Life Support Read online

  “For sure.” Fletcher tore his gaze away from her mouth and glanced at the ladder. Beyond that, there was no sign of repair equipment. He had a feeling this woman was about to talk him onto a roof again. “What were you fixing it with? Bubble gum?”

  She sighed. “I haven’t thought that far. I . . .” The look in her eyes tore at Fletcher’s heart. Exactly like the night the neighborhood bully set fire to her Halloween candy bag. “Hard to think at all. It’s been that kind of week.”

  It’s been that way too long, Jessica. The need to fold her into his arms, comfort her, was a physical pain. Would it ever happen? If he dared to tell her how he felt, right now . . . “What’s going on?”

  “Everything. Always.” Jessica frowned. “My boss . . . She’s out to get me.”

  - + -

  Gayle used a trembling fingertip to pat concealer over a darkening bruise on her cheekbone. It was a two-step process: first a greenish liquid that looked like melted pistachio ice cream, then one in a shade lighter than her skin tone. A simple fix, the woman at CVS had promised. But nearly impossible in the flickering fluorescent light of this little-used bathroom near the hospital’s basement mail room. Gayle stared at her reflection, blinking back tears she couldn’t let fall. Calling in sick had been out of the question; she needed to be at work. So much depended on it.

  In five minutes, she’d done as much as she could and headed down the corridor to the elevator. She squared her shoulders and managed to return the smiles of the two engineers loading supplies onto a cart, no doubt related to the second-floor project: welding extra height to the roof railing. Business as usual, Gayle told herself as she pushed the elevator button. It would be the same for her today, despite—

  “Hi, Gayle. Oh, my goodness . . .” The dietician stepped back in the elevator to make room, concern in her expression. Her eyes swept over Gayle’s face. “What on earth happened?”

  “A fender bender,” Gayle offered quickly, wishing she’d taken longer with the makeup. Wishing so much more. Oh, Leo . . . why? “A little accident on my way home from work yesterday. I’m fine, really.”

  “COME IN,” ELI TOLD HER, after glancing sideways at his brother. “You’ve never seen the Champ awake.”

  “That’s right. I . . .” Lauren was stunned. Drew Landry was in bed, propped up by several pillows and tucked under one of Auntie Odette’s flamboyant crocheted afghans, this one in Mardi Gras colors of purple, green, and gold. He wore a set of padded headphones, his long-lashed eyes closed and the fingers of one hand tapping as he nodded to the music. His hair was freshly combed and his lips curved in a smile. Drew looked nothing at all like the pale, critically ill man who’d struggled to breathe in the ER. “This is amazing,” Lauren said simply.

  “Yes.” Eli held her gaze for a moment before reaching over to nudge his brother’s shoulder. “Company, pal.”

  Drew fumbled to pull the earphones away, then grinned at Lauren, his heavy-lidded eyes nearly identical to his brother’s. Except for a delighted sparkle, which Drew’s held in abundance. “Uh . . . hi.”

  “Hello, Drew.”

  “This is Lauren,” Eli explained as she stepped close to the bed, skirting the slumbering Shrek at the last moment.

  “Yeah . . . Laurr-en.” Drew’s voice was a halting monotone. But there was an innocent eagerness in his expression, undeniable warmth that matched the look in his eyes. “Like . . . my room?”

  “I do,” she said, shaking the hand he offered. The other, paralyzed like his leg, was encased in a splint to prevent further contracture. She glanced at the wall beside the bed and saw what had to be a gift from Emma: a huge rainbow drawn with colored markers and embellished with dozens of shiny foil stickers. A faded and dry Palm Sunday cross was taped to the high point of its arch. On a table beside a blobbing orange lava lamp were framed photos. Judge Landry and his wife. Drew in a wheelchair, wearing a Santa hat and holding a toddler-age Emma. And what looked like the enlargement of an old snapshot: two young boys in swim trunks, carrying fishing gear. Eli and Drew, before . . . Lauren had an uncomfortable sense that she was snooping. “And you have music, too,” she added, pointing at the headphones.

  “My . . . favorite.” Drew’s smile widened as he extended them toward her. “Lisss-ten.”

  She tilted her head against one of the earphones and heard familiar strains of a popular contemporary Christian group. “Casting Crowns,” Lauren said, surprised.

