“Your friend wants you to drink this.” She pushes the hot Styrofoam into my hand.
“My friend?”
“The big blond guy? He’s out in the public waiting room.”
I exhale. Of course Kit didn’t leave. He wouldn’t. He’s the closest friend we have. He would never leave.
“Thank you. Is there any news?”
She shakes her head. “They’re still working.”
God.
I nod, and my head is a ball on a stick, bobbing like a bobblehead doll.
She starts to leave, but I stop her.
“Jessica? What time is it?”
She checks her watch.
“It’s one forty-seven.”
I exhale slowly with relief. Matt died at 1:21. Beck outlived him. I know it’s illogical, but I don’t give a fuck at this moment. It seems important.
“Thank you.”
She nods and she’s gone, and Beck outlived Matt.
It’s important.
But I can’t get cocky.
two
BECK
WHERE THE HELL AM I?
A heavy weight presses on my eyes and I can’t open them.
What the fuck is that about?
My arms and legs are like concrete, too heavy to move, and my body is frozen in place. I’m in a state of complete stillness, and for a minute I’m pissed about that.
But then I realize something.
The itching . . . the horrible bugs-crawling-all-over-me feeling from earlier is gone. I don’t feel anything now, actually. Just a slight warm sensation.
I feel calmer now, and I wait, listening.
There’s a lot of movement, and then some prodding. Someone is poking me in the ribs, in the belly, but it doesn’t hurt.
That’s fucked up.
Maybe I’m just really fucked up.
Maybe this isn’t real.
My thoughts aren’t coming as they should. Instead, they feel broken, choppy. Like the water in Lake Michigan on a stormy day.
Lake Michigan.
I live in Chicago. That’s a start. That’s something.
My name is Beck Kingsley, and I live in Chicago.
“He’s still tachycardic,” a woman says next to my ear, and cold metal is pressed to my chest. “His arrhythmia is out of control. Someone get me droperidol. The lorazepam isn’t touching him. Oh, son of a bitch. He’s gonna seize.”
I feel my chest rise off the table, breaking rank from the rest of my body, and I feel myself thrashing against my will, yet it doesn’t hurt. My arms are restrained; there’s something around my wrists. I don’t know why I’m able to think calmly when my body is out of control.
My head slams against the table over and over, and then someone is holding it. I feel steady hands on each side by my ears. Their fingers are cool, my skin is hot, and yet my head doesn’t hurt.
“His temp is one-oh-five,” a man says. “We’ve got to bring it down.”
“He’s got blood coming from his nose,” someone else says. “Shit, we’ve got cerebral edema.”
Their voices blend together now in a frenzy of noise. My fingers are matchsticks and they are striking against flint, and I’m in flames and everything around me is cold, too cold. My teeth chatter together, slamming like ivory doors.
If this is real, I’m in the hospital. But with me, especially lately, I don’t know what’s real and what’s not.
I don’t know how I ended up here.
I can’t think of anything. My mind is a fuzzy mess, and it’s incapable of focusing. I try harder, trying to grab anything from it.
Anything.
So I do what anyone would do.
I focus on home. I mentally grab a piece of a memory and drag it to me. Anything is better than being here in this moment, even if the memory is from long ago.
* * *
“LET’S GO!” MY MOM called from the bottom of the stairs. I tumbled out of my room and found my mother with her hand on her pregnant belly, waddling toward the front door. She looked so top-heavy, like she’d topple over any second. She held my little brother’s hand as he toddled with her. “Matt!” she called over her shoulder.
My father emerged from the kitchen with sports drinks in the crook of one elbow and a bat bag slung over his shoulder.
“You ready, kid?” he asked me, tapping the bill of my baseball cap. I nodded.
“Yeah, Dad.” Dad knew I didn’t like baseball nearly as much as football, but he was the coach for our Little League team, so I played and I did the best I could.
The ride to the diamond didn’t take long, but my mom groaned every time we went over a bump, her hand on her giant belly.
