Closing my eyes, I turned my head to see the bright lights of Foxworth Hall like fireflies on the mountain. Later I was to hear from Cindy that at first all the guests had been appalled, not knowing what to do or how to act, but Bart had rushed in to tell them Jory was only slightly injured and would be fully recovered in a few days.
Up front, seated with the driver and an attendant, was Melodie in her black formal, glancing back from time to time and asking if Jory had come around yet. "Chris, will he live?" she asked in a voice thin with anxiety.
"Of course he'll live," said Chris, feverishly working over Jory, ruining his new tux with the blood. "He's not bleeding now, I've stopped that." He turned to the intern and asked for more dressings.
The screaming of the siren rattled my nerves, made me afraid soon all of us would be dead. How could I have deceived myself into believing Foxworth Hall would ever offer us anything but grief? I began to pray, closing my eyes and saying the same words over and over again. Don't let Jory die, God, please don't take him. He's too young, he hasn't lived long enough. His unborn child needs him. Only after I'd kept this up for several miles did I remember that I'd said almost the same prayers for Julian--and Julian had died.
By this time Melodie was hysterical. The intern started to inject her with some drug, but quickly I stopped him "No! She's pregnant and that would harm her child." I leaned forward and hissed at Melodie, "Stop screaming! You're not helping Jory, or your baby." She screamed louder, turning to beat at me with small but strong fists.
"I wish we'd never come . . . I told him it was a mistake, coming to that house, the worst mistake of our lives, and now he's paying, paying, paying . . ." On and on saying that until finally her voice went, and Jory was opening his eyes and grinning at us.
"Hi," he said weakly. "Seems Samson didn't die after all."
I sobbed in relief. Chris smiled and bathed Jory's head cuts with some solution. "You're going to be fine, son, just fine. Just hold on to that."
Jory closed his eyes before he murmured in a weak way, `Was the performance good?"
"Cathy, you tell him what you think," Chris suggested in the calmest voice.
"You were incredible, darling," I said, leaning to kiss his pale face smeared with makeup.
"Tell Mel not to worry," he whispered as if he heard her crying; then he drifted into sleep from the sedative Chris injected into his arm.
We paced the hospital waiting room outside of the operating theater. Melodie was by this time a limp rag, sagging from fear, her eyes wide and staring. "Same as his father . . . same as his father," repeating the same words over so much I thought she was drilling that notion into her head--and into mine. I, too, could have screamed from the agony of believing Jory might die. More to keep her quiet than anything else, I took her into my arms and smothered her face against my breasts, soothing her with motherly words of assurance when I didn't feel confident about anything. We were, again, caught in the merciless clutches of Foxworths. How could I have been so happy earlier in the day? Where had my intuition fled? Bart had come into his own, and in so doing he had taken from Jory what belonged to him, the most valuable possession he had--his good health and his strong, agile body.
Hours later, five surgeons wearing green brought out my firstborn son from the operating theater. Jory was covered to his chin with blankets. All his summer tan had disappeared, leaving him as pale as his father had liked to keep his complexion. His dark curly hair seemed wet. Bruises were under his closed eyes.
"He'll be all right now, won't he?" asked Melodie, jumping up to hurry after the stretcher rolling fast toward an elevator. "He will recover and be as good as new, won't he?"
Desperation made her voice high and shrill. No one said a word.
They lifted Jory off the stretcher by using the sheet, carefully deposited him on his bed, then chased all of us out but Chris. In the hall outside I held Melodie and waited, waited.
Melodie and I went back to Foxworth Hall toward dawn, when Jory's condition seemed stable enough for me to relax a little. Chris stayed on, sleeping in some little room used by the interns on duty.
I had wanted to stay as well, but Melodie grew ever more hysterical, hating the way Jory slept, hating the medicinal smell of the hospital corridors; hating the nurses who scurried in and out of his room with trays of instruments and bottles; hating the doctors who wouldn't give her, or me, a straight answer.