  “Emma’s pick.” Eli’s expression gave no clue whether or not he approved. “She’s taken charge of getting him settled. Although—” his lips quirked—“she keeps taking his pillows away. She said it’s not healthy for him to have so many. I have no clue where she got that idea.”

  “No . . . clue.” Drew’s grin morphed into a wide yawn.

  “You need some sleep, Champ.” Eli leaned close, gave his shoulder a squeeze. The tenderness on his face made Lauren’s heart cramp. “I’m going to talk with Lauren. Maybe see what’s for dinner too. I’ll be back. Don’t worry.”

  “Okay.” Drew’s eyes teased. “There . . . goes . . . Trouble.”

  “Right.”

  Lauren stepped outside the room, Eli following.

  “Trouble?” she asked as they walked down the hallway.

  Eli shook his head. “My nickname. He’s always called me that.”

  “Ah.” She made no effort to hide her smile.

  - + -

  “Drew’s medicines have all arrived.” Eli wondered if Lauren suspected he was using this as an excuse to follow along, talk with her. His dog had dropped hers flat yesterday. After she’d laid into him because of things he’d said about her family. He wished he’d kept his mouth shut, that none of it had happened. At least not that way. Maybe this place could provide the neutral ground he needed to . . . what? What was it that he wanted, anyway?

  “I checked your brother’s medicines as soon as I arrived,” Lauren told him, sweeping her hand to indicate the individual medicine cubbyholes built into the wood-paneled wall of what had once been a butler’s pantry in the old house. Several more photos of Auntie Odette hung on the adjoining walls. Along with a framed Rockwell print of a boy preparing a spoonful of tonic for his sick dog. “Were there any special instructions?”

  “He’s had some problems with swallowing pills. So his head needs to be elevated.” Eli noticed that Lauren had dressed the way the Viette family did: an embroidered peasant shirt over jeans, a string of pink beads and matching hoop earrings. She’d tied her hair back with one of those bright, wrinkled scarves that looked like a kid’s potato-stamp project. She looked beautiful. And unusually relaxed. Almost like she could be in a video for that old song Drew used to sing, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.”

  “Was there anything else?” she asked, making Eli realize he was staring.

  “No. Drew does pretty well if he’s propped up.” Eli shook his head. “I need to tell Emma to stop taking those pillows away.”

  “Sounds like it won’t be a problem then.”

  It sounded like Lauren was dismissing him. But she met Eli’s gaze instead, compassion in her eyes. “I’m glad he’s doing so well. It must be a huge relief.”

  “It is.” Eli’s throat tightened; he hadn’t known how much he needed to tell someone that. “I never know what will happen,” he heard himself say. “All these years, I nev—”

  “Nurse!”

  A young woman, her eyes frantic, burst through the door to the medication room. “Please, we need help. Poppy . . . my grandpa’s on the floor. I don’t think he’s breathing!”

  “We’re coming—tell someone to call 911,” Lauren instructed. “Eli, grab the kit.” She pointed toward something that looked like a big picnic hamper. “I’ve got the AED.” Pulling the automated defibrillator box from where it hung below the Norman Rockwell print, she took off running. “Show me where Poppy is.”

  “I’m right behind you,” Eli shouted, snatching up the basket and hustling toward the hallway. There was no time to
think, only a strange sense of mismatch that the emergency was accompanied by distant strains of zydeco music instead of “code blue” paging. And today Lauren was in charge.

  “Here!” Vee beckoned from the threshold of the great room. “I called 911.” She led the way with Lauren following and Eli right behind.

  He dropped to his knees beside the unconscious victim sprawled on his back. Then recognized him: the man who’d been learning to play the washboard. The sheet of corrugated tin was still strapped to his chest.

  “He was f-fine,” the granddaughter insisted, her voice choked by tears. “Showing me his music. And then he kind of choked, and his eyes rolled back.”

  One of the gathered Viette clan eased her into a chair.

  “Not breathing,” Lauren reported. “We need—”

  “Have it,” Eli answered, amazed to find an Ambu bag in the wooden hamper. Along with exam gloves, portable suction, a small assortment of emergency drugs. “I’ll give him a few breaths while—”

  “I’m getting this washboard off of him. And his shirt,” Vee said, reading Eli’s mind.

  “AED’s ready when we are,” Lauren reported, already pulling the adhesive pads from the automated defibrillator. “The paramedics won’t be long, but we can at least get things going.” Her eyes found Eli’s for a split second. “Poppy’s recovering from a cerebral bleed. And he’s a full code.”