Dad smiled at her. “You okay, there, USS Natalie?”
She scowled at him. “I assume you’re saying I’m big as a ship?”
He opened his car door. “I would never.”
Other parents were already there, but that was nothing new. My dad was always running late. We jogged to the field and warmed up with everyone else, and before I knew it, we were playing.
I sat in the dugout with my best friend, Tray, as we waited our turns to bat. I glanced out at the stands, and my mom was perched in the bleachers, my brother, Devin, nestled into her side. She looked like she’d swallowed a watermelon. I still wasn’t sure what I thought about having a new sister. What the heck was I supposed to do with a sister?
My dad was standing behind home base, whispering words of encouragement to the batters, and when he caught my eye, he winked.
Pride swelled up in me. My dad was the head coach because my dad was awesome. Everyone knew it. I worried about letting him down, though. My dad was perfect. He never messed up. Not ever.
I wiggled on the bench, adjusting my cap and then tying my shoe. When I sat back up, Mom and Devin were next to the cage.
“Your brother wanted to give you something, sweetie,” Mom said, smiling. I looked down at Devin, and he was holding out a grubby hand, one of his green marbles in his palm.
I scowled. “What am I gonna do with that?”
Devin’s face fell, and my mom frowned.
“He wants you to have it for a good-luck charm. We know you can do this, sweetie.”
“A marble is gonna make me have a good game?”
Mom’s smile was forced. “Honey, he’s trying to be nice. He loves these marbles. We want you to know that even though you don’t love this sport, you can do anything you put your mind to.”
I sighed and held out my hand. Devin gave me the glass marble happily.
“Thank you,” I told him dutifully. I promptly handed it to Mom. “Can you keep it right now? I don’t have pockets.”
She nodded, and my dad called my name.
“Kingsley, you’re up!”
I sprinted out and got into the stance, my butt wagging and my feet spread, just like I’d been taught. My dad leaned in.
“Aim for center field,” he whispered to me. “Their shortstop isn’t good, and their center fielder is even worse. You’ve got this, kid. Swing high!”
I nodded, focused on the ball.
The stadium lights were on already, though, and I was disoriented for a minute. Why were they on in the middle of the day? I stood staring into them, and I felt a weird sense of peace overwhelm me.
“Clear!” someone yelled from the stands, and what did he mean? Clear away from what? Shouldn’t he have said strike? I missed the pitch because I wasn’t paying attention.
“Again!” that person shouted. My chest lurched, and I must have been nervous. I wanted to stare at the lights more for some reason, but my dad was whispering to me.
“Focus, Beck. It’s not time for that. Swing high!”
The pitcher aimed, threw, and this time, my bat connected with a loud, metallic thunk and the ball swept into a mighty arc, up and over the field.
“Run!” my dad called, and I threw the bat and ran with all of my might. I cleared first base, second, then third. My dad was screaming, motioning for
me to come home, so I did.
I ran for everything I was worth.
I felt the other team closing in on me, I felt them throwing the ball to get me out, and I skidded. My hip hit the dirt, and I sprawled across the base.
“Safe!” the umpire called. “We’ve got a pulse again. Good job, everyone.”
I shook my head because that wasn’t right. I was pretty sure that wasn’t what he was supposed to say, but I was safe, so that was all that mattered.
I stood up and walked into the dugout so that my friends could slap my back.
It was my first infield home run.
My dad beamed at me. I’d made him proud.
Maybe that old marble was good luck, after all.
three
NATALIE
MERCY HOSPITAL
2:51 A.M.
“MRS. KINGSLEY?”
I’m in the middle of my 330th lap around the room. My hands shake uncontrollably and I pause, scared to turn.
But I do.
The doctor stands there, tired and pale and sallow, a surgical cap on his head.
“Your son is alive,” he says simply, and my ears roar in disbelief and shock. I realize suddenly that I wasn’t expecting to hear this news. I was expecting the worst because that’s what happened a year ago. The worst. The doctor had said Matt’s injuries were insurmountable; we did everything we could.
