Curveball Page 4

  “Don’t change the channel!” Bradley yelled. “You never know when one of these traffic stops might turn into a car chase or something.”

  Izzy released the remote, and Bradley snatched it up right away, guarding it like a dog hovering over a bone or favorite toy. Finally, when a commercial break came around, Bradley sat back.

  “You know what might make this better for you?” Bradley remarked.

  “A lobotomy?” Izzy cracked.

  “Not quite.” Bradley rose from the couch and made his way over to the bar that ran the length of the far wall. He swept behind the bar and looked at all the different bottles of liquor Wes had available. Bradley reached up to the top shelf and grabbed an unopened bottle of Macallan’s 12-year-old Scotch without really knowing what it was. He held the bottle up to Izzy and smiled.

  “Forget it, Bradley,” Izzy warned. “My Dad would kill us both if he knew we were drinking down here. Even before you died, he would revive you just so he could kill you again. Do you really need another reason for him not to like you?”

  “Come on, Izzy. You mean you aren’t even tempted a little to try something with all this stuff down here? It would be a shame for this opportunity to go to waste.”

  Izzy walked over to where Bradley stood, took the bottle from his hand, and examined it. She turned the bottle in her palm a moment before smiling at Bradley. She then slid past him and placed it back on the shelf, bent down to the refrigerator behind the bar, and grabbed two bottles of Coke instead, handing one to her boyfriend, who now looked crestfallen.

  “Wow, that’s a buzzkill, Izzy,” Bradley told her. She planted a kiss on his lips as she walked by him and laughed.

  The two teens sat on the couch some more, watching the mindless police action on the screen until another commercial break came about. Instead of looking at the TV ad, Bradley turned to Izzy and pulled her to him, kissing her. Izzy always got lost in Bradley’s kisses, and she closed her eyes as she got caught up in the moment. The two kissed passionately before Izzy began to feel Bradley’s left hand gliding up her stockinged right leg.

  “Bradley, stop,” Izzy whispered into breaks of their lips.

  “Come on, Izzy,” Bradley groaned lightly, kissing her neck. He kept trying to move his hand forward, and for a moment, it seemed like his passionate pleas and motions might work. That was when Izzy took his left hand in her right and held it in place just beyond the hem of her dress.

  “Don’t, Bradley,” she said emphatically.

  “Why not? No one is home and might not be all night. Molly is sleeping. We’re both going to be eighteen soon. All the stars are aligning.” Bradley went back to kissing Izzy’s neck before she twisted away from him and sat up, placing Bradley’s hands in his own lap.

  “You know why not,” Izzy scolded. “I told you I wasn’t ready, and I’m not. And we don’t know when anyone is coming home. And lastly, because I said no.”

  Izzy moved away from Bradley on the couch, picked up the remote and changed the channel so that it switched to a Law and Order rerun.

  “All right, I’m sorry,” Bradley moped, trying to get close to Izzy again. “Geez, I just thought since we couldn’t go to the dance that maybe we would do something fun tonight. I didn’t know you were going to be…”

  “Think about what you’re going to say next, Bradley,” Izzy interrupted. “If you really thought that we were just going to come down here, get drunk and have sex, then you really don’t know me as well as I thought you did.”

  The two sat in silence for a few minutes, blankly staring at the TV screen as detectives investigated a murder scene.

  “Maybe you should just go to the dance,” Izzy stated without looking at Bradley.

  “Maybe I should,” Bradley said, standing up and straightening his rumpled shirt. “See you later.”

  Bradley marched up the stairs, and Izzy heard the front door slam loudly behind him, shocking her and bringing a rousing cry over the baby monitor. She walked up the steps to Wes and Kristin’s bedroom, where the crib was right now and picked up her startled and sobbing baby sister.

  “It’s okay,” Izzy said, trying to soothe Molly just as much as she tried to feel better herself. Soon enough, they were both crying.

  ****

  Wes sat in the uncomfortable chair positioned next to the bed Kristin lay on in the emergency room. He kept close watch over her, looking at all the monitors they had hooked her to as they beeped incessantly. About an hour ago, they had whisked Kristin off to have x-rays and an MRI done, but since her return, they had not seen a nurse or a doctor come in. Kristin was now on an IV of some kind, something for the pain she was having, but Wes hadn’t focused enough when the nurse explained it to him just what it was. All he knew for sure is that Kristin was fidgeting just as much in the bed as he was in the chair.

  Wes heard a light groan escape Kristin’s lips, and he jumped out of the chair to be at her side.

  Kristin peered at Wes through her barely open eyes.

  “Wes, I’m terrified. I don’t know what’s wrong.”

  That was all Wes needed to hear to reach his breaking point.

  “I’ll be right back,” he stated as he flung the curtain that ringed Kristin’s bed open just as a doctor and nurse were about to walk through it, startling both.

  “Mr. Martin?” the young man in blue scrubs asked as he stared up at Wes. “I’m Doctor Young.”