  “Understood,” Eli told her, knowing Lauren had no professional responsibility to explain that to him. He slid the rescue mask over Poppy’s mouth and nose, thanked Vee for attaching the oxygen tubing, and gave the man a few squeezed breaths.

  “Analyzing,” the ever-calm mechanical voice of the AED reported, flashing a yellow warning light. “No one should touch the patient.”

  Distant sirens joined the granddaughter’s sobs and gentle murmurs of comfort from the Viettes.

  Eli leaned close to Lauren, both of them staring at the digital screen on the defibrillator. There was no heart tracing like at the hospital, simply—

  The orange warning light flashed. “Shock advised. Stay clear of patient. Press the orange button now.”

  V-fib. Eli reached out the same instant as Lauren.

  “Oh, I—”

  “Go ahead,” he told her, leaning back. “Sorry . . . reflex.”

  “Everybody stay clear!” Lauren punched the button and Poppy’s body jerked in response to the electricity. The granddaughter gasped. A siren yelped from the parking lot. Eli realized he was holding his breath.

  “It’s analyzing again,” Vee whispered, holding the cross on her necklace between her fingertips.

  The orange light flashed. “Shock advised. Stay clear of patient.”

  Eli pressed the button as he heard someone praying aloud in the background. He glanced that way, saw that Shrek was lying at the feet of Poppy’s granddaughter.

  “Shock delivered,” the machine reported. There was a moment’s silence, then, “It is safe to touch the patient.”

  Vee’s breath escaped. “Please . . .”

  Eli reached for the Ambu bag.

  Lauren pressed two fingers against their patient’s throat to check for a pulse. “I feel it. There’s something there . . . It’s slow; let me count—”

  “Medics coming through!” someone shouted, and in mere seconds they were surrounded by rescuers. First responders from Katy: fire, paramedics, police. Starched and formal uniforms blending with the folksy rainbow that was the Mimaw’s staff. There was a metallic squeak-rattle of a stretcher moving through the doors, soft thudding of boots against the painted-rug hardwood floors, squawking of radios, and the beeps of monitors.

  “. . . collapsed in front of his granddaughter, no apparent warning,” Lauren was telling one of the medics. “We—” she glanced at Eli—“found he wasn’t breathing. Gave some rescue breaths, got him on the AED. It delivered two shocks.” Her cheeks were flushed, her voice a little breathless. “I found a carotid pulse just as you arrived.”

  “The IV’s in,” one of the medics reported from his kneeling position on the floor. “Hand me that atropine. Monitor still the same?”

  “Bradycardia . . . at thirty-seven,” his partner confirmed. There was a whoosh as he squeezed the Ambu bag to deliver another breath. “Still no respiratory effort. We’ll get him tubed in the rig.”

  Tubed. Headed for a ventilator . . .

  Eli thought of Drew in his bed a short walk down the hallway. He hoped he had those earphones on. And that his music—the Crown band or whatever it was called—was turned way up loud. What had just happened here was something he never wanted Drew to suffer through again.

  - + -

  “Thanks for the help.” Lauren watched as Eli repacked the emergency equipment. “It was a lot to grab by myself. The emergency kit is heavier than it looks.”

  Eli’s lips curved toward a smile. “It looks like a picnic hamper. My Baton Rouge grandmother had one exactly like it. But she knew what to pack it with: crawfish sandwiches, mango salad, deviled eggs, and the best praline cheesecake you’ve ever tasted. Not a single surgical glove or suction catheter.”

  “That basket fits with the whole not-icky-medical thing they have going here,” Lauren countered, totally disarmed by Eli’s rare smile. It almost hinted at the sparkle she’d seen in his brother’s eyes. “Less white coat and rubbing alcohol. More music, laugh therapy, and home cooking. Every day is casual Friday at Mimaw’s.” She plucked at her embroidered blouse, nudged a beaded earring, and felt it swing against her neck. “You didn’t notice?”

  The smile stayed put. “I noticed.”

  “Anyway . . .” Lauren hoped her face didn’t look as pink as it suddenly felt. “I like what the Viettes are doing. And I really did appreciate your help with Poppy. It was the first time I’ve had to deal with a code blue here.”

  Eli was quiet for a moment, as if fitting a new package of oxygen tubing into the basket took all his concentration. When he looked up, any trace of the smile was gone. “Back there with Poppy, you made a point of telling me he was a full code.”

