Rescue - By Anita Shreve Page 0,76

from her childhood, which isn’t much, his memories limited to the photos he’s taken of her, and most of them celebrating special occasions. According to the pictures, all of Rowan’s life has been a special occasion. He hasn’t talked to her about the last photo he took, of Rowan against the wall in her black dress and stilettos, no smile on her face. He doubts he will ever be able to look at that picture. Should it come to it, he’ll have Koenig print out the pictures on the disk, give him everything but that one.

But it won’t “come to it.” It simply won’t.

“Let me sit with her,” Sheila suggests.

Webster is surprised by the offer. “It might upset her too much if she wakes up and you’re there.”

“We should be so lucky,” Sheila says.

Webster leads Sheila into the room. He watches as his ex-wife gets her first glimpse of their daughter at age seventeen. A thin body under the sheet, attached by lines to different monitors, a head bandaged. The color drains from Sheila’s face.

“I know. It’s terrible,” Webster says.

“She’s beautiful,” Sheila says.

“Sometimes I talk to her. I hold her hand.”

Sheila sits. For long time, she is still. Then she makes a tentative gesture toward Rowan’s hand.

“It’s all right,” Webster says. “The injury is on the other side.”

“My hands are cold.”

“She’ll warm you up.”

Sheila reaches for Rowan’s slender hand. It’s a calm moment, though Webster feels electricity in the room. He remembers his vigil at Rowan’s side fifteen years earlier, the one Sheila couldn’t participate in.

“It’ll be a miracle if I sleep,” Webster says. “I’ll probably be back in an hour. There’s an inn attached to the hospital they tried to get me to go to after I got here. You have my cell phone number. Call me if there’s any change at all.”

“Of course,” she says.

“Are you afraid?” he asks.

“Yes,” she says.

When Webster returns, he tells Sheila that he’s booked her a room at the inn. He gives her the key.

“Did you sleep?” she asks.

“I might have dozed.”

“Well, that’s all right then.”

“Did anything happen here?”

“I held her hand,” Sheila says.

“Oh, God,” Webster says. “This is all wrong.”

“I talked to her.”

“What did she say?”

“She said she was fine.”

Webster smiles at the mild joke.

Tommy and Gina come bearing flowers, which they don’t allow in the ICU. The sight of Rowan makes Gina cry and causes Tommy to look away. Koenig and his wife, Ruth, make the trip, bringing a meal that Webster can’t eat. Even the probie comes straight off his shift, silently standing near the door, awkward in the situation. Webster thanks him before he leaves.

Webster bends to kiss Rowan on the cheek. He wants to feel her breath.

“Your mother is here,” he tells his sleeping daughter. “She came all the way from Boston. Actually, Chelsea, where she lives. She came to watch over you. I think you might like her. She’s an excellent painter. I’ve seen the paintings. You’d like them, too. It seems pretty obvious to me that she’s been thinking about you all this time. She cried when she saw Puppy. No, forget that.”

Webster thinks.

“I forgot to tell you that she has a sense of humor. I thought she’d lost it, but it’s there. Maybe it will come back full force, I don’t know. She sat here with you while I dozed in a room at the inn attached to the hospital. She held your hand. I don’t know if you could feel that or not. She said she talked to you and that you told her you were fine. I hope you were telling the truth…”

Webster is running out of things to say to Rowan. Is she slipping farther and farther away from him with each passing hour? This is what he fears the most. That everything is already lost, and he doesn’t know it.

He panics when he wakes and sees the clock. Rowan is now in hour forty-nine. He’s aware of other people in the room.

He stands, alert. “What’s happening?” he asks.

“We’re taking her for another CAT scan,” one of the nurses answers.

“She’s already had the MRI. Why?” Webster asks.

“The doctor will be in shortly to talk to you. This is routine,” the nurse adds. “Nothing to be alarmed about.”

“Routine?” Webster asks, incredulous. “What’s routine about a child being in a coma for forty-nine hours?”

“This shouldn’t take long,” the nurse says.

Webster walks to the window and stares at the lit parking lot. It’s still dark, three thirty in the morning. Two solid days since Rowan