The Prediction, page 5
“What do you want from me? I can’t stop the police from investigating. All of the information I’ve gathered is confidential, except for a statement about his mental state at the time of the accident. If the situation goes to a court trial for some reason, I’ll have to give testimony.”
“What would that report say?”
“That’s confidential.” Ted knew what Dale wanted him to say, and the reference to the past made it clear that Ted owed him. Dale wanted payment. Ted had more to lose than Dale if the truth came out. “I’ll do what I can,” he finally said.
Dale stood up. “That’s all I’m asking.” He held out his hand to shake Ted’s, sealing the deal.
Ted walked Dale to the door, feeling slightly nauseated now. He hadn’t expected the reminder of the past to affect him to this magnitude. When Dale left, he closed his office door and sat down in his desk chair. Thinking that if he put his head down he might feel better, he rested it on the desk.
#
He murmured when they lifted him onto the gurney. “Anna.”
“I’ve called her, Dr. Whitaker. She’s on her way.” Ted recognized his secretary, Julie’s, voice through a haze of pain.
He woke up in the emergency room with an IV in his arm. Doctors and nurses gathered around him, and Anna stood beside his bed. He had no trouble picking her out of the group, and they let her give him a quick kiss before hustling her into a corner of the room. He could see her, however. It didn’t occur to him that they only allowed her to stay in the room because of his status, and hers, at the hospital.
His next conscious thought was relief that Anna held his hand, even though he didn’t know where he was, except lying on a bed somewhere. Her soft hand rested on his and comforted him where it lay on the bed. With enormous effort, he opened his eyes to see her. She watched him, and he tried to smile.
She squeezed his hand gently. “You’re in the hospital. You’ve had heart surgery, but you’re okay. Go back to sleep.”
Like a child, he closed his eyes. Before falling asleep, he noted with surprise his acceptance of this inability to do more than lie in bed and drift.
The next time he opened his eyes, he was alone in the hospital room. He could hear Anna’s soft voice in the hallway but couldn’t make out the words. A steady throbbing echoed along his chest, and he looked around the room for some distraction. The standard white hospital room offered none. The room had the usual bed, sink, and television, which at this moment he couldn’t imagine watching. Through the window he could see a cloudless blue sky. An IV ran from the back of his hand to a pole with several bags hanging from the circular rack at the top.
Clipped to his hospital gown was the nurse call button, and he briefly considered pressing it for pain medication but decided to wait. He wanted the time alone to adjust. Not to his situation about his illness. He knew he’d had open-heart surgery. No, there was something else. While resting he had a dream. He needed to adjust to the idea of losing Anna. No! The vague dream coalesced into one big certainty. Anna had breast cancer.
The pain in his chest became unbearable, and he knew he should have called the nurse sooner. He hesitated another moment, and Anna made the decision. She returned to the room and took one look at him. He felt more than saw her push the call button, and then she picked up his hand that held another button which he hadn’t noticed.
“You need to push this button when you’re in pain. It’ll release the pain medication in the IV,” Anna said, pushing the button for him.
“You should have called as soon as you woke up,” she chided him.
“I wanted time,” he said, surprised at the rough quality of his voice and the effort it took to speak those few words.
She reached for the pitcher on the stand near his bed and poured some water into the pink plastic cup. “This will help with your dry throat. Just a tiny sip, though.”
While she held the straw to his mouth, he managed to take a sip before closing his eyes.
While he waited for the pain medication to work, he thought how beautiful he still found Anna. As beautiful as the day he met her. He’d been an intern doing his rotation in the emergency room one night when she’d been called into the ER for a consultation on a case he was working. They fell in love. She finished medical school a month later and had been hired as a dermatologist at the dermatology clinic at St. Gertrude’s Medical Center.
He pictured tendrils of her long curly black hair escaping from the tortoiseshell clip at the nape of her neck that tried to hold it back. He’d given her the clip when they were dating, and it was the only one she ever used. The clasp had been fixed several times, but she refused to part with it.
He heard Anna set the plastic cup back on the stand and knew when the nurse arrived by the rustle of her stiff uniform. She gave him a shot. His last conscious thought before floating away was that he needed to tell Anna to get a mammogram.
CHAPTER 7
Luke’s first conscious thought was the pain. He hurt all over. His second thought, he wasn’t dead. And his third, he wished he was. He opened his eyes and turned his head to the left and saw a nurse through the window of his room. The nurse looked down at something. He couldn’t see what it was. It didn’t matter. He closed his eyes and hoped she didn’t notice he was awake.
He remembered bits of the car crash from the night before, and Monroe’s visit here in the hospital. What had he told Monroe? What had he told Dr. Whitaker? He wished the pain would lessen so he could think better. If he pushed the button to call the nurse, she’d have a dozen questions for him, and they’d do more tests. He wouldn’t have time to think what to say next. But the pain stabbed and throbbed, and he pushed the button.
The nurse’s head lifted, and she came into his room. “You’re awake. What can I get for you, Dr. Gage?” Her soft voice soothed and reassured him he’d be okay.
“My arm hurts.” His voice came out in a rasp.
“It hurts because it’s broken. You can click the button here for the pain medication. Do you need anything else?” Her chocolate brown hair swung in an arc as she turned to look at one of the many machines hooked to him, monitoring his pulse, his breathing, his blood pressure.
“No.” He closed his eyes.
“I’ll be right back with more ice chips.” He heard her uniform rustle as she walked out of the room. The cotton top was pink. Not pale and not bright. He drifted in and out of consciousness wondering what the guys wore. Think about anything but the pain. The nurse came back and helped him with the cup of ice chips and left. He drifted to sleep again, ignoring the technician drawing his blood.
Later, they removed the drip of pain medication and said if he needed anything for the pain to press the call button. Luke knew that was good news. The nurses no longer considered him in danger of dying. That’s not how they put it, but that’s how he took it. The pain was bearable, and he could ignore the throbbing for a few minutes at a time. He tried to shut down his mind and rest before Monroe arrived to visit him again. Sometimes he had a tough time believing Monroe remained his friend.
Luke woke up to find Monroe standing by his bed. Luke said, “For a change, I want to be looking down on someone.”
Monroe laughed. “Get out of bed, buddy, and you can.”
“Trade places?”
“I’d like to do that, except the pain part. It’s been a long night and day. We’re barely into the new year, you idiot. You kept me awake worrying over your sorry behind. My weekend’s almost over.” He plopped down on the chair beside the bed and leaned against its back.
“That wasn’t my fault.” Luke saw the skepticism on Monroe’s face. “Hey, it wasn’t.”
“They said you were driving fast. Extremely fast.” Monroe’s eyes remained steady on his.
Luke dropped his gaze. “So? I didn’t cause the accident,” he mumbled.
“Maybe you didn’t want to live? Like last time when I found you in the garage with the car running.”
“Leave it alone, man. I’ve already talked to the shrink, our good director of psychiatry, Dr. Theodore Whitaker, and I’m sure I’ll get to see him again soon.” He changed the subject. “What’s going on out in the world?”
#
Thea avoided the news on Sunday. She knew what would happen, and no reporter could tell her anything she wanted to hear. The car crash she had predicted had come true, and now everyone at Luke’s party would wonder how she’d known about it ahead of time.
She’d waited at the hospital with her mom while her dad had surgery. They’d talked a little about Thea’s visions, and because Thea wasn’t used to talking about them, she hadn’t said a lot to her mother. She’d answered questions and hoped her father would be okay. After surgery she’d peeked into her father’s room, but he was sleeping, and they only allowed one visitor at a time in ICU, so she let her mother go back to the room.
That evening she went grocery shopping. When she returned home, she noticed Monroe’s Jag parked at the curb. He eased out of the car.
Thea slowly got out of her own car, a red Mazda, and opened the door to the back seat to get the groceries. She knew he’d come to tell her about the accident she’d predicted. The news could wait a few more minutes. This was going to be worse than rough, even though he already knew about her visions. She handed him two of the bags. “Hi.”
“Hi.” He smiled.
She smiled back, but not with confidence, and walked to the front door with Monroe following. His over six-foot-tall body loomed above her five feet three inches when she opened the front door.
“It’s Luke,” he said, when they got inside and had set the bags on the kitchen counter. “He was hurt in the accident yesterday.”
“Luke?” she asked. She should have known. Most of her predictions were about people she’d met. How could she have been so stupid and not listened to the news? Except she’d also had her father’s heart surgery and her mother to consider today.
“And the mayor’s son was involved in the accident, too.”
Her prediction came true. A two-vehicle accident. Two people killed, one critically injured, and one person seen at the hospital and then released. “Luke isn’t...” She couldn’t finish the question.
“No, but he’s in critical condition, although his condition has improved since this morning. The mayor’s son, Chance, is fine, and they released him from the hospital. Two of Chance’s friends are dead.”
She tried to pull herself together. “Luke’s better?”
“His condition is stable. He’s in the Intensive Care Unit and conscious, but he’s in a lot of pain.”
“I’m sorry. I know you and Luke have been friends for a long time.”
“Do you want me to stay with you for a while?”
“No. I’m okay.” Thea took a deep breath. “You go see him.”
“I’ve seen him. He’s okay for the night. There’s something else.” Monroe stood with his back to the door, and she looked up at him. “And it’s bad.”
“Bad?” she repeated, tired of unwelcome news. Her mind drifted. She didn’t want to hear any more bad news.
“Focus, Thea.” Monroe’s calm voice brought her back. “The Prediction Game isn’t a secret any longer.”
“Oh, no.”
“They’re wondering how you predicted the accident, and there’s more.”
“I can’t take any more.” She gripped his arm. “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to hear it.” She started emptying the grocery bags into cupboards and the fridge, and Monroe watched from the doorway. What did he mean by more? She finally finished putting away the groceries and when he’d refused a soda, she walked into the living room and sat on the couch.
He followed her and sat on the cherry-colored recliner, the coffee table between them. The one she’d bought from Luke.
Monroe stretched his legs out, nudging the coffee table closer to her. “Luke played chicken with Chance. Neither one swerved.”
She gaped at him, then closed her mouth quickly. “I don’t believe you. For Pete’s sake, Luke is thirty-seven years old. Thirty-seven-year-old men do not play chicken.” As if repeating his age would make a difference.
Monroe stared at the floor, moving his foot along the swirling pattern in the carpet. The way she did when life gave her another riddle to solve. An impossible riddle. “They did.”
Thea’s anger receded, and it occurred to her that Monroe needed her as much as she needed him. His friend was in deep trouble and not able to give him the answers he desperately wanted. She finally saw the pain and fatigue that paled his green eyes. “Why?”
“I don’t know.” His voice faltered. “Luke doesn’t know why. There’s no good reason why. The only thing I can think is that he’s depressed, and I’m afraid he was trying to get himself killed.”
“He’s that depressed.”
“I just don’t know.” Monroe shrugged. “But I intend to find out.”
CHAPTER 8
“Get...mammogram...” Ted murmured.
Anna had listened to him mumble through his oxygen mask the same thing over and over all afternoon. She hadn’t understood what he said, until one time she moved the mask enough to make out his words. Patting his hand didn’t soothe him, and she finally gently shook his shoulder. “Ted. It’s okay.”
He quieted but didn’t wake. His breathing evened out, and she relaxed against the back of the dull gray chair where she sat by his bed. The nurse, Stacy, checked the IV and watched the monitors hooked up to Ted. She removed the oxygen mask and attached a nasal canula instead. She looked satisfied, and after a quiet word to Anna that Ted remained stable, she left the room. Anna knew the nurse would continue watching the monitors at the desk.
Ted stirred again, “Mammogram...promise...”
Anna leaned over and touched his cheek, wondering why mammograms were on his mind. He had dreams sometimes, she knew that, but as soon as he woke up, he forgot them. He’d told her this many times after she’d found him tangled in the bedding and woken him from a deep sleep because of his constant mumbling.
Stacy returned and watched him for a moment. “Do you know why he keeps talking about mammograms?”
“No.” Anna was frustrated and tired. Her shoulders ached from holding them rigid from dealing with the stress of Thea’s predictions and Ted’s sudden illness.
“Did you discuss something about a mammogram test with him recently?” Stacy asked.
“No.”
“Maybe a patient of his is worried about getting one done.”
“He’s a psychiatrist. I suppose one of his patients might have a phobia about the test,” Anna said, watching Ted shift around. “This isn’t good, is it?”
“He needs to calm down. You know the surgery went well, but if he doesn’t rest, recovery will take longer,” Stacy said in sympathy.
“Or he could have another heart attack,” Anna said. The nurse didn’t respond, and Anna wasn’t surprised. The well-trained nurses in ICU weren’t inclined to confirm negative opinions by patients or their families, unless the situation was so dire there was no alternative. As a doctor herself, Anna knew what to expect.
“Maybe you could tell him you’re going to have one done,” Stacy said.
“I’m not having one now,” Anna objected. “I’m staying right here.”
“It’ll only take ten minutes. We could call ahead, and they’d be ready for you.”
Once again Ted murmured, “Mammogram.”
“Oh, all right.” Anna felt ridiculous but decided to try. Anything to reassure Ted. “Call them and tell me when they’re ready.”
Stacy nodded and left the room.
Anna caressed Ted’s cheek with her fingers. “Ted, I’m going down to radiology to get a mammogram. Please rest.” She wondered if she imagined the shift of a muscle under her hand. He was heavily sedated, and it was hard to tell. “I love you.”
She kept her hand against his cheek until Stacy returned to tell her they were ready for her.
“I’ll be here with him,” she told Anna.
After kissing Ted’s cheek, Anna left the room. She pushed some of the hair from her face as she walked briskly down the hallway. Her fatigue wouldn’t keep her from getting the mammogram done as fast as she could and returning to Ted. What was she doing? She should be in the room sitting next to him, not listening to a stupid dream of his, and following through on some delirious ramblings. She walked faster and took the stairs down the three flights rather than wait for the elevator.
When she got to Radiology, they made her change into a gown and were ready for her when she stepped out of the dressing room. The technician, a woman in her forties, expressed sympathy over Ted’s illness, but Anna barely heard. Her mind was in room 3112, praying her husband would live. The tech quietly carried out the exam, and Anna was grateful not to have to make small talk. Making up answers to meaningless questions or making polite conversation would take too much effort. After the test, she was led back to the dressing room, where she changed and hurried back to Ted’s room.
He remained sleeping, and when he stirred again, she spoke clearly. “Ted, I had a mammogram. Please rest.” The nurse nodded encouragement and left Anna alone with him.
Anna settled into the gray vinyl chair she’d pulled up to the bed and held Ted’s hand. Resting against the tall back, she closed her eyes. And thought about Thea. Wondered about Thea and her visions. Would she come to see her father again? The brief visit after surgery was enough to let Thea know her father would be okay, but Ted and Thea needed to talk. About a lot of things.
She’d been a fool not to question Ted and Thea’s whispered discussions. Their daughter was the only subject they’d ever disagreed on, and the fights had been ugly. She’d been too young to realize what was happening, and too busy starting her dermatology practice to stand up for Thea. The price had been higher than she’d suspected. Not getting to know this important part of Thea.
