The Sunflower: A Novel (4 page)

“V-fib, doctor.”

Paul began giving the boy CPR. “Come on. Come on, hang in there. Kelly, let’s try one more time. Epinephrine, two-tenths milligram IV.”

“Done.”

“Charge to forty joules. Clear.”

The body jumped. For a moment the heartbeat returned, but no one rejoiced this time. It almost immediately began to fall.

“Hold,” Paul said. “Hold, hold.” The monitor started beeping. Paul looked around the room. “Anyone have any ideas?

No one answered.

“Come on, Kell, one more time two-tenths milligram epi IV.”

She again injected the IV. “Done.”

“Ken, charge to forty joules. Clear.”

The body jumped. This time the monitor did not move but continued to bleep.

“Again,” Paul said angrily. “Charge to sixty joules. Clear.”

The little body bounced nearly a foot high but to no effect.

“Nothing!” Paul shouted. The monitor beeped. “Again. Charge to sixty joules. Clear.”

Again the body jumped. Again the monitor showed nothing. To continue shocking the boy seemed cruel. For a moment they all stood silently as the room’s hyperactivity dissolved into the lethargy of defeat. After a moment Kelly touched his shoulder. “Shall I call code, Doctor?”

Paul didn’t move.

“Doctor?”

He covered his eyes with his hand and breathed in and out deeply. “How long has it been?”

Kelly glanced at her watch. “Thirty-seven minutes.”

Paul looked up at the boy’s perfect, peaceful face, then over at the small toy soldier lying on the tray. His voice cracked. “Call the code.”

Kelly said softly, “Sixteen forty-two, patient expired.”

Paul stood there, frozen.

Marci stepped into the room behind Kelly. “Doctor, the man’s wife and children are waiting to hear from you.”

Paul continued to stare at the boy as if he hadn’t heard her. Then he said, “I need a minute.”

As everyone watched, Paul walked over to the corner of the room and sat down on the black vinyl-capped stool, laying his face in his hands. Then his body started to tremble. He began to cry.

Kelly’s eyes began to water and she brushed tears back from her cheek. “You did everything possible,” she said. “It was in God’s hands.”

A moment later, echoing down the hall came the cry of a woman looking for her child.

Hope grabs on to whatever floats.

PAUL COOK’S DIARY

FOUR YEARS LATER, OCTOBER 22, 2003

DAYTON, OHIO

Christine Hollister placed the veil over her auburn hair and looked at herself in the hallway mirror. Beneath the ivory veil she wore gray sweatpants and an oversized University of Dayton sweatshirt, the combination as incongruous as a butterfly in winter. In just seven more days she would wear the veil for real. The thought simultaneously thrilled and stressed her. There was still so much to do before the wedding.

She laid the veil on the kitchen counter and picked up her wedding planning notebook. The binder was neatly categorized, alphabetized and indexed, pockets bulging with articles and pictures cut from bridal magazines, and notes and business cards.

She leafed through the book, stopping occasionally on pages not yet crossed out.
The caterer was set—almost—still needed a deposit. And they needed to order more éclairs. Mom promised she’d take care of that. Better call and remind her.

The videographer had left a message about music.
Nothing with vocals,
she thought.
Piano would be nice. Rachmaninoff, what was it? From that Jane Seymour–Christopher Reeve movie.
She wrote a note to herself in the page’s margin.

Flowers. No roses. She hated roses. Her wedding bouquet was made of red sunflowers and daisies, as were the centerpieces at the guest tables. The cake, satin white with three tiers, was also decorated with fresh sunflowers. Even their wedding announcements had not escaped the flower’s presence: parchment with ivory vellum over sheets watermarked with sunflowers. No one could doubt she loved sunflowers.

She stopped at a picture of the bridesmaids’ dresses cut from
Modern Bride.
Dark navy, satin, A-line silhouette, middle-of-the-calf hemlines. She drew a line through the page. Her maid-of-honor had finally picked up her dress, her bridesmaids were ready. Now she just had her own dress to worry about.

Her wedding gown had been her great-grandmother’s. It was cream satin charmeuse, embroidered with crystals and pearls.

According to the bridal magazines, cream (or candlelight, as they called it) was ideal for fair skin like hers. The dress was stunningly beautiful but had obviously been made for a woman of another era. The hips were fine, the bust small but sufferable, the waist downright impossible. She had, out of necessity, worn the gown for her bridal photos. The waist was so tight that she would have screamed, she told the photographer, if she could draw enough air into her lungs to do it properly. She had always thought that she had a small waist, and she wondered if women were really so much smaller two generations ago or if they just had more effective corsets and higher tolerances for pain.

