His Frozen Heart (9 page)

He released my chin, and I burrowed
back into his embrace. I stood there clinging to him, unable to let
go or to say anything. I was grateful, but more than that, I
wondered what kind of Karma I had to get this guy for a boss. He
knew this hadn’t been a normal robbery: this was someone Libby and
I had pissed off. His store was shot up, three of his security
cameras were toast, yet he wanted to give me a paid week off. It
didn’t add up.

Not wanting to take advantage of his
generosity, I told him, “I don’t need a week off. I’m sure I’ll be
okay by tomorrow.”

He stepped back from me, distancing
himself by several feet. His pained smile focused on my still
wrapped-up hand. “Then treat it like a well-deserved
vacation.”

I didn’t know how “well-deserved” he
would believe it to be if Maria called him in a few hours to tell
him, on top of everything else, I had been thirty minutes late to
work. He guided me forward through a second set of double-doors. A
hospital information desk greeted us as we stepped out of the
skywalk. An older gentleman in a security guard uniform was posted
behind the desk. He didn’t seem at all surprised to see us. Maybe
there were security cameras discreetly placed in the skywalk.
Instead of telling him we were looking for my roommate, I held up
my hand with the bloodied t-shirt wrapped around it. He gave me an
understanding smile and pointed to the left, “Emergency is down the
steps on the first floor.”

Mr. Sanders waited with me for over an
hour. He filled out the mountain of forms saying it would be a
workman’s comp. claim, so thankfully I wouldn’t have to put the
hospital on the payment plan. When the nurse finally called me back
to meet with the doctor, I told him, “You don’t have to wait for
me. I can catch a cab back to pick up my car when they’re
done.”

He looked at his watch. It was now
well after 3 AM. He started to answer when a lion-sized yawn
escaped him. I cut him off. “Mr. Sanders, honestly, thank you.
There’s no reason for you to stay. Once I see the doctor, I want to
go upstairs to check on Libby. You should get some
sleep.”

He looked like he was going to
protest, but instead he stood up and kissed my forehead. “If you
need anything, anything at all, call me.”

The doctor examined my hand and came
to the same conclusion I had – it wasn’t much more than a gnarly
scratch. He glued it shut and had a nurse wrap it. After reviewing
the information Mr. Sanders had written on my admission paperwork,
the doctor wrote a prescription for anxiety. I insisted I didn’t
need it, but he told me at least I would have it if I began to feel
overwhelmed. I shoved the slip of paper in my back
pocket.

As I was signing out of the emergency
room, I asked the nurse behind the desk, “My roommate, Libby
Merrick, was brought in a couple hours ago. Do you know if she’s
still here?”

Her fingers whizzed on the keyboard,
then she turned to me, her eyes grave. “She’s in the intensive care
unit on eight.” I turned toward the elevators as her voice warned
me, “You won’t be able to see her. Visitors are restricted to
family only.”

I wanted to glare at the nurse and
tell her I was family, but instead thanked her for her help and
stood by the elevator anyway. When the elevator deposited me on the
eighth floor, there was a large waiting area, with several lounge
chairs and sofas. As I made my way to the nurse at the ICU desk, a
voice behind me stopped me short. “Candy?”

I turned to see Libby’s ex-boyfriend,
Loser Larry, sitting alone by an enormous window. What she ever saw
in him was beyond me. The guy made my skin crawl. He worked as a
salesman at the Ford dealership, so he always drove nice cars, but
Libby had never been one to embrace material things. He had the
personality of a well-trained terrier: lots of energy, always
happy, not that bright. “Hi, Larry. How’s she doing?”

His eyes were bloodshot and glossy.
“The doctor just came out. He won’t tell me anything, but I
overheard him telling a detective that she was awake when she
arrived. They gave her a blood transfusion. Her brain was swollen,
so he gave her some drugs to keep her sleeping until the swelling
goes down.”

