's real,” Molly said. “Mortality, I mean.” She guessed he was in his early thirties and figured he was as new to this as she was. “Do you have a will?” she asked bluntly.

He seemed unfazed. “No wife, no family, no need.”

“Robin had no need either.”

“That's what I mean. We don't expect this.”

“But now it's happened,” Molly said, voicing her own concerns, “so we have to
do
things. But how do we find out what a person wants when she can't talk, can't
think?
”

“Did your sister have a living will?”

“Like a do-not-resuscitate order? Not to my knowledge.”

“No health-care proxy?”

Molly shook her head. “I'd criticize her for that, only I don't have them either. Is it arrogance? Complacency?”

“Fear. We don't want to think it can happen to us.”

Well, now she knew it could. She shared that knowledge with this stranger.

“Do you have a name?” she asked on impulse and immediately began to hedge. “You don't have to give it to me. I won't tell my parents.” Especially not her mother. Though Kathryn was no longer hysterical, she still believed that the Good Samaritan had done too little too late. “I was just wondering. For me.”

“It's David,” he said. “David Harris. I have a phone number, too.” He took a card from his pocket, wrote on its back, and gave it to Molly. “That's my cell. Don't feel like you have to call. I'll keep checking here to find out how your sister is doing. But if there's anything I can do, or if you just want to talk …”

Molly didn't know if she would, but it was nice to be asked. Pocketing the card, she rose. “I think you should also tell your
student's father that you're
worried
about her. Omission feels worse here. If you look the other way and something bad happens, you'll always wonder.” At least, that was what Molly felt. She should have been waiting for Robin on that road, rather than watering plants at home.

NEEDING
to redeem herself, she went to Robin's room. “Any change?” she asked.

Kathryn shook her head. “I didn't think you'd be back tonight.”

“I'm not sure I can sleep.”

“You'll sleep.”

Molly might have argued. Funny thing about the term
brain dead.
It jangled the nerves even when you weren't thinking about it.

But she hadn't come to argue. “What can I do, Mom? Tell me. I really want to help.”

Kathryn smiled sadly. “Not much to do right now. She's sleeping calmly.”

“Can I stay here while you get some sleep yourself?”

“No thanks, sweetheart.”

“Are you sure?”

Kathryn nodded. “I am.”

GRATEFUL
at least that Kathryn hadn't yelled at her, Molly took the elevator to the ground floor. The parking lot had thinned out, but she was distracted, and it was dark. When a man straightened from leaning against her car, she jumped a mile.

“Nick! I didn't see you. Why are you sneaking around out here?”

“I'm not sneaking around,” he replied calmly. “I'm waiting for you. You wouldn't tell me much on the phone. What's going on, Molly? And who's that guy you were talking to before?”

“Before?”

“Before you went inside. You were sitting over on that bench by the hospital sign.”

Nick had been here a while. That said something for friendship. But David was a kindred soul, and she felt protective. “He's just someone I've seen around.”

“Around the hospital?”

“Come and go enough, and you see the same faces.”

“He looks familiar. What's his name?”

She felt guilty not trusting Nick. A first name couldn't hurt. “David.”

“David what?”

“I don't know,” she lied. “When you see someone over and over like that, you nod, you smile, you ask about who they're visiting. You don't get personal. There's no point in exchanging last names.”

“Did he ask about Robin?”

“Yes. He's polite.”

“Did you tell him more than you told me?”

She hung her head, then raised it. “Oh Nick, there's nothing to tell.”

“Big understatement. Let's start with, is Robin going to be okay?”

“I don't know. We're waiting for more tests.”

“Did she have a history of heart problems?”

“No,” Molly said before realizing that by confirming a heart
problem, she had fallen into his trap. Annoyed that he was setting them, she added, “Do you?”

“I'm not in the ICU at Dickenson-May. What's the prognosis?”

She needed comfort, not questions—a word of encouragement, maybe something he had gotten from one of his sources that would ease the sense of total loss she felt. But he just stood there, obviously angry that she wouldn't give him the details he wanted.

“I'm really tired,” she said quietly.

“Does that mean it's bad?”

“It means, that today has been a long day.”

“People are asking me, Molly, and I don't know what to say. They're imagining the worst, and I can't deny it. Help me out here, Moll.”

“For the paper?” the devil in her asked.

He was quiet, then impatient. “You have the power to stop unfounded talk. Robin would want that.”

He struck a nerve. “How do you know what Robin would want?” Molly asked sharply. Her mother didn't know. Her father didn't know. Chris didn't know.
She
didn't know. And Nick thought
he
did?

There was a pause, then his gentle, “This isn't like you. What happened to the friend I rely on for straight talk?”

The reality of life and death is weighing on her
, Molly thought but couldn't say aloud.

“This can't be good,” Nick decided in her silence. “Are we talking a massive heart attack?”

She rubbed her forehead, then dropped her hand. “It's pretty serious.”

“Does that mean she won't recover? Is there permanent damage? Can it be fixed?”

