The Call 7/10
Chapter Six:
Alan sat beside his son.
His baby boy, so angelic with his cherubic curls yet so still and pale as if he had gone to join the choir of angels already.
He held his son's hand and prayed.
Don sat beside his brother.
Always so energetic, even frenetic at times Charlie looked somehow wrong perfectly still. Don wanted to shake him, wake him, have him be Charlie again but he knew that wasn't going to work.
He held his brother's hand and blamed himself for not looking after him better.
Terry stood behind Don.
She'd laid her hands on Don's shoulders trying to offer some comfort but like Don, she couldn't look away from the pale figure in the bed before them and the machines that hummed and beeped around him.
She wrapped her arms around Don to hug him but knew it would not console him at all.
Amita sat on the floor in the corner.
She couldn't bear to look at Charlie. The Charlie she knew and loved was so full of life... She knew that hollow shell wasn't really him. She wondered where his beautiful mind was now and if it would ever return to her.
She put her head in her hands and sobbed.
Larry stood talking to Charlie's doctor.
He'd hoped that by amassing as many facts as possible he could blot out the thought of his friend lying unconscious in the bed just a few feet away. But words like 'prescription', 'anaphylactic', and 'intubate' barely registered with him. Only the phrase 'narrowly avoided tracheotomy' hit him and he suddenly felt weak in the knees.
Larry stumbled to a chair and sat mesmerized as Charlie's respirator inflated and deflated over and over again.