But this is a different doctor, and this different doctor says different things.
“He’s alive?” I’m afraid I heard wrong. I search his face. There’s something there, something else, something yet to know. I tremble all over, from my fingers to my toes and everything in between. Behind the doctor I see Kit looming in the doorway, listening.
The doctor’s eyes are tired but kind, and he nods.
“He is. We were able to bring him back. But I’m going to be frank. He’s in bad shape. He’s in extremely critical condition. His brain is swollen and we’ve had to put him in a medically induced coma to relieve it. He suffered a stroke from the overdose, which we believe was from a combination of heroin and methamphetamines.”
“No,” I say slowly. “That’s impossible. Beck doesn’t use meth.”
I argue even though I don’t know that for sure. I’ve been clinging to the boy he once was. I don’t know anything anymore; I haven’t seen him in two months.
“We believe he was, at least tonight,” the doctor says gently. “He’s touch and go right now, Mrs. Kingsley. His heart stopped for around sixty seconds. Be strong for him. He needs it right now. These first twenty-four hours are the most critical. If he makes it through, we’ll have reason to be hopeful. I’d like to bring him out of the coma in twenty-four hours.”
“If he makes it through,” I repeat in a whisper, and I’m frozen. His heart already stopped for an entire minute. This was what I was expecting, because this is what happened to Matt; he died, and doesn’t history repeat itself?
“You said he suffered a stroke,” Kit interjects in his calm way. “How bad was it?”
“We can’t know yet,” the doctor answers. “Not until it’s safe to bring him out of the coma. For now, we have to treat the brain bleed and the swelling. They are paramount.”
I nod and I’m limp.
“Can I see him?”
The doctor pauses. “He’s in ICU, and he won’t know you’re there. I suggest you go home and get some rest, change clothes. Tomorrow will be a long day.”
I remember now that I’m in my bathrobe, but it doesn’t matter.
“You say he might not survive the night,” I manage to say. “So I’m not leaving.”
“I thought you’d say that,” the doctor answers, and in his eyes I see a thousand other situations like mine. He has seen them all, an endless combination of other boys and other mothers. “Come with me.”
At the door I pause with Kit. “Can you call Sam?” I ask him. “Let her know?”
“Yeah,” he says. “And I’ll go get you some clothes.”
“You don’t have to,” I answer, but I’m already walking away.
I follow the doctor through the halls, and we stop outside of a room with glass walls. The curtains inside are drawn, and on the door KINGSLEY is written on a dry-erase board.
My son is in there.
I push past the doctor, and I’m stunned as I stare at the boy in the bed.
He seems so small and pale, not my six-foot-four tanned boy, the strong boy who led his football team to a district championship just last year. This boy is frail. This boy is skin and bones.
I gasp, and the doctor’s hand is on my shoulder.
“There’s a chair over there,” he tells me. “You should rest.”
I slide into the pink vinyl chair and find Beck’s hand amid the tubes. His arm is so thin. He’s lost so much weight in just two months. He’s skeletal. It’s unfathomable. I clasp his hand inside of my own, and even though his is technically bigger, it’s so bony it feels like it will break.
My head slumps to the bed rail and the plastic is cool against my forehead.
“Please, Beck,” I say aloud, staring at the floor because I can’t stare at him. It’s too terrifying. “Please. Come back to me. Fight through this. Everything will be better if you just wake up.”
I know he can’t right now, that it’s not his choice. But I want him to know that when it’s time, it’s time. That not waking up isn’t an option.
Picking my head up I stare into his face, steeling myself.
Someone has cleaned him up. The vomit is gone from his face; the bloody scrapes are bandaged. There are dark bags beneath his eyes, eyes that I know are a mossy green just like his father’s. His cheeks are sunken and I know he hasn’t eaten. There’s no way he’s eaten.
