Chapter Thirteen
My eyes opened slightly and a painful burst of light forced them shut. I tried again, my eyes adjusted and my vision cleared. I wasn't dead. I was in a hospital room. I looked around to find greeting cards, family photos and a school paper taped to the wall. Noticing the red B+ at the top I followed the text to the name line. The sloppy handwriting read, Two-Bit. Across the room a new letterman sweater hung from the curtain rod with Owen embroidered on the chest. The front page of a newspaper hung near my head with the headline, Daughter becomes prime witness, father sentenced to 75 years in prison. I wanted to smile at Casey's bravery, but my body felt as if it were pressed beneath a thousand pounds of weight.
Was I paralyzed like Johnny had been after the church fire? I concentrated on wiggling my toes, they moved. I then wiggled my fingers. They moved and felt the rough skin of someone else's fingers. I slipped my hand free of the grasp and looked to the edge of my bed. Darry was there, sitting in a chair, resting his head on the hospital bed by my leg. My hand moved slowly to his cheek. I could barely command my weary fingers to caress the side of his tired face.
The touch immediately woke him. His concentration on the scene was fuzzy at first then he looked to my eyes. Seeing my baby blues, Darry jumped up from his chair, sat on the side of my bed and cradled my face in his hands. "Scout? Can you hear me? Are you okay?" I nodded my head, and my brother broke down into an immense release of emotion. He gathered my thin body in his arms. "The doctors didn't think you were going to make it, but we never gave up on you. We know how tough you are." Darry pulled away from our hug and smiled through his tears of joy. "I better go tell the nurses you are awake."
My eyes widened. "No… I just…" My mouth was horribly dry as I struggled to speak. "…just us two … for awhile."
Darry looked a little uncomfortable by my request. Worry and common sense told him that it would be best to have a doctor come in to give me a clean bill of health. My brother stood briefly at the end of my bed then nodded his head in agreement. "Okay Sissy. Whatever you need." He smiled and walked over to sit on the bed by my side.
I slowly reached up to my face and tried to remove the oxygen tube from my nose, but my strength was minimal and the tape on my cheek that held the tube was too strong for me to bust. Against his better judgment Darry pulled the tape off for me and placed the tube above my head on the pillow. I smiled. "Thanks Darry."
"I can't believe you are finally awake."
I licked my lips with my dry tongue hoping to help my speech. "What happened?"
Darry looked at me with concern that I had forgotten the accident, and perhaps more. "You were in a car accident, with Owen, right by the DX station." Darry leaned over to the table by my bed and poured a small glass of water for me. He put the edge of the cup to my lips. "Just take a little sip. I'm not sure I am suppose to give you anything to drink." I did as he directed, and he sat back down by my side. "Do you remember anything about that day?"
I nodded my head. "I know there was an accident, but … how long have I been in the hospital?"
Darry grabbed my hand and looked up to the ceiling hoping he wouldn't break into tears again. "Twenty nine days today."
A feeling of shock flashed through my body as I questioned the time line, "Twenty nine days?"
"We almost lost you after a few days. Your heart stopped all of a sudden. The doctors were able to revive you. You've been unconscious ever since."
"Darry?" My throat grew tight with fear, "Owen… is he…"
"He's fine." Darry interrupted to keep me from worrying any further. "He broke his left arm and was in the hospital for a week, but he faired better than you. Docs say he got real lucky. The car you two were in flipped through the air rather than rolled over. So he fell out close to the ground…" Darry paused to ponder whether he should tell me more. "… the police told us you were thrown far from the car…"
"I know..." I stammered, "…I saw it...I was there." I furrowed my brow trying to sort through the images in my head. Were they true or just dreams?
"What do you mean?"
"I…I need to tell you something … Mom and Dad want you to know…." Darry lifted his head to look at me in question. I cleared my throat. "They are proud of you. They know you have done your best."
The smile slid away from Darry's face as his eyes held new questions.
"You haven't let them down." A silence between my brother and I followed my words.
Darry spoke slowly. "How do you know that?"
"I was with them." I blinked my eyes and knew how impossible that must have sounded. "I remember them being with me…" I let my thought trail off as the door to my hospital room opened and a nurse walked in.
"Oh my Lord!" She shrieked with surprise. "You're awake? How long has she been awake?"
Darry looked a bit mortified that I had regained consciousness and he hadn't bothered to tell the nurses. "Not to long mam'. About ten minutes is all."
"I'll fetch the doctor and be back." The nurse turned and headed out of the room. In minutes the doctors and nurses came in and Darry was hustled out. The constant prodding and questions from the hospital staff was exhausting. By the time the doctors had left me alone I was ready to close my eyes and rest again. In my solitude I heard a familiar voice question my brother in the hallway.
"Darry, how is she today?"
I am guessing Darry could barely suppress the smile from his lips as he said, "Why don't you go on in and find out?"
I opened my eyes to find the hospital room door flying open and Sodapop and Ponyboy rushing in. The two of them were all smiles as they saw for themselves that I was awake. They ran to opposite sides of my bed, and knocked heads as they tried to hug me in their arms at the same time.
