The Cottage (31 page)

Alex stood silently next to him, and with gentle fingers, touched his naked shoulder. There were monitors taped to it, and wires linked to machines. He had IVs in both arms, and they'd had to give him a transfusion to compensate for internal bleeding. As injuries went, he was in the big leagues.

“Hi, kiddo,” she said quietly as one of the nurses walked away and left her with him. They knew she was as capable as they were of keeping an eye on the monitors, and all the data appeared on screens in two other locations. “What the hell are you doing here? I think you'd better wake up now….” Tears stung her eyes as she talked to him. She saw tragedies as great as this every day in her work, but this was different. He was her friend, and she didn't want him to die now. “I know you miss Maggie, Jimmy… but we all love you too… there's a life for you here Jason is going to be wrecked if something happens to you You've got to come back now, Jimmy … you just have to “There were tears sliding down her cheeks as she spoke to him, and she stayed there with him for half an hour, talking firmly but gently to him. And in the end, she kissed his cheek, touched his arm again, and went back to the others in the waiting room.

“How is he?” Mark still looked panicked, and Taryn was exhausted. She had her head back against a chair with her eyes closed. And she opened them and sat up as soon as she heard Alex.

“About the same. Maybe it'll help when he hears his mother.”

“Do you really think that'll make a difference?” Taryn looked startled. She had heard that before, but never really believed it.

“I don't know,” Alex said honestly. “I've heard people say that they heard people talking to them when they were in comas, and no one thought they could. People have been brought back from the brink of death by stranger things. Medicine is as much an art as a science. I'd be burning chicken feathers and killing goats upstairs if I thought it would help one of my babies. And talking to him can't hurt anything.”

“Maybe we all should,” Mark said, looking anxious. He was dreading seeing Jimmy's mother. And Alex had increased his level of concern. He had no idea how old she was, and if she was very old and frail, this might be too much for her. “Can we see him?” They had seen him once, for a fraction of a minute, from the doorway, but things seemed less frantic around him now. Alex went to ask, and then beckoned to them. But she was more inured to medical scenes than they were. Taryn only lasted a minute or two, and then she left, with tears running down her cheeks. And Mark staunchly stood beside his friend, and talked to him, as Alex had suggested. But after a few minutes, he was so choked up, he had to stop talking. Jimmy's color wasn't good, and although he wasn't in extremis yet, he looked as though he were dying. It was a distinct possibility, Alex knew, and even Mark could see it.

The three of them sat in the waiting room after-wards,
and cried over their friend. It had been an abysmal morning, and they were all frightened and tired.

Alex went back upstairs after that, but before she left, Mark asked her if Coop was coming.

“I don't think so,” she said quietly. “He has an appointment this morning.” She didn't have the heart to tell them it was with his trainer. She knew it was an excuse Coop had used, and sensed correctly that he was afraid to come. This just wasn't his strong suit.

Alex called trauma and checked on him hourly. And at twelve-thirty, Mark paged her and told her Mrs. O'Connor was there. She had gone straight in to Jimmy the minute she arrived.

“How is she?” she asked with deep concern for the woman she'd never met. Alex knew it was going to break his mother's heart to see him.

“She's a mess. But who isn't?” Mark sounded like he'd been crying. He had been since early that morning, and Alex found it touching, as did Taryn. She hardly knew Jimmy and she was devastated too. It was such a tragedy, but at least if he died, he wouldn't be leaving orphaned children. It was something at least, and very small consolation.

“I'll come down in a few minutes,” Alex promised, but it was almost two when she could get away. Someone had finally coded. She apologized for the delay when she got there. “Where's his mom?”

“She's still in there with him, she's been in for almost an hour.” They couldn't figure out if it was a good sign or a bad one. But Alex didn't blame her.
Even at thirty-three, he was her baby. It was no different from the moms who sat looking agonized on her service, except she knew him better and had had more time to love him, and more to lose if he died. Alex knew how heartbroken she must be.

