Bonne Femme

Chapter 24

ICU

September 26

        Pale light from the monitor and the incessant noise of early morning hospital routine bathed the room, keeping her from more than fitful and intermittent sleep.  Jill curled uncomfortably into the pillow jammed between the vinyl chair back and the wall, a blanket drawn to her chin, and one small hand resting on his arm.  At four-thirty an old man dressed in jeans and flannel shirt came in softly, checked the chart, took a quick glance at the monitor, and then studied the woman dressed in scrubs.  She wasn't supposed to be in the ICU, but she had insisted, and so had he.  As he went softly toward the door, Jill came awake.

"Good morning, Miss Belbenoit," he said.

"Is there any change?" she replied.

"No."

        "Will he ever regain consciousness?  Of is there . . . brain damage that you have not told me about?"

"His EEG appears normal.  There's no loss of higher brain function."

        "My aunt had a stroke.  They say her brain functions normally too, but she is not the same afterwards."

"It's possible that he will be impaired to some extent."

 

389.

"It is also possible that he will not regain consciousness?"  

        Her devastated look brought a knot to his throat.  Once he thought that he would be beyond that some day, but he wasn't.  He could handle losing the battle by reminding himself of the statistical inevitability.  It was revisiting the battlefield with the survivors that cost him so much.  Yet that too, was his job.

"I'm optimistic about his chances," he said sincerely.

"Why?" she asked weakly.

"I just have a feeling."

"That's it?"

"That's it.  And you should be too."

        "Then give me a reason," she said, as the tears flowed freely down her cheeks.  "I am not stupid.  I know what all this means.  He lost so much blood.  It has been five days and he has not regained consciousness.  Will he never wake up?  Tell me why I should have a reason to hope.  Tell me something."

        "Okay.  Here it is.  He should have died that night they brought him in.  We stabilized him, but he kept himself alive somehow.  You hang your hopes on that."

She nodded somberly, unconvinced.

"You be here for him," he continued.  "And you can pray."

"Do you?" she challenged.

He nodded.

"Why?"

        "I see people die that shouldn't and I see people, like this young man, who should die, but don't.  I've done all I can for Richard.  Now I figure it's either up to him or up to God."

"Platitudes," she said dismally.

"So you're in mourning already.  Go home."

 

390.

"I must stay with him."

"Why?  So that you can tell yourself that you were faithful to the end?"

"No.  I don't want there to be an end."

        "Then tell him that.  He's unconscious, but I think maybe some part of him hears what is being said around him."

"You actually believe this?"

        "I don't know how much processing the brain does in these cases, but I believe it helps sometimes."

"I just wish there were something I could do."

"Talk to him."

 

        Jill had begun mechanically.  When she had taken his hand, she had hoped something would happen to let her know that he knew she was there.  It hadn't.  She told him that she was there, that she would stay, that the doctors were taking good care of him, that he would be all right.  It sounded false, because it was.  She didn't really believe that he would wake up and be all right.

        She couldn't think about what was happening without crying, and was afraid of what it would do to him if she did.

He must continue wanting to live, she thought.

        Then it occurred to her that everything Richard had done, rightly or wrongly, wisely of foolishly, had been for her.  Deluded or not, he had done nothing for himself.  And although she bore no blame for it, he was where he was because of her.

        As she stroked the back of his hand she thought about their conversation on the way back from the concert at Travers City.

        "Men have been interested in me, Richard.  But not like you.  You were different.  They looked at me, but not you.  You never look at me.  You look for me.  You want to know who I am.  You want to know me."

She squeezed his hand.

        "It is so very flattering, Richard.  When we are together you always think about me, never yourself."

 

391.

"But you make so many foolish mistakes.  See how honest I am with you."

Tears streaked her cheeks, but he couldn't see them, so it was all right.

        "I can think about things clearly now, Richard," she continued.  "Remember when I kissed you at the motel in Cassville and you touched me.  I said that I could not think clearly until it was over?  I could not trust what I was feeling.  I can now.  For the first time since you took me to Bonne Femme."

She laughed softly.

        "Oh Richard.  I did not tell you that you are wrong about the name of the island.  ‘Bonne femme' does not mean just ‘good woman' like you thought."

She kissed his hand.

        "It means ‘house wife.'  Come back to me, Richard.  Make me your bonne femme.  It is what I want.  It really is."