Leaving Amarillo(82)

“Miss Lark?”

I stand, snapping to attention like a soldier caught napping on post. “Yes, sir.”

“Are you his daughter?”

“Granddaughter. He raised my brother and me after our parents died in a car accident.” I gesture to Dallas. I have no idea why I just blurted all of that out, but I’m functioning on autopilot, recalling information and reciting it on command.

He shakes my hand firmly and I notice his eyes are shot through with red and lined with heavy rings even though he’s probably only thirty or so “Dr. Paulsen. I wasn’t here when your grandfather was brought in—Dr. Rasheed was—but I oversaw all of his tests.”

“Tests?”

“Scans mostly. Your grandfather suffered a heart attack. We found a ninety percent blockage, and after several scans it appears that he currently has little to no brain activity. A neurologist will be in tomorrow to speak with you about the specifics of his results.”

That’s supposed to mean something—something permanent, but my sleep-deprived mind can’t determine what that is right away. I’m waiting to hear the part where he tells me the solution, the procedure or surgery or whatever that’s going to fix it, fix him.

Dr. Paulsen gives me a sympathetic smile that I’m too tired to return. A lump forms in my throat and drives tears to my eyes.

“So it’s bad?” My voice barely makes it out.

“It was a severe heart attack, and frankly, there’s no way to know for sure how long he went without oxygen.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning even if he wakes up, he will most likely remain brain dead.”

My mind immediately rejects this. I look over at my granddad and decide that he’s just tired, just sleeping extremely heavily. This man is wrong, and anyway, he never said that he was sorry and isn’t that what people say if something is really this bad?

Papa’s chest heaves up and down and I ignore the knowledge that the machine over his nose and mouth is forcing this to happen. He’s breathing. He’s alive. He’s not brain dead. The last conversation we had on the phone is not the last one we will ever have.

“I was supposed to make him meat loaf,” I choke out before the man marks some things on his chart and slides it loudly into the plastic slot at the foot of Papa’s bed.

The doctor continues, oblivious to my meltdown. “We’ll keep an eye on his vitals and move him to avoid bedsores, but I have to be honest because it’s my job. There are some hard decisions in your future. For instance, you may have nurses asking you about a DNR and you may want to consider signing it.”

“I don’t even know what that is.”

“A DNR is a Do Not Resuscitate order. If you sign it, they’ll place a purple bracelet on him and a note in his chart so that should he go into cardiac arrest—as many patients in this condition do—they won’t put his body through the trauma of trying to bring him back. We’ll simply let him go.”

We’ll simply let him go. The words ring out in my mind as if he’d shouted them, when in reality he’s barely speaking above a whisper.

“I was supposed to make him meat loaf,” I say again, because I am stuck now, like a broken record with a hitch on the last conversation we had.

“Yes, well, I’ll let you speak with your family and if you or your brother have any questions, I’ll come by again tomorrow during morning rounds.” Another weary attempt at a smile and the universal head tilt of sympathy and he’s gone, leaving me alone to try to remember everything he just said and how to relay it to Dallas.

“I’m sorry,” Gavin says, startling me because I thought everyone was asleep.

“Not your fault,” I say, lowering myself into the chair I was practically becoming one with before the doctor came in.

“Get some sleep now, Bluebird. I heard enough to get the gist. I’ll explain it to Dallas when he wakes up.”

A tiny hopeful part of my brain, one that still believes in happily ever after despite a lifetime’s worth of evidence to the contrary, tells me that I’m already asleep. That this is a horrible nightmare I’m having and when I wake up, this will have all been my mind playing tricks on me and Papa is fine. So I let that part push me over the edge into unconsciousness where everything is okay.

Morning,” I hear someone say as I blink myself awake.

My attempt at returning the sentiment comes out muffled. Sunlight streams into a gray room with a white bed. An empty white bed.

“Where is he?” I’d stand but my legs are cramped and sore from being tucked beneath me.

“They took him down for some tests,” Dallas informs me. He looks as exhausted as I feel.

Gavin’s chair is empty. “Where’s—”

“I sent him to the house to check on things. I told him to man the fort and we’d call if we needed anything.”

I nod and attempt to swallow the desert that has taken up residence in my mouth.

“A neurologist whose name I couldn’t pronounce came in this morning. He told me what Gavin said the doctor told you yesterday, about the EEG.”

I see it, the severity of these results, in my brother’s slumped shoulders and slightly bowed head, but I’m not ready to discuss it.

“How long have I been asleep?”