“
They induced a
coma?”

“
Yeah, he said it would be
a day or two. Any idea what happened?”

Larry had never been a friend. Truth
be told, I had never kept it a secret how little I admired him. For
some strange reason, Libby liked him. He was twenty-five and could
be pompous, but most men I knew had a touch of arrogance every now
and again. At first I thought she felt sorry for him because he had
the intellect of a stop sign, but after a while I figured out she
gravitated toward him because he was always upbeat. She hadn’t had
an ideal life, and I think she enjoyed being around someone who was
happy for no good reason.

I hardly knew where to begin. I
motioned for Larry to take a seat while I took the one next to him.
I remembered every detail of our trip to the bar as they all came
crashing in on me. “We were out of food.” The rest of the words
poured out of me, and I didn’t stop until I told him what had
happened at the gas station and about the police finding Libby at
the house.

He didn’t interrupt once. It was much
different than answering the barrage of questions from the police
at the gas station. I didn’t understand why, but telling him what
had happened somehow calmed me. When I was done, Larry asked, “This
Dave guy you went to high school with, do you think he’s
involved?”

I shrugged my shoulders. I didn’t
think so, but after the last several hours, I wasn’t prepared to
rule anything out. Larry’s knuckles were balled into white fists.
His angry accusation took me by surprise, “Why would you let her
shark like that? I thought you two only did that when you had
back-up with you. She swore to me she would never go
alone.”

This was the first time I had ever
seen Larry angry. I didn’t have an answer; this had been a last
minute decision. He was right; normally if Libby knew she would be
playing at a bar, she would call and ask a few friends to come
along. We had never had any real trouble, but there was strength in
numbers, and we had gone in alone last night. He interrupted my
internal argument when he said, “You could have called
me.”

No. Libby could have called him, but
she wouldn’t have. She told me he took their break-up really hard,
and I think if she had been going to play in the ghettos of Los
Angeles tonight, she still wouldn’t have called him. Which led me
to the question, “How did you know she was hurt?”

“
I programmed my phone
number into her cell as ICE when we were together. She must have
never changed it.”

“
ICE?”

“
First responders are
trained to look for an ‘In Case of Emergency’ contact in cell
phones.”

“
What about her
dad?”

“
I tried calling him. The
only number I had has been disconnected.” Libby’s dad never stayed
in one spot for long. From a very young age, she had essentially
been taking care of herself. Libby used to pick on me when we were
young about how I never knew how to do anything. I could load the
dishwasher, but had never washed dishes by hand. I put my clothes
in the laundry basket, but didn’t have a clue how to sort them into
colors or work the washing machine. When we were girls, she always
seemed so much older than I was.

When she moved in with me, after my
parents moved to New Mexico, I needed her. I had been able to boil
water, but Libby could make a meal out of almost nothing. She once
made some casserole thing out of just rice, tuna fish, and Italian
dressing. Reality punched me hard in the stomach: for all of her
flaws – I still needed her.

Larry interrupted my thoughts, “Do you
know where he’s staying?”

I shook my head, biting back the tears
that wanted to form. He looked intently, “Where’s he working
now?”

I shook my head again. Libby rarely
talked about her father. From time to time we would see his truck
in the parking lot of a bar, but if Libby caught a glimpse of it,
she’d always tell me to go somewhere else. I had never met her mom.
She told me once that her mom had Libby when she was sixteen and
wanted to give Libby up for adoption. Her dad wouldn’t sign the
papers, so her mom signed over full custody to him. She told me she
had seen her mom a few times, but never elaborated on anything
about her.

The ache inside me grew. I was her
family. I was all she had in the world, plus I had a hand in why
she was here tonight. She had just gotten paid, but she had blown
her paycheck and there wasn’t even a package of Ramen Noodles in
the house – I guilted her into the bar. If I hadn’t been such a
baby about there being no food at the house, she never would have
gone to the bar tonight. We could have had a quiet Tuesday in front
of the television. If something happened to her, and the last few
hours I spent with her were really our last few hours together, I
would never forgive myself.

