Fall From Grace

“He will,” Katie said with a child’s confidence, as though all would be right with the world if she willed it.

Katie hugged Anne, Delia smiled, and one thought gripped Anne’s heart. Jack was back in their lives—her life—if he agreed. If he lived.

CHAPTER 3

He awoke with a gasp as if surfacing from treacherous waters, held down by heavy limbs. Recollections came back to him in small frames, like some macabre B-movie with him in the starring role.

He remembered falling. Darkness. Pain. Flashes of Annie seeped into his consciousness. The dreams arrived as one patchwork journey into his past. Annie the way she looked back then. Katie as a baby. He was still running local marathons. Maybe even still in medical school. No—residency. He hadn’t known Annie in medical school.

The visions made little sense, yet he found comfort in their familiarity. He wanted to go right on sleeping, fearful of the unknown. Terrified of what he might find when he came fully awake. But sleep wouldn’t return, regardless of the fact that he kept his eyes tightly closed in an attempt to ignore the muffled voices, ignore other sounds he knew all too well. The nasal tones of an operator paging his colleagues. The hustle and bustle of the hospital halls. He recognized the sterile smells, the supercharged atmosphere. The place where he’d spent most of his waking hours in the past few years, but never like this.

He had no concept of time, no idea what day it was. Had he been asleep for minutes? Days? Weeks?

Jack searched his mind and vaguely remembered an eruption of activity after the initial confusion. Several times he’d wanted to ask what was happening to him, but he couldn’t manage to form the words with any coherency. Hank had been there; he knew that for certain. He’d recognized several of the nurses hovering over him. Most had taken orders from him at one time or another. Now they ordered him around. Asked him his name periodically. What day it was. What year. He’d answered the best he could, but his mind continued to drift off to another place. A place to escape harsh realities.

The creaking of a cart somewhere in the distance caused him to open his eyes. He slowly scanned the functional room. Purple drapes, mauve-and-navy chairs. A TV perched on the stand mounted near the ceiling. He knew the territory like he knew every instrument he used in surgery. Like the back of his hand.

His hand. He worked his left hand into a fist, flexing it open and closed. Yet when he tried to move his right hand, it lay flaccid against his side. His right foot tingled, but he felt nothing above it.

He gulped more air into his constricted chest, trying hard to push away the panic that threatened to consume him. He lowered his eyes to the needle in his arm, then followed the line as it trailed over the metal sidebars and up to where it attached to an IV pump. The equipment surrounding him was all too familiar. He just hadn’t been on this side of the bed before.

As a physician, he should know the names of the medications they kept pumping into him, but he couldn’t remember. Normally, he would be looking down on this scene—the narrow bed, the starched white sheets, the figure lying among leads and lines to sustain or relieve whatever malady had befallen him or her. But this time, he was the one lying helpless, surrounded by the miracle of modern technology. Half his body as dead as driftwood. Only half a man.

The door swung open and in walked Hank, a grim expression on his bearded face. Jack had seen that look before. He’d worn it several times himself, right before telling a patient’s family that nothing more could be done.

Hank strode to the side of the bed and faked a smile. “Hey, bud, you’re finally awake.” He leaned over and checked the pump. “Do you know your name?”

Shit, Hank was treating him like one of his patients. “Morgan. M-m-miracle worker.” It didn’t come out quite right; his brain seemed short-circuited.

Hank chuckled. “Hell, the stroke didn’t affect your industrial-size ego.”

Jack tensed over the word stroke. His worst fears had been confirmed; yet he’d known all along that he’d suffered some sort of cerebral accident. A fried brain. The end of his career.

“What…d-day is it?” His throat was as dry as dead leaves in the winter, and it had taken him great effort to form the words. As if it really mattered what day it was. What was the use in knowing? He had no surgical cases to worry about. No strength. No will.

Hank set the metal chart on the rolling table and perched on the edge of the bed. “It’s Saturday, Jack. You fell out around midnight on Sunday, after your transplant case. Do you remember any of it?”