A taxi drove us both back to the Hall, where a light had been left burning near the front doors. The sun was just peeking over the horizon, flushing the sky with frail pink. Little birds woke up and fluttered tentative fledgling wings, while their parents sang or chirped their territorial rights before they flew away to find food. I supported Melodie up the stairs and into the house. She was by this time so deeply detached from reality that she staggered and seemed drunk.
Up one side of the dual staircase carefully, slowly, with my arm about her waist, thinking every second of the baby she was carrying and the effect this night might have on him or her. In the bedroom she shared with Jory she couldn't manage to undress, her hands trembled so badly. I helped, then slipped a nightgown over her head, tucked her into the bed and turned out the light. "I'll stay if you want," I said, as she lay there bleak and hopeless looking. She wanted me to stay, wanted to talk about Jory and the doctors who wouldn't give us any encouragement. "Why do they do that?" she cried.
How could I tell her how doctors protected themselves with silence until they were sure of their facts? I covered for all Jory's doctors, telling Melodie that Jory had to be all right or they would have wanted her to stay on.
Finally she drifted into restless sleep, fretting and tossing, calling Jory's name, waking up often to jerk back to awareness and cry all over again. Her anguish was painful to see and hear, and I was left feeling as wrung out as she was.
An hour later, much to my relief, she sank into deep sleep, as if even she knew she had to escape that way.
I had a few minutes of sleep myself before Cindy barged into my room and perched anxiously on my bed, waiting for me to wake up. The very sinking of the mattress when she sat opened my eyes. I saw her face, opened my arms and held her while she cried. "He is going to be all right, Momma?"
"Darling, your father is there with him. Jory had to have immediate surgery. He's in a private room now, asleep and resting comfortably. Chris will be there when he wakes up. I'm going to eat a quick breakfast and then drive to the city to be there, too. I want you to stay here with Melodie--"
Already I'd decided that Melodie was much too hysterical to go to the hospital with me.
Instantly Cindy protested, saying she wanted to go and see Jory herself. I shook my head, insisting she stay. "Melodie is his wife, darling, and she is taking this very hard, and in her condition she shouldn't go back to the hospital until we know the truth about Jory. I've never seen a woman carry on so much about being in a hospital. She seems to think they are as bad as funeral homes. Now stay, and say anything to keep her calm, wait on her, see that she eats and drinks. Give her the peace she is seeking desperately now . . . and I'll telephone when I know something."
Melodie, when I peeked in a few minutes later, was so deeply asleep I knew I'd made the right decision. "Explain to her why I didn't wait for her to wake up, Cindy, lest she think I'm taking her place . . ."
I drove very fast toward the hospital.
Because Chris was a doctor, I'd spent a great deal of my life going to and from hospitals, letting him off, picking him up, visiting friends, meeting a few patients he particularly favored. We'd taken Jory to the best hospital in our area. The corridors were broad to allow the passing and turning of stretchers, the windows were wide, with plants hanging. Every modern diagnostic aid was there, despite the expense. But the room where Jory slept on and on was tiny, so tiny, as were all the rooms. The single window was so recessed it was difficult to look outside, and when I did, I saw nothing but the entranceway to the hospital and, farther away, another
wing.
Chris was still sleeping, though a nurse told me he'd been in to check on Jory five times during the night. "He's really a devoted father, Mrs. Sheffield."
I turned to stare down at Jory, who now wore a heavy cast on his body with a window through which his incision could be viewed and treated, if necessary. I kept staring at his legs, wondering why they didn't twitch, bend, move--they weren't enclosed in the cast.
Suddenly an arm slipped around my waist and warm lips brushed the nape of my neck.
"Didn't I order you not to come back until I called?"
Relief immediately flooded me. Chris was here. "Chris, how can I stay away? I've got to know what's wrong, or I can't sleep. Tell me the truth, now that Melodie isn't here to scream and faint."
He sighed and bowed his head. Only then did I see how exhausted he looked, still wearing his rumpled and soiled tux. "It's not good news, Cathy. I'd rather not go into details until I've talked again with his physicians and surgeon."
"Don't you pull that old trick on me! I want to know! I'm not one of your patients who thinks doctors are gods on pedestals and I can't ask questions. Is Jory's back broken? Was his spinal cord injured? Will he walk again? Why doesn't he move his legs?"
