It’s surprisingly busy for late afternoon on a Monday, the waiting room littered with worried parents and kids holding kidney-shaped pans under their chins, ice packs pressed to foreheads, and arms held stiffly in makeshift slings. I see Emma on the other side of the room, and we hurry over. Sam and Charlotte are sitting side by side, a few seats down from Emma, both staring at their phone screens. I don’t see Andrew.
“Sam,” Audrey says, and at the sound of her voice he looks up. Charlotte moves over one seat so Audrey can sit beside Sam, who leans heavily against her. She takes the weight of him and grabs his hand, and I smile gently when she catches my eye. I sit down beside Emma. “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know,” she replies. “Andrew is with Jack, and Alysse is trying to get on a plane. She’s in New York City and isn’t supposed to be home until late tomorrow night.” Emma shakes her head. “I can’t even imagine, being a plane ride away when this is happening to your child.” I swallow hard, feeling my head spin a little.
“Are you all right?” Emma asks, before shaking her head and letting her breath out slowly. “Of course not. How could any of us be okay?”
For a moment I wish things between us were the way it used to be. Back when Emma knew the day-to-day nuances of my life better than even Ryan did, and would have known exactly what to say to make things better. I’m trying to think of how to respond when I catch a glimpse of Andrew standing just inside the glass emergency room doors. He looks awful, and he’s crying. A doctor wearing green scrubs is with him; their heads bent together, Andrew nods, a fist clutched to his mouth as the doctor talks.
Emma glances at her watch. “Meg, I need to get home. Can you stay for a bit? Andrew’s parents are on their way, but they’ve got an hour’s drive or so before they can get here.”
“Of course,” I say, my voice cracking. I clear my throat. “Thank you, Emma.” I’m not sure exactly what I’m thanking her for, but it’s the first thing that comes to mind. It’s so strange to be sitting next to her, talking with her like this after all these years of silence. I wonder if she’s feeling as discombobulated as I am.
She nods and gives me a small smile. “Will you keep me updated?”
“I will,” I say, thinking perhaps this will be the moment when I forgive Emma Steen for kissing my husband, because it suddenly feels like such a small thing in the face of this tragedy we’ve shared.
A few minutes after Emma and Charlotte leave, Andrew walks into the waiting room. He looks surprised to see me, and I quickly stand to meet him. “Emma had to go home,” I say. “But I’m happy to stay with Sam for as long as you need me to. Or he can come home with us. Whatever’s best for you.”
“They’re taking Jack into surgery,” Andrew says, and I let out a weak, “oh.” He goes to say something else, but then leans toward me and puts his forehead on my shoulder in much the same way Sam did with Audrey at the accident scene. His arms stay at his sides and we stand there for a moment in the packed waiting room, awkwardly close yet with only his forehead and my shoulder making contact, his cries muffled by my jacket.
Then I swiftly step closer and wrap my arms around him, and he does the same to me, holding tight in a way that feels too intimate yet exactly right for the moment. I feel tears prick my eyes but will myself not to cry. I take a deep breath, smell a hint of something woodsy, like aftershave or cologne, and squeeze him tighter when I exhale. His chest heaves against mine, and his heart beats furiously. A moment later he pulls away so quickly, I’m left with arms still in a semicircle, suspended in the air. I quickly drop them, feeling uncomfortable.
“Thank you,” Andrew says, scrubbing a hand across his chin and wiping at his eyes. He sounds better, stronger, though he looks anything but, and we sit back down.
“It’s the least I can do.”
He tilts his head slightly to the side, confusion on his face, and I feel self-conscious. Then he turns to Sam, who is sitting with Audrey on another bank of waiting room chairs. “How are you doing, buddy? Feeling okay?”
“I’m fine, Dad,” Sam says, only briefly raising his eyes to meet Andrew’s.
“Good,” he says. Then more quietly he says to me, “He’s been sick. Has had this fever and sore throat thing for a couple of days.”
I nod, and then there’s a lull between us. I start to get antsy; I don’t do well with silence, especially in highly emotional situations. “How long do they expect Jack to be in surgery?”
Andrew’s jaw works furiously. I know he’s holding back more tears, and I quickly regret asking the question. “They can’t know for sure, but the surgeon said to prepare for a long night.”
Without realizing I’ve done it, I press a hand tightly to my stomach as I think of Jack in the operating room all night, his parents waiting for news, hoping for the best, trying to ignore the worst.
“Are you okay?” Andrew asks, for the first time taking in my open coat, my soiled dress—the bloodstain. He shifts his body to face mine, his hands hovering slightly in front of my stained dress. “You weren’t hurt, were you?”
“No, I’m fine,” I say. “This isn’t my...” My voice trails, thankfully stopping before I finish the sentence, say the word blood. He looks ill, because even though I didn’t say it, we’re both thinking it. I use one hand to close my coat over the stain on my dress and place my other hand on his arm. This time he rests his fingers overtop of mine and squeezes slightly.
“I’m so sorry this is happening, Andrew.” My chest contracts again, the vice grip of guilt moving through me.
He nods, mouth set in a grim line. “Me, too,” he says, voice breaking. He looks down. “They also said Jack’s back is broken. Probably from when he...hit the ground.”
“Oh, Andrew.” I’m finding it hard to breathe, the fabric of my dress, the wrapped tightness of my coat suddenly too constricting.
He keeps his voice low, so Sam and Audrey don’t hear the conversation. “They said there’s a chance he might not walk again.” His eyes fill, and his voice catches. “How the hell do you tell your kid that?”
Jack Beckett is a gifted athlete, a golfer who apparently has a decent chance at playing the professional circuit if he keeps going the way he has been. He has his whole life ahead of him: college, career, a family of his own one day. He needs to walk out of here.
“I don’t know,” I say, a little breathless. My words are the truth, but they sound terribly useless in the moment. “Andrew, is there someone else I can call for you? Or can I get you something? A coffee? Something to eat?”
He shakes his head. “Don’t think I could keep anything down. Thanks, though.” His eyes drop to his phone, where a text message illuminates the screen, and he’s quickly typing back to whoever it is. I tell him I’m just stepping out to make a call, then once outside, sit on a bench beside a hospital gown–clad woman attached to an IV pole, halfway through a cigarette. I can’t catch my breath and so bend at the waist and suck in great heaving lungfuls of air.
“You okay, honey?” the woman asks, her voice raspy. She rests her elbows on her splayed knees and takes a long pull on her cigarette, watching me.
I look to her face, heavily wrinkled and a sickly shade of yellow, and shake my head. “No,” I say. The cigarette smoke is making me nauseous, and I want to leave, but my legs aren’t yet ready to hold my weight.
She nods. “Most of us here aren’t.”
“I want to stay with Sam,” Audrey implores, after I tell her we need to head home. Andrew’s parents and sister, Suzanne, have arrived, and Alysse managed to get on a