The dark might have muted the force of his eyes, but Molly still began to squirm. “Don't interrogate me, Nick. You're putting me on the spot.”

“Because you're hiding how bad it is?”

“Because my mother doesn't trust you. She would be furious if she knew we were talking.”

“I just want to know.”

“So do
we.
But we don't. Not yet. We just don't
know
the bottom line.”

She pulled out her keys, but he didn't give up. “Come on, Moll,” he coaxed. “The doctors must be telling you more. They either give you hope, or they don't. Hey, I work with these guys. I have a list of names to call when I want a quote from an expert. I'd guess some of the ones treating Robin are on my list; but I haven't called,
precisely
out of respect for your mother. But you're not helping. Yeah, I know the first few days are crucial, but there's mild damage and not-so-mild damage. Which is it?”

“
I'm
not helping?” Molly cried, mystified. “Helping who, Nick? What about your supporting
me?
What about your trying to understand what my family is going through right now? This isn't a walk in the park. We've been blindsided, and your questions aren't helping.”

He was oblivious to her point. “Is part of the shock because Robin is who she is? She's made a name for herself doing twenty-six-mile runs. Will she ever run again?”

“I don't
know.
”

“What does she say?”

“
Nothing.
”

For a minute, the only sound was a hum of crickets in the distant wood. Then came a quick-fire, “She's not talking? She's sedated? Unconscious? In a
coma?
”

“She's brain dead!” Molly cried in a burst of despair. Her eyes filled. “Okay? Is that what you want to hear?”

Nick went very still. He didn't speak.

“And now I've betrayed her again.” Horrified, Molly clutched his arm. “Do not put this in the paper, Nick. I
beg
you. I'm very emotional, not a credible source right now. It's been a scary day, and the fact is, they are … doing … tests. We won't have any definitive answers for another twenty-four hours.”

“Brain dead?” he repeated, seeming stunned and so unaware of Molly that her hand was yanked free when he turned. Silently, he walked off.

“Please, Nick?” she called across the dark parking lot, but he didn't answer. Hugging herself, she watched him disappear into his sleek black car. The engine turned over. As he headed toward the street, he drove slowly, and she wondered if he was already on the phone.

She considered going inside and telling her mother about Nick. First, though, she needed to do something good, and for that, she had to go home.

THE
words
brain dead
haunted her all the way home. She didn't understand how Robin could be
brain dead
, which meant that by the time she got home, in addition to being frightened she was bewildered. Brain death was a permanent thing. It would impact all their lives.

The house was dark, but familiar and comfort-filled. And here was another source of angst. The clock was ticking. She had only five more days here.

Unable to deal with that, she turned on a light and went
straight to the phone. Moving was forgotten in the raft of messages from Robin's friends. Molly recognized one name after another on the caller ID. Most were runners, a few were calling from as far as Europe, proof of the closeness of the running community. How had Robin explained it?
You bond when you run. It's like a therapy session. There's no eye contact. Confession becomes safe.

Molly wondered whether, if that was true, Robin had told others about her enlarged heart. More pertinent, Molly wondered whether, in some philosophic moment, Robin might have said what she would want done if she were ever disabled.

But how embarrassing was that, having to ask Robin's friends what her own family didn't know?

Nick hadn't known anything about the enlarged heart. That was something, at least.

Molly needed information, such as what Robin had known and when. How else could she make sense of what had happened?

As she headed for the den, she heard a scrabbling on the wood floor. Glancing down the hall, she saw the wisp of an amber tail disappear into her room.

The cat. She had forgotten. Conscience-stricken, she followed it, but it had hidden again. Talking softly so it would hear at least, she saw to its litter and water. Thinking to keep it company for a few minutes, she sat on the floor with her head on the seat of the armchair and closed her eyes.

When she opened them again, an hour had passed. Startled, she pushed herself up and spotted the cat sitting in the hall, staring at her from the farthest possible point where it could still see her. Suddenly desperate to touch something warm and alive, she crouched down and held out a hand. “Come here, kitty,” she cooed. “It's okay. I won't hurt you.” The cat didn't
budge. Nor did it run away until she crawled toward it on all fours. Then in a flash it was gone.

Desolate, she sat on her heels, thinking first of the cat, then of Robin. She was trying to decide whether to chase the cat or go back to the hospital when her stomach growled. She went to the kitchen. One look around, though, and she felt an old annoyance. Robin was a slob.

Guiltily, she took back the thought. Robin wasn't there to defend herself. This was absolutely not the time for mean thoughts.

But Robin
was
a slob. The kitchen was exactly as she had left it when she had gone for yesterday's run. Used tea bags were on the counter beside dirty mugs. A half-empty energy drink stood beside an open bag of granola, the crumbs of which lay next to the wrappers of three energy bars. Two unopened bars spilled from their box, which Molly had returned
so often
to a cabinet that held another ten such boxes.

Robin was a health nut. Molly didn't miss the irony of that.

Kathryn might have wanted things left as they were. But that was morbid. And Molly was the one who lived here. She always cleaned up after Robin. So she did it now.