“And if they don’t?” she asked, struggling against the quiver in her voice. “If I don’t regain my vision, and a new CAT scan and EEG show nothing, what then?”
Her question was met with silence. Stevie felt her panic rise and a wave of nausea crash over her.
“Doctor, please. I need the truth.”
“We’ll have to cross that bridge when we come to it, Stevie. In situations like this, each case is unique. As much as I’d like to be able to give you a simple answer, I just can’t. Your sight could start to return by tomorrow morning or next week or the week after.”
“Or not at all?”
“Stevie—”
“No, Paige. Please. I have to know. Dr. Sterling? What is the likelihood that this is permanent?”
Beyond the hospital room, Stevie heard warbling phones and chimes, and the crackle of a PA system. There were other voices and laughter. And then the doctor’s long intake of breath before he spoke again.
“Stevie, in all honesty, I just don’t know. There’s no way to tell at this point. Everything depends on the degree of the swelling and the rate at which it diminishes. So I can’t answer your questions. I’m sorry. I can recommend another specialist for a second opinion if you like…”
“So my blindness could be permanent then.” It wasn’t a question, but a cold statement.
There was a dreadful silence again, and then Stevie felt the doctor’s hand on her arm.
“Stevie, I know this is a shock for you, but please, try not to worry. We’re doing everything we can. You just need time to heal. That’s the best prescription I can give you right now.”
Stevie tried to find a thin shred of comfort in his words. Only in her worst nightmares, in her darkest thoughts, had she ever imagined something like this. Just last year, a highschool friend from Chicago had nearly died in a car accident. Now her friend saw life from a wheelchair, was completely dependent on a live-in nurse. It had haunted Stevie for months afterward, the thought of being suddenly and completely dependent on others, of having the life you knew snatched away in one senseless flash, altering everything you’d known and worked for, and to never again see or perceive the world in the same way you once had.
“I’m going to arrange for that EEG,” Dr. Sterling told her finally, removing his hand. “I’ll be back shortly.”
The door swung quietly in its frame a few times and then was still. She wasn’t certain how long she lay there listening to the buzzing in her head, to the wild pounding of her heart, but it was Paige who eventually drew her out of the dark silence.
“Honey?” She rubbed Stevie’s shoulder as if this could possibly ease the fears that raged through her mind. “You’re going to be all right.”
Stevie felt herself about to cry. She shook her head, fighting back the tears.
“Tell me I’m dreaming, Paige.” Her voice trembled. “Tell me this is just a really bad dream.”
“Stevie, listen to me, you have to think positively. Like Dr. Sterling said, it has to do with the swelling or whatever. It’ll go down. You’ll be fine.”
That was Paige—the eternal optimist. Three years ago, not long before Stevie’s father had died, when the contracts had been stacking up and she had been working twenty-hour days, Stevie had recognized the need for help around the studio. She’d placed the ad, and the instant Paige Carpenter had arrived at Images, fifteen minutes late and more than a little windblown, her hair a vibrant orange cascade of curls and her face glowing with an apologetic smile, Stevie knew there was no need to look any farther. From the start, Paige exuded the confidence and fresh talent Stevie had been looking for in an assistant, not to mention an enthusiasm and commitment that sometimes exceeded even her own. Within weeks of working together, Paige had proved herself the greatest assistant and friend Stevie could have hoped for.
“Do you want to sit up, Stevie?”
She barely nodded, and immediately Paige was at her side, rearranging pillows and drawing up the blanket.
“Listen, Stevie, I should tell you, the police have been lurking around. They even have an officer posted at the door. A Detective Devane said he’d be by to ask questions about last night.”
“Gary’s dead, isn’t he?”
“I’m sorry, Stevie.”
Stevie bit her lower lip. In spite of the darkness around her, she could still see the office, how everything had been thrown about, papers scattered, furniture tossed aside like toys, and Gary.lying unmoving on the floor. Then the man at the doorway, the man who had attacked her, and her race along the catwalk. And finally, nothing.
“How did I get here, Paige?”
“Someone brought you in last night.”
“Who?”
“They don’t know, Stevie. The police are still trying to find out, I guess.”
She wished she could remember more, wished that last night wasn’t such a blur. Then again, did she really want to conjure up those images? Perhaps the details of the ordeal were best forgotten.
“Barb’s called a couple of times,” Paige said. “She wanted to come by, but. she has a lot of arrangements to make.”
Stevie nodded.
“She said she’d try to stop in later.”
“I want to go home, Paige.”
“I know.”
She wanted to be in her own bed, away from the phones and the bells, from IVs and EEGs. She wanted to turn on the stereo and block out the rest of the world. Pull the duvet over her head and not come out for two weeks.
“Uh, Stevie?”
Paige was pacing. Stevie heard the soft squeak of her leather soles on the linoleum and the jangle of her bracelets.
“Paige, what’s wrong?”
The squeaking stopped, and Stevie imagined her friend standing in the middle of the room. Knowing Paige, she probably wore an oversize shirt and vest, a pair of black tights and socks bunched up at the tops of her ankle boots. Her hands would be buried deep in the pockets of a man’s tweed jacket she’d picked up at the thrift shop downtown. Her carrot-colored hair was most likely disheveled and pulled up in a wild ponytail after her long vigil at the hospital, and her pale complexion no doubt appeared paler still with lack of sleep.
“Paige?” she prompted.
“Stevie, listen, I’m sorry, but I…I called your mom.”
“Oh, Paige.”
“I know, I know. You always say you don’t want to worry her. But Stevie, you…well…dammit, Stevie, you scared the hell out of me.” Her voice wavered now, and Stevie wondered if Paige was crying. “I mean, the doctors…they were going on about you, talking about comas and brain damage and hematomas. I—”
“Paige, it’s all right. I’m all right.” But she heard the tremor in her voice and doubted her words were any more convincing for Paige than they were for her right now. She reached out for her friend, needing comfort as much as Paige seemed to.
Stevie felt the bed shift as Paige sat next to her and slid her hand into hers.
“Thanks for staying with me, Paige. For being here.”
“I wouldn’t have been anywhere else.”
And then Paige’s arms were around her before she could reply, giving her a reassuring embrace.
“God, you really had me scared,” Paige murmured, pulling away but keeping her hand in Stevie’s,