OUT THERE
Chapter Twenty Six
"As soon as healing takes place, go out and heal somebody else." (Maya Angelou)
Clearly, Adam thought, the universe itself had grown sick of his weary state and was conspiring with all of his friends and a whole flotilla of nurses to keep him in bed. For three whole days he lay there, drifting in and out of a series of drug-induced dreams. At least they were prescribed drugs this time, which meant that when he broke free of yet another random tour of his imagination, he could tell the difference at last, and knew that none of it was real.
His waking hours, on the other hand, were mind-numbingly dull. There were only so many times you could count the tiles on the ceiling, or eavesdrop 'accidentally' on other people's conversations, just to keep from going stir-crazy. Visitors brought him to life - and thankfully, they were frequent. Danny came so often that Adam began to wonder how he was managing to get any work done. Mac turned up once a day, even though he had made his own escape from the hospital by now. Flack reappeared with a wicked smile and a bag full of cookies. Stella brought grapes and a sympathetic ear. Lindsay brought Lucy and, ten minutes later, there were at least five nurses hovering nearby and cooing with delight. The proud mother caught Adam's eye and winked but he could tell that, deep down, she was loving it. Besides, Lucy's cuteness factor was undeniable. He watched her, fascinated by her level gaze and her total lack of concern for the fuss all around her. Cool kid.
Sid only came once, but once was enough. As soon as the M.E. appeared, Adam's well-planned speech fell apart and became nothing more than a useless jumble of words. "I'm so sorry; I lost your handkerchief," was all he could manage. After that, he simply stared at Sid, and his candid eyes spoke instead; a mute apology that was far more eloquent. Sid nodded - and that was the end of the matter. Another weight slid from Adam's shoulders and he gave a grin that was pure Ross; warm and delighted. From that point on, Sid proved himself to be a highly entertaining visitor. For once, he managed to steer clear of the macabre and, by the time he left, his 'patient' had developed a newfound respect for the old cliché that laughter was the best medicine.
Sheldon's visit was a different matter. The smile was there, but the sparkle was slow to follow. Adam knew that this was his fault. He also knew that Sheldon didn't blame him - not for anything. Still, conversation was difficult and they tiptoed carefully around each other, sticking to safe topics. It wasn't cowardice that held them back, or even pride. The scene in the alley was just too raw. Both men sensed that there would be time to mend their relationship later - and, when that time came, the shift would be quick and easy; a burst of humour or a shared task, carried out in friendly silence.
After Sheldon left him, Adam felt drained. He lay on his back for a long time, staring at the ceiling. Maybe the drugs and the tiredness had caused his paranoia but he couldn't deny that the tendency had always been there, and that was something he needed to think about.
When he looked down again, Mac was standing beside his bed.
"You're far too good at that," Adam said. "How long have you been there?"
"Long enough to know that you need to leave this room. You've been stuck here alone with your thoughts, and that's not healthy."
"They won't let me out." He knew that his voice sounded petulant, but he also knew that his boss would understand. "How did you do it?"
"With charm and good manners," Mac told him.
"I have those..."
"Of course you do." The phrase was correct, but Mac's eyes were full of amusement.
"You're teasing me," Adam accused him. "Okay then - if you're so good at this, can't you go and convince them that I need a change of scene? Or, you know, that I ought to stretch my legs? There's something I really need to do, Mac. Please..." The request had started out as a joke but, as he continued, his tone became urgent. His legs were already halfway out of bed. "Will you help me?"
"I will," Mac said.
Which was how, fifteen minutes later, he found himself standing alone in front of Elma's door, in a whole new part of the hospital. The ward looked the same, and smelled the same, but there was a very different feel to it. Warmer, somehow, and more personal - yet with a strange sense of time suspended, like a breath being held before a plunge into deep dark water. He wished that he hadn't been quite so adamant about doing this all by himself. Shyly, he pulled the dressing gown tighter in order to hide his sling, and peered through the glass. As he did so, a nurse passed by behind him.
"Going in, sugar?" she asked. "No cause to be nervous, now. She's a quiet one - gentle enough if you treat her right. Don't open those blinds though, that's my advice. Maybe you know that? Your gran'ma, is she?"
Adam turned to face her. Charm and good manners... "My friend," he replied.
The nurse was round and jolly, with a mass of dark curls that fought to be free of her bright yellow scrunchie. She studied him, full of concern. "You okay?" she asked. "This your first visit? Want me to go in there with you? I'm not bein' rude, but you look a little shaky."
He saw that her offer was kindly meant, and suddenly felt much stronger. "No. Thank you."
"Sure thing, sweetness." The nurse went on her way and Adam raised his good hand to open the door, edging through quickly before it flew back and smacked him in the face.
Why was he so nervous, anyway? This was Elma, not his father...
