Sue and Tom by Buffy Andrews Page B

stepped inside. “It’s Sue. She’s been in an accident.”
    “Oh God. Is she okay? Where is she?”
    “At the hospital. That’s all I know. Gina was on the phone with Sue when it happened. Gina heard everything. She’s taking the first flight she can get home. I’ll take you to the hospital.”
    “And Chloe?”
    “Sue called her,” Mike explained. “She was at the mall with her girlfriend. Her dad is going to pick her up and take her to the hospital.”
    I locked Sue’s door and jumped into Mike’s car. “Fuck! I can’t lose her now, Mike. We were going to talk, work everything out.”
    “Gina told me,” Mike said. “Think positive thoughts, Tom. We won’t know how bad the accident was until we get to the hospital.”
    Mike and I pulled into the emergency room parking lot right behind Chloe and her dad.
    I jumped out of the car and ran over to Chloe. “Hear anything?”
    Her face was red and blotchy. She shook her head. “I only know what Aunt Gina said. She was talking to Mom when it happened.”
    We walked inside and were whisked back to a small room. Mike and Steve stayed in the waiting room.
    When the nurse opened the door, Sue’s mom was inside, sitting on a vinyl couch with a big box of tissues by her side.
    “Gram,” said Chloe, sitting down beside her. “Is Mom going to be all right? Did you hear anything yet?”
    Chloe remembered I was in the room. “Grandma, you remember Tom, right?”
    Grandma nodded. “Thank you for coming, Tim. I mean Tom. Can I just call you T? I have trouble remembering names.”
    “‘T’ is fine,” I told her.
    Th e doctor walked into the room. “Hi. I’m Dr. Andersen.” He shook each of our hands. “I’ve been taking care of Sue.” He looked at Chloe. “Are you Sue’s daughter?”
    Chloe nodded.
    Sue’s mother stood. “And I’m her mother. Is my Suzy going to be all right?”
    “She has some serious injuries,” Dr. Andersen said. “We had to reduce the swelling and pressure on the brain, which can cut off blood flow and kill healthy brain tissue. By reducing the brain activity, we lessen the pressure. Sue was n’t responding to other measures, so we had to place her in a drug-induced coma. Give the brain time to heal.”
    “Will she come out of it?” Chloe asked.
    Dr. Andersen nodded. “We put the brain to sleep using sedatives. And we’ll closely monitor the brain’s activity. We’ll keep it asleep for a couple of days. Just to get your mom through this critical period. Then we’ll wean her off the drugs, bring her out of it.”
    “You mean wake her up?” Chloe asked.
    “Yes, once the pressure starts to stabilize, we’ll reduce the medicine and start the waking process. If the pressure starts to increase, we might have to slow it down,” Dr. Andersen said.
    The doctor said some more stuff about fractured ribs and a punctured lung , but it was all a blur. The only thing I could think about was Sue, how much I wanted to hold her and tell her I loved her. And my greatest fear was that I would never get that chance.
     
    ***
     
    I’ve never felt so helpless in all my life. The days seemed to crawl by. Each day after work, I’d visit Sue. Even though I wasn’t immediate family, Chloe and her grandmother told them I was Sue’s boyfriend and they allowed me into the ICU.
    I was getting daily updates from Gina, who was staying with Chloe. Gina had told me that she hated to leave, but she had to fly home. She had that co-ed rape case to prepare. She wanted to wrap up the case before moving back for good. I knew Gina had a lot to do and promised her that I would keep her updated, just like she had kept me updated.
    I hated seeing Sue hooked up to all of the machines. I’d never seen so many gadgets and gizmos and wires.
    I kept replaying my last conversation with Sue over in my mind and I was mad that I hadn’t insisted that she be the one to stay put. If I would have, the accident never would have happened.
    “No. It was my fault,”