The Dead Zone(22)

'Please,' Sarah said. 'How bad is it? Can we hope?'

Before Herb could answer, Vera spoke up. Her voice was a dry bolt of certified doom: 'There's hope in God, Missy.'

Sarah saw the apprehensive flicker in Herb's eyes and thought: He thinks it's driven her crazy. And maybe it has.

4.

A long afternoon stretching into evening.

Sometime after two P.M., when the schools began to let out, a number of Johnny's students began to come in, wearing fatigue coats and strange hats and washed-out jeans. Sarah didn't see many of the kids she thought of as the button-down crowd - upward-bound, college-oriented kids, clear of eye and brow. Most of the kids who bothered to come in were the freaks and long-hairs.

A few came over and asked Sarah in quiet tones what she knew about Mr. Smith's condition. She could only shake her head and say she had heard nothing. But one of the girls, Dawn Edwards, who had a crush on Johnny, read the depth of Sarah's fear in her face. She burst into tears. A nurse came and asked her to leave.

'I'm sure she'll be all right,' Sarah said. She had a protective arm around Dawn's shoulders. 'Just give her a minute or two.

'No, I don't want to stay,' Dawn said, and left in a hurry, knocking one of the hard plastic contour chairs over with a clatter. A few moments later Sarah saw the girl sitting out on the steps in the cold, late, October sunshine with her head on her knees.

Vera Smith read her Bible.

By five o'clock most of the students had left. Dawn had also left; Sarah had not seen her go. At seven P.M., a young man with DR. STRAWNS pinned askew to the lapel of his white coat came into the waiting room, glanced around, and walked toward them.

'Mr. and Mrs. Smith?' he asked.

Herb took a deep breath. 'Yes. We are.'

Vera shut her Bible with a snap.

'Would you come with me, please?'

That's it, Sarah thought. The walk down to the small private room, and then the news. Whatever the news is. She would wait, and when they came back, Herb Smith would tell her what she needed to know. He was a kind man.

'Have you news of my son?' Vera asked in that same clear, strong, and nearly hysterical voice.

'Yes.' Dr. Strawns glanced at Sarah. 'Are you family, ma'am?'

'No,' Sarah said. 'A friend.'

'A close friend,' Herb said. A warm, strong hand closed above her elbow, just as another had closed around Vera's upper arm. He helped them both to their feet. 'We'll all go together, if you don't mind.'

'Not at all.'

He led them past the elevator bank and down a hall-way to an office with CONFERENCE ROOM on the door. He let them in and turned on the overhead fluorescent lights. The room was furnished with a long table and a dozen office chairs.

Dr. Strawns closed the door, lit a cigarette, and dropped the burned match into one of the ashtrays that marched up and down the table. 'This is difficult,' he said, as if to himself.

'Then you had best just say it out,' Vera said.

'Yes, perhaps I'd better.'

It was not her place to ask, but Sarah could not help it. 'Is he dead? Please don't say he's dead...

'He's in a coma.' Strawns sat down and dragged deeply on his cigarette. 'Mr. Smith has sustained serious head injuries and an undetermined amount of brain damage. You may have heard the phrase "subdural hematoma" on one or the other of the doctor shows. Mr. Smith has suffered a very grave subdural hematoma, which is localized cranial bleeding. A long operation was necessary to relieve the pressure, and also to remove bone-splinters from his brain.'

Herb sat down heavily, his face doughy and stunned. Sarah noticed his blunt, scarred hands and remembered Johnny telling her his father was a carpenter.

'But God has spared him,' Vera said. 'I knew he would. I prayed for a sign. Praise God, Most High! All ye here below praise His name!'

'Vera,' Herb said with no force.

'In a coma,' Sarah repeated. She tried to fit the information into some sort of emotional frame and found it wouldn't go. That Johnny wasn't dead, that he had come through a serious and dangerous operation on his brain - those things should have renewed her hope. But they didn't. She didn't like that word coma. It had a sinister, stealthy sound. Wasn't it Latin for 'sleep of death'?

'What's ahead for him?' Herb asked.

'No one can really answer that now,' Strawns said. He began to play with his cigarette, tapping it nervously over the ashtray. Sarah had the feeling he was answering Herb's question literally while completely avoiding the question Herb had really asked. 'He's on life support equipment, of course.'

'But you must know something about his chances,' Sarah said. 'You must know ...' She gestured helplessly with her hands and let them drop to her sides.

'He may come out of it in forty-eight hours. Or a week. A month. He may never come out of ......... there is a strong possibility that he may die. I must tell you frankly that's the most likely. His injuries... grave.

'God wants him to live,' Vera said. 'I know it.'

Herb had put his face into his hands and was scrubbing it slowly.

Dr. Strawns looked at Vera uncomfortably. 'I only want you to be prepared for... any eventuality.'

'Would you rate his chances for coming out of it?' Herb asked.