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“I was only gone for a little bit.” This was the phrase Dave kept returning to in his ramblings. “It was less than an hour.”
Danny and Isla hurried down the shiny hallways of the hospital and found Kim and Phil already there in a small waiting area with Dave, sitting in austere gray armchairs clustered around a table topped with a few issues of boring doctor magazines. Dave was beyond niceties but they were a comfort to Kim who embraced them both and said, “Thank you for coming” as she showed them to chairs.
“I was just gone for a little bit. She’d been doing so well. But I knew better, I knew better. I thought I had to have class. I’ve been missing so many classes lately. I never should have gone, or I should have brought her, we would have found a way. But it was just for a little while. I never should have gone.” His face was drawn as though all the sorrow of the world were entering his soul. When his phone rang, he jumped up.
“Dad, Dad! I was trying to get you, it’s Lacey! She was barely breathing, Dad!” With his father on the phone, tears started flowing and, though he paced up and down the hallway and they only caught snatches of what he said, his voice pitched higher and higher in desperation. “Don’t know what to do . . . I don’t know, I don’t know . . . I was only gone for a minute . . . I should have known, I should have known . . . I wish you could too, Dad. I just can’t leave her here alone . . .”
Phil looked meaningfully at Kim. “Do you remember how to get there?” she asked.
Phil nodded with complete assurance. He picked up his jacket and, key in hand, asked Danny, “Will you get Kim home if she needs to go?”
“Of course.” Danny nodded soberly, hands on his knees.
Phil kissed Kim on the top of her head and hurried down the hallway, his boots squeaking on the pristine linoleum. “It helps him to have something to do,” Kim said as they watched him go.
After a few moments of silence, Danny said, “About that . . . is there anything else we can do?” They looked around at each other helplessly.
Isla patted his hand. “Thanks for being here for me.”
He nodded. “You too.”
“I’m just going to let Dave know that Phil’s gone for his dad,” Kim said gently as she followed the anxious murmur down the hallway in the other direction. When she came back, Dave was with her, saying to the phone, “. . . should be there in about two hours.”
“Maybe faster.” Kim smiled knowingly at all of them.
“Ok, ok. Thanks Dad. I know. Dad . . . I was only gone for a short time . . . she was asleep . . .” His pitch began to rise again, then fell. “I know . . . I know . . . ok, I will see you then . . . love you too.” His voice caught.
He fell into the upholstered chair as if he were tired of fighting gravity. After a while, he said to Kim, “Did you hear anything? Did you see her go out?”
Kim shook her head sadly and said gently, as if it were an exchange they had gone through several times, “No, I didn’t. I wish I had. It must have been while I was at the store.”
“Somebody must have seen her!”
Before anyone could respond, a doctor came through the swinging doors. The hallway seemed longer than ever as he approached. Isla partly wished that he wouldn’t ever get there.
“Mr. Abat . . . Abbatescianni?” Dave lifted his head. “We have your wife on a ventilator. Please come with me.” Dave jumped up and the others stirred. “Just the husband for now,” the doctor said. “Thank you.” He was hard pressed to keep up with Dave’s sprint down the hallway. When the doors swung shut behind them, Kim answered Dave’s implied question.
“After they left in the ambulance, the man next door came over. You know, they just moved in? He said that a woman had come up to him, asked him for money. Said she was hungry. She was crying and said she was just so hungry. But when he offered to make her a sandwich, she went away, up towards the market.”
Isla shook her head violently. “Why? I just don’t understand why.” As usual, Isla experienced sorrow as rage. “I mean . . . I know money was tight . . . I’m sure there were other things . . . but . . . I mean, they had each other.” Danny studied a crack near the baseboard hard.
Kim was thoughtful. “I read one time that a heroin high was like being under a cozy warm blanket, like a blanket for your brain. A security blanket. She couldn’t let go of it, I guess. She needed that comfort. Of course, there was physical addiction, too . . .”
“But she’d kicked that . . .”
“Yeah, for a long time. I guess it was just too much. She just wanted to feel a little bit better. To not worry for a while. Maybe? I don’t know how it is. I’m just guessing. Maybe she just wanted to feel that comfort one more time. It’s so hard.”
“How could such a good person end up like this?” Isla wondered. Kim looked at her thoughtfully, so Isla said, “What?”
“I remember when you didn’t think she was such a good person.”
“I didn’t know her. I didn’t know how to see beyond the addiction. I didn’t know . . . people. I didn’t know myself, really. I just wish there wasn’t so much hurting in the world. I wish we didn’t hurt ourselves and each other.” Danny continued staring at the baseboard.
Soon, the doctor was back. He sat down in the seat Dave had occupied, but on the edge. He spread out his hands, hesitated, and then said, “You said you’re trying to get in touch with her mother?” He looked at Kim, who nodded, and the doctor took a deep breath. “Please let the nurses know when she gets here. Mrs. Abbatescianni is not going to make it. For all intents and purposes, she was gone when she got here. I’m so sorry. I think we should give them some time, but if you’d like to go say good-bye, I’ll take you down in 15 or 20 minutes.”
“Shouldn’t we go now?” Isla was ready for action; action was comfort.
