Rescue - By Anita Shreve Page 0,80
back?” Webster asks, making sure.
“She’ll be right here.”
“Because I don’t like leaving her.”
“I promise you she’ll be right here,” the nurse says, “but she might be sleeping.”
“All right,” Webster says reluctantly, reaching in his pocket for his phone.
By the time he descends to the cafeteria, he’s unexpectedly ravenous. He wants sugar. He selects two pieces of apple pie and a doughnut, accompanied by a cup of coffee. The pie tastes so good, he moans with pleasure. When he finishes, he calls Sheila, Tommy, Gina, and Koenig, in that order. Tommy is speechless, Gina starts to cry, and Koenig whoops. Sheila is the most relieved. She says, I’m so happy, and he can feel the release in her voice, the lifting of the terrible worry.
“I’ll come right now,” she says.
“I think you’d better wait. She doesn’t know you’re here. She doesn’t even know I’ve been in touch with you. Let me talk to her first, and then I’ll call you.”
“Will she make her graduation?”
“If I have to carry her.”
When Webster returns to his daughter’s room, she’s asleep. He sits next to her, as he has been doing, but doesn’t wake her, even though he wants to, just to make sure.
The room looks better for her having woken from the coma. The curtains aren’t as dreary, the television not as dull. Webster knows it’s simply his state of mind. He gazes at his daughter.
The doctors had to shave the top of her head in order to suture a deep laceration, and, as a consequence, she has a four-by-two-inch bald spot with a little fuzz starting. When she was in a coma, her hair was flattened to her skull, and she seemed to be all widow’s peak. But someone in the last hour has taken the time to comb her hair so that her bangs cover most of her forehead. Rowan will think the bald patch a problem for graduation.
Though now she might not care.
A nurse stands in the doorway. Webster turns.
“She was still woozy when she sat up, so we didn’t try to get her to stand. We took the catheter out, and she was able to use the bedpan. She’ll be moved to a semiprivate room and be there at least two or three days, maybe longer. She has to be able to walk unassisted. There may be issues with balance.”
“She graduates from high school on Sunday.”
The nurse chews a lip. “That’s going to be pretty tight.” She pauses. “How are you doing?”
“A hundred percent better.”
“You need to get some sleep,” the nurse says. “I can’t order you to do it, but you know I’m right.”
“I hate to leave her.”
“This is the ICU. She’s being monitored every second.” The nurse smiles. “She’s out of the woods, Mr. Webster. I think you can start to relax now.”
He stands immobile in the shower for twenty minutes, letting the hot water remove the kinks. Then he scrubs and washes his hair and slides between the covers. It’s nearly dawn when he shuts his eyes.
It’s noon the same day when wakes up. He comes alert and has to remind himself that his daughter has come out of the coma. He lies back against the pillow, his arms crossed behind his head, and savors that sweet sensation. A bright sun tries to enter the room at the edges of the curtains. He wonders if today will be too soon to mention Sheila to Rowan. It’s a gamble on his part—the notion that Rowan might better absorb the idea of Sheila visiting in a hospital setting than at home, which is full of memories—but he thinks he should try it.
He dresses and half jogs back to the hospital. He finds Rowan in her new room, awake, sitting up and eating lunch. He stands, wide-eyed, in the doorway. A simple sight and yet so astonishing.
“Hey,” he says.
“Who are you?” Rowan asks.
Webster’s heart thuds against his chest.
“Are you my doctor?”
“Rowan, this is Dad. You don’t remember me?”
“My father works with the Hartstone Rescue Squad.”
His heart kicks again.
“Rowan. Sweetheart.”
“Oh, I had you good! You should see your face.”
“You…” He grabs her foot under the sheet and shakes it.
She laughs. “I’m having a turkey sandwich. And custard. I never knew how much I loved custard.”
“You’re a rascal,” he says, still finding it hard to believe his eyes. “You look wonderful.”
“Dad, I look like a freak! I’ve got a ten-inch bald spot on top of my head and a cast on my shoulder.”
“The bald spot is four by two inches.”
“It feels huge.