  You certainly are, Wes thought to himself as he looked at the man who seemed to be barely out of high school.

  “What’s going on, doctor? We’ve been waiting, and they have done all kinds of tests, but no one is telling us anything.”

  Dr. Young nodded to the nurse, who then pulled the curtain back around Kristin’s bed. Kristin lay on her side, knees pulled up towards her chest because it was the only position she could be in where she didn’t feel intense pain.

  “Mr. Martin, I’ve looked at Kristin’s MRI and ultrasound, and they indicate that she has a strangulated hernia. Part of the intestine is caught behind the hernia, and its blood supply is cut off. It’s most likely the result of the C-section from the birth. It’s rare, but it does happen. Whatever the cause, it needs to be addressed right away. We’re prepping a room for surgery now and should be able to take her up shortly, but we need to get her ready now.”

  The doctor was very abrupt in what he said and just stared up at Wes, looking for a response.

  Wes just had images flash through his head, and none of them were happy or pleasant.

  “Mr. Martin?” Wes heard through the fog he was in as the doctor tried to get his attention.

  Wes felt a hand reach out and grab him, and he blinked back to reality. He looked down to see Kristin holding his hand with tears in her eyes.

  “Wes?” she pled. He immediately knelt, so his face was next to hers.

  “You need surgery, honey, but everything is going to be okay. They’ll take the best care of you, and I’ll be right here the whole time waiting for you when you get out.”

  Wes reached over and gave Kristin a kiss on her forehead. He lingered there for a moment and whispered softly to Kristin.

  “I love you.”

  Kristin smiled weakly at him and sighed.

  “I know you do.”

  The nurse came over to Wes and placed a hand on his shoulder.

  “Mr. Martin, I can take you over to the surgical waiting area. You can stay there, and the doctor will come in after the surgery to let you know how everything went and what room she will be in afterward.”

  Wes nodded at the nurse and followed her. He turned back to see a team of other nurses and doctors come in to start getting Kristin ready to move to the operating room.

  5

  As soon as Wes got to the waiting room, he made a call to his parents to let them know what was going on. He then called Izzy’s phone to inform her that he would be at the hospital late, perhaps even all night, and was she okay with Molly.

  “I’ll be fine, Dad
,” Izzy whispered. “She just went back to sleep. I fed her and changed her, and rocked in the rocking chair for a bit. It was some good sisterly bonding time.”

  “Great, thanks so much for holding down the fort, Izzy.”

  Wes paused for a moment.

  “Bradley isn’t still there, is he?” he questioned.

  Wes heard Izzy take a deep breath before answering.

  “No, Dad. He left a long time ago. Did you really think I would let him stay here all night with all this going on?”

  “I don’t know,” Wes said honestly. “I would hope not, but… I was just checking is all.”

  “Go take care of Kris,” Izzy told him. “I can handle everything. Give her a hug for me.”

  “Okay, I’ll see you in the morning. Bye.”

  Wes scanned the waiting room and saw he was the only person in there now. Not surprising since it was after 11 PM, but he also noticed that the coffee maker was turned off and the cabinet that clearly had the coffee in it was locked tight. Wes remembered he had passed some vending machines on his way to the room and worked his way down the maze of hallways to get back to where he could get something. He picked out a can of soda, a bottle of iced tea, and some water, and since he didn’t know how long he might be here, Wes tried to find a snack that wasn’t filled with salt or sugar that he could eat. When nothing seemed to fit the bill, he selected a bag of Swedish fish and headed back to the waiting room.

  Even with no one in the room, the giant TV screen was on CNN displaying the news. There were lots of stories about how the economy was doing right before Christmas, the latest political battles going on in Washington, and what everyone could expect as the NFL season got closer to the end. Wes pulled a couple of chairs close together so he could put his feet up, popped open the bottle of mango tea he had, and tore into the Swedish fish. He savored that first bite of a candy he hadn’t eaten since he was a teenager.

  After a few minutes and a few more red fish, Wes grew bored with CNN and found the remote so he could change the channel. He flipped away, hoping to come across anything that might be remotely interesting before settling on ESPN. Sports news was something he could relate to, so he left it on, not really paying much attention to what was being said beyond a big-name free agent first baseman that signed a new 5-year contract for $100 million.

  Wes shook his head, remembering when he was that big name, or when he would even get offers for a contract. The last thing he wanted to do at the moment was get caught up in self-pity, especially with Kristin struggling with everything right now. How long would the surgery take? What was involved? What were the risks? He suddenly thought of all these questions that he should have asked the doctor when he was standing in front of him.

  Wes noticed there was another smaller TV screen on the far wall that listed all the current surgeries in progress. Only one showed on the board, and since it had started not that long ago, Wes assumed that was Kristin, even if he couldn’t decipher the code that it all was in. No names were used other than the doctors involved.