Now the dress was at the seamstress’s, and she considered checking on it again to make sure it would be done on time but was afraid to. The last time she had phoned, the seamstress told her that she would have had the gown done if not for her incessant calling.

On the bottom of one page she’d scrawled:
Remind Martin to get his father and Robert in to the tuxedo rental.
She crossed it out. She’d just call them herself. Lately, it seemed that every time she discussed wedding details with Martin he became irritable. In the last week they had gotten into several small tiffs and just yesterday she had called Jessica, her best friend and maid-of-honor, in tears. Jessica had reassured her that quarreling before the wedding was as much a part of the process as choosing flowers. “Nothing to ruin a marriage like a wedding,” she said.

Not that she was making it easy on Martin. Christine had fantasized about her wedding day since she was ten and was so insistent on every detail that there were times when she felt more like Bridezilla than Bride Beautiful. All things considered, Martin had been remarkably patient—as well as smart, successful and handsome. Wedding stress aside, she was a lucky woman.

Christine’s wedding plans matched the fantasy in her head in all but one point: she had no one to give her away. Her father had died two years earlier of cancer, but even if he had lived, she wouldn’t have asked him. Her parents had divorced when she was nine. While her mother had never remarried, her father had married within a few months to a younger woman with two small children. With time he became a stranger to her. He didn’t even attend her high school graduation, just sent her a check for fifty dollars that she had angrily thrown away.

She looked at her watch. Her bachelorette party was tonight and Jessica said she’d be by to pick her up at six. The thought of the party made her anxious as well. Even though Christine had made her promise not to do anything too wild, she knew that her request might simply have encouraged Jessica to do just that. It was Jessica’s ongoing quest to get Christine to “let her hair down.”

Christine and Jessica were proof that opposites attract; if Christine was silk, Jessica was leather. Christine never had more than one boyfriend at a time, while Jessica never settled with less than a bevy of them as she found them “more manageable” that way.

Both women were beautiful but in different ways. Christine’s beauty was more classic—the kind of look you’d admire in a fifties movie but wouldn’t know what to do with offscreen. Jessica was more playful—bare midriffs and Daisy Mae shorts. Men moved quietly around Christine, like she was a porcelain figurine. Jessica never spent a weekend night home.

And both women, in their own ways, envied the other. Christine envied Jessica for her fun and brashness. She envied the way life seemed to bounce off of her. And while Jessica relished making fun of Christine’s propriety, she envied her too for her steadiness and clarity, for everything she was not.

Christine set the notebook on the table, went to the stove and turned on a flame beneath the kettle. She planned to lose six pounds before the wedding and was halfway there, living on herbal tea and spinach.

As she was taking the tea caddy from the cupboard, someone knocked at her door. She crossed the room and opened it. Martin stood in the hallway.

Martin was an immaculate dresser, and even though it was the weekend, he wore perfectly pressed slacks, a bright polo shirt and a tweed jacket. “May I come in?” His voice was tight.

“Of course. What’s wrong?”

He didn’t answer and she stepped into him, wrapping her arms around him. He pulled her to his chest. After a moment he said softly, “We need to talk.”

She stepped back and looked into his face. Something in his expression frightened her. “What is it?”

He stepped into the room, walked over to the kitchen table and sat down, momentarily resting his face in his hands. Christine walked over and turned off the stereo. She felt her stomach twisting in panic. “Do you want a Coke?”

“No.”

“Something stronger?”

“No.”

She sat down across from him at the table. “What’s up?”

He was quiet for a moment then looked up into her eyes. “I can’t do it, Christine.”

“Can’t do what?”

“Get married.”

For a moment she stared at him, not believing he could really be serious. Her throat went dry. “Did I do something?”

“No.”

“Then what didn’t I do? I don’t understand.”

There was no reply.

Her eyes began to fill with tears. “Is there someone else?”

“No.” He stood, looking awkward. For a moment he stared at the carpet, then he looked up at her, his face bent in pain. “I’m just not ready for this. It all happened too fast…It was like the Christine bridal train just picked up speed before I could jump off.”

She felt numb. “That’s what you want? To jump off?”

“No, it’s not what I want. I mean…” He again exhaled in exasperation. His voice softened. “I can’t do it, Chris, I just can’t do it
now.”

“The wedding’s a week away; the invitations have been sent. My bachelorette party is tonight.”

“I should have said something earlier.”

She looked at him sharply.
“Earlier
would have been better.” She dropped her head on the table. “I can’t believe this…” She began to cry.

“Hey,” he said softly. He reached over and touched her hair, but she pushed his hand away. He walked around the table and squatted down close to her. “I love you, Chris…”

“And this is how you show me?”