Larry must have seen I was about to
implode because he reached over and pulled my head to his chest. It
was awkward, because despite me unloading everything that had
happened tonight on him, we weren’t close. My body was stiff up
against his. Rather than acknowledging the awkward feeling, I
asked, “Have you seen her?”

He shook his head, “No. Family
only.”

I stood up on instinct. I was her
family. I went to the nurse positioned in front of the doors that
led into the ICU, “I’m Libby Merrick’s sister. May I see
her?”

In a sorrowful tone she answered,
“Visiting hours aren’t until 8 AM.”

“
I just want to see her.
Just for a minute. Please.”

The nurse wore scrubs with Scooby Doo
all over them. She was older with graying hair, and eyes that
understood I wasn’t going to take “no” for an answer. Compassion
came through in her words when she replied, “Let me get the doctor,
so he can give you an update on her condition.” She spoke quietly
into a phone; the only thing she said that registered was the word
“sister.”

Within minutes a handsome doctor came
through the doors guarded by the nurse in the Scooby Doo scrubs. He
motioned for me to take a seat as he took one in between Larry and
me. “Your sister underwent significant trauma to her head and lost
a great deal of blood. She had some defensive wounds on her hands
and arms as well, but those are less troubling. We gave her a blood
transfusion. The injury which is most concerning is that her brain
had swelled, so we needed to put a hole in her skull to allow for
the fluid to drain. She is responding well to the treatment, but we
need to give her time to heal safely.”

Still holding it together, my voice
barely audible, I asked, “Can I see her?”

The doctor’s hand took mine, lying
loose on my lap. His answer was tender, “She doesn’t look like your
sister right now because of the swelling and bruises. I can assure
you, she is getting the best care we can offer.”

My voice broke as a single tear
escaped down my cheek, “Just for a second. Please.”

He nodded sympathetically. “For right
now, I don’t want you in her room. I’ll take you to where her room
is, so you can see her through the glass.”

I turned around to see Larry looking
hopefully. As little as I liked him, I knew he loved her, too.
“Would it be okay if her boyfriend came, too?” There was no need to
qualify him as her ex-boyfriend, just like there was no reason to
tell the doctor that I wasn’t her sister by blood. He agreed and
led us both to an enormous glass wall looking in on
Libby.

The doctor bowed his head, “I’ll give
you two a second.” He went two windows away from us, scribbling
notes with his finger on an electronic tablet outside another
patient’s door.

The doctor had been right – Libby was
unrecognizable. Her face was bruised and swollen, hair above her
left ear had been shaved, and a tube ran directly into her skull as
her body lay still just feet away from the window. Machines set on
the far side of her with their displays recording her pulse,
temperature, breathing, and I didn’t know what else.

Neither of us spoke. Larry and I stood
in the dimly lit hallway, transfixed on the dark room and the girl
who meant so much to each of us. She had to be okay. Too much of my
heart was wrapped up with her. If she died, Libby would take that
piece of my heart with her, and it would be lost forever. The
doctor hadn’t mentioned brain damage, but if she lived, would she
be the same Libby?

Guilt washed over me: I had to have
been in the house when this happened. How could I have slept
through such brutality? How had I heard nothing? My house was old;
I was upstairs and she downstairs. The assailant may not have known
I was even there – or maybe he hadn’t taken his turn with me yet.
The man had to have been in the house when I left for work. An ache
welled up from deep inside when it hit me that I had slept through
the beating and didn’t even notice the perpetrator hiding in the
shadows of my own home. If I had just checked on her before I ran
out the door, maybe I could have done something. Maybe she wouldn’t
be lying in front of me with an oxygen mask on her face.

Larry’s arm, wrapped around my side,
squeezed me gently, “We should go.”