21. Maggie #2
“In some cases, patients with injuries like Mrs. Wylie’s do not regain consciousness at all when the sedation is withdrawn.
We don’t see brain activity return. The body keeps doing its work, but the brain is not truly functioning, and the organs will shut down.
” She looked at Kate. “Statistically, it’s the least likely of the four, but it is a possible outcome. ”
Tessa’s hand reached for Kate’s, tears already spilling over her cheeks.
“I’m not going to give you false optimism,” the doctor added. “But we have reason to hope she’ll wake and have minimal brain damage.”
Reason, Maggie thought. Not “every reason” or any other glossy, hopeful, cheery thing. Just…reason.
“How many hours until she wakes up?” Tessa asked, a note of true Jo Ellen optimism in her voice.
“We really don’t know. Sometime tonight or overnight. We can only have one person in the room at a time, but you may keep someone posted around the clock if you like.”
They glanced at each other, all silent for a moment.
“If you have no other questions.” Dr. Halpern stood briskly. “We’ll get her prepped and started.” Her face softened as she looked from Tessa to Kate. “You’re her daughters, right?”
They both nodded and she gestured for them to get up.
“Come and give your mom a kiss for luck before we start.”
They smiled and followed her out of the room, leaving Eli and Maggie in the heavy silence.
“Oh, man.” Eli groaned and threaded his fingers through his hair, a familiar gesture that telegraphed his stress. “Long day ahead. You want me to take you home, Mom?”
“I want…” The door opened slowly, as if whoever was on the other side wasn’t sure they were allowed in.
“Hello?” a low man’s voice called.
Oh. She let out a small sound. Exactly what she wanted, to be honest. Or who.
“Brick.” She took a quick step and opened the door. “You’re here.”
“Of course,” he said, reaching for her. “I figured you needed a friend.”
And the truth was, she’d never needed one more.
The hospital coffee shop was busy at this hour, but somehow Brick found the perfect table with two comfortable chairs, bought coffee and pastries that Maggie would never in a million years order, but suddenly longed to eat.
“Thank you,” she said when he returned from the counter with a tray. “For this, and for coming. It was kind.”
He smiled, his blue eyes glistening. “I love Jo,” he said simply. “And this is what you do when a friend is in trouble.”
She opened the lid to her coffee and added a generous amount of cream even though she usually had it black. She needed comfort and, right now, it was in front of her in the form of a sweet bearded and tattooed man who’d probably arrived on two wheels.
“What’s the status?” he asked, then held up a hand. “Unless you don’t want to talk about it.”
“Oh, I do,” she assured him, accepting what looked like a chocolate croissant with a dusting of powdered sugar. First, she took a small sip of coffee. “Oh, yes, thank you.”
He grinned—he had beautiful teeth under that beard—and reached his hand over the table. “Maggie, you don’t have to hold it together.”
“That’s, uh, what would you say? How I roll?”
He laughed. “Yes, it is. But if you need to break down and cry, go right ahead.”
“I don’t cry.”
“Why am I not surprised?”
She smiled and broke off a piece of the pastry, taking her time to enjoy the bite and dab her lips with the paper napkin.
After she had another, she filled him in on the “status,” explaining the procedure and all four possible outcomes.
All without even tearing up, only because she spoke as though she were telling him about a character in a movie, not her lifelong best friend.
Brick listened without interrupting. He nodded, ate his own croissant, and never took his eyes from hers.
When she was done, she said, more quietly, “She might not come back, Brick.”
“I heard.”
“She might come back wrong.”
“I heard that, too.”
“And I don’t know which of those is worse,” she admitted.
“No. You don’t. You don’t until you’re in it. But you have a chance, Maggie, and you have got to hold on to that hope for all it’s worth.” He leaned in. “Remember when I met you, right at the end of Alligator Drive where 98 turns north?”
“Of course,” she said, flushing at the memory of how she’d been sure a biker gang was coming to rape and pillage, and all they did was help and save two old ladies in a broken-down truck.
“Remember why we were there, right then?” he asked.
She nodded. “You said you and Angel and Randy ride that road every year on that day, because that’s where you lost…Bear, was it?”
He gave in to another smile. “I wasn’t sure you were listening,” he said. “You were so busy assuming we were going to have our way with you and leave you on the side of the road.”
She blushed again. “I’m sorry. I made a snap judgment.”
“You? Never.”
She laughed, always liking that he teased her like that.
“What were the chances that the very day—Bear’s anniversary—was the same day you and Jo would break down in that beater truck right where it turns off to a road very few people travel?
Bear’s road. The place where we lost him.
You know, I like to think that ol’ coot set it up for me. So I’d meet you.”
She looked down at her croissant, then back up at him. “Why would he do that?”
“Because he knew, even then, before my wife died, that I’d need a friend.”
“I don’t think it works that way,” she said with a smile. “But that’s sweet.”
“Well, I do think it works that way. I don’t think things happen by chance and, in fact, sometimes very good things can come out of very bad events.”
She took in a deep breath and exhaled, recognizing this philosophy as the secular version of what Eli believed.
“Nothing good is going to come out of this,” she said.
“If she’s perfectly fine, which I want to believe she will be, then she’s going to have a whopper of a headache, a hospital bill, and won’t ever go out on a balcony again.
If she’s not, then…” She bit her lip. “I can’t live without her, Brick,” she admitted in a hoarse voice.
“I’ve thought that myself,” he said. “Then you find out. And, like it or not, little lady, you will go on.” He nodded, his eyes soft. “It won’t be easy, but you will go on. Honey, I’ve been there.”
She groaned and felt her eyes shutter. “But I don’t want to.”
He reached for her hand again. “Whatever happens, Mags, I’m here for you. I’m your friend, and I can listen to you talk about her or dry those tears you are fighting like mad not to shed or just put you on a bike and let the wind help you forget. I’m here for you.”
Maggie looked at him through her blurry eyes. She wasn’t sure, with the exception of Jo Ellen, that she’d ever had a friend like that before. Acquaintances, garden club ladies, neighbors, family. Even Roger had never been a “friend” but always her husband.
The thought gutted her.
“You know, Brick,” she said through a tight throat, “I’ve never had a friend.”
He drew back. “I think you got one upstairs in the ICU.”
“I had Jo, yes. The deepest of friendships, but we were separated by our husbands for thirty years. But other than Jo, I’ve actually been very…
lonely.” Her voice cracked and the first tear fell.
Cursed thing. “I think that’s why I keep dreaming about my late husband.
He’s trying to tell me something and maybe it’s that I’m going to be lonely again. Maybe he knows…Jo’s coming.”
“No, no.” He took her hand again, his own eyes swimming with tears. “Maybe he knows you’ve got the people in your life to get rid of that loneliness, Maggie.”
She blinked, managing not to lose another tear but still give him a warning look. “I don’t want—”
“I know. I’m not offering that.”
“Good, because I’m seventy-eight.”
He squeezed her hand lightly. “My romantic days are done, Mags. But I can be your friend in the truest sense and I’d like to be.”
“You are,” she whispered, looking at him. “My most unlikely friend.”
He gave her that smile again and ran a hand over his beard. “Come on, now, sister. Finish that pastry and let’s take a walk. You need food and air to face this day.”
She picked up her napkin, finally, and patted her eyes with it. “What I needed was you,” she whispered as she followed his order and ate the croissant.
After she finished, she squared her shoulders and took a breath. “Okay, Brick, I’m ready.”
She wasn’t, really, but he’d given her the strength to try.