  The last sip of iced tea drained from the bottle, and Wes looked up at the ceiling tiles and began mindlessly counting them, and then looked at shapes forming in the speckles, dots, and water stains on the panels. Patterns reminded him of the Pittsburgh Pirates’ stadium, the overhead shape, and the form of it. Another looked just like the freckles that dotted Izzy’s face when she had been out in the sun during the summer. There was even one that matched the design that his parents had when he was a child for the linoleum of the kitchen floor.

  Wes tried everything he could to keep busy as the clock ticked further and further along. No changes occurred on the surgical update screen, no one came in to let him know how things were going, and he didn’t know where to go even if he wanted more information. He considered closing his eyes and trying to nap, but every time he did, all he saw was Kristin falling to the floor or laying on the gurney in pain, and him standing there helpless, unable to do anything for her. Worst-case scenarios darted through his imagery again, and he did his best to shake them from his head.

  A tap on his shoulder came from behind him and startled Wes. He hadn’t heard anyone come into the room. When he spun around, he saw his father standing there, wearing his typical brown Stetson and sheepskin coat that he wore around the stables all the time.

  “Jesus, Dad, you scared me. I didn’t hear anyone come in the room.”

  “That’s because you were asleep, Wes,” his father replied. Wyatt Martin sat in the chair next to his son and tapped Wes on the knee.

  “What time is it?” Wes asked. He didn’t realize he had fallen asleep and wondered how much of what he thought about really happened.

  “2 AM,” Wyatt told him as he stretched out his legs.

  “What? Fuck, Kris is still in surgery? Why hasn’t anyone updated me on anything?” Wes remarked with panic. He shot up out of his chair and went over to the small screen. The screen was blank now, with everything cleared off.

  “She’s not up here,” Wes said, walking over to the phone. “I don’t even know who to call to find out what’s going on,” he said as he slammed the phone down in disgust.

  “Calm down, Wes,” Wyatt reassured. “Let’s go get some answers.”

  Wyatt put his arm around his son and led him out of the waiting room. Wes suddenly felt like a teenager again, his father comforting him after a rough day at school or bad practice or game.

  “Dad, how are we going to find out anything? This place is a friggin’ maze, and no one is around.”

  “Trust me, Wes. I’ve spent enough time here with your mother over the last few years to know where to go and what to do,” Wyatt told him as they walked through one set of doors after another.

  Wyatt navigated the hospital labyrinth until they reached a desk that had a couple of nurses sitting at it.

  “Wyatt? What are you doing here? Jenny isn’t here, is she?” an older brunette said to Wes’ father. She rose from her chair and came out from behind the desk to give Wyatt a hug.

  “No, no, Rosalie, Jenny is fine. She’s home. I’ll tell her I saw you. I’m here with my son. His fiancée had some emergency surgery tonight, and we just want to know where we can find her. They left him stranded in the waiting room.”

  “I’ll find out for you, Wyatt, no problem. What’s her name, hon?” Rosalie asked as she turned to Wes.

  “Kristin… Kristin Arthur,” Wes answered.

  Rosalie quickly typed information into her computer. The other nurse, a younger woman in her mid-twenties with brown hair and eyes, stood looking at Wes.

  “You’re Wes Martin, aren’t you?” she asked softly.

  “Yes,” Wes answered. He tried to sound as polite as he could and hoped this was not the time for an autograph request or picture.

  “Tanya, why don’t you go and check on Mrs. Quinlan in 8B? It’s time to check her vitals,” Rosalie ordered. She had recognized the situation and quickly diffused it.

  Tanya nodded and walked off in the direction of the appropriate room.

  “Thanks,” Wes offered.

  “I’m sorry about that,” Rosalie said sincerely to Wes. “She’s new and probably got a bit starstruck.”

  Rosalie glanced back down at her computer and then picked up her phone. She punched in a few numbers and waited for someone to pick up.

  “Maura, hi, it’s Rosalie. I’ve got a couple of wanderers up here, and I think they belong down by you. Do you have a Kristin Artur down there?”

  Wes watched as Rosalie waited and then nodded a few times before she thanked Maura and hung up.

  “Okay,” Rosalie said with a big exhale. “She’s down on the third floor, in a room. 12A.”

  “How is she? Is she alright?” Wes said urgently.

  “I don’t know any of the details, but I’m sure if you go down there, you can find everything out. Maura said she’s only been there for about 30 minutes or so. She might be sleeping or pretty groggy, at least.”

 
“Thanks, Rosalie,” Wyatt told her with his country smile.

  “Oh, anything for you, darlin’, you know that,” Rosalie told him. “You give Jenny my best and tell her I am glad I haven’t seen her lately.”

  “You bet I will.”

  Wyatt gave Rosalie a casual wave and led Wes over towards the elevator so they could go three floors down. Once they were on the elevator and moving, Wyatt saw the angry look on Wes’ face.

  “Why wouldn’t they call me and let me know, or send someone to get me? I would still be sitting up there waiting if you hadn’t come along,” Wes said with disgust.