Blackberry Summer

Before Claire could argue, Ruth had pressed a button on the remote cabled to the bed. Almost instantly, the door opened and a young, fresh-faced nurse with a streaky blond A-line haircut and flowered hospital scrubs pushed open the door.

I used to babysit Brooke Callahan, Claire thought with some dismay. Could the girl really be old enough to legally operate that stethoscope?

“Hi, there.” Brooke smiled sweetly and Claire felt about a hundred and sixty years old. “Look at you, sitting up and everything. That’s so awesome! I can’t believe how much better you look tonight than you did this morning when you came out of surgery.”

Right now she felt like she’d just combat-crawled through heavy artillery fire. How bad must she have looked this morning?

“You’re a popular person. The phone out at the nurse’s station has been ringing off the hook all day with people who want to know if you can have visitors.”

She didn’t want visitors. She didn’t want nurses or doctors or even her mother. She just wanted to lie here, close her eyes and go back to that moment when she’d been standing in line at Maura’s place for coffee, when her biggest worry had been whether to use the fire-polished or the cone crystals on Gen Beaumont’s wedding dress.

“She’s nowhere near ready for visitors,” Ruth said firmly, and Claire knew a tiny moment of ridiculous, obstinate contrariness when she wanted to tell little Brooke Callahan to let in whomever she pleased, especially Macy and Owen.

“Could I have a drink of water?”

Brooke was fiddling with the IV pump. She pressed a few buttons, then gave that cheery, toothy smile again. “Why, sure you can.”

She scooped up a big clear plastic mug from the rolling hospital tray and held the straw to Claire’s mouth.

“I could have gotten you that,” Ruth said. “You should have asked.”

Claire didn’t answer, too busy remembering how delicious cold water could taste on a parched, achy throat.

“You probably feel terrible right now, don’t you?” The soft concern in Brooke’s voice unexpectedly brought tears to Claire’s eyes.

She blinked them away and managed a shrug. She hated this, being helpless and needy. “I’ve had better days.”

“You’re due for more pain medicine. I’m going to add it to your IV.”

“When can I go home?”

“That’s for Dr. Murray to say. I’m guessing at least a few days, given your head injury and the surgeries.”

Claire looked at her mother in surprise. “Not Jeff?”

“You know he can’t operate on you because of your relationship. But he’s been coordinating your care with Jim Murray.”

“Dr. Bradford was just checking on another patient down the hall,” Brooke offered as she checked Claire’s vitals. “I’m sure he’ll stop here before he leaves for the night.”

Sure enough, the nurse was typing a few notes into the computer on a swing-arm beside the bed when the wide door opened and Jeff came in. His hair had as many blond streaks as Brooke’s these days and was cut in a shaggy youthful style that seemed incongruous with his traditional green hospital scrubs and white lab coat.

She was pretty certain he’d had Botox sometime in the past few months, although she was also sure he would rather be tortured with his own scalpel before he would admit it.

“Hello. Claire. Ruth. Brooke.”

The nurse gave him her cheery smile, but Claire’s mother just lit up, like she always did around Jeff. Her mother adored the man. Claire sometimes thought Ruth considered her and Jeff’s divorce the biggest tragedy of her life, even worse than the scandalous end to her own marriage.

Jeff barely looked at her, reaching instead for her chart. As he flipped through it with those familiar blunt fingers she had once loved, Claire sighed, wondering which felt heavier to her right now: the cast on her limbs or the weight of her own failures.

She was very glad she wasn’t married to him anymore, for just this reason. She had mostly become invisible to him.

“You didn’t operate on me.”

He glanced up. “I assisted. Jim Murray was your surgeon. He’s a good man. I’ve just been reading his report.”

They were in the same practice, she knew, and she tried to summon a picture of Dr. Murray. A hazy picture formed in her head of a man who was slightly shorter than Jeff with a steel-gray mustache and kind eyes.

The beeper the nurse wore around her neck suddenly went off. She glanced at it, then turned to Jeff. “If you don’t need me, Dr. Bradford, I’ve got another patient to check on.”

“Thank you,” he said. When she left, he reached for Claire’s broken arm, lifted it and wiggled her fingers. For not being her treating physician, he was doing a fairly good impression of it.

“How are the children?” she asked when he turned his attention to her ankle.

“Just fine. I spoke with Holly a few moments ago and she said they had rested most of the afternoon, even Owen. She’s making popcorn and when I get home we’re going to watch a movie.”

Claire felt that absurd urge to cry again. In that moment, she wanted to be cuddled up in her comfortable family room with her children eating popcorn and watching a dumb kids’ show more than she remembered wanting anything in her life.

“You don’t need to worry about them,” Jeff said in that stern, listen-to-me-I’m-a-doctor voice of his. “You should be focusing on yourself.”

She didn’t know how to do that very well and probably never had.

“That car. The one that drove us off the road. Did the police ever find them?”

Ruth and Jeff exchanged looks and Claire thought she saw her mother give a slight shake of her head. “Don’t worry about that now,” Ruth said quickly.

“What does that mean?”

They were definitely keeping something from her, but she didn’t have the energy to push. Claire really wished she could remember more than those few moments just before the crash and then that terrible moment of flying toward the water.