Yet, when she turned to inspect her visitor, Adam saw at once that she didn't know him at all. He barely knew her, in fact; this pale thin figure with no hope and no animation in her eyes. The room was equally dull. Elma had turned out the main light and hidden the view, as though she were afraid of it - which she probably was, Adam realised. One little lamp shone bravely from her cheap, institutional bedside table. There were no cards, no flowers... no sign that anyone loved her at all. She sat in a low chair beside her bed and, when she had looked at him once, she shifted her gaze away and let it rest on the picture that hung on the opposite wall - a mountain scene in watery strokes, painted in a naïve style that was somehow appealing.
"Elma," he said, and his throat was dry. "It's Adam."
Did she even hear him? He couldn't say for certain. Her face was rapt as she stared at the grey and the green strokes; a pale reminder of her past life. Adam stepped forward and sat on the bed, waiting quietly. After a while, he began to study the picture as well. There were sheep on the low hills, grazing in front of a tiny white cottage.
Suddenly, he sensed that something in the room had changed. Her eyes had left the landscape and he knew that she was watching him. Keeping perfectly still, he tried to look unconcerned. The first move had been his and he had failed. The second move ought to be hers.
"You're hurt," she said.
"I was. But I'm much better now."
"What happened?"
Now he did turn to face her. Could she handle the truth? Should he make something up? Adam hated lying, so he opted for a middle path and kept his eyes upon her as he spoke. "I was helping a friend in trouble. You, Elma. You're my friend, okay?" He paused.
"Then you live in the village? I haven't seen you around - have I?"
"Yes," he said patiently. "I live next door."
There it was, just for a moment - a fleeting look of recognition in her eyes that she shut down at once with an iron will because she did not want to remember any more. Fear had driven her deep inside herself, farther in than she had ever been before. The room was no longer her prison. Elma was trapped in her own mind. Adam clenched his jaw and wondered whether it was even possible to rescue her.
Elma's dark gaze slid back to the painting. He sat with her in silence for a while. When he finally left, she pretended not to notice.
-xx-
He could have called it quits, of course. Abandoned their friendship. Respected Elma's apparent wish to be alone. But Adam was stubborn, and very few people in his life, apart from his colleagues at the lab, had treated him with the same unerring kindness that she had shown.
Searching for Mac, he found him in the visitors' waiting room. There was a harried young mother in there as well, with three boys, the smallest of whom was currently leaning on Mac's leg, frowning with solemn concentration as the Head of the New York Crime Lab read him a tale about bunnies.
Adam paused in the doorway. The scene was enchanting and he was afraid to break the spell. He was also out of breath after walking so far, and he leaned on the wooden jamb, listening to the gruff voice of his boss. Mac knew he was there - even sent him a wry glance - but finished the story and then tried to prise the small boy from his leg.
"Riley. Here," his mother said with a hopeless lack of conviction.
"No," Riley whined. "Want more."
"Go back to your mother now," Mac told him firmly - and Riley obeyed.
"Thank you, sir," said the woman, her arms outstretched for the boy to fall into. She loved him, that was clear; and Adam smiled to see it.
Mac, meanwhile, had risen. "Come with me," he offered. Reaching Adam's side, he studied him carefully. "Need a chair?" he added.
Bravado was one thing. Collapsing in front of your boss through sheer exhaustion was quite another. "Yes, please," Adam said. "Will you be able to push it, though?" he added, trying not to stare too hard at Mac's bandages, which peeped from beneath his shirt sleeves and made his arms seem bulky.
"Leave that to me," was Mac's mysterious reply. "Sit down over there - I'll be back."
Adam did as he was told. Dropping onto Mac's old seat, he found himself to be the main attraction for three pairs of bright blue eyes.
"He your daddy?" the oldest boy said.
"Um... no."
"My daddy's sick," the middle boy chimed in.
"Oh... I'm sorry."
"Are you sick?" the child persisted.
"Sick, sick, sick..." sang Riley. He grinned at Adam from his mother's knee. "Story?" he asked brightly.
"Um..." Already, Adam was starting to feel as helpless as the young woman looked. Luckily, that was the moment when Mac chose to reappear.
"This way," he said, and waved Adam into a wheelchair that was being pushed by a smiling gentleman with pepper-and-salt hair, whose name-tag proclaimed that he was Hormoz, hospital porter.
Full of gratitude, Adam sank down onto the chair and left the waiting room, with its lively occupants, in fine style. "Where are we going?"
"You need fresh air. I'm taking you out to the garden."
"There's a garden?"
As it turned out, there really was, and it was strangely peaceful. Volunteers in green sweatshirts pottered around, pruning here, weeding there. Trees lined the walls, curving inwards to create the welcome illusion of a dappled, sunlit grove. The constant sound of traffic was so muted by the leaves that it could almost be mistaken for the wind, or a tumbling stream. On rustic benches, people sat in twos and threes, their heads leaning inwards, just like the trees.
Hormoz wheeled Adam to the last free bench and left the two men there together, with a promise that he would return in half an hour.
Sitting down, Mac turned to Adam.
"Tell me," he said.
Adam stared at the criss-cross pattern of branches overhead, and the trembling leaves, as he tried to transform his thoughts into words. "Not good," he admitted finally. "Danny had it right - she's lost, Mac, and I don't know how to save her."
