The more she hashed through innumerable possibilities on their short journey across the water, by the time they landed in Edgartown, she was tempted to ask Captain Fred if he would ferry them back.
But they kept going, because Annie once heard that sometimes the best way to face anything is simply to plow through it. She’d forgotten if she’d heard it from her dad, Murphy, Earl, or Winnie—the attentive sages in her life.
It was quiet in the hospital when, mere minutes later, they walked silently into the entrance. They moved past the receptionist’s desk where no one was on duty yet, then past the grand piano and down the hallway that was lined with museum-quality art pieces: island paintings of quiet rowboats and up-island landscapes of stone walls and sheep. Across from the paintings were poster-sized, iconic photographs of celebrities, including one of Barack and Michelle Obama that had been taken when they might have been in their thirties, long before they could have guessed the responsibilities that lay ahead for them.Even then, Annie thought now,they’d looked like leaders.
As for Annie and Meghan, Annie was just grateful that they were still upright and moving forward. Until they got into the elevator. That’s when Annie’s legs grew weak and Meghan started to cry.
“What if . . .” she began to say.
“Shsssh,” Annie whispered as if someone were listening. “Let’s only think positive thoughts, okay?”
She nodded meekly. But as they stepped out onto the second floor where the ICU was, Annie noticed that Meghan’s eyes were clouded.
Of course they are, Murphy reassured her.
Now that she knew Murphy was there, Annie was able to get her bearings, square her shoulders, and advance directly to the nurses’ station.
“We’re here,” she told Lorna, who was on duty again.
“The doctor isn’t in yet,” Lorna said. “Would you like to sit in the waiting room? I’d offer you coffee but it looks like you’ve come prepared.” She nodded toward the Thermos.
“Yes. Thanks. We’ll be in the waiting room.” Then Annie’s nerves began to quibble again. She took Meghan by the elbow and escorted her to the small room next to the stairs as if Meghan didn’t already know where they were to wait, as if she hadn’t spent far too many hours there already.
Twelve minutes later—Annie knew that because she’d kept checking her watch—Doctor Mike appeared. Three others in lab coats were with him. Annie realized that they, too, were early. Maybe they wanted to get this over with as badly as Annie and Meghan did.
Doctor Mike explained that they needed a few minutes to remove the breathing tube and “other things” that would “no longer be necessary.” He said one of the nurses would be back to get them once Kevin was awake.
“He’s been out of surgery less than thirty-six hours, and he’s been sleeping the whole time. He won’t be completely cognitive right away,” he added. “So bear with him, okay?” He smiled and set off for Kevin’s room, the other lab coats trailing behind him.
Annie was tempted to sneak furtively to the end of the line, to stay out of sight but listen. But even if she could manage to remain undetected, she knew it wouldn’t be wise. If Kevin cried out in pain, or worse, if something went wrong and chaos erupted, resulting in the doctor having to fire off orders and the nurses to scurry around, she knew her heart would explode into thousands of pieces, scattering its shards all over the polished floor.
So Annie sat next to Meghan and both of them remained perfectly still. And waited.
* * *
They looked like a miniature gang of voyeurs, clustered around Kevin’s bed: the doctor, his three lab-coated ducklings, two nurses, Annie, Meghan.
Kevin’s eyes had opened several times, but he’d looked directly at Doctor Mike, who gently said, “Kevin? Time to wake up now.” Then Kevin closed his eyes again. Mike repeated the exercise over and over; each time Kevin’s eyes opened, they stayed that way a half a second longer; he made soft, guttural sounds, like the kind a dog made when he was dreaming. Still, it seemed hopeful.
Minutes elapsed; Annie felt as if she’d been standing in motionless limbo for hours. She didn’t know how much longer she could pretend that her brother’s occasional blinking and mutterings were “good signs,” though the doctor kept insisting that they were.
Meghan stood beside her as stalwart as Annie, though no doubt she was as unsteady. While they’d been in the waiting room, she’d confided to Annie that she didn’t remember much about waking up from her coma except that, in a random instant, for no reason she’d either known or later learned, she’d sat up, looked around, and cried out, “Hello? Does anyone have any ice cream?” She said her voice had been raspy, and she’d had a sore throat. Otherwise, she was fine. A nurse flew into her room and gasped, “Meghan?” Then the nurse laughed, raced out into the hall, and cried, “She’s awake! Meghan’s awake!”
According to her memory, it had been that simple. It had not been like this.
Suddenly, however, Kevin’s eyes opened without prompting. He stared at the doctor. His gaze then traveled to the other lab coats, to the nurses, to Annie, and, finally, to Meghan.
His brow furrowed.
His face contorted.
He cowered.
An emergency alert screeched from one of the machines still tethered to him: a red light started flashing incessantly like an angry lighthouse beacon. And Kevin let out the howl of a freshly wounded animal.
He used to tell people he’d hired her because he thought it was so cool that Meghan’s grandfather had worked on the John Hancock Tower. The real reason was because from the moment she’d walked into his office for an interview, Kevin was in love. Sure, he’d had his share (maybe more) of girls, but nothing, no one, had come close to causing that rush of heat that went from his eyes straight to his heart.
Sure, she’d been young and drop-dead gorgeous, but it was those eyes—those hypnotic blue eyes—that drilled into him like a jackhammer and left him unable to move.
