8: Chapter 7 : Hell!
8: Chapter 7 : Hell!
I scooped her up.
She weighed nothing, less than nothing, a hollowed-out thing where my sister had been.
My Mercedes was parked six blocks away, illegally, hazards flashing.
I ran with her in my arms, past the crossing guard who’d last seen her walking alone, past the bus stop where someone had touched her bag, past the faces that turned and looked away.
Her head bounced against my shoulder, her breath growing shallower with every step.
The car.
I had to get to the car.
I reached it gasping, fumbled for my keys, dropped them twice before I managed to unlock the door.
I laid her across the back seat, tilting her head back, checking her airway again and again.
Her lips were definitely blue now.
Her pulse fluttered against my fingertips like a trapped moth.
“Stay with me.
Kate, stay with me.” I drove like the laws didn’t apply to emergencies, to sisters who needed more than six years could give them.
I ran red lights.
I honked through intersections.
I kept one hand on her throat, feeling for that threadbare pulse, counting seconds that stretched too long between beats.
Henderson Private Hospital loomed ahead, the building of my family, the place where I’d had my own scars treated, where Kate had been coming since she was four.
I didn’t park in the lot.
I stopped the car in the ambulance bay and pulled her out, screaming before my feet hit pavement.
“Help!
Somebody help!
She’s not breathing!” Nurses materialized from nowhere, a gurney rolling, hands reaching.
I wouldn’t let go, couldn’t let go, my fingers locked around her wrist until a familiar voice cut through the chaos.
“Miss Mariano.
Let us take her.
I promise.” Dr.
Henderson.
The man I’d known since childhood, who’d treated me, who’d stitched my own back together more times than I could count.
He didn’t wait for me to release her.
He gently pried my fingers loose and the nurses swept her away, small and gray and limp, her broken shoe dangling from a foot that didn’t kick anymore.
“How long?” he asked, already walking, already pulling me with him.
“I don’t know.
Twenty minutes?
Thirty?
She was talking and then she wasn’t, she just went limp.” “Talking?
What was she saying?” “Stuttering.
Couldn’t stop.
The bus, someone touched her bag, she couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t-” I was babbling, matching her rhythm, my own words tumbling out uncontrolled.
“She was thrashing.
Hitting.
Then she just…
stopped.” We reached a set of doors.
He turned to face me, hand on my shoulder, firm enough to anchor me.
“Jay.
Listen to me.
Has this happened before?” “Panic attacks.
Nightmares.
But never…
never like this.” “Any head trauma?
Falls?” “She hit her head.
Against the wall.
In the alley.” “How hard?” “Hard enough to crack.
I heard it.” His jaw tightened.
He pushed through the doors and I followed, past stations of equipment and monitors, past rooms where other people’s tragedies played out behind curtains.
They had her in a bay, already working, an oxygen mask over her face, IV lines snaking from her arm.
She looked even smaller on the adult-sized gurney, swallowed by the white sheets, her navy skirt still bunched around her thighs, her blouse stained with blood and alley grime.
“O2 stat’s dropping,” someone said.
“Bag her,” Henderson ordered.
“Get me a pediatric crash cart.
Jay, I need you to wait outside.” “I’m not leaving.” “Jay.” He turned to me again, and his voice had shifted, from my childhood doctor friend to physician, from gentle to absolute.
“You’re seventeen.
If I have to intubate, if we need to make decisions, I need you out of this room so I can work.
Your attorney is already on her way.
But right now, I need you to trust me.” I looked at Kate.
At the monitor showing numbers I didn’t understand, lines that jumped and flattened and jumped again.
At her chest, barely rising, barely falling.
“Is she dying?” “She’s in respiratory distress.
We’re stabilizing her.
Jay, please.” I stepped back.
Through the doors.
Into the hallway where my reflection stared back from polished chrome, wild-eyed, filthy, a stranger wearing my face.
My phone buzzed.
I ignored it.
Buzzed again.
I pulled it from my pocket with shaking hands and saw the name: Margaret Halloway, an Attorney.
I answered.
“Margaret.
It’s Kate.
She’s at Henderson Private.
Dr.
Henderson’s with her but they won’t let me-” “Slow down.
Where are you?” “Outside her room.
They pushed me out.
She’s not breathing right, she hit her head, she’s not responding-” “I’m calling the hospital now.
I’ll have guardianship paperwork faxed within ten minutes.
Jay, listen to me.
Are you listening?” “Yes.” “You are her guardian.
That won’t change.
You will get your inheritance in few months so don’t worry.
everything’s in order.
