I smooth my hand over her hair, looking at my dad, desperate for guidance, strength, information, fucking anything. But he’s as wrecked as my mother. He’s slouched over in a corner chair, his elbows resting on his knees, as he cries silently into his hands.
My mom’s tears soak my shirt, as I try soothing her. “Shhhh . . . Mamá, va a estar bien.” It’s an empty promise. I don’t know if it’ll be okay, but I’m not sure what else to say or do. I’m crawling out of my skin, not knowing what is going on, but until I calm her down, she won’t be able to give me any answers.
My dad stands sniffling as he wipes his tears with the back of his hands. He wraps my mom and me in his embrace. “It’s bad, hijo,” he croaks out, looking at me with so much pain in his eyes over my mother’s head.
We all stay like that for a few minutes before my dad speaks again, his voice steadier this time, “Come sit.”
“What’s going on? No one’s told me anything.”
They know about as much as I do: Jarrett was hurt, and he’s in surgery—brain surgery. He sustained a head injury and they are working to assess the damage. By the time they’re done explaining to me what they know about his condition, and how he got here, we all look as weary as we feel.
“What do you mean, he was dropped off? Why wasn’t he in an ambulance?”
“We don’t have those answers. I wish I could give you more information. He was dropped off and the driver said he found him like that.”
What the fuck. In my tired state, I’m having a hard time processing what I’m hearing. I’m not firing on all cylinders right now, but something is not adding up. He usually goes out with teammates. Did he end up going out on his own?
“Found where?”
“They said something about a beach. Police are questioning the driver, but that’s the last I’ve heard.” I can see the toll each question is taking on my dad. The circles under his eyes are a deep purple. He’s used to being the one in control, knowing all the answers—having so many unknowns, when his youngest son is fighting for his life is destroying him.
There’s a soft knock at the door before the doctor steps into the room. My mom lifts her head from where it’s resting on my dad’s shoulder. My need to know what’s going on overrides my exhausted body. I cross the room to meet the doctor, simultaneously nauseous at the thought that this news could be bad, and desperate for it to be good.
“Jarrett suffered a serious head injury. When he came into the ER, his CT scan showed significant swelling. We worked to relieve the pressure on his brain, which we hope will help the fluid drain.” The doctor looks between us, waiting for any questions before he continues. “Right now, he is medically sedated and has a breathing tube. It will need to remain in until the pressure in his brain has improved. Keeping him sedated will prevent unsafe increases in pressure and allow him to heal. The next twenty-four hours are going to be critical and may give us a better understanding of his prognosis.”
“Can we see him?” my mom asks, sitting stiffly next to my dad.
“Soon. He’s still in recovery. A nurse will come get you when he’s in his room.”
“When can we expect him to wake up?” Dad wraps his arm around my mom’s shoulder and pulls her to his side.
My eyes pinball between the three of them. It’s the most hopeful I’ve seen my dad look since I arrived. The doctor tries to keep his face the same stoic mask it was earlier, but he lets it slip momentarily before his lips turn down and there’s an almost imperceptible shake of his head.
“He is going to wake up, isn’t he, Doc?” My fists open and close at my sides. He doesn’t need to answer, it’s written all over his face. The way he can’t quite meet my eyes tells me everything.
“It’s too soon to say. The swelling was extensive, and we know very little about how, or even when, his injury was sustained. Right now, we need to focus on getting him through the night without further complications.”
I sink back into the chair next to my mom, prepared to wait. The doctor clears his throat, stepping further into the room. “There is something else you should know. Jarrett’s tox screen came back positive for GHB.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.” Jarrett doesn’t mess around with drugs. During the season, he has a strict limit on what, and how much, he drinks. “There’s no way he would take any banned substance. He has too much to lose.”
“There was also alcohol in his system. Not a lot, but enough that it could have caused the effects of the GHB to be amplified. Combined, they can cause dizziness, confusion, and disorientation.”
“Nothing about this makes sense.” I stand and pace in front of the doctor, whose lips are drawn into a tight line. Anger and confusion mixes with all the pain and I just want to wake my brother up and ask him what the hell is going on.
When the doctor leaves the room, we wait in silence for the nurse to come take us to see Jarrett. All of us are too drained to speak. And with the bomb the doctor dropped about his toxicology report, I don’t think any of us even know what to say. There are so many questions we can’t answer.
Jarrett’s room is even more bleak than the waiting room. Red bruises mar one side of his swollen face and there are so many machines. Machines breathing for him. Machines buzzing and beeping that are doing God knows what. Machines pumping medicine into his eerily still body. My brother is never still. He is always full of life. He even fucking talks in his sleep. Seeing him like this is wrong on so many levels, my stomach sours. Lurching towards the trash can, I heave into the bin, my already empty stomach cramping until I can finally breathe through it enough to regain control.
The room spins around me as I struggle to breathe. My dad takes my arm, leading me to a chair. He kneels in front of me, checking to make sure I’m okay before he goes to my mom’s side. She’s hunched over my brother’s body, clutching him like she can hold him to this earth, while the tears stream down her face.
The nurse takes pity on us and lets us stay much longer than we are supposed to before she makes us leave in shifts to eat and take a break, but he’s never alone. It’s an unspoken agreement we made that someone will always stay.
Jarrett makes it through the first twenty-four hours with no changes, which seems encouraging, but when there’s no change for several more days the doctors come in to talk to us about what’s next. They use words like cognitive impairments, brainstem reflexes, ventilatory drive, brain function, and irreversibility. All of the medical terminology blends together and the only thing that’s clear is how dire his situation is.
They do physical tests for everything. Jarrett is wheeled in and out of the room more times than I can count for testing. There are tests for blood flow within his brain, repeat ultrasounds, CT scans, and MRIs, along with countless other tests.
Later that afternoon, the team of doctors comes into the room looking weary. They patiently explain the tests and results as we ask question after question. I look over at my parents and then at my brother, who looks less like himself every minute.
