March 6th 2020
Chapter 66
Their Fear For the Wait
They couldn't say for sure what it was, between the looks on their faces as they'd come up to the coffee shop's counter as they asked for enough coffee to serve about two dozen people, or the fact that they were not too far from the hospital, or the unintended revelation that they were awaiting updates on an injured friend who was a cop… Maybe it was all of it. Whatever it was, Maya and Lucas had left the place a few minutes later with coffee, sugar, cream and milk, and a few boxes of baked goods, and they hadn't put down a dime.
Returning to the hospital, they found helping hands in distributing everything to the waiting party, with Rosa and Zay assisting them. They ended up having far more than they'd needed, so they had offered up what remained to others who were having a bad night of uncertainty and exhaustion.
"I'm sorry, I tried," Nadine reappeared, taking the coffee and muffin Zay had saved for her.
"Tried what?" Lucas asked.
"I figured it wouldn't hurt to do the whole 'hey, I'm a med student, can you tell me anything about my friend' thing, I mean I know people who work here, but none of them are around, and even if they were I would probably have gotten the same answer I got now, I know. They can't tell me anything. They sympathize, but they just can't."
"What if Chiara says it's okay, she's next of kin, right?" Zay asked.
"Right now, I think it's best to just let her do what she's doing," Nadine shook her head. They looked to their friend, still unmoved from where they'd left her. Dylan sat with her now, keeping watch over her cup and her Danish.
"I should call Bishop, let him know I won't be in class tomor… today," he corrected himself.
"My mom will let them know for me at the theater, I guess," Maya sighed, digging at the hole in her cup's lid. She'd drained the whole thing already. She still couldn't stop thinking about Sam, at her parents' house. She hadn't brought him because she knew how he felt about hospitals since their father had passed. She wasn't too crazy about them either. But then sparing him that had also meant that she and Lucas had been forced to leave him on his own, after being awakened in the middle of the night like this… There just hadn't been a way to do it right that night.
"Who's that?" Rosa asked, nodding past them, and they turned to find an old woman who looked like she was coming toward them. She didn't look like she worked for the hospital. As the only one of them who'd met her, only very recently, Lucas could say for sure that she did not work for the hospital, and the reason she was coming toward them was because she'd spotted him.
"That's Mrs. Carlton, the Zvolensky caretaker," he informed them before moving up to greet her.
"How is she?" the woman asked, anxious.
"We don't know," Lucas told her. "She's been in surgery since before we got here, no one's come for an update, we tried." She accepted this summary with a tip of the head before moving toward Chiara. She sat at her side, and she joined her own prayer to the concerned young woman's.
As simple as the old woman's arrival into their vigil had been, it was another matter as Diana Zvolensky came along in search of news on her daughter's condition. They could only imagine the nightmare percolating in her heart, having opened the door to news of her husband's passing, back just about twenty years ago, and now to have gotten this call regarding her little girl… They also remembered how the declaration that Sophie wanted to become a cop had caused some amount of discord between mother and daughter. Mrs. Zvolensky had come around to it in the end, not that Sophie would have changed her mind one way or the other, but now… They could easily see her going back to her original opinion on the matter, regardless of all the good Sophie had done since she'd finished the academy.
"Do you think she'll be able to get them to tell us what's going on with Sophie?" Zay quietly asked as they watched Diana step up to a nurse who possibly had the misfortune of walking in the woman's line of sight. With the way people's attitudes seemed to shift at the mere mention of the woman's name, it was easy to imagine she would be the kind of person to throw her wealth and her power around in order to get what she wanted. She wasn't. Diana Zvolensky, née Baker, was a self-made woman, and that was part of what made her who she was today. Part of that rise came from not thinking herself above anyone, because more often than not someone who thought this way would end up suffering a spectacular fall from grace. No, she knew who she was and who she'd been, and she was usually cautious of how she chose to utilise this power she'd been granted.
When it came to her daughter… That was the only time when she did not mind throwing her name around. In fact, if she could help Sophie, she would do everything, spend anything, even if it meant leaving herself penniless. Still, it had to be done with courtesy. Tonight… this morning, her courtesy was challenged, and no one would fault her for being of a shorter temper. The nurse had first pointed toward the waiting area, where Sophie's mother finally noticed the other officers along with her daughter's friends. Maya, Lucas, and the others who'd been watching her all raised their hands in a weak greeting. The nurse went on to point another way, and then she was leading Mrs. Zvolensky off somewhere. The group froze, watching the two women disappear down a hall.
"Did she do it? Where are they taking her?" Nadine blinked. Were they actually about to get news about Sophie? They wanted to let Chiara know, but at the same time they thought it might be best to wait and see. They didn't want to build up her hope for nothing.
