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She felt her knees start to give way. Teddy helped her into a chair.
“She must have been confused. He was pronounced dead by the ambulance team initially. But when they got him here, the doctors were able to restart his heart.”
“So, he’s okay?”
It was too much to take in. The roller coaster of hope and despair had left Summer’s head reeling.
“I wouldn’t say that. He’s in a coma. That’s all we know. They operated for three hours and what can be done has been done.”
“But he’s going to be okay.”
Teddy rubbed his eyes with exhaustion. “I honestly don’t know, Summer. Alexia’s been talking to the doctors. You’d best talk to her. She’s with Michael now.”
A nurse showed Summer in. Michael’s room looked more like the deck of the starship Enterprise than a hospital room. Machines and wires and lights were everywhere—against the walls, on stands next to Michael’s bed, even suspended from the ceiling.
Then, there was Michael himself.
As soon as she saw him, Summer’s hand flew to her mouth in shock. There was no blood. But he’d been cleaned up so thoroughly, and he lay so utterly still, he barely seemed real. His body was covered with a white sheet, and the upper part of his face was swathed in bandages. Only his chin and mouth were visible, and those were half obscured with bulky tubes and a breathing apparatus that attached to a respirator behind the headboard. The wheezy wheesh, whoosh of the machine as it pumped air in and out of his lungs gave the otherwise high-tech room a distinctly old-fashioned feel. Summer half expected a dwarf to jump out from behind the bed with a pair of bellows or an accordion. Instead, Alexia stood up to greet her.
“Summer. How are you?” Alexia extended a perfectly manicured hand for Summer to shake. Her fingers were ice cold. “So sweet of you to come.”
Summer looked at her blankly. Sweet of me? Alexia was greeting as her as if this were a cocktail party she’d been kind enough to attend. Did she not realize how serious the situation was?
“What’s happening, Alexia? What are all these machines? Teddy said you spoke with the doctor.”
“The surgeon, yes, Dr. Crickdale. Terribly nice man.”
Summer waited. And . . . ?
“We’ve met before, as it happens,” Alexia rambled on. “I know him from the local constituency party. His wife’s done stalwart work as a fund-raiser.”
Summer wanted to shake her. I don’t give a fuck about the constituency party and neither should you. Your son may be dying! Instead, fighting to keep her voice steady, she asked, “What did Dr. Crickdale say about Michael?”
“Ah yes, well. Michael’s in a coma, which was medically induced.”
Summer looked horrified. “You mean the doctors did this to him?”
“They had to. There was no way they could have operated on his brain without it.”
“They operated on his brain?” Summer’s insides began to liquefy with fear. For the second time in as many minutes she found she needed to sit down.
Alexia said, “Yes. They think he was going over eighty when he hit the lorry. It was a side impact, but at that speed it’s a miracle he survived at all. Both legs and arms are broken, and there’s some internal bleeding, but the main concern is the head trauma. Dr. Crickdale removed sixteen separate shards of bone from his right ventricle.”
It was like listening to a weather report. Alexia sounded so calm, so chillingly controlled.
“There’s been considerable swelling and bleeding in the brain. Unfortunately the first scans showed a very poor level of activity. We’re waiting on the later ones, but Dr. Crickdale doesn’t hold out much hope.”
“Will he live?” Summer whispered.
“They can’t say at this stage. He may. But that may not be the best outcome.”
Summer looked at Alexia incredulously. Michael’s mother had always intimidated her. Summer had long thought of Alexia as a cold fish, but she’d never imagined her capable of such callousness toward her own son. Roxie, maybe. But Michael had always been the apple of her eye.
“What do you mean it ‘may not be the best outcome’? You don’t want him to live?”
“Not as a vegetable, no. I’ll stay with him tonight.” Alexia turned regally away, resting her diamond-encrusted hand on Michael’s limp one. “You can come back in the morning.”
It was a dismissal, an empress shooing away her ladies’ maid. Summer’s shock at Alexia’s detachment turned to anger.
