The 7th Victim - Alan Jacobson [62]
Twenty minutes later, she was running toward the nurse’s station at the intensive care unit. “They told me downstairs my son is here. Jonathan Tucker, he was brought here last night. I’m Karen Vail, I just got the message.”
The nurse was in her early sixties, gray hair pulled up into a bun. She looked condescendingly at Vail, then consulted her paperwork. “A message was left at nine-forty-nine—”
“Yes, I know. I was—I wasn’t home last night. Where’s my son?”
“Follow me,” she said and maneuvered her wide body out from behind the counter. She led Vail to a room in which Jonathan was lying, IV lines running into his arms.
“Oh, my God. Jonathan. . . .” She stood by his side, placed a hand on her son’s shoulder. “What happened?”
“I wasn’t on, but according to the records the boy was brought in with the history of having fallen down the basement stairs.” She glanced at the file, flipped a page. “Ambulance was called by his father at nine-fifteen and your son arrived at the hospital at nine-thirty-one—”
“What’s wrong with him? Can I talk with the doctor?”
“I’ll go get him.” And the nurse waddled out of the room.
Vail pulled up a chair and sat beside her son, stroked his hair. “Oh, Jonathan, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. . . .”
FIVE MINUTES LATER, a tall, thin black man in his late thirties walked into the room. “I’m David Altman,” he said in a deep, hoarse voice. “You’re the boy’s mother?”
“Karen Vail.”
The doctor nodded. “Ms. Vail, your son apparently fell down a flight of stairs and struck his head. The trauma rendered him unconscious and we’ve put IV lines in, as you can see, to feed him. He’s breathing on his own. An MRI scan revealed brain swelling—”
Vail held up a hand. The other was pressed against her lips to stifle an outburst of emotion. “In short, Doctor. Please.”
“He’s got a closed head injury/concussion with traumatic cerebral hemorrhage. He’s in a coma, Ms. Vail. My initial prognosis is guarded, but if pressed I’d say poor to fair. There are a few signs of responsiveness, but there are complicating factors. Good news is there’s no need for advanced life support. My prognosis will improve if I see more signs of responsiveness and purposeful movement.”
Vail took a deep, uneven breath, fearing she was losing the battle to keep from crying. But she had to be strong at the moment, she had to keep her mind clear to ask the right questions. She knew Deacon had done this, she knew it. “When he wakes up, will he remember what happened to him?”
“He’ll probably have retrograde memory loss for the events immediately preceding the precipitating event. In this case, the fall. But it will come back to him. How long, it’s hard to say. Could be hours, could be weeks.”
She bit her lip, felt it quivering. Took a deep breath through her nose, exhaled slowly and unevenly. She felt weak and stuck out a hand behind her to feel for the chair.
“I know this is a lot to absorb all at once. I wish I could give you more information, or at least a better prognosis. At the moment, I’ve told you all I know. We have to give the body a chance to heal itself. Meantime, if you want to talk to him, read to him, I can’t tell you for sure he can hear you, but there are some studies that suggest the comatose brain can receive such stimuli.”
She forced herself to look at the doctor. “Will there be any permanent damage? Give it to me straight, Doc.”
He hesitated a moment, seemed to size her up. “Right now, I can’t even tell you if he’s going to regain consciousness. Why don’t we take it one step at a time?”
“You’re not answering my question.”
“There’s a chance he’ll be fine when he awakens, but there’s also a chance there’ll be some residual deficits. It’s too soon to tell, and that’s the truth.”
Vail nodded and thanked the doctor, who excused himself. She sat there, placed a clammy hand atop Jonathan’s, and rested her face on his arm. As the door clicked shut, she felt a tremendous release, then burst into tears.
twenty-six
Vail was thinking about happier times . . . Jonathan on