“They can give her medicine, right?”
“For the fever, I’m sure. But Charlie always warned us that this would happen. When you’re on a ventilator, this is bad. Real bad.”
He fired up his truck. “We’re going.”
I held on to the seat belt as we roared out into the night.
Chapter 48: Chance
The entrance to the facility was locked, and I tapped my boot impatiently as I waited for someone inside to buzz me in.
Charlie met me at the door. She glanced briefly over at Jenny, then walked behind us as I hurried across the visitors’ area. I wanted to kick myself for not visiting Hannah the minute I got in town. I should have done that.
“She’s in the same wing, but a different room,” Charlie said. “We moved her about three months ago.”
Her words made me feel worse. All this time I hadn’t been here for my sister. Now we had a crisis.
Jenny snagged my wildly swinging hand and squeezed, like she knew what I was thinking.
When we got to the hall, Hannah’s door was open.
An aide stood just inside. “Scrub up,” she said, pointing toward a sink. Then she looked at Jenny. “Family only.”
Jenny stayed out in the hall as I walked in to wash my hands.
I accepted the blue mask she handed me after. I stuck it on, turning to take in the scene.
My mother was there, holding Hannah’s hand. A nurse in gray scrubs was pushing buttons on a monitor by the head of the bed.
Hannah looked so much different than she had when I left. Her arms were thinner, but her neck was wide, like it had swelled. Her hair was thin and clung to her head. I had a hard time connecting this person with the girl before the accident, both serious and silly, always dashing around in a hurry.
Nobody talked. We watched the nurse write on a clipboard. Finally I asked, “Why aren’t we taking her to a hospital?”
She turned around. “You must be Chance.” She jotted something else down and set the clipboard back on top of the monitor. “Let’s go out in the hall.”
I followed her out. Jenny and Charlie were still out there. The corridor was dim for nighttime.
“I don’t think you all can handle this here,” I said.
“Chance,” the woman said. “I was led to believe you were not in agreement with your mother about your sister’s continued use of life support.”
My eyes bored into hers, but she held the gaze, unflinching. She was right.
I looked past her at the wall, my jaw tight. “I don’t know anything anymore,” I said. “Why isn’t she someplace with real docs?”
We moved a little farther away from the door. “We will not transport her to an acute care hospital until we know what the wishes of the family are.”
“My mom is her guardian,” I said. “That’s why Hannah is still hooked up to begin with.”
“We can file a motion in the courts. If there is a conflict in the family, and the new therapies we have to introduce due to the illness reduce her quality of life even further, we can probably get a judge to issue an order.”
My eyes met Jenny’s, then Charlie’s. “My mother will never speak to me again.”
The nurse nodded. “All right, then. I’ll go ahead and get the doctor on call to order treatment.”
She headed off down the hall. I turned to Charlie. “What happens if they don’t treat her?”
“She gets pneumonia and dies,” she said. “It would be over.”
“Will she be in pain?” I asked.
Charlie drew in a deep breath. “We got that brain death certification within days of the accident, Chance. She can’t feel anything.”
I remembered being sick as a kid, having a fever and feeling like hell. Shivering and miserable, half out of it. How could Hannah not be feeling something?
I went back to the room. My mother had pulled a chair close to the bed and was humming some little song.
My rage started to peak. This was totally wrong, all of it. This was not the way it was supposed to be.
“Chance, be a dear and wet a towel for your sister. I’m going to put it on her forehead until they can get her something for the fever.”
I didn’t move. “We’re not at home, and she doesn’t just have a little cold.”
Mom didn’t look at me. “That’s fine. I’ll get it myself.”
“Mother, look at me. She’s gone. She’s been gone for months. We can’t just let her sit here and be sick.”
Mom continued to look at Hannah’s face. “It is not to us to question God’s timeline.”
I wanted to punch the wall. “It wasn’t exactly God who sent her out there to find me, now, was it?”
She reached over and tucked a stray corner of the sheet beneath Hannah’s arm. “I’ve asked forgiveness for my part in this,” she said quietly. “Have you?”
That’s when I realized I didn’t care at all if she hated me. I was going to end this. For Hannah. For me. For all of us to move on with our lives. I spun around and hurried out the door.
Chapter 49: Jenny