For sixteen hours, Kate rode an emotional pendulum that swung between hope and despair. At first she'd focused on details—calling her parents, packing Marah's things, filling out paperwork. The busy-work had been a lifesaver; without it, there was nothing to do but worry. On the flight, she'd taken sleeping pills for the first time in her life, and though her sleep had been oozy, black, and restless, it was infinitely better than being awake.
Now she was being escorted to the hospital. As she approached the entrance, she saw reporters clotted out front. Someone in the crowd must have recognized her, because they turned in unison, like some suddenly roused beast, and pushed forward.
"Mrs. Ryan, what word do you have on his condition?"
"Is it a head injury?"
"Has he spoken—"
"—or opened his eyes?"
She didn't slow down. If there was one thing a producer's wife knew, it was how to move through the press. They were being as respectful as they knew how to be, given their profession. Although Johnny was one of them and they knew that it could have happened to any of them, a story was a story.
"No comment." She pushed through the crowd and entered the hospital. It was like all such institutions—blank walls, utilitarian flooring, crisply uniformed people bustling down wide corridors.
They'd clearly been alerted to her arrival, because a heavyset woman in a white uniform and starched nurse's cap strode toward her, smiling sympathetically.
"You must be Mrs. Ryan," she said in heavily accented English.
"I am."
"I will take you to your husband's room. The doctor will arrive shortly to speak at you."
Kate nodded.
Thankfully, the woman didn't make small talk as they rode up the elevator. On the third floor, they strode past the nurses' station and turned into his room.
He looked frail and broken, like a child in his parents' bed. She stopped, realizing a second too late that she'd spent too much time imagining a reunion and not enough anticipating this reality. This man bore only the shallowest resemblance to her vibrant, handsome husband.
His head was sheathed in white bandages. The entire left side of his face was swollen and discolored; both his eyes were bandaged. Machines and lines and IVs were clustered around him.
The nurse patted her shoulder and gave her a gentle push toward the bed. "He is alive," she said. "This is what you should see when you look at him."
Kate took the most difficult step of her life. Until that moment, she hadn't even realized that she'd stopped moving. "He's usually so strong."
"He needs you to be strong now."
They were the words Kate needed to hear. She had a job here; the time for feeling too much and falling apart would come later when she was alone. "Thank you," she said to the nurse, and walked toward the bed.
Behind her, the door shut quietly, and she knew they were alone now, she and this man who was and wasn't her Johnny.
"This was not our deal," she said. "I distinctly remember that you promised to be okay. So, I'm going to assume you'll honor that." She wiped her eyes and leaned down to kiss his swollen cheek. "Mom and Dad send their prayers. Marah is with them right now. And Tully is flying over to be with us; you know how pissed she'll be if you don't give her your full attention. You might as well wake up now before she badgers you to death." She tripped over the last word, winced, straightening by sheer dint of will. "I didn't mean that," she whispered, gripping the bedrails tightly. "Can you hear me, John Ryan? Let me know you're in there." She reached down, took his hand in hers. "Squeeze my hand, baby. You can do it." Then: "Say something, damn it. I won't even yell at you for scaring the shit out of me. Not right away, anyway."
"Mrs. Ryan?"
Kate hadn't even heard the door open. When she turned, there was a man standing not more than ten feet away from her.
"I'm Dr. Carl Schmidt. I am in charge of your husband's care."
The polite thing to do would have been to let go, cross the room, and shake Dr. Schmidt's hand, and for all her life Kate had done things correctly, but now she couldn't move, couldn't pretend to be okay. "And?" was all she could say.
"He has suffered a serious head injury, as you no doubt know. He is heavily sedated right now, so we cannot do a comprehensive testing of his brain function. He received excellent medical care in Baghdad. The doctors there removed a section of his skull—"
"They what?"
"Removed a section of his skull to allow the brain to swell. Do not worry. This is most routine in such an injury."
She wanted to say that an appendectomy was routine, but didn't dare. "Why are his eyes bandaged?"
