By requests - a longer chapter with the answer at last :) Huge thanks to each and every one for reading and reviewing.
"They said it was a miracle he was alive for so long," Kenneth said, watching Frank drive. "He was in such a bad shape, lost so much blood, there was just no chance to survive."
Frank could barely see the road ahead of him as tears swelled in his eyes and he gripped the steering wheel tighter. Kenneth was in the passenger's seat, telling the story of how he'd gone for a walk by the lake a little away from his house and found a barely breathing and badly bleeding young man.
"He was slipping in and out of consciousness while we waited for an ambulance to arrive. I tried to ask him his name or who did this to him, but he was just choking blood, poor fella. Could only blink to my questions, if he had a family or remembered who'd done this to him. My heart was bleeding for him," the old man sniffed. "This country is just going nowhere, if youngsters die like that for nothing."
"Didn't he…say nothing at all?" Frank's voice was trembling with emotions.
Kenneth shook his head, "He tried. I asked him his name, so I could find his family and tell them… But he couldn't make a sound, just kept looking at me and clutching my hand. There was so much agony in those eyes. I've lived here all my life and never, never did anything like this happen."
Frank's mind was drawing heart-wrenching pictures of Kenneth, wrapping a jacket around his brother who was slowly and agonizingly bleeding to death from the numerous stab wounds. He could imagine the fright in Joe's eyes when he knew he couldn't utter a sound and tell the old man to pass his last words to his family. Frank shivered at the images.
"Do you believe in angel-guards?" Kenneth asked, snapping him out of his thoughts.
Frank chuckled. Did he believe in angel guards? After all that's happened over the last month, he was ready to believe in anything – angel-guards, the miracle of stem cells, the mystery of Stonehenge, UFOs. "Why?" he asked to avoid the answer.
"When you're old, you believe in such things. I'm 82 years old and I've never wanted to live as much as I do now! And I want to know that when I die, I'll live on, even if in afterlife. And you know what, young man, when they took your brother away, I did believe that maybe there was an angel-guard that was keeping him alive for so long. Eleven stab wounds! And he was alive for three hours after that, how is that possible unless someone keeps life in your failing body?"
Frank didn't know.
"It was as if he was kept alive at least until the ambulance came. And it was only there when his heart stopped beating…. They said it was a miracle he was alive for so long," Kenneth repeated, shaking his head.
They were quiet for a few minutes, driving down the streets of Cleveland. The closer they were to the destination, the colder Frank felt inside.
"Did the police find anything?" he asked Kenneth, breaking the silence.
"Nothing. However they believe it was a woman- there were footprints in the ground, woman's ones. They led to the main road and disappeared there."
"No road cameras?"
The man shook his head.
That woman again. Frank closed his eyes for a moment, trying to compose himself.
"We tried to find his family, but he had no ID with him. The police checked if there was an APB on someone who looked like him, but…"
"But there wasn't," Frank finished for him, nauseated with himself. If they hadn't screwed up with DNA tests, they'd alert the police straight away and wouldn't have lost so much time. "I hate myself…" he breathed barely audibly.
"I felt so bad for him. Such a nice boy, you could see it in his face…. I go to visit him from time to time, don't want him to feel left alone and forgotten. I keep telling him that someone will come to find him, no matter what. And at Christmas, I made a wish- because you can make the most cheeky wishes for Christmas- that someone showed up. And look- there you were standing at my door!" Kenneth's lips curved into a smile.
"You wouldn't believe the events that led me to standing at your door," Frank smiled back weakly and turned serious again. They were almost there.
Whoever sent that "Wishing you a miraculous Christmas" card had a crooked sense of humour. Why did they have to make the search so complicated? Couldn't they just drop a map of Ohio with indication "you should look here" at his feet, instead of the card?
Frank pulled into a parking lot, shut the engine and climbed out of the car. He waited for Kenneth to join him and together they walked to an elevator.
"Maybe now that you're here, you can talk sense into him?" Kenneth said when they walked in and he pressed '7'. "Maybe he will wake up now that he'll have you? After all, who am I to him?"
"You're the one who saved his life," Frank said, watching the numbers change as the lift went up. He turned to give the old man a soft smile.
"But I'm not the one worth waking up from coma for after half a year," the old man sighed sadly.
The corridors of Cleveland Memorial hospital were buzzing with activity. Frank watched the visitors sipping coffee or fidgeting on plastic chairs in the waiting room as nurses and doctors were rushing past them. He tapped his fingers impatiently against the reception table and received a stern look from a nurse. "Sorry," he mumbled and clasped his hands together.
"There he is," Kenneth pointed at a doctor from around the corner. "Dr. Stanley!"
"Kenneth," the middle-aged doctor shook the old man's hand with a smile and turned to look at Frank with a smile. "When he called to tell me he was bringing a relative, I could not believe it."
Frank shook hands with him. "I'm Frank Hardy, Joe's elder brother."
"I'm Dr. Stanley, I've been treating- Joe Hardy, if that's his name then- since he was brought in. We honestly didn't dare to believe someone would come for him after all."
"This is a very long story," Frank said over a lump in his throat. "How is he?"
"I believe Kenneth has told you many things already. Overall, he's fine, been stable for three months-"
"Was he not for the first three?"
"I wouldn't say so. When he was brought it, we didn't know where to begin with him, he had 11 stab wounds and lost a terrible amount of blood, but surprisingly the internal organs were not that damaged. He was critical for the first couple of weeks. Shall I tell you more on the way to his room?" the doctor offered.
Frank nodded and they started to walk down the white corridor. He thought he heard his drumming heart echoing off the walls.
"He's healed over time, physically," Dr. Stanley went on, "so we hoped he'd wake up from coma rather fast, but….it's been over half a year now."
"What are the chances?"
"He's somewhere between level three and four, closer to four actually, so the official conclusion is rather pessimistic," they stopped in front of a door to a hospital room. "But honestly, I don't know. No one does, because coma is tricky and unpredictable. Some people wake up from it within days, others within decades. Some never. Some people are never themselves after just a few hours in it and there are cases when people woke up after years in a coma and were back to normal lives…. What I can tell you from my own experience is that the chances are higher if there's a loving family with a comatose patient. Which is why we so wanted for someone to show up for him."
Frank nodded his understanding, not finding a voice to speak in anticipation.
"Okay, I believe you won't need me there, so I'll leave to see other patients. If anything, there's a call button in there," with a nod, Dr. Stanley walked away.
Frank turned to Kenneth, "Thank you. For everything. I'll never thank you enough."
"Nonsense. But promise to call me when he wakes up?" the old man asked with a kind smile.
"Absolutely."
With his heart sinking into his boot, Frank turned the door knob and quietly went into the dim room. He walked to the hospital bed, watching the motionless person in it. His knees gave way under him and he eased onto a chair by the bed, never taking his eyes off the peaceful face he had thought he'd never see again.
He watched it for a minute.
And then he began to sob.