Faerie Tale (38 page)

“A heart attack?” said Phil in disbelief.

The doctor looked fatigued. “Not quite. A mild fibrillation. It’s under control, and we’re watching him closely. The boy’s body has undergone a lot of punishment in the last six hours … and sometimes things like this happen. A lot of the body’s regulatory functions get fouled up.”

“But he’s okay?”

“As far as the cardiac part is concerned, I think so. There are some tests down the road we can do to determine if there’s been any permanent damage to the heart muscles. But.…”

“What?” said Phil, feeling a dread certainty something terrible had taken place.

The doctor rose. “Come with me, Mr. Hastings.”

Phil followed the young doctor back into the ICU and saw another doctor and several nurses standing in the hall between the nurses’ station and the beds, watching the displays above Patrick’s head with rapt expressions on their faces.

With a note of fatigue in his voice, Dr. Murphy said, “Mr. Hastings, Patrick’s fever was terribly high and lasted … who knows how long? I’m afraid we may find some pretty serious neurological damage.”

“Neurological?” Phil whispered, as if the word was alien, the meaning unknown.

“Brain damage, Mr. Hastings,” said the doctor, obviously finding the words distasteful.

Phil’s eyes closed as he winced at the words. “How badly damaged?” he asked quietly.

The doctor shook his head. “Normally, I wouldn’t think he’d make it.”

“What do you mean, ‘normally’?”

Dr. Murphy pointed to the array of machines attached to Patrick. The screens were alive with dancing lines, flipping around at a frantic rate. “See those monitors, Mr. Hastings?” Phil nodded. “They tell us what’s going on with Patrick, moment to moment.”

He crossed to one screen next to the bed. “This is an electroencephalograph, an EEG.” His finger pointed to three jagged lines on the screen, moving furiously. “If Patrick were brain-dead, these would be flat.”

“Then he’s all right?” said Phil.

Murphy said, “Mr. Hastings, I’m only a second-year resident. Right now I don’t know my own name. I’ve never seen anything remotely like it—and I doubt our resident neurosurgeon has either. This is as far removed from a normal brain wave pattern as anything I’ve seen in any text on the subject. Right now I can’t even begin to tell you what’s happening with your son.”

“Is Patrick all right?”

Murphy crossed back to Phil’s side, took him by the
arm, and steered him back toward the door to the waiting area. “Mr. Hastings, I don’t have the faintest idea.” He took Phil outside.

Phil sat down and looked at the doctor. “What do we do?”

“First thing tomorrow, I’m going to call in Dr. Wingate, he’s head of service in neurosurgery. He may be able to figure out what’s going on, but beyond that I don’t have a clue.”

Phil sat back. After a minute he closed his eyes. The doctor sat there a long minute at his side. Then a call sounded over the public address, announcing another emergency in E.R. Dr. Murphy stood up. There was nothing more he could do here.

While Phil sat numbly outside, one of the ICU nurses glanced through the glass at Patrick’s bed. For a brief instant she could have sworn she had seen a flicker around the boy, as if some sort of energy had glowed forth, then faded. She chalked it up to the frantic Code Blue and fatigue, and all the weird displays. She glanced over at Patrick’s monitor screens, duplicates of the ones in his room, and shook her head. If anything went wrong, how would she know? The screens were unreadable. She looked at her watch and saw she would be off in two more hours; then it would be someone else’s headache. She returned to filling out her half-hourly reports.

In the bed behind the glass, beneath the white sheet, Patrick’s feet moved, an imperceptible flexing of muscles as if, in a dream, he was dancing in glee, and a tiny smile creased the corners of his mouth for an instant. Then the movement stopped.

Gabbie stood in the doorway, looking down at her father as he sat staring at Sean. Jack had dropped her off at the entrance while he went to hunt up a parking place. She
had arrived a moment before. She looked over her father’s shoulder at the sleeping boy, who moved restlessly. Finally she said, “Dad?”

Phil looked up and Gabbie felt as if her heart were about to break, seeing the pain in his eyes. She hurried to his side and knelt. Gripping his hand, she said, “Dad?”

With a voice made hoarse by emotion he said, “Hi, honey.”

Gabbie’s eyes brimmed with tears, for without his saying anything else, she knew something terrible was happening with Patrick. Gabbie fought grief for a long, silent time, until Jack quietly entered the room.

As if by signal a nurse arrived to inform them there were too many people in the room. Something in her manner triggered Gabbie. Like fury embodied, the girl stood to confront the nurse and snapped, “Where’s the doctor?” She kept her voice low, but her tone was sharp.

The nurse, a veteran of many a tragic scene, was nevertheless caught off balance by the girl’s sudden, angry tone. She backed off a step. “I’ll have Dr. Murphy paged … miss.”

Jack came up behind Gabbie and said, “Patrick?”

Gabbie only nodded her head slightly, and she felt Jack tense as a sad and resigned sigh escaped from his lips. Shortly after, Dr. Murphy appeared. Gabbie spoke softly, but there was no hesitation as she asked, “Doctor, is my brother dead?”

Dr. Murphy glanced past her at Phil, who nodded. The doctor motioned for Gabbie and Jack to join him in the hall. Outside of the room, he said, “No, Miss Hastings, your brother isn’t dead. He suffered a terribly high fever last night, which seems to have done something odd to his higher brain functions. Right now we’ve got him hooked to a battery of monitoring devices, but to be honest, we don’t have a clue to what’s going on with your brother.”

“Is he going to be all right?” Gabbie demanded. The doctor seemed uncertain for a moment. “Miss, we just don’t know yet.”

Gabbie stood as if struck. Then at last she softly said, “When will you know?”

“We’re having Dr. Wingate, our very best neurosurgeon, look at him right now. He’s very sharp. He’ll … level with you and your dad. I noticed that Patrick had been admitted for some cuts a while back and you indicated John Latham was your doctor. He’ll be here shortly and I’ll speak to him first thing. They’ll come talk to your dad.”

Gabbie nodded as she glanced through the door at Phil. He sat staring at Sean’s face, seemingly oblivious to Gabbie’s conversation.

With a sick feeling inside, Gabbie said, “Thank you, Doctor.” She went to her father’s side, leaning over to hug him.

Dr. Murphy watched her and for a moment considered what a stunning young woman she was. Then, putting aside a momentary flash of interest, he considered the presence of the attentive young man. To him he said, “She’s something.”

Jack said, “Well I know, Doctor,” as he left to follow her.

In Sean’s room, Gabbie sat oblivious to the discomfort of the chair arm she perched upon as she hugged her father tightly. Jack came up beside her and put his hand upon her shoulder. No words were spoken. All they could do was wait.

Two floors below, a nurse glanced through the glass partition at Patrick. As she looked away, she caught a glimpse of movement and quickly looked back. The boy lay exactly as he had since she had come on duty, but somehow she had thought, for a moment, that he had moved. Imperceptibly, perhaps, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that he
had
moved. She glanced at the readouts from Patrick’s monitors, but the chaotic displays were still unreadable. Shrugging off the feeling, she muttered to herself, “Too many years to be getting jumpy. I think I need a vacation.”

In an alien land, Patrick struggled to hear a distant voice. His mother’s? Then the voice faded and his atten
tion returned to his surroundings. So strange, he thought. The black trees and the distant stars, the fragrances on the warm wind. Thoughts came like light fighting through a dim and heavy fog; Patrick knew something was wrong, but he didn’t know what, and in an odd detached way, he really didn’t care. He let his mind wander, and soon the voice was forgotten.

Dr. Theodore Wingate examined the printout from the computer with the data from the monitoring station at the ICU. Dr. Latham stood behind the neurosurgeon while he examined the fanfold paper. Dr. Murphy was with Patrick.

Phil sat with the doctors in Wingate’s office. Gabbie and Jack were due to arrive soon to pick up Sean, who was going to be released today. Gloria was home, under sedation, being looked after by Aggie.

Wingate had a rough manner, all grumbles and complaints, but Phil had quickly seen through him: Teddy Wingate was a considerate, kind man, a competent neurosurgeon who put on a constant show of being beset and put upon by everyone he met. But behind the bluster was a warm person who had everyone on a first-name basis within a minute of introduction. He put down the readouts and pushed up the small Ben Franklin glasses that had migrated to the tip of his nose. He had a roundish face and his hair was prematurely white, which set off his ruddy complexion. He seemed to be constantly struggling inside his rumpled suit to find a comfortable position. In a soft voice he said, “Phil, I don’t know what this all means.”

Phil sighed. He found this uncertainty oppressive, and with each passing hour he found himself becoming increasingly impatient. “What do we do?”

“We wait,” said Wingate softly. “Phil, Patrick under
went a severe fever, which damaged his brain in some way.” He glanced at the readouts. “Apparently, higher functions are scrambled. His brain activity is … unique. I can’t even tell you what’s making his heart pump and his lungs breathe. He’s over that cardiac crisis, but why he’s even alive.… Phil, I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about. It may be there was some sort of brain … short circuit that will sort itself out. It may be he’s … gone for good. But I just don’t know. I can’t begin to guess what we’re looking at with these readouts. I’m sorry.”

“What am I to do?” Phil asked in a hoarse whisper.

“What the rest of us are doing: wait,” said John Latham. “You’d better go home, Phil. You need the rest.”

Phil nodded mutely. He knew he’d have to face Gloria. But what could he tell her? Phil had not known her father, who had died two years before Phil met Gloria, but conversations with Gloria and her mother had painted a pretty detailed picture of him, both before and after the cancer had been diagnosed. A powerful, larger-than-life man, one who took pleasure in vigorous pastimes—camping, riding, hunting, sailing, a man who had taken up long-distance running at the age of fifty—that man had been reduced to depending upon strangers to hold his bedpan while he cried in pain, and shame. It was more than Gloria could manage to talk about her father’s death. And Phil knew the thought of Patrick’s being helpless was a terror that far overshadowed death in her view of things. Steeling himself for the painful ordeal, Phil started to rise. “You’re probably right.…” He was going to say good-bye, but suddenly the enormity of this not knowing struck him. He collapsed back into the seat with a wounded cry of pain, an agonized sob from the depth of his broken soul. “Oh my God! He’s just a baby!” Dr. Latham reached out and held Phil’s shoulder, trying vainly to add whatever comfort he could. Suddenly Phil’s crying turned into a tormented question. “What am I going to say to Gloria?”

After a long, painful time, Wingate said, “Go on home, Phil. I’ll call your wife if you like.”

Phil shook his head, looking up with red eyes. He suddenly seemed self-conscious. Dr. Latham took a box of Kleenex from atop the desk and handed it to him. Phil blew his nose. “No, Teddy. Gabbie and Jack are coming.…” He glanced at a wall clock and said, “Shit. They’re probably here by now, waiting outside.” He rose, slightly wobbly.

Dr. Latham motioned him back to the chair. “I’ll get them.”

“No, I’d better be the one.” As he moved toward the door, Phil said, “Thank you, both of you.”

Dr. Wingate said, “Phil, I really wish there was something we could do. Truly I do.”

Phil left and both doctors seemed to let go of something, to sag a little now that the grieving father was gone. Dr. Latham said, “Never gets any easier, does it?”

“No,” Wingate answered quietly. “When I was a resident, we had a brilliant intern rotate through our service. The kid was so damn smart he made me feel stupid—no easy task, as you know. When he had finished rotation, I tried to sell him on joining our service the following year. I remember his answer. He said, ‘Neurosurgery? I didn’t become a doctor so I could watch my patients die.’”

Nodding in understanding, John Latham said, “Truth, Teddy. That’s why I’m happy to be just a G.P. Well, I’ve rounds,” and he moved toward the door. “I’ll see you—”

Suddenly the door opened and Dr. Murphy stuck his head in. “You’d better come quick!”

Both doctors followed Murphy through the hall to the stairs. Even the stout Wingate ran up the stairs to the ICU. Pushing through the doors, they were greeted by a raucous, animal-like shriek. Patrick was sitting up in bed, an evil grin on his face, hooting and yowling. He had torn off his hospital gown and sat in bed, one hand clutching his groin. With the other he was rubbing a dark substance in his hair, while he laughed maniacally. The sensors from the various monitoring devices had been
pulled off and cast aside; now they dangled from the machines.

One of the nurses stood by the door, while another furiously cleaned off the front of her white uniform. Wingate looked to the nurse with the towel and said, “Nancy, what happened?”

With a look close to murder, the young woman said, “I was checking the leads to the machine when he woke up. The screens were impossible to read, so I didn’t have any warning.”

As Wingate went in to examine Patrick, Murphy said, “What’s that all over your uniform?”

The nurse said, “Shit. Can’t you tell from the delightful odor?”

Dr. Latham said, “He did that?”

Fighting to retain some vestige of professional poise, she said, “I felt something grab my right breast and looked down. He was awake and had defecated in the bed. He was rubbing it on my breasts.”