"We got the call a little over an hour ago," he told me. "The accident happened about an hour before that. They had a little trouble identifying her because she apparently had a fake I.D. on her. Only after they searched through her things did they find her real driver's license. I guess she was up there for a little gambling trip."
"Jesus," I said again.
"There's a red-eye flight out of Spokane in two hours," Dad told me. "It doesn't go to Reno but it stops in Sacramento, which is only a couple hours away by car. Your mother and I are going to be on it."
"Me too," I said quickly.
"Bill," he started. "There's nothing that you can…"
"I'm going Dad," I told him. "I'll pay for the ticket myself."
He looked at me for a moment. "You don't have to do that," he said. "Why don't you get the boat put away so we can get ready to go?"
Obviously a damper had been put on the end of what had been a very pleasant day. Mike and Maggie, after hearing the story of Tracy, offered condolences and then quickly slipped away. I was not so far out of it that I didn't notice Mike climbing into Maggie's car even though he only lived around the corner. Nina offered me some soothing words and a hug and then she too left, making me promise to call her and let her know what was going on. I promised.
I showered quickly and packed a few things. Soon we were on our way to the airport.
We took off on time, heading Southwest for Sacramento. The flight took forever. I spent much of it staring out the window to the darkness below while Mom and Dad held hands quietly next to me. Around us the lights were dimmed down and most of the other passengers were asleep in their seats. I was exhausted from the day I'd just spent and the droning of the engines was soothing white noise but I couldn't sleep. Not while my sister was maybe already dead somewhere, maybe sitting in the refrigerated section of the county morgue in Reno, a little tag tied to her toe.
Sometimes having knowledge of how a medical system works is not a good thing. This was one of those times. I could perfectly envision Tracy being taken into some hospital room, possibly the trauma resuscitation room, possibly the emergency operating room. I could see a team of doctors working on her, mechanically following written protocols as they cracked open her chest, or cracked open her skull, trying to save her but knowing it was useless. Doing it only because their training dictated they try. I could see a technician squeezing a bag attached to a breathing tube to supply her with oxygen while the efforts were going on. The technician would probably be checking out her tits as he did it, admiring them, thinking lightly that it was a shame they were going to be taken out of circulation soon.
At some point the doctor in charge would decide enough is enough. The time would be noted and all of the devices would be taken off of her. She would be zipped into a body bag which, by protocol, would have already been placed beneath her before she'd even arrived. The doctors, nurses, and technicians would all go onto other things, treating patients, stitching wounds, writing orders, fetching blankets, reflecting sadly for a moment how it was a shame that someone so young had died that way.
But none of them would shed a tear for her. None of them would slam their fists into the wall, cursing the insidious nature of DEATH, the mortal enemy. They would go about their tasks, eat their lunches, and the next day none of them would even remember her. Except maybe the technician who had admired her tits. The zippered bag would be moved into a storage room somewhere and a phone call would be placed. Soon a white van from the coroner's office would arrive and the bag would be placed on a small gurney and taken to the county morgue. The next day a pathologist would rip open her body, saw open her skull, take out her internal organs and weigh them, and then finally stuff everything back inside and crudely sew her up.
I could not get this vision out of my head no matter how hard I tried to think of other things. As our aircraft slowed and began to descend into Sacramento we passed within sight of Reno. I could see it's lights shining up from the pre-dawn darkness and the vision became almost overwhelming. Tracy was down there somewhere. Was she still drawing breath? Not if fate had had it's way.
We touched down normally at ten minutes after four in the morning. The Sacramento airport was almost completely deserted, the few passengers from our plane it's only customers at the moment. Mom went to go secure a rental car while Dad and I headed directly for a bank of pay phones. He dialed a number that he had written on a slip of paper. The number for Washoe Medical Center in Reno, where Tracy was (if she wasn't in the morgue, a nasty part of my brain insisted upon reminding me).
Dad fought through at least five different people, said Tracy's name at least fifteen times, and was placed on hold at least ten. It was maddening watching this, waiting for someone to tell him something. Finally, after nearly fifteen minutes he managed to get hold of someone who knew something.
"She is?" he said softly.
She is what? I wondered, wanting to rip the phone out of his hand. She is dead? She is alive? What?
Dad, sensing what I was going through, held the phone away from his mouth for a brief moment and told me, "she's in surgery right now." He then spoke into the phone again. "What kind of surgery? Can you tell me how bad she is?"
He listened, his face souring. "What do you mean you don't know who I am?" he shouted into the phone. "I'm her father and I'm very worried about her. Please tell me what's going on!"
He listened some more, his expression darkening. "But I'm in Sacramento!" he yelled. "I'm more than two hours from there! Are you really going to let me go the next two hours wondering? Just tell me how bad she is! What kind of surgery she's having!"
He listened for another moment and then slammed the phone down angrily. "Fucking asshole!" he shouted at it loudly enough for his words to echo through the terminal. A few people glanced at him uneasily and then went about their business.
He turned to me, shaking his head. "They won't tell me anything about her condition." he told me, "because they can't verify who I am. Who the hell else would call up and say they were her father?"
I sighed. "You're dealing with bureaucracy at it's finest when you're dealing with a hospital," I told him. "And remember, the accident happened in California, law suit capital of the world. They probably have lawyers who call up and pretend to be family members in order to get information. It happens all the time, even in Spokane."
"That's disgusting," he proclaimed.
"That's lawyers," I said. "At least we know she's still alive."
"Yeah," he breathed. "Let's go find your Mom and get headed up there."
Mom had procured a Toyota Corolla for us. Dad updated her with what he knew as we walked to the rental car pick-up. Fifteen minutes later we were roaring away, Dad at the wheel, Mom in the passenger seat, me in the cramped back seat, reading the map we'd been given and navigating. There was little talk as I directed Dad down Interstate 5 to I-80 East. We passed through the darkened city of Sacramento and it's suburbs and were climbing into the Sierra Nevada Mountains when the sun made it's appearance in front of us.
It was shortly before eight in the morning when we entered the Reno city limits. I navigated Dad through the city, past the towering casinos, until we pulled into the parking lot of the hospital. We practically rushed inside and spent twenty more minutes finding someone who could tell us something. Was Tracy dead? Was she alive? Was she horribly crippled? Was she on a ventilator awaiting permission from the parents to pull the plug? The tension was so thick between the three of us that it was almost palpable in the air.
We were directed to a small waiting room on the third floor of the hospital.
It was empty when we arrived. This time my knowledge of the medical system was an asset. I smiled happily as I read the sign and saw what part of the building we were in. Hope showed itself for the first time.