  “I guess . . . it was a reflex,” she said, using his earlier word. “It felt like we were at the hospital, and . . .” Lauren hated the way Eli was looking at her.

  He closed his eyes for a moment. “After my conversation with Mike that day Drew was in the code room . . . you thought I was going to question what you were doing. That I’d even ask you to pull out Poppy’s advance directive, start arguing with his family. You thought you needed to defend the poor man from—”

  “Whoa.” Lauren raised her palm. “Where’s that coming from? You’re wrong, Eli. I was thinking out loud, that’s all.” She looked toward the hallway, lowered her voice. “But yes, unless we’ve been instructed otherwise, we’ll call 911 and start some basic emergency care.”

  “Including defibrillation.” Eli glanced at the still-open box of the AED.

  “Yes. You know as well as I do that automated defibrillators are a standard in first aid now. I’m sure there are several at the Galleria mall. Our policy here is to do whatever we can to help until first responders arrive. Every employee is trained in CPR. We follow the health care directive provided by each patient. Or legal guardian.” She expected to see that look in Eli’s eyes.

  “Including the existing instructions for my brother.”

  “Including Drew’s,” Lauren said as gently as possible. She’d read his advance directive twice. Judge Landry’s signature looked like it had been written in a broad-tip permanent marker. Or his own blood. “I’m sure the Viettes gave you copies of their policies.”

  “Yes.” Eli exhaled slowly. “I suppose I thought that with this casual, ‘home-style’ atmosphere . . .”

  “We might play God?” The words slipped out before she could stop them.

  His gaze hardened. “You think God wants my brother tied to a bed on mechanical life support? You think that’s mercy?”

  “I think . . .” Lauren’s stomach churned. “I can’t do this
conversation.”

  “Right.” He closed the top of the emergency basket. “We can’t talk about my brother, your sister, your dog—or your God. What’s left?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Me either.”

  Lauren watched Eli leave, an empty feeling washing over her. It was an ebb she’d felt plenty of times after the adrenaline rush of handling an emergency situation. But this time it seemed like more than that. Maybe it had something to do with the way Eli had smiled at her only moments ago, when he teased about the picnic basket. And that look in his eyes when he said he’d noticed how she was dressed. One good moment. Hopeful, even. Like feeling Poppy’s heartbeat against her fingers. But now . . .

  “What’s left?”

  Lauren didn’t know if there was anything safe to talk about—or if they should try at all. She knew only one thing for sure, now more than ever: their objectives were completely opposite. She was working to ensure her sister’s future; Eli was determined to direct his brother’s death. They couldn’t be more different if they were Hannah Leigh and Shrek.

  “HEAVEN,” VEE SIGHED as she adjusted the massage controls on the pedicure chair. She bobbed her head to strains of reggae music, then turned toward Lauren with a blissful expression. “I’m grateful your daddy has such lovely connections in the business community—and that you dawdled on using that Christmas gift certificate.” Her smile spread. “Until after you met me.”

  “Me too.” Lauren smiled back at her; she couldn’t agree more. And wasn’t about to spoil it by mentioning that she’d been far too busy doing damage control with her sister to even consider any “me” time. But the stars had aligned today. Vee wasn’t working until three, and Lauren was free until the staff gathering in the chapel, that support meeting she’d arranged for people affected by the Darcee Grafton incident. Meanwhile . . .

  Lauren wiggled her toes over the bubble jets, breathing in the scent of soaps, essential oils, and nail products, then glanced outside. Montrose was one of her favorite areas of Houston: tree-lined streets with historic, renovated—sometimes garishly painted—mansions, cottages, and bungalows. Dubbed alternately “the heart of Houston” and “the strangest neighborhood east of the Pecos,” it had also been lauded as one of the ten great neighborhoods in America a few years back. It was pedestrian friendly and boasted a defiantly eccentric mix of junk shops and vintage clothing stores, coffeehouses and tattoo parlors, along with fine restaurants, galleries, and top Houston tourist attractions like the Menil Collection art museum, the University of St. Thomas, and the Rothko Chapel. Plus great little eateries like Barnaby’s Cafe, Brasil, and the West Alabama Ice House. . . . Lauren’s stomach rumbled at the thought. The Montrose district was an amazing mix for sure. And was close to River Oaks. She found herself wondering if Eli liked to walk these quirky streets as well.