Ben stood at the back door, staring across the back yard towards in his mother. She had her back to him, she couldn't see him standing there. In his hand he held her car keys. He'd picked them up as soon as she'd put them down. Now he was trying to work out if he really wanted to use them. He wanted to know how Margene was. He'd been thinking about her all night, making himself feel sick with the thought that he might never see her again, that she might die. They'd been so much blood on the boy's clothes, it scared him and not knowing made it worse.
He stepped out of the doorway and began walking across the backyard. "Mom," He called out and he waited for her to look at him. She turned her head and he could see she was crying again. "Can I take your car to the hospital? I want to see how Margie is."
She hesitated for a moment, he could see her turning something over in her mind. "Okay," She finally said. "Phone as soon as you know something. I'll come join you when Nikki gets here."
-8-8-8-
Ben parked in the main car park and walked inside, it was almost midnight but the waiting area was full of people. He asked a woman sitting behind a desk where to go, she typed something into a computer and directed him upstairs to the surgical waiting area. It took him a while to find where he needed to be, he turned down the wrong corridor twice and the woman downstairs had told him the wrong floor. Finally he made it to the correct waiting area, it was smaller than the other waiting areas he'd past but it was a little nicer too. There were some arm chairs and a sofa as well as the hard generic chairs he'd seen in every other room. There was only one other person in the room, a man who looked to be in his eighties trying to sleep in one of the arm chairs. He looked up briefly when he walked in then closed his eyes. Ben took a seat on one of the hard chairs, rested his head in his hands, closed his eyes and started praying. It was the first time all night he'd had time to stop long enough to pray. To ask heavenly father to protect his family, to bring them all home safe. They had to come home safe, he didn't think he could forgive himself if they didn't. He kept thinking this wouldn't have happened if he'd been home, this was his fault.
He sat there praying for what seemed like forever, time went by painfully slow, he kept looking up at the clock, it looked like it wasn't moving. After an hour he phoned home. Told his mom Margene was still in surgery, that he'd get the doctor to speak to her when they finally come out. She asked him if he wanted some company he declined. He asked her if she'd got in touch with his dad yet, she said no, he still wasn't answering his phone. He asked how it was going at the house, if they knew who'd done it yet. She told him they'd made little progress, they were still going through mail, and lots of them had gone to sleep. There was very little them as a family could do at the moment. She told him he should try and get some sleep too, he was going to need all the strength he could get for the fight which was coming. He tried to sleep but his thoughts and worries about Margie kept him awake and after another hour the doctor finally came out.
Ben watched the doctor walk towards him, he tried to read his face gauge what he was going to say but his expression was blank, no sorrow, no happiness. "Are you Margene Heffman's family?" he asked when he reached him.
"Yes," Ben answered standing up. He was the same height as the doctor, he could look him straight in the eye. "Is she going to be okay?"
The doctor didn't say yes, he paused a moment and then started talking in carefully chosen words. "She's stable for now," he began, "We've done everything we can for her in surgery but," There it was, the but Ben didn't want to hear. "She's lost a lot of blood, her body is in a significant amount of shock, and we won't know for several hours if she's going to be able to recover from that."
"Okay," Ben whispered, more to himself than the doctor standing in front of him. This wasn't the news he was hoping for, the waiting and anxiety weren't over yet. "When will we know?"
"I don't know." The doctor shrugged a little before clarifying. "Hopefully within the next twelve hours." Then he started talking in metaphors. "Imagine her condition like this. She's standing on a ledge half way up a cliff. She's already done the work to get to the ledge and now she's very tired and must decide if she wants to jump off or keep climbing. If she jumps we'll know it, she'll deteriorate very fast but if she starts climbing it will be slowly. "
"Okay," Ben said again, he didn't feel like he knew anymore, nothing the doctor said made him feel better. "Can I see her now?"
"Of course, follow me." The doctor began leading him towards the elevator, they were half way there before he remembered he was supposed to phone his mom.
-8-8-8-
Barb stood in her kitchen; in her hand she held a mug full of steaming hot water with lemon. She took a sip of it and felt the warm liquid run through her body. It soothed her but it didn't help with the exhaustion she was feeling. She was the only one in the family still awake, she'd told the others to get some rest, that they'd need their energy for tomorrow but she wasn't following her own advice. She couldn't sleep, not when her house was still full of FBI agents, and detectives working their case, not when she was still waiting for Ben and Bill to phone.
She still hadn't got hold of Bill, his phone kept going straight to voice mail which made her mad and annoyed, he needed to be on his way home but instead he had no idea what was going on. As if thinking about it made it happen her phone began to vibrate. A glance at the number told her it was Ben.
"Benny, what's happening?" She asked skipping all the pleasantries.
"Margie is out of surgery." He told her, "I'm going to put the doctor on."
Soon the doctor was speaking to her. He sounded like a nice smart man but he couldn't tell her the one thing she needed to hear. That everything would be okay. Instead he talked in circles, she asked a lot of questions. She hoped the answers would reassure her but for the most part they scared her half to death. When the doctor had finished talking she spoke to Ben again.
"I'm coming down." She told him, "I'll be there soon."
-8-8-8-
Ben hung the phone up and looked back at the doctor. "We can go now." He said and the doctor began leading him through a maze of corridors to the ICU. At the entrance to the ward he introduced him to a woman behind a desk. He told him in the future he'd need to speak to her to get into the ward. This time the doctor just swiped his card. On the other side of the door was another corridor with a small sink in it. They both had to wash their hands before they could go any further. And then finally they were at Margene's door. The doctor spoke to him again, told him it looked bad, and that if he could he should only talk positive things in her room. He said okay, by now he just wanted to get inside and see her.
The doctor opened the door and they stepped inside. He was expecting something worse than what he saw. There were machines all around her with tubes and wires attaching to her body but her injuries were covered by the light sheet over her body. She still looked like herself, still beautiful, just small. With everything around her she looked tiny lying in the bed. He pulled up a seat beside her and took her hand, he softly kissed her knuckles and began talking.
"I'm sorry." They were the two words he'd been wanting to tell her all evening. "I'm sorry I wasn't there, I'm sorry I didn't listen to you." He hissed her knuckles again then placed her hand back on the bed. He rested his own on top and then began saying the other thing she needed to hear. "You have to keep fighting." He told her, "You're family needs you." Then he began praying again.
When Barb arrived she sat down with him and joined his praying. Eventually fatigue set in and they both fell asleep.