Chapter Thirty Six:

Saturday, November 1, 1997 – Los Angeles, CA – Cedars-Sinai

Slowly, Enos became aware that he should be aware. He fluttered his eyes open and looked around. The surroundings, although through a wet, mucousy fog, took on the characteristics of a hospital room. There wasn't enough light for him to be sure. His arms and legs felt heavy. When he was able to lift his arm a little, he found a tube coming out of it that led up to a bag of liquid hanging from an IV pole.

His mouth felt dry and sticky. He moved his tongue in and out with a smacking sound to wipe off the stickiness. "Can I have some water?" he said, to no one in particular.

Thompson put down the receiver of the phone beside the bed, poured water into a peach colored plastic cup and held the straw up to his mouth. He took a few sips to swallow down the goo that had collected on his tongue and inside his cheeks, then sucked thirstily on the straw to get more.

"Easy, Strate. The nurse said sips, not gulps. De Pina, will have me for lunch if you collapse or pass out from drinking too fast."

"Who stuck me like a hog at a Sunday roast?" he asked, as he held out his arm, twisting it back and forth as if it wasn't his.

"Don't look at me. And it's just fluids. Nurse'll be here in a sec. You want to complain to somebody, complain to her. By the way, that must have been some dream you were having. I've seen you with some sappy grins on your face but that was the sappiest."

Enos' vision was more in focus now, at least in the eye he could fully open. He wondered why he couldn't open the other eye. His face felt weird and his nose hurt. He made a move to reach up to touch it but Thompson caught his arm.

"Wait until the nurse gets here." Thompson hoped that would be soon.

Enos looked around the room again and then back at Thompson and took in the cast on his arm. "Why're we in a hospital? Were we in an accident?"

"Yep. Three days ago." Thompson saw the confusion on his face. The doctor said the concussion might cause some disorientation. "Maybe you should just wait for the nurse before we get into why you're here."

A few seconds later, as if on cue, the nurse came into the room followed immediately by Inez and Doctor Reubens.

While the nurse checked the machine monitoring his vitals, Inez stood beside the bed. "You had us worried," she said.

"Didn't mean to. Thompson said we were in an accident."

Thompson looked at Inez and shook his head.

"E," Inez asked, before Doctor Reubens could object, "What's the last thing you remember?"

Saturday, November 1, 1997 – Hazzard, GA

The weather outside was airish and Jesse Duke was tidying up in the kitchen. The lunch plate only had crumbs left over from the cornbread he'd made and the bowl of soup beans was empty. He'd only eaten a few bites of each. The rest of it went into a dinged-up aluminum pot for Sarah Bunch's dog that'd lately been in the habit of comin' round of an afternoon to get the leavins off Jesse's plate. The flop-eared hound was the beneficiary of nearly the whole of his lunch today, mainly 'cause of Daisy's phone call.

He'd been wonderin' how long it'd take her to git it into her head to go to Los Angeles. She'd been workin' up to it the past few months, ever since she started wearin' that ring around her neck. She'd sounded weary worn on the phone. He didn't know what she'd hoped for when she got on that plane, but he had the sinkin' feelin' that things might not be goin' quite the way she'd visioned.

"I don't know how long I'll be here, Uncle Jesse."

That was pretty much the gist of the conversation.

Daisy'd been a grown woman for a spell. As much as he wanted her to be happy, the time had passed for him to be givin' her advice she hadn't asked for. And she hadn't asked. He knew in his heart that Enos'd never hurt her if he could help it. But Jesse had done a lotta' livin' and he knew that, no matter how old you git, matters of the heart don't get no easier.

Saturday, November 1, 1997 – Los Angeles, CA – Cedars-Sinai

Soonie had loaned her phone to Daisy to make the phone call to Uncle Jesse. When she returned it, Daisy asked, "Do you work with Enos?"

It was an odd question that wrinkled Soonie's forehead.

"I mean, are you working on a case together?"

'An even odder question,' Soonie thought. Before she had time to think any more about it, the waiting room became more populated when Inez entered with Mrs. Huang.

Inez asked Soonie and Daisy to sit, settling Mrs. Huang in the chair between them and then planted herself in a chair opposite all three.

Leaning in toward them, her elbows propped on her knees and her fingers entwined under her chin, she explained the results of the MRI and that Enos' memory of the last seventy two hours was fractured.

Almost simultaneously, Soonie and Daisy asked, "What does that mean, exactly?"

"Even mild concussions often have that effect. Headache, cognitive issues, sensitivity to noise or light. Doctor Reubens says every patient is different. In E's case, he already received a jolt to his brain Wednesday morning. He wasn't concussed, but this second incident has probably exacerbated by the first, especially happening within three days."

Before Daisy could ask anything, Soonie asked, "Is he in pain?"

"Some. They're giving him acetaminophen for the headache and the face pain. They can't give him anything else right now because it could increase the risk of bleeding."

"When can I see him?" Daisy asked.

Inez took a breath and let it out slowly. "When he's had a chance to fully regain his grasp on the situation and we've been able to ask him some questions."

Soonie, again thinking about Daisy's strange question, asked, "When do you think that will be?"

"Hopefully later this afternoon maybe longer. And just a warning, his face is very swollen, especially on the right side and there's a lot of bruising. Both his cheeks are red and purple under his eyes from the broken blood vessels." Inez let them all process the information before continuing.

"Meanwhile," she said, "we've finished processing your car and contents, so Kay, your travel case will be brought up shortly. And Ms. Duke," she indicated the rolling suitcase against the wall, "since your bag is here…"

"You make it sound like we can't leave," Daisy said, remembering the airport. "I mean, I'm not leaving until I know that Enos is okay. But it sounds like we're being 'detained.'"

"You're not being detained. At least not in the way you think. The guard outside is for our peace of mind. Detective Thompson is with Detective Strate now and when there is not one of us with him, he will have a uniform outside his door as well." Inez took another deep breath. "Feel free to go anywhere in this section of the hospital. It's just not a good idea to venture out right now. Until we know a little more, we don't want this getting blown out of proportion or put either of you at risk. Or at the mercy of a ravenous media. And it may be tomorrow before E's ready to," she hesitated trying to find the right words, "deal with anything other than processing what put him in the hospital."

Again, she let the information sink in.

"There's a bathroom with a shower across the corridor and family services will be by later to provide you with information you need about meals and that sort of thing. If you need anything from home," she said to Soonie, "Let the FS rep know and we'll try to get it for you. Ms. Duke, if you need anything you didn't bring with you…"

"I can't think of anything," Daisy said, thinking suddenly that Inez, even though her tone of voice had not been harsh, didn't seem anything like Enos had described her in his letters. That Inez was a kind, caring woman. This Detective De Pina was standoffish and, although she had easily referred to Kay by her first name, seemed to be going out of her way to avoid using hers.

"Mrs. Huang, do you need anything?" Inez asked.

"No, I will be fine for a while."

Inez turned at the sound of soft tapping on the waiting room door and found Angela Kim motioning for her to come into the corridor.

Less than a minute later, Inez asked 'Kay' to come into the corridor and the two of them disappeared into a room labeled 'Family Meeting Room.'