“When can I see Marilyn? Does she know about the baby yet?”
“She’s been unconscious.”
“I need to be there.”
He glanced back at the room where the children were sleeping. “Is there anybody who can come and stay with the children? Can you call some family?”
If only! “I have no family, Doctor, and Marilyn’s is in New York. Do you have a phone? I can call some friends.”
He directed me to a telephone, and I called the Tusks. Tessa answered it, and promised they would come over, but it might be a few hours. They had to get a babysitter, and then come out. The storm was over, but nobody was quite sure how the roads were. I just reiterated that I needed somebody to sit with the kids while I sat with Marilyn. She promised to be there as fast as possible. Then I called the security company. They would get some people over here as well.
I heard my daughters fussing, so I went back into the room. Charlie was still out, so I sat with the girls, who were very scared and crying. The kids had been awake all through the crash and the rescue, and were terrified. I had slammed my head into the driver side window, which had knocked me out and given me a concussion, and Marilyn had been out as well. I couldn’t imagine the kids hanging there upside down while their parents were lifeless around them. I just sat there on the bed and held them while they cried and whimpered. Charlie eventually woke up, but once he saw me with his sisters, he calmed down and smiled.
I wanted to get up and go see my wife, but the girls would act up whenever I tried to move. I was rescued about an hour later when Tessa showed up, along with the security team. “I got here as fast as I could! The roads are fine today. Tusker was waiting until the neighbors showed up to watch the boys, and then is going out to the house to bring some clothes out here.”
“Oh, jeez, I never even thought of that!” I replied.
One of the security guys said, “We can handle that, Mr. Buckman.”
I looked over at him and nodded. “Okay, either one of you guys go over to the house, or call your office and send somebody over. Please?”
“Yes, sir, we’ll handle it.” He stepped out of the room and pulled out a cell phone.
Tessa turned back to me. “How are you? What happened? Where’s Marilyn?”
I took a deep breath. Where to start? “We got hit by another car last night, on Mount Carmel Road, and got rolled into the ditch. The kids are banged up, but okay.” Tessa came over and sat on Holly’s bed, and the little girl instinctively wrapped her arms around her. The kids didn’t have any IVs, so I lifted Molly up and set her next to Tessa.
Tessa hugged the girls and looked across the room at Charlie. “How you doing, Charlie?”
“Okay, Aunt Tessa. Where’s Mommy?”
“Your dad’s going to check on that. You can come over here, too, if you want.”
He clambered down off his bed and climbed up next to Tessa. She looked at me and asked quietly, “Marilyn?”
“She’s alive. She got the worst of it, and was in surgery. I haven’t been able to leave the kids to go see her.” I leaned over and whispered in her ear, “She lost the baby.”
“Oh, shit!”
Molly looked up at that and said, “That’s a bad word. Mommy yells at Daddy when he says that.”
Tessa smiled at the girls. “Well, I’m very sorry.” She was crying, but looked at me and said, “Go! Go find her and stay with her. I’ll watch these guys.”
A rather officious nurse came around when I stepped up to the counter in the hallway. “Is she a relative?”
“Yes, an aunt. The kids’ uncle will be along later. Can I go see my wife now? And when can I get this IV out!?”
“The doctor has to say when that can be removed. You can’t see your wife yet, she’s not out of recovery,” she told me. Her tone was one where the patients and their families were the major annoyance in her life. She wasn’t a nurse so much as a bureaucrat.
I started seeing red, and fought to keep my temper under control. “Nurse, get that doctor and get him here now, or get yourself a lawyer. You have ten minutes!”
“You can’t speak to me that way! Now, you get back to your room before I call Security!”
“Then you call them right now. The clock is ticking. I want a doctor and I want to see my wife. Now!” I just stood there and waited.
Well, damn if she didn’t call Security! A beefy rent-a-cop showed up, listened to the nurse for a second, and then grabbed the telephone. He called for a more senior nurse, who showed up quickly and called for the doctor. The rent-a-cop and the first nurse traded dirty looks, and he took off.
The doctor showed up about ten minutes later, took one look at my chart, and ordered the IV yanked. This doctor and the nurse got my polite thanks. He then scrounged up a pair of slippers (I had been wandering around barefoot up to this point!) and pointed me in the direction of the elevators. The senior nurse took me up a floor and down a hallway to where Marilyn was.
Marilyn was awake, and looked awful, but she was able to look at me. As soon as I saw her, I knew she knew she had lost our child. She just started crying; it looked like she had already been crying. I went over to her and simply held her hand. I couldn’t sit on the bed without disturbing her, and she had all sorts of lines going into her. I cried, too.
“The kids?” she asked.
“They’re fine. Tessa’s with them right now. They just got some bumps and bruises. They’ll be fine. Once I woke up, I spent the night with them. They wouldn’t let me see you until now.”
“Oh, Carl, I lost the baby!” she wailed. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!”
“I know, I know. It’s not your fault. I was driving. It was all my fault. I’m so sorry!” I got as close to her as I could, and leaned down and hugged her as best I could. Marilyn’s body was just racked with sobs, and I cried with her.
After another hour, Marilyn was moved from the recovery room to a regular room, mercifully empty except for her. By 9:30 the surgeon showed up and talked to us. He confirmed what everybody else had told us. Marilyn would be fine, but that she lost the baby, and they had to operate to repair some internal damage and bleeding. She would be in the hospital until Monday or Tuesday. The kids could come by later, but only for a few minutes.
I followed him out the door. “Doctor,”, I asked him lowly, “how long before Marilyn can have another child. This was going to be our last.”
He just shook his head. “I’m sorry, Mister Buckman, but the damage was too severe. Your wife can’t have any more children.”
That dropped in my stomach like a ball of cold lead. “When can we take our son? We’ll need to arrange a funeral.”
He gave me a horrified look. “I’m very, very sorry, Mister Buckman, but we couldn’t save… your son wasn’t… there won’t be a funeral, sir.”
Shit! He was just so much medical waste, to be disposed of. I started crying again, but thanked him and let him go his way. It wasn’t his fault.
It was mine.
I don’t think I had ever felt lower. I had killed our son with my lousy driving. I think that if I didn’t have to take care of our other children, I might have gone off and found some deserted corner of the hospital and quietly killed myself. Maybe Marilyn could find somebody better. She couldn’t do any worse.
I went back into Marilyn’s room and sat with her, holding her hand. She cried until she fell asleep, and I felt her grip loosen. I was all cried out at the moment, and when I looked up, I saw Tusker standing in the doorway. I stood up and wrapped my robe around myself, and then shuffled over to him. We went out into the hallway.