“Some.” He remembered the pain, the helplessness. That no one had been there to comfort him.

After clearing his scratchy throat, he pointed at the white pitcher on the table. “Water.”

Hank poured a plastic cup full and handed it to him. After Jack took one sip, he asked the question nagging at him. “How bad?”

“An aneurysm. Nan Travers ordered you a nice buzz cut and fixed it. And if you don’t have any more problems, you’ll be good as new.”

Jack sensed his blood pressure rising. Right now he didn’t give a damn about anything. “Good as new, huh? What about the h-hand. The leg, Hank?”

Hank laid a palm on his shoulder. “Easy, bud. We’ll take it one day at a time. Occupational therapy and physical therapy will work with you, get that hand and leg back up to speed. But you’ll have to work with them, while you’re here on the rehab unit and after you go home.”

Home. Jack hadn’t considered the apartment home. He had no idea how the hell he was going to get through this. He’d been alone for two years and he’d managed. He’d manage again, even if it meant wasting away by himself. Then no one would see his suffering, or witness his despair.

“Anne’s here.”

Jack stopped the cup halfway to his lips, then slowly brought it back down to rest against his chest. He no longer wanted water. He wanted whiskey. “Why?”

“She asked to see how you’re doing. Talk to you.”

Jack took another sip of water, which partially rolled from the corner of his mouth, before he turned away from Hank’s scrutiny. “No.”

Hank pushed off the bed and stood. “Be reasonable, Jack. She’s worried about you. We’re all worried about you.”

White-hot anger bubbled up from Jack’s gut. He sure as hell didn’t want her to see him this way, all the proof she needed that he was too obsessed. Too driven. She’d find some way to blame the stroke on his work. She might not say “I told you so,” but he would be able to spot it in her face.

He brought his gaze back to Hank. “Tell her…come back later.”

“Can’t do that, bud. She’s on her morning break and she’s damn determined. You know what Anne’s like when she’s determined.”

Yeah, he knew what she was like. He’d lived with her long enough to know that when she had her mind set on something, she fought like a champion welterweight to get what she wanted. Okay, so he’d let her come in. Let her get her grins seeing him lying here like a limp fish. Then he’d tell her thanks for stopping by, now leave.

“Okay.” He sounded like a damn bullfrog, a drunk one, but this thing hadn’t completely robbed him of his speech. At least he had that much left.

Hank slipped the chart off the table and tapped it twice on the bed rail. “Okay. I’ll get her. I’ll drop by later when I’m making my evening rounds.”

“G-great.” Just great.

Hank strode out of the room, leaving Jack alone to face his past. And when she walked in the door, he realized he couldn’t run from the inevitable. She was dressed in her standard floral blue scrubs, a stethoscope draped around her neck. She’d cut her hair to her shoulders. He liked it better longer, not that his opinion mattered anymore.

Annie moved to the end of his bed and tried to smile. She’d never been good at hiding her emotions, and right now he could tell she was distressed. Hell, he must look worse than he thought.

She brushed back her gold-brown hair with one hand and said, “Hi.”

He focused on her face. Her wary blue eyes held a cast of some unnamed emotion. Probably pity. He didn’t like pity. “Nice weather…we’re having, huh?”

She moved a bit closer and gave him a once-over. “You look better than the last time I saw you. So how are you feeling?”

“Like c-crap.”

She raised a hand to her throat. “Well, that’s to be expected for a while.”

Enough of the small talk. He preferred to go back to sleep. Escape. Forget this nightmare. “Wh-what do you want?”

She looked surprised, maybe hurt. “I wanted to see how you’re doing. See if you’re up for visitors.”

“You’re here. You’ve seen me. You can…g-go.”

“I meant Katie.”

God, he didn’t want Katie coming here, seeing him helpless and wasted. “I don’t w-want…” He tried to calm down, but he almost welcomed the feeling of animosity. At least it kept him from thinking about his situation. “No. Not a good idea. For her to be here.”