John Saul - Brain Child

“I’ve always said Raymond Torres is impossible. Brilliant, yes. But impossible.”

Ellen’s eyes clouded. “If he can save Alex, I don’t care how impossible he is.”

“Of course you don’t, darling,” Valerie assured her. “None of us does. Besides, maybe he’s changed over the last twenty years. My God, if I had any brains, I’d marry him! This is some place, isn’t it? Is it all his?”

“Val,” Ellen interrupted. “You can slow down. You don’t have to distract us — we’re going to get through this.”

Valerie’s bright smile faded, and she sat down abruptly, reaching into her purse and pulling out a handkerchief. She sniffled, wiped her eyes, then determinedly put the handkerchief away. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just that the thought of anything happening to Alex … Oh, Ellen, I’m just so sorry about all of this. Is there anything I can do?”

Ellen shook her head. “Nothing. Just stay with me, Val. Having you and Marty Lewis and Carol here is going to be the most important thing.” To know that her friends would be here to support her, to try to comfort her, would help.

The longest day of her life had just begun.

When the lounge door opened just after ten-thirty that evening, neither Ellen nor Marsh paid much attention. People had been in and out all day, some staying only a few minutes, others remaining for an hour or two. But now only her closest friends were still there: the Cochrans, Marty Lewis, and Valerie Benson. Only Cynthia Evans had not come.

Slowly she realized that someone was standing in front of her, had spoken to her. She looked up into the face of a stranger.

“Mrs. Lonsdale? I’m Susan Parker — the night person. Dr. Torres wants to see you and your husband in his office.”

Ellen glanced at Marsh, who was already on his feet, his hand extended to her. Suddenly she felt disoriented — she’d thought it was going to take until midnight. Unless … She closed her mind to the thought that Alex must, at last, have died. “It’s over?” she managed. “He’s finished?”

Then she was in Torres’s office, and the doctor was gazing at her from the chair behind his desk. He stood up, and came around to offer her his hand. “Hello, Ellen,” he said quietly.

Her first fleeting thought was that he was even more handsome than she’d remembered him. Hesitantly she took his hand and squeezed it briefly, then, still clutching his hand, she gazed into his eyes. “Alex,” she whispered. “Is he—?”

“He’s alive,” Torres said, his voice reflecting the exhaustion he was feeling, while his eyes revealed his triumph. “He’s out of the O.R., and he’s off the respirator. He’s breathing by himself, and his pulse is strong.”

Ellen’s legs buckled, and Marsh eased her into a chair. “Is he awake?” she heard her husband ask. When Torres’s head shook negatively, her heart sank.

“But it doesn’t mean much,” Torres said. “The soonest we want him to wake up is tomorrow morning.”

“Then you don’t know if the operation is a success.” Marsh Lonsdale’s voice was flat.

Again Torres shook his head, and rubbed his eyes with his fists. “We’ll know tomorrow morning, when — if — he wakes up. But things look good.” He offered them a twisted smile. “Coming from me, that’s something. You know what I consider success and what I consider failure. And I can tell you right now that if Alex dies in the next week, it won’t be from his brain problems. It will be from complications — pneumonia, some kind of viral infection, that sort of thing. I intend to see that that doesn’t happen.”

“Can … can we see him?” Ellen asked.

Torres nodded. “But only for a minute, and only through the window. For the time being, I don’t want anyone in that room except members of my staff.” Marsh seemed about to say something, but Torres ignored him. “I’m sorry, but that includes you. What you can do is take a look at him — Susan will take you over there — and then go home and get some sleep. Tomorrow morning’s going to tell the tale, and I want you to be here. If he wakes up, I’m going to want to try to determine if he can recognize people.”

“Us,” Ellen breathed.

“Exactly.” Torres stood up. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going up to bed.”

Ellen struggled to her feet, and reached out to grasp Torres’s hand once again. “Thank you, Raymond,” she whispered. “I … I don’t know what to say. I didn’t believe … I couldn’t—”

Torres abruptly withdrew his hand from hers. “Don’t thank me, Ellen,” he said. “Not yet. There’s still a good chance that your son will never wake up.” Then he was gone, leaving Ellen to stare after him, her face ashen.

“It’s just him,” Marsh told her. “It’s just his way of telling us not to get our hopes too high.”

“But he said—”

“He said Alex is alive, and breathing by himself. And that’s all he said.” He began guiding her toward the door. “Let’s go take a look at him, then go home.”

Silently Susan Parker led them into the west wing and down the long corridor past the O.R. She stopped at a window, and the Lonsdales gazed through the glass into a large room. In its center stood a hospital bed, its guardrails up. Around the bed was an array of monitors, each of them attached to some part of Alex’s body.

His head, though swathed with bandages, seemed to bristle with tiny wires.

But there was no respirator, and even from beyond the window they could see his chest rising and falling in the deep, even rhythm of sleep. A glance at one of the monitors told Marsh that Alex’s pulse was now as strong and regular as his breathing.

“He’s going to come out of it,” he said softly. Next to him, Ellen squeezed his hand tightly.

“I know,” she replied. “I can feel it. He did it, Marsh. Raymond gave us back our son.” Then: “But what’s he going to be like? He won’t be the same, will he?”

“No,” Marsh said slowly, “he won’t be. But he’ll still be Alex.”

There was a soft beeping sound, and the nurse whose sole duty was to watch Alex Lonsdale glanced quickly up, scanning the monitors with a practiced eye, then noting the exact time.

Nine-forty-six A.M.

She pressed the buzzer on the control panel, then went to the bed to lean over Alex, concentrating on his eyes.

The beeping sounded again, and this time she saw its cause. She picked up the phone and pressed two buttons. On the first ring, someone picked it up.

“Torres. What is it?”

“Rapid-eye movement, doctor. He may be dreaming, or—”

“Or he may be waking up. I’ll be right down.” The phone went dead in her hand and the nurse’s attention went back to Alex.

Once more, the beeping began, and the occasional faint twitching in Alex Lonsdale’s eyelids increased to an erratic flutter.

Hazily he became vaguely aware of himself. Things were happening around him.

There were sounds, and faint images, but none of it meant anything.

Like watching a movie, but run so fast you couldn’t see any of it.

And darkness. Darkness all around him, and no sense of being at all. Then, slowly, he began to feel himself. There was more than the darkness, more than the indistinct sounds and images.

A dream.

He was having a dream.

But what was it about? He tried to focus his mind. If it was a dream, where was he? Why wasn’t he part of it?

The darkness began to recede a little, and the sounds and images faded away.

Not a dream. Real. He was real.

He.

What did “he” mean?

“He” was a word, and he should know what it meant. There should be a name attached to it, but there wasn’t.