I think that’s the closest I’m going to get to an apology. I give him a nod of thanks and stand up, showing Hailey the paper. “Guess what, Hailey? I know where to find Miss Iris! Are you ready to show her your picture?”
Hailey nods. “Yeah. I wanna give her a hug too.”
Remembering the neck brace I saw in the footage, I cringe. “Maybe we’ll ask her if she’s feeling okay first, all right? Miss Iris might be too hurt for a big Hailey hug. You might have to settle for a kiss on the cheek. Is that okay?”
“Uh huh.”
According to the photographer’s note, Iris’s room is on the seventh floor. The elevator ride is achingly slow. It stops at every floor, and the closer we get to seven, the harder my stomach churns.
How badly is Iris hurt? I suppose it’s a good sign that she’s out of surgery this soon, but … what if she’s hurt too badly for surgery to help? What if they’re just admitting her for palliative care, to make her comfortable until—
No! I can’t think like that. The doctors that worked on Lisa spent hours trying to keep her alive. No surgeon would just give up and shove a patient on her deathbed in a room if there was anything he could do to save her. This isn’t even an ICU room, according to the signs in the hallway. She can’t be that bad off.
As the cameraman predicted, security outside Iris’s room is tight, but just as Hailey and I round the corner from the elevator, he appears out of nowhere making a scene. He’s shoving past the guards with his camera, shouting and pretending to try to take pictures through Iris’s door.
I guess the security guards don’t see that his lens cap is still on, because they tackle the guy almost as hard as I did, and the whole lot of them escort him away.
Once the hallway’s clear, I dart through the door and shut it behind me.
Machines beep softly in the bland, sterile room. Iris hasn’t been here long enough to get flowers or anything, so the only things at her bedside are a jug of water and a small, cheap plastic cup. In the far corner, on a shelf by the window, her belongings sit shoved in a drawstring baggie. I turn to keep Hailey from seeing the blood on Iris’s clothes.
In the bed, Iris breathes slow and even. There’s an oxygen mask over her mouth, but she’s not intubated. In fact, aside from a few bandages around her head and arms and the usual assortment of IV tubing and monitor wires, she seems to be largely in one piece. No casts to indicate any broken bones, but the bruising on her face is heartbreaking to see. Flashbacks of Lisa’s body in the morgue come rushing to the forefront of my brain.
Lisa had bruising, too. Worse than this, of course, but the similarities are enough to trigger me.
I pull a chair over to the bed and sit down with Hailey. My daughter snuggles closer and pops her thumb in her mouth. “Is she sleeping, Daddy?” she asks around the digit.
“Yeah, sweetie. She’s just sleeping.” I point to the monitor behind Iris. “See those lines? That means she’s alive. That bumpy one is her heartbeat. See it? Thump-thump-thump. It’s good and strong, like Iris. And that one there is her breathing. And those numbers are all good numbers. Iris is doing good.”
I’m pulling half of this out of my ass. I have no clue if the numbers I’m looking at are good or not, but if it makes Hailey feel better, I’ll tell her they are. I figure there would be more tubes and wires if Iris was hurt worse.
I don’t like that she’s not awake, though. Do they have her sedated?
A few minutes later, a nurse walks in with a tablet in hand. She stops in her tracks when she sees me and Hailey sitting there, but after a moment she shakes her head and continues to the other side of Iris’s bed.
“You’re not supposed to be in here, you know,” she says as she checks the monitors and types into the tablet.
“I know. I can’t leave her, though.”
“You the boyfriend? Micah, is it?”
How does she know my name? Oh, wait—the media frenzy. That’s probably where she got it. “Yeah. I guess you heard the news lately.”
“News?” She pulls a syringe from her pocket and twists the end onto a port in one of Iris’s IVs. “No. She was muttering your name the whole time we were treating her. If the doc hadn’t sedated her, she’d probably still be saying it.”
I gesture to the drug she just pushed. “Is that more sedation?”
“Hm? Oh, no. This is just some pain medicine. She’s got a few nasty contusions, a concussion … Could have been worse. She was lucky. Not too many people get pancaked on the freeway and make it out as good as this.”
“She’s in pain?” My voice cracks, and I swallow past a lump in my throat as I try to get myself together.
She’s alive, Micah. Remember that.
The nurse’s lips spread in a sympathetic smile. “Probably not. It’s just on a schedule to keep it under control. Once she’s awake enough to ask when she needs it, we’ll only give it when she wants it.”
I nod and gingerly take Iris’s bandaged hand in mine. “You gonna kick me out?”
She shakes her head. “Nah. It might do her some good to have you here when she wakes up.” She scrolls on the tablet, then grins wider. “And you’re in luck! I guess she listed you as an approved contact when she was still conscious enough to sign forms, so we’re both in the clear.”
