Kelly couldn't breathe. She had collapsed on a chair. She could barely call Steve to get picked up. She couldn't have driven to the Memorial Hospital. Her vision was clouded. Weak arms.
When Steve arrived he found her in a confused state.
"Come on Kelly, we have to go, you'll see they're fine."
Steve didn't know what to say to her but he knew he had to keep that minimum of strength for him too that could be enough for both of them. He knew he had to warn Brenda and Dylan. He knew that from that moment a chain of phone calls would stretch and reach everyone. Everyone who needed to know. He thought of Cindy and Jim who was already on the way to the hospital. She warned Donna to pick up Grace from school. Grace didn't know anything and shouldn't have known anything until her mother found the courage to talk to her.
Andrea had talked about desperate conditions for Brandon and serious conditions for Samuel. It seemed like Brandon had picked up Samuel from school early, Mrs. Miller had mentioned something, something like disciplinary issues. Then Brandon had lost control of the vehicle. That was all the information they possessed.
Kelly totally leaned on Steve to walk. She looked like a little girl in the hands of a giant.
When they arrived at the hospital Andrea was waiting for them at the entrance to the emergency room.
Andrea's face was devastated. She hadn't managed to get into the surgery room with Brandon or Samuel. She couldn't see. She hadn't been strong enough. Being a doctor didn't help her because she knew the meaning of every gesture, every attempt, every word, she knew its despair.
Kelly would approach and look Andrea in the eye. She feared what she would say. She was afraid of being told that her husband and son were gone. Her mind couldn't hold a thought together. Nothing to build a reaction on.
"Kel.." sighed Andrea whose heart was breaking..
"What happened?" He managed to say Steve.
"They had a bad car accident, Samuel has a broken leg and some bruises, right now he's in the operating room but he's not life-threatening, his seat belt and air bag protected him."
Kelly didn't say a single word, she just looked at her as if what Andrea was telling her was in an incomprehensible foreign language.
"What about Brandon?" Steve asked.
Andrea lowered her eyes. Her breath became frantic.
"Brandon is in a very critica l'al condition, he has suffered various fractures but he has hit his head, he has a cerebral haemorergy that is compressing his brain. He is in the surgery room, neurosurgeons are doing everything they can"
Kelly didn't withstand all that pressure and fainted supported by Steve who grabbed her on the fly. Some nurses called by Andrea lay Kelly on a cot, vital signs were checked and an IV was inserted to get her back.
At that moment Dylan and Brenda arrived along with Cindy and Jim. Andrea had to repeat the sad announcement and realised how everything was unreal for her too.
"I think Samuel will be out of the surgery room soon, about Brandon I'm afraid it will take a few more hours."
Brenda sat down and collapsed instantly supported by Dylan.
"My necklace broke today," Brenda whispered to Dylan.
"What?"
"Do you remember that necklace Brandon gave me for my birthday? Our birthday...The one with the tree of life?"
Dylan nodded "yeah.."
"It broke today. Suddenly, it fell in my hands." Brenda put a hand in her pocket and pulled out the broken necklace.
Dylan took the broken jewellery in his hands, and kissed his wife on the forehead. The pain was also his.
Kelly recovered after a few minutes and found Brenda next to her. Her sister-in-law's gaze immediately reminded her that Kelly was in the hospital.
She tried to get up.
"I want to see my son and my husband" Kelly began to repeat it several times and with an increasingly high tone.
From the state of weakness and apathy in which she had received the news, she went on to the agitation and urgency of seeing her son and husband. Brenda and Dylan struggled to keep her still.
"Kelly, please, now you can't see them," Dylan whispered to her heartbroken.
Cindy, on the other hand, had remained in Jim's arms. She knew her son and knew he wouldn't give up, she knew she would stay with them, Brandon wouldn't let anything happen to him. She repeated it in her head like a mantra, a mantra she clung to desperately.
Andrea looked out again after about two hours. Kelly was rocking obsessively in a chair. She didn't want anyone next to her. She was there alone under the sad and worried gaze of everyone.
"Samuel came out of the surgery, we have to wait for him to wake up" said Andrea "but if you want to see him ..." she said.
The absence of news about Brandon on the other hand was a pain that sewn their souls one by one, slowly.
'Brandon?' Dylan asked softly.
Andrea took him aside.
"Things aren't going well Dylan, I don't know how to tell her." She said watching Kelly.
Dylan nodded and closed his eyes. He prayed, as he had not done in many years, opened his eyes and saw Kelly accompanied by Andrea and Steve getting up to go see Samuel, Jim and Cindy who seemed to him very small and curled up in a single wrap while Brenda looked at him. She knew Dylan was aware of something that would break her heart. She looked at him and begged him not to say those words.
Kelly walked into the semi-intensive care room where Samuel was. Andrea accompanied her by supporting her with one arm around her waist.
Samuel's sight was hard for Kelly to bear. The leg had been plastered, he had some bruises on the face and a cut on the forehead at the height of the eyebrow.