“She’s on life support.” He compressed his lips and nodded in resignation. “I’ll come get you.”
The hallway beyond the doors, when they finally passed through, was dimly lit. The doctor showed Isla and Kim to the second doorway.
Dave was holding Lacey’s hand, eyes fixed on her face, no attention to spare for them. They had decided to make it quick. Danny had stayed behind, feeling awkward and unable to deal with sorrow and awkwardness at the same time.
When had Isla last seen her alive? Could Isla have done something for her? Why didn’t she even know what to do? Why couldn’t people save each other?
Kim was brushing Lacey’s hair back. “Good-bye sweetie. This is from Clara for Auntie Lacey.” She nestled a tiny, purple platypus next to Lacey. “Rest well.” She kissed her forehead and backed tearfully away to make room for Isla.
Isla felt foolish, but after she forced the first few choked words out, they flowed easier. “Thank you,” she said, “I’m sorry. I . . . I don’t know why the world still has me when it needs you. It’s not fair to anyone. I . . . I’ll miss you. I should have been a better friend, I should have been the good friend that you saw in me. Damn it! Would to God I could see people the way you do . . .” She checked herself. “Good-bye, Lacey. We will miss you.”
Dave didn’t stir as they left the room. She and Kim whispered in the hallway. “Should we stay?”
“I don’t think so,” Kim said, “Phil will wait and bring Dave home.”
“I hate to leave him alone.”
“I know but it’s a private time. His dad will be here soon.”
“I feel like I’m letting him down.”
“No, no.” Kim patted her arm. “It’s what we need to do right now.”
They found Danny smoking and pacing on a sidewalk at the far edge of the parking lot. He came towards them apologetically. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I couldn’t.”
“I know,” Kim said, “it’s ok.”
“I guess.” He ground out his cigarette on the sidewalk and they walked to his car.
“Do you want me to stay with you?” Isla asked Kim. They drove through empty streets, the lights of town flashing across their faces.
“Do you want to stay?”
“I don’t know.”
“Stay, then. That would be good. It might be a long night.”
And in the middle of it, they knew, or the end of it, or when dawn was stretching across the east, Dave would come home, bereaved, and there would be nothing they could do to heal him, or Lacey, or the world, Isla thought. And yet, being there for each other, brokenly, powerlessly . . . wasn’t nothing. It wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t nothing.
“Are you still sleeping at the studio?” Kim asked Danny, who nodded.
“Oh,” Isla said hesitantly, “why don’t you . . . why don’t you sleep at the house?”
Hope crossed Danny’s face but kept on going by. “I don’t know . . . my stuff is at the studio.”
“There’s a new toothbrush in the linen closet,” Isla said. “You could even wash your clothes for tomorrow if you really want to. No one will be there.” She looked out the window. “Get a good night’s sleep in a real bed.” She glanced at him. How can eyes communicate confusion and hope and fear and concern in a quarter of a second?
“Ok,” he said finally. “It would be good to get a good night’s sleep.”
Kim offered her tea at the house, but the kitchen felt too bright for how they were feeling. “Want to watch something?”
“It’s better than thinking,” Isla said. So they drifted off in front of black and white re-runs, Kim in the recliner and Isla on the couch under fuzzy blankets.
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Dave was in his own world until Dad finally got there and put a hand on his shoulder. He looked up, and then stood up to embrace his father, letting go of Lacey’s hand for the first time since they let him come in.
Then Dad looked into Lacey’s still face for a long moment. He cupped her cheek in his hand. “Child,” he said in his gentle high voice, bending over her, his breath on her. “It’s ok. It’s all ok now. It’s over.” Dave began sobbing audibly, then he pushed the old man.
“It’s not ok,” he said, his face contorted.
“I know,” Dad said, eyes sad, “I know. It’s not ok for you.” He gestured to the nurses’ station to indicate their need for privacy and closed the glass door quickly as Dave’s voice rose.
“I would do anything, anything, if I could stop this from happening. I don’t want this to happen, Dad! I don’t want it!” He put his arms around his son. “I would do anything to keep this from happening! I’d put all of my blood in her veins if I could!”
“She’s gone, son.”
“No.”
“You know she is.”
“No!”
“You know what you have to do.”
“Never. No.”
“Son. Son.” Dad moved his face until Dave’s eyes were forced to meet his. “Son, it doesn’t mean you don’t love her. It means you do.”
“No!” Dave howled in pain. He sat beside Lacey and leaned over her, crying into her chest. “Dad, I would rather do ANYTHING than this. Isn’t there any other way?” Dad put his hand on Dave’s shoulders wordlessly.
Dave cried until he was empty, pulling sobs from the deepest part of his soul. He cried until he slept for a few moments, exhausted. Then he raised his head, bleary-eyed, and said, “I wanted so badly to be what she needed.”
“You were, son. You were.”
Dave’s grief was outside of time. Was it moments or hours of agony before he said in a cracking voice, “But she was what I needed.”
“Son,” Dad said, pausing until Dave looked him in the eye, “she is.”
Next Chapter: A Very Important Person
Copyright 2025 Jennie Robertson