AllFreeNovel
Share Us
* * *
Noah bought a sandwich after the phone call, but the combination of bad news and stale airport food spoiled his appetite after a few bites. He spent most of the short layover walking around looking for distractions. Usually he enjoyed people watching, but not today. Everyone blurred together. Nothing could quiet the what-ifs.
What if Matt dies?
What if I never get to talk to him again?
What if I’m not strong enough to help Mom through it?
Physically and emotionally exhausted when he finally boarded, Noah passed out against his window for the slightly longer flight to Denver. He woke with the landing, texted his mom before the door was opened, and raced through the crowded terminal once it was. An Uber driver waiting curbside agreed to take him to the hospital. Thirty minutes dragged by like so many days and dropped Noah at another curb as twilight descended. He tossed a thank-you over his shoulder as he exited the car and jogged up to the entrance.
There his hurry ran out.
The automatic door slid open, and the unmistakable mix of disinfectant and medicine and fear poured out to engulf him.
The last time he’d been in a hospital was to say goodbye to his dad.
His feet deposited him at a desk, facing a harried-but-friendly older woman in a pink volunteer shirt.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
He blinked. “Uh, yeah. My brother, Matt Jennings, was brought in this morning. I’m not sure where he is now.”
She smiled some pity his way. “Okay, hon. Do you have ID?”
He obliged and was given directions. Down the hall to the elevator, up to the third floor, show ID again at the ICU. Procedures were tighter, and it was a different hospital than his dad had been in, but it was still eerily familiar.
He stopped at the entrance to the ICU waiting area, petrified, then pushed through the door and the dread.
What if... ?
“Noah.” His mom breathed out his name like he was her last hope.
He hurried over, wrapped his arms around her, and held her. “I’m here, Mom. I’m here.”
Chapter 37
Push and Pull
Matt did not look good.He wore a typical hospital gown, his shoulders and arms showing above hospital blankets tucked into his armpits. An IV snaked into one arm, and a blood-pressure cuff clutched the other. Another tube in his mouth rested over his bruised and swollen upper lip, presumably delivering oxygen. A bandage wrapped around his head, covering his hair and forehead.
Noah stood outside the glass walls of his brother’s hospital room with his mom, watching the steady rise and fall of Matt’s chest, listening to the incessant beeping of monitors and the chatter of nurses, smelling the omnipresent disinfectant. He could barely spot his brother’s nose and mouth among all the bandages and tubes and monitors. It had been only a few minutes since he’d arrived, but the weight of his brother’s situation made Noah feel as though he’d aged a decade. He didn’t know how his mom was holding herself together.
A soft hand crept around his waist. “I should have figured out how to get him a car.”
Noah frowned. “He has a car.”
“I mean when he was still in school. If he’d had a car, he never would have started cycling on the roads so much, and this never—”
“Mom,” Noah said, reaching his arm around her shoulder and pulling her close. “He loves biking.”
“I should have given him a ride to work.”
“You live forty-five minutes away.”
“I should have lived closer.” Her voice broke. “I should have called him this morning, delayed him, anything.”
Noah took her by the shoulders, her tears inviting a few of his own. “Mom. This is not your fault. There’s nothing you could have done to prevent it.”