"Can she be saved?" Mac's question seemed harsh on the surface but when Adam turned and saw his expression, it was challenging, not bleak.
"I think... if I found the right key, you know? She might not be the same - I know that. But it's not just the drugs, or her age. She's hiding, and she won't come out until she knows it's safe."
"You've been there," Mac said, and this time it wasn't a question. He had seen it for himself.
"Not like that; not as bad. But the look in her eye - for a moment, I knew it, okay? I can reach her. I have to..."
They sat together for a while in silence, feeling the green breath of healing that was the garden's generous gift.
"Can I ask you something?" Adam said at last. "It's kind of personal..."
"In this place," Mac said, "you can ask me anything."
"Okay." Once more, he took a few moments to phrase his awkward thought correctly. "It's just that... when we were talking - you know, the other night - well, you said something and I wondered..."
"Go on," Mac told him quietly, with unusual patience, as though he had already guessed what was coming.
Adam dropped his voice, and his troubled gaze. "I said I felt like my mind was breaking. D-do you remember? And you said..." He shook his head, frightened by the fact that he was about to ask such a bold, intrusive question. "And you said you knew what that was like. How...?"
"How do I know?"
"Yes," Adam whispered. "Sorry, boss. You don't have to answer. I shouldn't have..."
"No," Mac told him. "It's only fair. I asked you a lot of hard questions that night. Personal ones; and you never flinched, not really." Now it was his turn to look away, just for a moment. "Claire. When Claire died..."
"Oh." With one word, Adam showed the depth of his understanding. No need to say any more. Their eyes met again, and they nodded.
"My turn," Mac offered, in a not-so-subtle attempt to change the subject. "Something you said that night bothered me too. Something you glossed over, Adam, about your childhood..."
He had long suspected that Mac knew the bare bones of his past. The buried bones, and he worked hard to keep them that way; to keep his two lives separate. Yet his own words had a frequent knack of betraying him. Frowning, he tried to think back. What had he said...?
As if he could read Adam's mind, Mac continued. "The way you've been feeling these past few weeks... you said you'd felt that way before."
"Oh!" Relief filled him. That one was easy to answer. "Yes - and now I understand why. Antihistamines, boss. I had real bad hayfever as a kid, but the medicine made me ten times worse. My dad told my mom I was just being lazy, you know? Trying to skip school, pretending I was ill. Then I passed out in gym class..." He slowed for a moment, and halted. When he continued, his face was flushed. "The other kids laughed... The school nurse didn't, though. I ended up in hospital... I've never taken antihistamines again; not since that day - not ever." Full of embarrassment, he shook his head. "Guess I should have known, right?"
"What - that your next-door neighbour's home help had laced her food with allergy tablets in order to steal a fortune that never existed in the first place? Oh yes, shame on you, Adam, for not seeing that straight away."
He laughed. He couldn't help it. Mac's poker-face was admirable.
"My mom sat and read to me every day, when I was in the hospital," Adam continued softly. "Treasure Island... I've loved it ever since... oh!"
"What's the matter?"
"Nothing. It's just... Mac, I know what to do. About Elma, I mean. Would you... could you help me?"
Hormoz approached them across the dappled lawn in an awkward zig-zag dance that was half-brisk, half-dawdling; anxious to show that he was here if they needed him - yet, at the same time, reluctant to interrupt too soon. Mac stood up and waved him over.
"Of course I will, Adam. Just tell me what you need me to do."
-xx-
The next day, Adam was dressed and ready to leave the hospital, thanks to Mac working his charms on the lab tech's own consultant. Before he left, however, he paid a second visit to Elma's room. In his free hand was a small bag, also courtesy of his boss.
"Come in," Elma told him when he knocked. He entered with a smile, made hopeful by her greeting - but old habits simply die hard and, once again, she turned away when she saw that he was no one.
"I've brought you some things from your apartment," he said.
Elma stared to the left of him. It was unsettling.
Adam placed the bag upon the bed and pulled out a little bowl, filled with cinnamon potpourri. Moving round, he placed it on her bedside table. "That's much better already," he murmured, as though to himself. From the corner of his eye, he could just see Elma sniff the air. Her head turned towards him, ever so slightly.
The next thing he pulled from the bag was a book.
"You know," he said, skimming through the pages, "I never took much notice of poetry before. But the other night - well, I enjoyed myself, okay? You gave me that. So I'm giving it back to you." Finding the poem that he wanted, he sat down on the edge of the bed. In her chair, Elma's body was tense. Her eyes were closed and she held her breath; waiting...
Adam began to read.
"Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes..."
The words flowed between them, carried by his gentle voice and so full of passionate feeling that he could almost have wept with the ache of it. When he reached the end he let the last few lines linger on his tongue, reluctant to part with them completely...
"Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea."
The poem faded away like a distant echo. Adam lifted his eyes from the page and stared at Elma. There was a tear on her cheek, and the ghost of a smile on her lips.
"Thank you, Adam," she said. "That was lovely."
-xx-
A/N: One more chapter to go before this tale is over...
The poem, as before, is "Fern Hill" by the Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas.