John Saul - Brain Child

“No,” Carol replied, her voice catching. “He’s not dead, Ellen.”

“But it’s bad, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think anyone does.”

Silently the two women got into the Cochrans’ car and Carol started the engine. As she was backing down the Lonsdales’ driveway, Ellen asked the question that was still lurking in her mind. “Why wasn’t Lisa with him?”

“I don’t know that. We got a call from the police. They said to meet them at the Center, that they were taking Lisa there. I thought … Oh, God, never mind what I thought. Anyway, Lisa’s all right, but Alex — his car went off the road up near the old hacienda. Carolyn was having a party.”

“He said he wouldn’t go to any parties,” Ellen said numbly, her body slumped against the car door. “He promised—” She broke off her own thought, and remained silent for several seconds as her mind suddenly began to shift gears. I can’t fall apart. I can’t give in to what I’m feeling. I have to be strong. For Alex, I have to be strong . She consciously straightened herself in the car seat. “Well, it doesn’t matter what he promised, does it?” she asked. “The only thing that matters is that he be all right.” She turned to gaze searchingly at Carol, and when she spoke, her voice was stronger. “If you knew how bad it was, you’d tell me, wouldn’t you?”

Carol moved her hand off the steering wheel to give Ellen’s arm a quick squeeze. “Of course I would. And I’m not going to tell you not to worry, either.”

As Carol drove, Ellen tried to make herself concentrate on anything but what might have happened to Alex. She gazed out the window, forcing her mind to focus only on what her eyes were taking in.

“It’s a pretty town,” she said suddenly.

“What?” Carol Cochran asked, taken aback by Ellen’s odd statement.

“I was just looking at it,” Ellen went on. “I haven’t really done that for a long time. I drive around it all the time, but it’s been years since I really paid attention to what it looks like. And a lot of it hasn’t really changed since we were children.”

“No,” Carol said slowly, still not sure where Ellen’s thoughts were leading. “I don’t suppose it has.”

Ellen uttered a sound that was partly a hollow chuckle, partly a sob. “Do you think I’m crazy, talking about how pretty La Paloma is? Well, I’m not. Anyway, I don’t think I am. But I’m having a feeling, and if I let myself think about that , then I will go crazy.”

“Do you want to tell me what it is?”

There was another long silence, and when she spoke again, Ellen’s voice had gone strangely flat. “He’s dead,” she stated. “I have the most awful feeling that Alex is dead. But he isn’t dead. I … I won’t let him be dead!”

Ellen stared at the knot of people in the emergency waiting room. She recognized most of the faces, though for some reason her mind refused to put names to them. Except for a few.

Lisa Cochran.

She was sitting on a couch, huddled close to her father, and a policeman was talking to her. Lisa saw her and immediately stood up and started toward her.

“I’m sorry,” she blurted. “Oh, Mrs. Lonsdale, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“What happened?” Ellen asked, her voice dull.

“I … I’m not sure,” Lisa stammered. “We had a fight — well, sort of a fight, and I decided to walk home. And Alex must have been coming after me. But he was driving too fast, and …” She went on, blurting out the story of what had happened, while Ellen listened, but only half-heard. Around them, the rest of the people in the waiting room fell silent.

“It was my fault,” Lisa finished. “It was all my fault.”

Ellen laid a gentle hand on Lisa’s cheek, then kissed her. “No,” she said quietly. “It wasn’t your fault. You weren’t in the car, and it wasn’t your fault.”

She turned away to find Barbara Fannon at her elbow. “Where is he?” she asked. “Where’s Alex?”

“He’s in the O.R. Frank and Benny are working on him. Marsh is in his office.” She took Ellen’s arm and began guiding her out of the waiting room.

When she came into his office, Marsh was sitting behind his desk, a glass in front of him, staring at nothing. His gaze shifted, and he stood up, came around the desk, and put his arms around her.

“You were right,” he whispered, his voice strangling on the words. “Oh, God, Ellen, you were right.”

“Is he dead?” Ellen asked.

Marsh drew back sharply, as if the words had been a physical blow. “Who told you that?”

Ellen’s face paled. “No one. I just … I just have a feeling, that’s all.”

“Well, that one isn’t true,” Marsh told her. “He’s alive.”

Ellen hesitated; then: “If he’s alive, why don’t I feel it?”

Marsh shook his head. “I don’t know. But he’s not dead. He’s seriously injured, but he’s not dead.”

Time seemed to stand still as Ellen gazed deep into her husband’s eyes. At last she quietly repeated Marsh’s words. “He’s not dead. He’s not dead. He won’t die.” Then, despite her determination to be strong, her tears began to flow.

In the operating room, Frank Mallory carefully withdrew the last visible fragment of shattered skull from the tissue of Alex’s brain. He glanced up at the monitors.

By rights, the boy should be dead.

And yet, there on the monitors was the evidence that he was not.

There was a pulse — weak and erratic, but there.

And he was breathing, albeit with the aid of a respirator.

His broken left arm was in a temporary splint, and the worst of his facial lacerations had been stitched just enough to stop the bleeding.

That had been the easy part.

It was his head that was the problem.

From what Mallory could see, as the car tumbled down the ravine, Alex’s head must have smashed against a rock, crushing the left parietal plate and damaging the frontal plate. Pieces of both bones had broken away, embedding themselves in Alex’s brain, and it was these splinters that Mallory had been carefully removing. Then, with all the skill he could muster, he had worked the fractured pieces as nearly into their normal positions as possible. Now he was applying what could only be temporary bandages — bandages intended to bind Alex’s wounds only until the electroencephalogram went totally flat and the boy would be declared dead.

“What do you think?” Benny Cohen asked.

“Right now, I’m trying not to think,” Mallory replied. “All I’m doing is putting the pieces back together, and I’m sorry to say I’m not at all sure I can do it.”

“He’s not gonna make it?”

“I’m not saying that, either,” Mallory rasped, unable to admit his true thoughts. “He’s made it this far, hasn’t he?”

Benny nodded. “With a lot of help. But without the respirator, he’d be gone.”

“A lot of people need respirators. That’s why they were invented.”

“But most people only peed them temporarily. He’s going to need it the rest of his life.”

Frank Mallory glowered at the young intern, then softened. Cohen, after all, hadn’t known Alex Lonsdale since the day the boy was born, nor had Cohen yet lost a patient. When he did, maybe he’d realize how much it hurt to see someone die and know there’s nothing you can do about it. But Alex had survived the first emergency procedures, and there was still the possibility that he might live. “Let’s get him into the ICU, then start setting up for X rays and a CAT scan.”

Ten minutes later, still drying his hands with a white towel, Mallory walked into Marshall Lonsdale’s office. Both Marsh and Ellen struggled wearily to their feet.