"Intensive care is just precautionary," Andrea whispered to her, "the leg will take a while to heal but otherwise I think we can be optimistic. Breathe independently but vital functions are stable. The guard rail hit the left side of the car.
"How soon will he wake up?" Whispered Kelly.
"Difficult to make a prediction," replied Andrea, "depends on how he reacts to anaesthesia, 12 hours at most 24."
"Dose he have pain?" Asked Kelly.
"No. Not now. When he wakes up he will probably feel pain in his leg."
Kelly nodded and went to sit next to Samuel, stroking his hair.
The nurse approached Andrea, gave her a brief nod, and Andrea followed her outside leaving Kelly with her son:
"Dr. Zuckermann there are the boy's exams" she handed her some papers that Andrea read carefully and then breathed a long sigh.
In the waiting room of the surgery had now all arrived with the exception of Donna and Clare who had divided the task of going to pick up the kids.
Valerie was a mask of concern, Brandon was really like a brother to her, and she knew she had often been unfair, exaggerated, but he had always protected her even when she deserved it less.
She was sitting next to Cindy to give her a comfort that she knew she didn't even have for her, when Andrea entered everyone looked at her with an aura of concern, with a thirst for news.
"There's no news, I'm sorry," she said then turned only to Brenda and Dylan.
"There would be insurance forms to fill out, Kelly right now is not able.. you want."
"I'll take care of it," said Dylan who knew his wife very well and knew that at that time she was a person halfway unable to queue numbers and thoughts.
Andrea took Dylan to a private room.
"You can fill it out here, and then I'll take it all to Kelly to sign," Andrea said but Dylan stopped her by the same arm just as she was walking away.
""Tell me the truth Andrea.." Dylan's eyes were asking for the grace of good news, he wasn't ready to lose his brother, he would never be ready.
"We're not ready for the truth Dylan.."
Dylan's eyes filled with tears to such an extent that Andrea felt compelled to hug him tightly so as not to slip away too.
"I have Brandon and Samuel's toxicology exams," she said, breaking the hug.
Dylan looked at her bewildered.
"Brandon is negative but Samuel is positive about cannabis and alcohol.. and I don't know how to tell Kelly, I don't know how much this has to do with the incident."
"But he was driving Brandon..." Dylan whispered.
"Yes, the police said this, that the firefighters pulled Brandon out of the driver's seat.. but imagine what may have happened inside that car, I don't know how to tell Kelly..."
"Don't tell her now.. " suggested Dylan "we'll find a way.."
Andrea nodded.
"I'm going to check how Brandon is doing and Samuel's condition"
Andrea took Dylan's face in his hands.
"We don't have to give up now, or they're all going to fall down, do you understand Dylan?"
'Yes..' Dylan made a faint nod "I understand.."
Valerie found the courage to go to Samuel's room. She saw Kelly holding his hand, her eyes lost.
'Kel?' Valerie called her softly and she turned to look at her.
"Can I bring you something Kelly?"
Kelly shook her head "no thank you"
Valerie gently laid a hand on Kelly's shoulder, a tender affection that was unknown to them but Kelly needed support. She raised her hand and touched Valerie's.
"I can't get up from here and go there to wait with you for Brandon ," Kelly whispered, "because I'm afraid they'll tell me Brandon is gone, that he's dead," Kelly began to cry and Valerie with her. She could have told her she was sure he would make it but she wasn't sure either.
"If he dies i'll die with him," Kelly said in tears.
Valerie closed her eyes, she knew Kelly was telling the truth, she could feel it in that faint contact between their two hands.
Kelly rested her head on Valerie's belly without any Defence and broke down and Valerie welcomed her with all the love she could, which she often kept hidden especially from Kelly, yet she was there, there was that love for life and family that had been given to her as a gift.
XX
Donna waited for Grace to leave school, she couldn't keep her eyes dry because of the pain that that little girl would definitely read in her face, she would ask about her mother, her father, her brother and she wouldn't understand, she would ask questions, Donna was not able to lie and she certainly wasn't able to lie to the children. Ethan came out just before Grace and read his mother's feelings straight to his face.
"Have you had a fight with dad?" He asked her, raising his eyebrow. Donna couldn't hold back her tears and hugged her son tightly. In despair. As if he too could slip away at any time.
She tried to explain how she could to Ethan what had happened and that they had to take Grace with them, maybe take her to eat ice cream or something.
Ethan was an extremely sensitive child, he understood what little his mother had explained to him and what she had not explained he could read in her heart.
They waited together for Grace who came out of school smiling, stopped by the school gate waiting for her father. She looked around without turning off her smile.
Donna breathed a heavy sigh "Let's go Ethan" she told her son but she didn't even know where exactly she was going.