First he pulled me out into the hall, in case Jory was awake but had his eyes closed. Softly he closed the door behind him and then led me into a tiny cubicle where only doctors were allowed. He sat me down, standing to tower above me, and made me realize I was about to hear very serious news. Only then did he speak. "Jory's spine was broken, Cathy. You guessed correctly. It's a lower lumbar fracture, so we can be grateful his injury wasn't higher. He will have full use of his arms and will eventually gain control over his bladder and intestinal functions, but right now they are in shock, so to speak, and tubes and bags will function until he regains the feeling of when he has to go."
He paused, but I wasn't letting him off that easily. "The spinal cord? Tell me that it wasn't crushed."
"No, not crushed, but damaged," he said reluctantly. "It is bruised severely enough to keep his legs paralyzed."
I froze. Oh, no! Not Jory! I cried out, with no more control than Melodie. "He'll never walk again?" I whispered, feeling myself go pale and weak and slightly light-headed. When next I opened my eyes, Chris was on his knees by my side, gripping both my hands hard.
"Hold on . . . he's alive, and that's what counts. He won't die--but he'll never walk again."
Sinking, I was drowning, drowning, going under again in that same old familiar pool of hopeless despair. The same little sparkling swanhead fish rushed to nibble on my brain, taking bits out of my soul. "And that means he'll never dance again . . . never walk, never dance . . . Chris, what will this do to him?"
He drew me into his embrace and bowed his head into my hair, his breath stirring it as he spoke in a choked way. "He'll survive, darling. Isn't that what all of us do when tragedy comes into our lives? We take it, grin and bear it and make the best of what we have left. We forget what we had yesterday and concentrate on what we have today, and when we can teach Jory how to accept what has happened, we will have our son back again--disabled, but alive, intelligent, organically healthy."
I was jerking with sobs as he talked on. His hands ran up and down my back, his lips brushed over my eyes, my lips, finding ways to calm me.
"We've got to be strong for him, darling. Cry all you want now, for you can't cry when he opens his eyes and sees you. You can't show pity. You can't be too sympathetic. When he wakes up, he's going to look into your eyes, and he's going to read your mind. Whatever fears or pity that you show on your face or in your eyes is going to determine how he looks and feels about his handicap. He's going to be devastated, we both know that. He'll want to die. He'll think about his father and how Julian escaped his plight, we have to keep that in mind as well. We'll have to talk to Cindy and Bart and explain to them the roles they'll play in his recovery. We have to form a strong family unit to see him through this ordeal, for it's going to be rough, Cathy, very rough."
I nodded, trying to control my flow of tears, feeling I was inside Jory, knowing every tormented moment he had ahead was going to tear me apart, too.
Chris went on while he kept his arms about me for support. "Jory's constructed his entire life around dancing, and he will never dance again. No, don't look at me with that hope. NEVER AGAIN! There is some possibility someday he'll have enough strength to get up on his feet and pull himself around on crutches . . . but he'll never walk normally. Accept that, Cathy.
"We have to convince him that his handicap doesn't matter, that he's the same person he was before. And, most importantly, we have to convince ourselves that he's just as manly, just as human . . . for many families change when a member becomes disabled. They either become too sympathetic, or they become alienated, as if the handicap changes the person they used to love and know. We have to keep to middle ground and help Jory find the strength to see this through."
I heard a little of what he said.
Crippled! My Jory was crippled. A paraplegic. I shook my head, disbelieving that fate would keep him that way. Tears fell like rain upon Chris's soiled, ruffled, dress shirt. How would Jory live when he found out he was going to spend the rest of his life confined to a wheelchair?
Cruel Fate
. The sun was noon high and still Jory hadn't opened his eyes. Chris decided we both needed a hearty meal, and hospital food was always seasonless sawdust or shoe leather. "Try to nap while I'm gone, and hold on to your control. If he awakens, try not to panic, keep your cool and smile, smile, smile. He'll be fuzzy-minded and won't be fully cognizant. I'll try to hurry back . . ."