It really came off somewhere down the middle. A few minutes later, Diana had returned, walking alongside another, older woman, who did not look like a doctor or a nurse and more like an administrator of some sort. From a distance it was still easy to see that the two of them knew one another. And even before she came around and joined them, they could also tell that she hadn't gotten exactly what she'd hoped to get.
She briefly greeted them all, thanked them for being here, from the officers to her daughter's friends, no one was left out. But, now that she'd said hello to everyone else, she could go to the one who needed her attention the most, the one who loved her daughter the most, right up there with her. Angela Carlton had gotten up from where she'd sat since her arrival and, after a brief hushed conversation between the two, she'd stepped aside so that Diana Zvolensky could sit at her daughter-in-law's side. She set her hand to Chiara's shoulder and the young woman flinched, taken from her thoughts. The way she'd looked up into the woman's face, they could just feel how for a moment she'd picked up every last trait she shared with Sophie, so much that this might have been her… But then it wasn't her wife; it was her mother-in-law. She let out a strangled little sob and Diana looped her arms around her, pulled her near.
When the sun had started to blend into the room, filling it with its new light, it left them all feeling oddly out of place. They'd been here for hours, some more than others, but they had arrived in the dark and, considering what they were here for, they couldn't see it being any more appropriate. In daylight, it felt as though they should have been giving themselves over to hope but… could they? Surgeries went wrong in the daytime, too, didn't they?
They had only found out what Mrs. Zvolensky's conversation with the other woman had been about from overhearing her conversation with Chiara. Well, maybe not a conversation. Chiara mostly stared at Sophie's mother and listened as she spoke. As far as she'd been told, with the extent of Sophie's injuries, and the repairs this entailed, it meant going after what was most critical first, but also seeing to the rest, and unfortunately it meant a lot of work which became taxing on the already weakened system. Chiara kept looking at her mother-in-law, and her eyes said it all. Was she going to die?
Diana Zvolensky would keep assuring her daughter-in-law that Sophie was in the hands of some very talented surgeons, and to hear what felt like a party line from the woman… it said plenty without saying it. Mostly it said that she didn't know the answer to Chiara's question, and all she could do in the meantime was to give faith where she felt she could give it for the time being, hoping that it would keep her believing her own words as much as it would give comfort to those who needed it, too. For now, she just needed to keep it together, for Sophie.
Lucas' phone vibrated in his pocket. When he pulled it out and saw it was his mother, he breathed out. He didn't know how she'd found out, but he was sure she had found out. He excused himself and stepped outside. His voicemail had picked up before he could, so he called her once he stood outside, past the ambulance bay.
"I just got off the phone with Maya's mother," Melinda Friar declared, missing any kind of 'hello,' though under the circumstances he wasn't about to point it out to her.
"Sorry I couldn't answer before, I had to get outside," Lucas replied as he attempted to rub exhaustion off his face.
"How is she, what have you heard?"
"Not a lot. She's still in surgery as far as we know. Her mother arrived from London not too long ago, she managed to talk to someone but we didn't hear much."
"Right, now I'm about to get in the car, is there anything in particular you would like me to pick up on the way?"
"Mom…" he tried to argue against this, but he already knew it would be a losing battle.
"Don't you 'Mom' me, Lucas Thomas Friar, I am coming up there. One day you'll have children of your own and…"
"I know, I do, but it's not…" She needed to do this. She needed to help in some way. She felt for Diana Zvolensky, and she needed to do something. "I don't see anyone leaving here to grab breakfast, in case we finally get any updates…" he suggested, and he could practically feel his mother give a relieved nod.
"Consider it done. How many of you are there?"
"Uh…" he stopped to count. Some of the officers had left, not because they wanted to but because they had to, but then more had shown up to take their place. Between all of them and the friends and family from near and far… "Thirty-something."
"A mix of egg breakfasts, some waffles and pancakes, fruit, potatoes… I'll work it out and I will see you in a couple of hours. "Hug everyone for me, will you?"
"I'll do my best," Lucas vowed.
After they hung up, he remained where he stood for a minute more. He closed his eyes, breathed in the morning air. They had been here plenty of times in the years they'd lived in Houston, primarily for good reasons, for births, for the occasional ride to a check-up… It all felt different now. Now this place stood between whether or not Sophie Zvolensky would continue to exist in the world. Much as he tried not to let that thought get to him, Lucas walked back into the ER with so much apprehension in him, it was no wonder he and Maya had been sticking so close to one another the whole time they'd waited. This feeling in the air, it left them nothing good, and they needed to counteract it, with all their might.
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