"Oh my Scout." Sodapop burst out in happy tears. "You have no idea how happy I am to see you awake. Everyday, I would come here and pray that you would wake up and be the same old Sissy again." Sodapop's crying and words made Ponyboy and me bawl along with him. I cried so hard that my head started to pound in pain.
"I was so worried about you." Pony's raspy voice, spoke into my ear. "I've been here to see you everyday!"
Sodapop chimed, "Everyone has. That way, when you woke up, you wouldn't be alone." Sodapop sat back and cleared his eyes of tears. "Everyone helped out, the three of us, Two-Bit, Casey, Kathryn, Steve, Owen even Owen's friends came over to help us out when we needed a little more rest or couldn't be here." Sodapop looked down and rubbed the edge of the hospital blanket he was sitting on. I could tell something was on his mind, but he let me know what it was before I could ask. "Owen feels just awful about you."
"Soda," Ponyboy said slowly as a warning to our brother that he shouldn't upset me more.
Sodapop cracked a wide grin and sniffled away his sadness. "He's a pretty cool guy. So's his family. They even invited us to Thanksgiving dinner at their house, but Darry said it'd be best if we just stayed home."
I stared back and my mouth dropped open in revelation. "I missed Thanksgiving…" Then I realized I had missed an even more important date. "Soda, I missed your birthday."
"Don't worry'bout it Scout!" Soda gave me a playful punch in the arm. "I came to see you, and the nurses made sure you gave me something special."
I grinned weakly. "Yeah? What did I get you?"
Sodapop winked at me, "Just a chocolate bar… but it was the best chocolate bar I ever had!"
Darry walked into the room drawing everyone's attention. Ponyboy was the first to demand answers. "Did you talk to the doctors? Is everything going to be alright?"
"Did they say when we could take Sissy home?" Sodapop picked up the questioning where Pony left off.
Darry stood at the foot of my bed and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his black jeans. "Doc says she's got a lot of work to do before he can say for sure. They're hoping she'll be able to come home before Christmas, but they won't make any promises.
Soda examined me and looked back to Darry in question. "Why? What's the hold up"
"Little buddy it's not that simple. She's got to be able to walk, talk, dress herself and all sorts of stuff before she can come home."
Soda frowned. Ponyboy grew anxious. "Are they worried she won't be able to do all that?"
"No, they say it's a good sign she has strong muscles, she can talk and has maintained her memories…" Darry went silent at the mention of memories.
I caught the look in Darry's eyes. I looked back at my brother and mumbled. "I didn't tell them."
Ponyboy's eyes grew wide with question. "Tell us what?"
"Nothing, it was just a dream." Darry grew defensive, and I expected he was questioning the validity of what I had told him.
"It wasn't a dream." I stared down my oldest brother. "It was real, or at least as real as the afterlife can be."
"The afterlife?" Soda asked, trying to follow the conversation.
Having read more books than our seventeen year old brother, Ponyboy looked to me with interest. "What did you see?"
"I saw Mom and Dad."
"How?" Ponyboy almost shouted his question. "I mean, what did they look like?"
"They looked like themselves. It's all fuzzy now, but I know I was with them. They spoke to me and it wasn't an old memory. They talked with me about things that happened after they died."
"What did they say?" Ponyboy questioned with a little jealousy.
I looked out the window hoping a memory would come to me, but none did. "I'm sorry… I don't remember. All I remember was what I already told Darry."
"What did they say?" Sodapop asked. Everyone could see in his eyes that he wanted to believe me. He was hoping for some sign that our parents never really left us.
Darry looked to me as if I had just started a fight. Once he realized he was going to have to accept the message from beyond, he muttered, "Scout says they told me that they are proud of me and they know I have done my best to take care of all of you."
I noticed the color drain from Sodapop's face. Ponyboy noticed too and asked, "Soda? What's wrong?"
Sodapop seemed shell shocked as he and Darry shared an awkward stare. Soda spoke slowly, "the night that Scout almost died in the intensive care room… Darry and I were talking in the cafeteria about how he worried he had disappointed mom and dad."
Ponyboy joined my brother in shock. "That was right before her heart stopped all of a sudden…"
All three boys looked to me as a bright memory shot back to the front of my mind. Realizing I may have caused my own brush with death, my eyes began to fill with tears. "I… I wanted to be with them. They disappeared into this intense shine and I wanted to go with them, so I ran into the light."
No one in the room made a sound as we all realized what I had been through was more real than anyone of us could believe.
From the author: Truth is, I gave serious consideration to killing Scout off, but in the end, I just couldn't do it. I know the coma thing can be cliché, but I felt it fit in well with my signature – a dream sequence in every story. This portion of my story was difficult because I want to be as true to the book as I could ( I know that saying that and writing a sister story is an oxymoron, but I still maintain my comment! LOL) So the best way to move the story forward was to skip having to write weeks and weeks of what Scout and everyone would have gone through. –if anyone out there is looking for a writing challenge feel free to write about what was going on with the family while Scout was unconscious. I would love to read anything some one wrote. Just email it to me.-
As of today, I have 3 new chapters typed and waiting for revisions. I hope to keep everyone happy and interested. Thanks again for all of your encouragement and interest! You are all responsible for saving Scout's life!