I'd never sleep; I was too busy planning on how to act when Jory eventually woke up long enough to start asking questions. Chris had no sooner closed the door behind him than Jory stirred, turned his head and weakly smiled at me. "Hey, you been there all night? Or two nights? When was it?"
"Last night," I whispered hoarsely, hoping he wouldn't notice my throaty voice. "You've been sleeping for hours and hours."
"You look exhausted," he said weakly, touchingly showing more concern for me than for himself. "Why don't you go back to the Hall and sleep? I'm okay. I've fallen before, and, like before, in a few days I'll be whirling all over that house again. Where's my wife?"
Why wasn't he noticing the cast that bulged out his chest? Then I saw his eyes were unfocused and he hadn't fully pulled out of the sedatives given him to ease the pain. Good . . . if only he wouldn't start asking questions I wanted Chris to answer.
Sleepily he closed his eyes and dozed off, but ten minutes later he was again awake and asking questions. "Mom, I feel strange. Never felt like this before. Can't say I like the way I feel. Why this cast? Did I break something?"
"The temple papier-mache 'columns fell," I weakly explained. "Knocked you out. What a way to end the ballet--too real."
"Did I bring down the house --or the sky?" he quipped, his eyes opening and brightening as the sedative I'd hoped would keep him hazy wore off. "Cindy was great, wasn't she? You know, each time I see her, she's more beautiful. And she's really a very good dancer. She's like you, Mom, improving with age."
I sat on my hands to keep them from twisting in the betraying way my mother used to use her hands. I smiled, got up to pour a glass of water. "Doctor's orders. You've got to drink a lot."
He sipped as I supported his head. It was so strange to see him helpless, when he'd never been bedridden. His colds had come and gone in a matter of days, and not once had he missed a day in school or ballet class, except in order to visit Bart in the hospital after one of his many accidents that never left him permanently damaged. Jory had sprained his ankles dozens of times, torn ligaments, fallen, gotten up, but he'd never had a serious injury until now. All dancers spent some time tending small injuries, and
sometimes even larger ones, but a broken back, a damaged spinal cord--it was every dancer's most dreaded nightmare.
Again he dozed off
, but before long he had his eyes open and was asking questions about himself. Perched on the side of his bed, I rattled on and on nonsensically, praying that Chris would come back. A pretty nurse came in with Jory's lunch tray, all liquids. That gave me something to do. I fiddled with a halfpint milk carton, opened yogurt, poured milk and orange juice, tucked a napkin under his chin and began with the strawberry yogurt. Immediately he gagged and made a face. He shoved my hands away, saying he could feed himself, but he didn't have an appetite.
Once I had the tray out of the way, I hoped he'd fall asleep. Instead he lay there staring at me, his eyes lucid. "Can you tell me now why I feel so weak? Why I can't eat? Why I can't move my legs?"
"Your father has gone out to bring in food for the two of us, snack food that's not good for you, but it will be tastier than what we can eat in the cafeteria downstairs. Let him tell you. He knows all the technical terms that I don't."
"Mom, I wouldn't understand technical terms. Tell me in your own layman's words--why can't I feel or move my legs?"
His dark sapphire eyes riveted on me. "Mom, I'm not a coward. I can take whatever you have to say. Now spill it out, or else I'm going to presume my back is broken and my legs are paralyzed and I'm never going to walk again."
My heart quickened as my head lowered. He'd said all this in a jocular way, as if none of it could possibly be true . . . and he'd stated his condition exactly.
Desperation came to his eyes as I faltered, trying to find just the right words, and even the right ones would rip out his heart. Just then Chris strode in the door, carrying a paper sack with cheeseburgers. "Well," he said brightly, throwing Jory a pleased smile, "look who's awake and talking." He took out a burger and handed it to me. "Sorry, Jory, you can't have anything solid for a few days due to your operation. Cathy, eat that thing while it's still hot," he ordered, sitting down himself and immediately unwrapping his burger. I saw he'd bought two super ones for himself. He bit into it with relish before he brought out the cola drinks. "Didn't have the lime you wanted, Cathy. It's Pepsi."