“I don't want to intrude,” Alex said cautiously, but the other two convinced her to take a look, so she went in, but promised herself she wouldn't introduce herself if it looked too awkward. And what she saw surprised her. There was no old lady in sight, but a very attractive, petite, youthful-looking woman in her early fifties. She looked even less than that, with her dark hair tied in a ponytail, and no makeup. She had traveled from Boston in jeans and a black turtleneck sweater, and she was a prettier, female version of Jimmy, except that her figure was slim and not athletic, and her eyes were huge and blue, instead of dark brown like Jimmy's. But her features were reminiscent of her son's.

She was standing quietly near his head and talking softly to him, just as Alex had that morning. And she glanced up when she saw Alex. She assumed Alex was either a nurse or one of his doctors. They all wore the same scrubs and carried the same equipment.

“Is something wrong?” She glanced up at the monitors with a look of panic, and then back at Alex.

“No, I'm sorry…. I'm a friend of Jimmy's… I work here. This is an unofficial visit.” Valerie O'Connor looked sadly at her, and the two women's eyes held for a long moment, and then she went back to talking to Jimmy.

When she looked up again, Alex was still there, and
Valerie said, “Thank you.” Alex left her then and went back to the others. She was grateful at least that his mother was young enough to withstand the shock. She didn't even look old enough to have a son the age of Jimmy. She had had him at twenty and was fifty-three years old, and on a good day she looked ten years younger.

“She looks like a nice woman,” Alex said as she sat down beside them, feeling drained. It was much harder dealing with friends than patients.

“Jimmy's crazy about her,” Mark said blankly.

“Have you two eaten?” Alex asked, and they both shook their heads. “You should go down to the cafeteria and get something.”

“I can't eat,” Taryn said, looking sick.

“Me neither,” Mark added. He had taken the day off from work, and hadn't left the waiting room in the nine hours they'd been there.

“Is Coop coming?” Mark asked again. He was surprised that he hadn't come, and thought he should be there.

“I don't know. I have to call him,” Alex said. She was getting off duty in three and a half hours, and she was thinking about hanging around after she got off work, to see how Jimmy was doing. Mark would have to go home to his kids by then, and Taryn needed to get some rest, she looked exhausted. But she'd been a real trouper.

Alex called Coop when she went back upstairs, he had just come up from a nap at the pool and sounded in good spirits.

“How's it going, Dr. Kildare?” he teased her, which
struck her as inappropriate. She realized then that he didn't understand how serious Jimmy's situation was. So she explained it to him in greater detail. “I know, baby, I know,” he said gently. “But I can't do anything about it, so I might as well not get depressed about it. The three of you seem to be upset enough. There's nothing I can add to that. My getting hysterical with you won't help him.” He was right but nonetheless it annoyed her when he said that. He seemed to take it all in stride, and she thought he should be there with him, whether he hated hospitals or not. A man that they knew might be dying at any moment, and even with her medical background, she couldn't just ignore it. Maybe life and death were less impressive at his age, or more frightening. Maybe once people you knew died, it no longer seemed so ominous. But his attitude of avoidance seemed shocking to Alex. “Besides, I hate hospitals, except when I come to see you. But all that medical stuff gives me the heebie-jeebies. It's so unpleasant.” So is life sometimes, Alex couldn't help thinking. She thought too how much “unpleasantness” Jimmy had had to deal with when Maggie died. He had told her that he had nursed her himself until her last breath, and refused to have a nurse or hospice to help him. He felt he owed it to her, and wanted to do it. But people were different. And Coop wasn't good about things that were neither beautiful nor pleasant. And comas weren't pleasant, nor were accidents or the way Jimmy looked. But by avoiding it, Coop wasn't there to support anyone else.

“What time will you be home?” he asked, as though nothing had happened to Jimmy. “Are we still going
to the movies?” But when he said that, something snapped inside her. She just couldn't.

“I can't, Coop. I couldn't think straight. I'm going to hang around here for a while, and see if I can help his mother. Mark and Taryn are going home in a while, and I think it's mean to leave her alone with a comatose son in a strange city. She has no one with her.”

“How touching,” Coop said with an edge to his voice. “Don't you think you're carrying this a bit far, Alex? He's not your boyfriend for God's sake. At least I hope not.” She didn't dignify his comment with a response. If anything, it was insensitive and insulting. His jealousy of Jimmy was misplaced at that point, and totally out of line.

