“I’m…” He lifts his shoulders lightly, biting his lip. “You guys are my family.” He swipes away another tear. “I’m here for whatever you need.”
Sensing rising emotions, something he seems good at, Josh steps in, putting a hand on Stuart’s shoulder. “I’m going to take Jake to see Tru now. I said you’d stay with the little guy.” He tilts his head toward the door behind me.
“I don’t want him to be alone,” I add, my voice raw again.
“Of course.” Stuart nods. “There’s nowhere else I’d want to be right now.”
Leaving Stuart, Josh takes the lead and I follow him.
Stopping, I turn back. “Stuart?”
He stops with the door partway open. “Yeah?”
I step forward. “Hold his hand. He likes to wrap his hand around your finger.”
He offers a light smile. “Okay, I’ll make sure to do that.”
“And Stuart.” I catch his attention again. “You have to clean your hands with that sanitizer stuff before you touch him, you know, to keep the germs away.”
“Sanitizer. Got it.” He nods. “I’ll take good care of him, Jake.”
“I know you will.”
I follow Josh down the hall toward the bank of elevators. My heart labours heavy in my chest. Fear roils around me at the thought of seeing Tru.
All I’ve wanted for the last few hours is to see her, and now I’m so close. I’m so very fucking terrified.
We step inside the elevator. Josh presses the button to take us down a few floors.
The doors slide closed.
“Jake, I want you to be prepared for seeing Tru. She’s not going to be—”
“Don’t say it. I know. But…just don’t say it.” I cross my arms, pushing at the ache in my chest.
Josh nods and stares straight ahead.
The elevator glides to a halt, the doors slide open, and I follow Josh out.
With every step closer to Tru, the more panic and terror I feel at what I’m going to see.
We take a right at the end of the hall, into another empty hall, except for a man sitting, writing on some papers attached to a clipboard.
Putting the clipboard down, he stands at our approach and pushes his glasses up his nose.
He’s a bookish-looking doctor wearing blue cotton pants and a V-neck top. At least he’s not wearing a white coat.
He’s wearing scrubs.
Are they what he wore while operating on Tru?
I start to feel sick as unwanted images flash through my mind.
“Josh.” He nods.
“Lucas, this is Jake Wethers, Trudy’s fiancé. Jake, this is Dr. Lucas Kish.”
“Nice to meet you, Jake.”
I nod a response.
It’s not exactly like I want to shake his fucking hand and say It’s nice to meet you, because it’s really fucking not.
I don’t want to meet him. I don’t want Tru to be here.
“Okay, so…” He pushes his hands into his trouser pockets. “As Dr. Kimble explained to you before, Trudy suffered a severe head injury as a result of the impact.”
I wince at the pain the words bring me.
“From the impact, she hit her right frontal lobe, what we call the emotional part of the brain, causing a severe contusion to the skull. There was internal bleeding and swelling to the brain. We stemmed the bleeding and eased the pressure there. Trudy also suffered other injuries from the accident. Her collarbone was fractured, her right arm broken, and her hand crushed…”
Fractured. Broken. Crushed.
“…but it’s the head injury that obviously causes the most concern.”
I try to steer my emotions deep inside so I can focus on what he’s telling me. But my eyes keep flicking to the door to my left, where I know Tru is.
Taking a deep breath, I force out the words I fear the answer to most. “Is she going to get through this?”
Dr. Kish removes his hands from his pockets, folds them together, and takes a deep breath. I see his eyes sweep the floor before coming back to me.
Nerves crawl around my body.
“The next twenty-four hours are critical. Her vitals are stable but low. She’s in a coma and attached to a ventilator. She isn’t breathing on her own. With your consent, I plan on removing the ventilator in the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours to see if Trudy responds to breathing alone. If she does, we’re looking on the side of positive.”
I swallow hard. “And…if she doesn’t?”
He looks me firmly in the eye. “We cross that bridge when we come to it. These next few days are critical for Trudy’s recovery, but I promise you that we are going to do everything in our power to see her through to the other side of this and get her back home with you and your son.”
I push at the ache in my chest with my hand. “When she does wake, could there be long-term damage to her brain?” My mouth feels papery.
He removes his glasses and rubs his eyes. “Possibly, yes. We won’t know that until she wakes. The good thing is, the left side of her brain is fine. If it had been the left, her speech, amongst other things, could have been affected. So we have that to be thankful for.”
I tense, fist clenching at my side. “I don’t see anything to be thankful for right now.” My tone is cold, biting.
I see the concern flash over his face. “Of course not, I didn’t mean…I’m sorry.”
“Jake.” Josh’s hand goes to my arm, but I can’t relax. “Lucas didn’t mean anything by it. He’s just trying to give you the positive side of the bad. He is one of the best neurosurgeons the US has to offer. You can trust him. He will do everything possible to get Tru through this.”
My eyes go to Josh, then Dr. Kish. I swallow past the brick in my throat. “You have to get her through this because…she’s everything.”