XX
Blanca was the first to know about Samuel and her uncle Brandon's accident. She had seen her mother receive the phone call and collapse into a desperate cry. She had seen her father support her, she had asked to be able to go with them, to the hospital, to be with Samuel, to tell him everything she could no longer tell him but her parents had forced him to stay at home to wait for the twins who would come back with Clare.
Blanca was holding her cell phone. She felt desperate. She thought of all the time she waisted, locked in her room, her stupid doubts that they would not once grab her.
She searched the only number he obsessively thought of.
At the third ring his voice came out and cracked a crack of light.
'Blanca?'
"Nate..." Blanca's voice had broken, she hadn't managed to reach a single semblance of strength.
"Hey baby, what happened?" Asked Nate worried ..
"Samuel..." Blanca told him the few things she knew, that his uncle was in desperate condition, that Samuel was in semi-intensive care.
To Nate it seemed like some kind of nightmare. Sammy came to his mind a few hours earlier. Behind him and his anger. Nate tried to go even further back with his mind, dinner at the Walsh house, Samuel's father's smile, that balance that also belonged to him since he was a child, since he and Samuel had decided to be brothers and then suddenly they were no longer.
XX
The police walkes in the waiting room. Steve, David and Dylan tried to intercept them before they approached Kelly, Brenda or the Walsh, so the police were content to talk to Dylan as the victims' brother-in-law and uncle.
Steve and David escorted him as guardian angels. Brandon's soul guards.
"Mr. McKay, Mr. Walsh suddenly lost control of the vehicle, witnesses saw him skidding for no reason and impacting the guard rail. We can't understand the reason for a dynamic like this. Maybe a technical failure, maybe a Mr. Walsh's illness. Did he have any other accidents?"
"No," Dylan shook his head.
The policeman opened the notebook "there is a drunk driving accident ..
"Jesus he was only 16 years old," Steve blurted out.
The cop looked at him crookedly for a moment and started talking to Dylan "we realise the moment but we need to talk to the boy as soon as possible" he said.
Dylan nodded.
Dylan needed it too, He went to sit next to Brenda.
The surgeon walked out. He took off his mask and looked at those faces dazed by hope and waiting.
They were always different faces but somehow they were all the same. The same pain. The same halo of those who can collapse from one minute to the next.
"Mrs. Walsh?" He asked looking around.
Both Cindy and Kelly replied "it's me" and it was true, they both were.
Andrea approached and glanced at Dylan for that recent pact to stand up.
Kelly was holding on to Brenda.
"Mrs. Walsh, your husband is in critical conditions. The haematoma in the brain is not decompressing as we hoped this led it to a state of coma that at this time we do not know when it will melt. Unfortunately, the conditions are desperate. Your husband is intubated, sedated. We have to wait for the next 48 hours and see how to proceed. We have been trying to support him all the time but his physique is exhausted from his injuries, he needs much more time. We will take him to intensive care by Dr. Zuckermann and then we will see the situation evolve."
Kelly had listened to the whole explanation without understanding anything, all Kelly could see in front of her was Brandon's blue eyes staring at her, his mouth kissing her, his hands stroking her hair, the morning sun in the kitchen. His smile. She thought the last thing Brandon saw about her was her angry face. They had argued the last time they saw each other. They had promised never to do that, never to go away angry or divided.
How could she have allowed it.
It was like a parallel world. She no longer felt anything of what the doctor was saying. Kelly swung her eyes on the faces around her. Brenda. Cindy.
She had to go to Samuel's.
Steve.
Valerie.
He had to go to Brandon's.
David.
Dylan.
Andrea.
"Did you understand Mrs. Walsh?have you any questiona?
Kelly nodded.
"Can I see my husband?" She asked weakly.
Everyone would have liked to see him.
XX
Kelly and Brenda wore the sterile gown and gloves. They could only have seen him from behind a glass and for a few minutes. As they advanced through the corridors, they both felt loudly the smell of medicines and heard the noise of machines with the vital signs of those who remained clinging to life. Even for a thread. A very thin thread. Like Brandon.
He appeared behind a glass. The face was unrecognisable. Tumsified. The swollen eyes, the tube entering the throat. Brenda looked at her breathing. Brandon's chest rising and falling at a soldier's pace.
The head was bandaged. Swelling eyes, blue.
The immobile body. Brandon was naked under the sheets. Brenda was sure he would hate It.
Kelly put a hand on the glass. That wasn't her husband, it wasn't Brandon.
Again the images of him came back to her, in Washington when he found her in the snow, she could even hear his voice "Kelly what are you doing here?", she saw Brandon's face when he found out he was going to become a father, Brandon looking at her from the back of the classrooms while she was teaching, waiting for her at the altar, at the beach She could even smell him.
Kelly felt vital signs of the medical device but the terror that he was no longer there created a huge hole in her heart, in which she felt like she was dying. And maybe she was the one who died, not Brandon, and that was her circle of hell.
She felt her legs give way to her and clung to Brenda.
"Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo" cried Kelly, bowing to her own pain.