Guilt snakes around my heart, slithering in, and it steals my breath. I should’ve done something more. There had to be something else to do. I should’ve found it.
“Beck, baby, I love you,” I tell him. “Nothing else matters. You’re okay. I’m okay. And after all of this, we’re going to go home and fix everything, you hear me?”
I squeeze his hand, but he doesn’t squeeze back, because he doesn’t hear me. Because he can’t. But that doesn’t stop me. I have to speak. If I don’t . . . I’m afraid of what will happen.
So I talk.
Behind me, I hear the hospital moving on with life, saving people, clattering and clamoring. But in here, it’s just me and my boy in the dark silence.
“Remember Boy Scout camp when you were eight?” I ask him. “You were so homesick. Daddy didn’t want me to come get you, he said it was character building, but I came anyway. I picked you up in the middle of the night. And then Daddy took you back the next morning. He knew best, I suppose. You ended up having an amazing time, and you made me that green dream catcher out of Popsicle sticks. I still use it, you know.”
It hangs from the headboard of my bed. It doesn’t keep the nightmares away, but I’ll never tell him that.
“If Daddy were here now, he’d know the exact right thing to say,” I tell him, and that lump is back in my throat. It’s exactly the thing I’d told him the night of the accident. When he was yet again lying in a hospital bed, and Matt, my beautiful Matt, was on his way down to the morgue.
“I told you that night that Daddy was okay,” I remember aloud. “You were unconscious, and I lied to you. I didn’t think it would matter, but I feel guilty about that. I just wanted you to wake up without being afraid. But that was wrong. Honesty is best, Beck. Always. And the truth is, I’m scared right now. I’m scared you won’t wake up, and God, baby, I can’t lose you too.”
I drop my head and sob, and my ribs rasp and wrack, and I keep his hand inside my own. My tears splash onto our skin in fat drops and it doesn’t matter, because Beck isn’t awake.
The similarities between that night and this one are too much to think about. My baby is once again in a hospital bed, only this time . . .
I refuse to think of it. I change the subject
instead.
“Your lips are so dry,” I tell him, and I reach for my purse, only putting his hand down for a second. I dig through the loose change, gum wrappers, and Kleenex. I also see one of Annabelle’s Barbie shoes. I find my tube of ChapStick.
I examine his face as I apply the balm to his chapped lips, and he’s still impassive. His hand is exactly how it was, his thumb bent. His hair slants across his forehead, and I push it back. The skin on his forehead is soft and smooth in his sleep. It’s as though he has no idea of the terrible danger he’s in.
He probably doesn’t.
He’s in a coma.
My kid is in a coma.
I exhale again. I reach over, putting my thumb in the cleft of his chin. My eyes well up when it still fits perfectly. It’s sharper now, though, my thumb wedged between the edges.
I think about the last day I saw him, two long months ago. The anger and the yelling, and how I’d watched him drive away and I couldn’t do anything about it.
I was helpless then, and I’m helpless now.
“Take me instead,” I pray to God. “Take me instead.”
It would almost be a relief.
I close my eyes and the machine beside me beeps, loudly and rhythmically, with the sound of my son’s ventilator. With it, he breathes.
At the moment, it’s all that matters.
After everything that’s happened, I have to focus on the hope that he will keep breathing, so that the gravity of my present doesn’t drown me like my past.
* * *
I WAS SOUND ASLEEP when the phone rang, jolting me awake.
Nothing good ever came in the middle of the night, and I struggled to find my phone on the nightstand. Matt and Beck still hadn’t gotten back from their campus visit to Notre Dame. The clock numbers glowed red in the dark: 1:21 a.m.
“Hello,” I said thickly after I pulled the phone to my ear.
“Mom!”
Beck’s voice was so desperate, so terrified. “We need help!”
“Beck! Honey, what’s wrong?” I was instantly awake now.
“Mom, he’s not breathing.”
“Who? Beckitt, what’s happening?” My heart pounded and I sat straight up.