“I'll be home later” was all she said.

“Maybe Taryn will want to go to the movies with me,” he said petulantly, and Alex felt a chill run through her. He was behaving like a spoiled brat, not a grown man. But Coop was a child at times, it was part of his charm.

“I don't think she will, but you can always ask her. See you later,” Alex said stiffly and hung up. Coop's reaction to the situation was causing her considerable distress.

She finished work at six, and Mark and Taryn were just leaving when she got there. Jimmy's mother was sitting calmly in the waiting room with them. She looked composed but sad, but she was in better shape than they were. It had been a long day for her too, with the shock of the news, and the long flight from Boston before she saw him. But she looked like a quiet, capable, unassuming woman. Mark and Taryn left a few
minutes later, and Alex offered to get her soup and a sandwich or a cup of coffee.

“You're very kind,” Valerie smiled at Alex, “but I'm afraid I couldn't eat it.” In the end, she accepted some crackers and a cup of soup Alex brought her from the nurses' station. “How lucky you know your way around here,” she said gratefully as she took the soup from Alex and sipped it. “I can't believe this happened. Poor Jimmy has had such a tough time. First Maggie got sick, and then she died, and now this. I worry about him.”

“So do I,” Alex said softly.

“I'm very grateful he has such good friends here. Thank God, he had given Mark my number,” she said, and the two women chatted for a while. She asked Alex about her work, and she knew about Coop from Jimmy. Mark had explained Alex's situation to her before she got there, so she didn't misunderstand and think Alex was Jimmy's girlfriend. But she knew she wasn't. She kept in very close contact with Jimmy and knew he hadn't seen any women since he lost Maggie. She had been afraid he never would. The two had been perfect for each other, and had an enviable marriage, just as she had. She'd been a widow for ten years and had long since given up meeting any man she cared about. There was no man on earth like Jimmy's father, in her eyes. They had been married for twenty-four years, and she was resigned to having that be enough for one lifetime. No one could replace him, and she had no desire to try.

They sat and talked for a long time, and she asked Alex to go in with her the next time she saw Jimmy.

She confessed that it made her feel braver, and afterwards they talked and she cried. She couldn't imagine what her life would be like if he left her. He was all she had in the world now, although from what she said, she had a busy life. She did volunteer work with the blind and the homeless in Boston. But Jimmy was her only child, and just knowing he was in the world somewhere, even if not at home, made life worth living for her.

It was nearly ten when Alex talked one of the nurses into setting up a bed for Valerie in a back hallway. She didn't want to leave him, although Alex offered to drive her to the gatehouse. But she preferred to stay at the hospital in case something happened.

It was ten-thirty when Alex called Coop, and he was out. Taryn said he had gone to the movies, which seemed strange to Alex.

“I think this whole hospital thing makes him nervous,” Taryn explained, but Alex had already figured that out. But it still irritated her that he couldn't at least try to rise to the occasion. He had total denial.

“Tell him I'm going to stay at my place tonight. I have to be back at five, and it's easier to be close by. I don't want to wake him when I get up,” Alex explained, and Taryn understood.

“I'll leave him a note. I'm dead myself.” Alex had already told her that there was no change in Jimmy's condition. Neither better, nor worse, nor more hopeful than it had been.

And when she went to say goodbye to Valerie, she was already dozing. Alex tiptoed away softly. And as she lay in her own bed that night, she thought of Coop,
and tried to identify what she was feeling. It took her a long time, but as she drifted off to sleep, she realized that she wasn't angry at him, she was disappointed. For the first time, in the wake of Jimmy's accident, she had seen a side of Coop she didn't like. And she knew that no matter how much she loved him, she had lost respect for him. Along with Jimmy's accident, for Alex, it was a devastating piece of news.

Alex called Coop the
next morning from work, and he told her she had missed a terrific movie, which stunned her. His denial was in full force. He didn't even ask about Jimmy. She volunteered the information anyway, and said that his condition remained unchanged. He said he was sorry to hear it, but tried to change the subject as quickly as he could.