They cannot exclude you.
But you need to breathe, and you need to let them work.
I’m on my way.” She hung up.
I stood in the hallway, phone pressed to my ear, listening to dead air.
A nurse approached, young, nervous.
“Miss?
There’s a private waiting room.
For families.
I can take you-” “I’m not leaving this hallway.” “There’s coffee.
Water.
You have…
you’re bleeding.” She pointed to my elbow, my knee, places I’d scraped when I dropped to the alley floor.
I hadn’t felt them.
“Fine.
The waiting room.
But I’m coming back the moment-” “Of course.
This way.” She led me ten steps down the hall to a door with a keypad.
Punched in a code.
The room beyond was plush, designed for people who owned hospitals, with leather sofas and a stocked refrigerator and windows that looked out on the city instead of the parking lot.
I didn’t sit.
I stood at the window and watched nothing, my reflection ghosted over the glass, seventeen years old and already failing at the only thing that mattered.
My phone buzzed again.
Text from Margaret: > from Margaret: Paperwork received for now.
Dr.
Henderson has confirmation.
You may re-enter.
I ran.
The scene in the room had shifted.
Fewer people.
A ventilator rhythmically compressing, hissing, compressing.
Kate’s chest moved with it, mechanical, wrong.
Henderson stood at the foot of her bed, reviewing a chart, and looked up when I entered.
“Jay.
Sit down.” “I’d rather stand.” “You’re swaying.
Sit, or I’ll have you escorted to your own room.” I sat.
The chair was too soft, too expensive, absurd for the moment.
“She’s stable,” Henderson said.
“For now.
We’ve induced a coma.” I stared at him.
“A coma?” “Her brain swelled from the impact.
We needed to reduce metabolic demand, give it room to heal.
The ventilator is breathing for her.
We have her on anti-seizure medication, fluids, we’re monitoring everything.” “Will she wake up?” He set down the chart.
Sat across from me, close enough that I could smell the antiseptic on his hands.
“I don’t know.
The next twenty-four hours are critical.
The CT shows a subdural hematoma.
Small, but in a child…
in a child with her history of trauma, her nervous system was already compromised.
Her body was running on fumes before this morning.” “Her history.” I laughed, a broken sound.
“You mean the stepfather.
The panic attacks.
The nightmares.” “I mean all of it.
Jay, I’ve treated Kate since she was four years old.
I’ve watched you become her parent at twelve.
Private therapists, the best schools, every resource money can buy.
But trauma lives in the body.
It doesn’t care about bank accounts.” “So what do we do?” “We wait.
We watch.
We hope her brain decides this is worth waking up for.” He paused.
“There’s something else.
The bloodwork.
We found elevated cortisol, consistent with chronic stress, but also…
Jay, has she been eating?” “Yes.
I mean, I think so.
She picks at meals, but she always has-” “She’s malnourished.
Not severely, but enough to matter.
Combined with the stress, the lack of sleep you mentioned…
her body didn’t have reserves for this kind of shock.” I pressed my palms to my eyes.
Saw the breakfast table this morning, Kate pushing eggs around her plate, claiming she was too nervous to eat.
Me, distracted by my own first day, letting her get away with it.
“How could I not know?” “Because she wanted you not to know.
Because she’s ten years old and she’s been protecting you as much as you’ve been protecting her.” He stood, touched my shoulder again.
“Get cleaned up.
There’s a shower in the family suite.
I’ll have someone bring you clothes.
And Jay?” I looked up.
“Call someone.
You shouldn’t be alone for this.” I laughed.
“There is no one.” I whispered.
“Your dad-” “NO!” I yelled.
” He couldn’t protect us enough!” I turned back to the window where my sister lay breathing by machine, her small chest rising and falling with mechanical precision, while I sat in my bloodstained school uniform and tried to remember how to pray.
Margaret arrived forty minutes later, heels clicking on the polished floor, briefcase in hand, her gray hair perfectly coiffed despite the hour.
“Jay.” She sat beside me, close enough that her perfume cut through the hospital antiseptic.
“I’ve spoken with Dr.
Henderson.
I’ve also called Dr.
Reynolds, the pediatric psychiatrist you consulted last year.
She’s willing to fly in from New York if needed.” “Kate needs her brain to stop swelling.
Not a psychiatrist.” “Kate needs both.
When she wakes up.” Margaret paused.
“If she wakes up disoriented, traumatized, unable to speak…
you know her panic attacks.
This will trigger the worst episode she’s ever had.” 18+ comments