“Would you rather have found out after we’re married that I wasn’t ready? You want me to fake being happy?”

She covered her face with her hands. “I thought you
were
happy.” Her voice cracked. “I thought you wanted me.”

“Of course I do. Just not like this.” He stroked back her hair. “What do you want me to do? You want to just go ahead with this?”

She glared at him. “Right, my dream wedding.” She pulled the ring off her finger and threw it at him. It fell on the floor. “Take your ring and go. Just leave me alone.”

He took a deep breath, rose, then bent over to lift the ring. “I was hoping you’d understand.” He walked over to the door. “I’m really sorry, Christine. I know it seems cruel. And I know it’s not fair. But marrying you, when I feel like this, would have been even worse.” He paused for a moment, then opened the door. “I’ll call you later.”

She didn’t look up at him. “Please. Go away.”

When the door shut, it felt as if her heart had been closed in it. Desperation rose in her chest and she wanted to run after him and beg him to stay. Instead she fell back onto the table and sobbed uncontrollably.

Across the room the teakettle began to whistle.

American culture is a curious thing. We fret over a sport star’s twisted ankle or the ill-fated marriage of celebrities, yet lose no sleep over a hundred million children living in the streets.

PAUL COOK’S DIARY

ONE WEEK LATER

Of all people, why did this have to happen to Christine?
Jessica thought as she pounded on Christine’s apartment door. Christine hadn’t answered her phone for two days. Now she wasn’t answering her door. “Christine, it’s Jessica.” She rapped again with the back of her hand. “C’mon, Chris, open up. I know you’re in there.”

Christine’s next door neighbor, a squat, elderly woman with thinning, disheveled hair, looked out the crack the security chain allowed.
The Price Is Right
blared from behind her.

“No one’s there,” the woman said. “No one’s been in or out for days.”

“Her car’s downstairs,” Jessica said.

“Didn’t say it wasn’t. But I haven’t heard a peep from that girl since that boy dumped her.”

“Thank you for sharing,” Jessica said flatly. The woman’s eyes narrowed, then disappeared behind the door.

Christine wouldn’t do something crazy, would she?
Her chest constricted with the thought. “Christine, open up! Now!”

Inside the apartment Christine lay in sweats across the top of her bed. A harsh sun streamed through the room’s partially drawn blinds, and she rolled from it toward her radio alarm clock. She had awoken to Jessica’s pounding, not sure where she was until consciousness flooded in thick and unwelcome. Today, especially today, she didn’t want to see anyone.

She leaned out from the bed, her face inches from the dull glowing face of the clock. She groaned, then rolled to her back, covering her eyes with her forearm. It was already a quarter to one. Somewhere in her mind, fragments of an earlier schedule remained. She wasn’t supposed to be in bed. She was supposed to be standing in the church in her perfect gown, perfectly coiffed, with her perfect groom. She should have been Mrs. Martin Christensen by now.

The thumping came again, followed by Jessica’s voice. “Christine, I’m going to call 911 if you don’t answer.”

“I’m coming,” she shouted hoarsely.

She rolled out of bed, pulling her long hair back from her face as she stood. Her room was a mess, cluttered with clothes and cans and Styrofoam containers. For the last week she had pretty much subsisted on Diet Coke, ramen noodles and licorice. She picked her way to the front door, unhooked the security chain and opened the door.

The expression on Jessica’s face was a mixture of relief and anger. “I called you twelve times yesterday.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Can I come in?”

“Yes.”

Jessica stepped inside, surveying the room in awe. In all the time she’d known Christine she had never seen her apartment in this state. Christine was the kind of woman who fretted if there weren’t vacuum lines in the carpet.

“Wow, this looks like my place.” Jessica shut the door behind her, then put her arms around Christine. Christine lay her head on her shoulder and began to cry, softly at first then growing into a sob.

“I’m sorry, honey,” Jessica said, rubbing her back. “It’s not right.”

When Christine’s crying slowed, Jessica stepped back slightly, and they stood forehead-to-forehead. “It’s going to be okay, honey. It’s all going to work out for the best.” She parted the hair from Christine’s face. “When was the last time you ate?”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh, baby,” she sighed. “You go shower. We’re going out for lunch.”

“I don’t want to go anywhere,” Christine said.

“I know. That’s why we are. There’s a half-price sale at Lord and Taylor. You know how shopping brings you out of a funk.” She smiled, “And I have a big surprise for you.”

“I don’t want any more surprises.”

“Of course you don’t. But you’ll like this one. It’s a good surprise. Trust me.”