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"This entrance okay?" The driver asked, turning around to face them.
"Fine," Jack answered, handing a wad of bills to the driver.
Elizabeth got out of the cab and crossed her arms, waiting while Jack gathered their bags.
She was close to falling apart, but she wouldnt allow herself that luxury. If there was one thing motherhood taught a woman, it was how to hold herself together in a crisis.
Still, she clung to her husbands hand as they walked through the electric doors and into the sterile, antiseptic-scented lobby.
At the front desk, she said, "Were looking for Edward Rhodes, please. "
The receptionist looked up. "The Colonels in intensive care. Sixth floor west. "
Jack squeezed her hand. "The elevators are right there. "
She looked up at him, wanting suddenly to be alone with her fear. "Do you mind if I go alone?"
"What if you need me?"
"Thats really sweet, but Id rather be by myself. Besides, you hate hospitals. And they dont let many people into the ICU. "
"Youll come and get me when you know something?"
"Of course. "
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her hard. Against her lips, he whispered, "Hell be okay. "
"I know. " She was unsteady by the time she turned away from him. Without a backward glance, she headed toward the elevators.
On the sixth floor, she stepped out.
The ICU was a hive of white-coated activity. Elizabeth went to the main nurses desk and asked for her father. The nurse--an elderly black woman with hair the color of cold ashes--immediately sobered.
"Hello, Miss Elizabeth. Im Deb Edwards. I reckon you dont remember me. I used to work for Doc Treamor. "
"Hello, Deb. Its nice to see you again. " She was surprised by how strong her voice sounded. "How is he doing?"
"Not well, Im sad to say. But you know your daddy. Hes stronger than ten ordinary men. "
Elizabeth managed a tired smile. "Thank you. " Then she walked down the hallway toward his room.
It was walled in glass on three sides. Through it, she saw a bed sitting amid a cluster of cranelike machines. Lights blinked from ugly black boxes; green lines graphed the unsteady beating of his heart.
There was a man in the bed, lying perfectly still and straight, his legs two parallel lines under the white blankets, his hairy, age-spotted arms pressed in close to the hump of his body.
He didnt look like her daddy. Edward Rhodes was a man who was always in motion, a man who took up space.
She moved toward him, her footsteps loud on the linoleum floor.
"Daddy?" Her voice cracked. She smoothed the gray-white hair away from his eyes. Her fingers lingered on his wide, creased brow. Even now, unconscious, he seemed to be thinking hard, planning some new adventure that only he could devise.
Her legs gave out on her for a second. She clutched the bedrail for support. The metal made a jangling, jarring noise.
She leaned forward. "Hey, Daddy, its me, Birdie. " At first, she said all the standard things, the familiar soundtrack that is said to all people in all hospital beds every day. Things like, Youre going to be fine . . . and, Youre strong, youll make it.
But he was so still and pale. The skin that had always looked tan, even in the dead of winter, was grayed now, pale as the pillowcase. There was a breathing tube in his nostril and an IV needle in his white, veiny arm.
He looked older than his seventy-six years. Not at all like the man who walked his fields every day because "a man should touch the ground he owns. " It seemed impossible that last year hed trekked to Nepal, or that the year before that hed run the rapids on the Snake River.
