Finding Jaime

Chapter 111

It was Meagan screaming that woke me up. I hadn't even realized I'd fallen asleep. The adrenaline I must have been running on since Jaime was dumped at our doorstep had long run out.

"Jaime! Oh my god! Jaime!" I heard. I sat up to see where the sound was coming from and saw Meagan standing over Jaime. "What did they do to you? Your poor face. Pete, he didn't look this bad last night! What happened?"

I was still trying to wake up. Bleary eyed, I cleared my throat of the sleep that had finally given my racing mind a break.

"Pete," Meagan looked at me with tears streaming down her face. "What happened? Why does he look worse?"

"It's the swelling, the bruises hadn't bloomed yet when we got him. Plus he's had surgery and, and, I don't know," I said, unable to form any more words. "Where are the kids?"

"At home. Brendon and Sarah came to watch them. I couldn't stay away. I had to see. Oh, Pete. He looks terrible. What have the doctors said? Anything?"

"He had surgery last night to remove part of his skull to give his brain room to swell, and to stop some of the bleeding. They're monitoring a bunch of things to see if he's going to need more surgeries. They're worried about his internal organs. There's a lot of bruising on, well, everywhere. His kidneys are their biggest concern right now because it looks like someone took a baseball bat to his back. There's swelling around his spine. He has shattered vertebrae. His pelvis is shattered. His leg is broken, he has skull fractures beyond what they removed. Broken cheekbones, broken arm, broken hand, broken ribs. Everything is, is just broken," I sobbed. "And they can't tell me if he's going to wake up. But Meag, when they check his eyes and reflexes, there's nothing."

Meagan came and sat on my lap, wrapping me in her arms. Both of us sobbed into each other's shoulders.

"Um, hi," a voice interrupted. "I'm sorry. We're here to take Jaime for an MRI and a CT scan."

Two porters and a nurse were standing in the doorway. I nodded, wiping my eyes.

The nurse unhooked what could be unhooked, attached a balloon to Jaime's ventilator tube and used it to deliver oxygenated air to my son, who couldn't breathe on his own. The three of them left Jaime's room pushing his bed through the hallways.

Meagan and I held each other, knowing every minute was critical. Knowing Jaime's life was literally in their hands while they tried to determine the full extent of his injuries.

"Where's the kid?" Joe's voice came through the door.

"Hey Joe," I said. "Thanks for coming by. They just took him for an MRI and a CT scan."

"Ah," Joe said, pulling a chair into the room and coming over to give Meagan and I hugs. "What happened?"

"Jaime went to visit with some friends last night, fuck, was it really just last night?" I wondered. "Anyway, around eight, he called, or rather, someone called from his phone, and we could hear noise outside. We found Jaime at the bottom of the driveway, beaten to a bloody pulp."

Tears renewed their march out of my eyes and down my cheeks.

"Have they told you anything?" Joe asked.

"Nothing useful. No," I said, miserably.

Joe nodded and then just sat and waited with us.

Jaime was brought back a couple of hours later. Joe had gone to get us coffee and the three of us were waiting in Jaime's room when he returned.

"Holy fuck," Joe said when he saw Jaime.

The nurse hooked him back up to his monitors and ventilator, checked that everything was running as it should be. She checked his swollen, bruised eyes, the whites of his eyes, an angry red from the broken blood vessels from whatever had been used to hit him in the face and eyes.

Nothing. His eyes stared straight ahead. No spark. No sign he was aware of anything. Meagan turned her face into my chest.

Once Jaime was resettled in bed, and the porters and nurse left, Joe got up and went over to my son.

"Hey, Jaime, you gotta wake up bud. Your dad's having a cow worrying about you. Show him he's got nothing to worry about, huh?" 

Jaime didn't react.

"That fucking little shit," I said as I looked out the door from Jaime's ICU bed to the kid coming down the hallway. Justin. The little shit who delivered pizza to our house. Who drove the car from which Jaime's broken body had been dumped at the foot of our driveway.

"Pete," Meagan said, putting her hand on my arm as I got up.

"No, Meagan. That little shit is one of the reasons Jaime's here. He's why Jaime looks like he does. He could be one of the reasons I leave here without my son!" I cried.

I turned away from Meagan and stormed towards the doorway.

"Don't you take another fucking step," I said to the boy. "Don't come any fucking closer. You've done enough, don't you think?"

"I," he started.

"I don't fucking want to hear it. Turn yourself around and get the fuck away from my son," I said.

A man in a suit beside Justin stepped forward and extended his hand.

"Mr. Wentz, I'm Rory Fairfax. Justin's legal counsel."

"Then even you should know he shouldn't be here!" I exclaimed.

"Mr. Wentz, Justin has come to apologize. And it was felt that perhaps he ought to see what exactly he participated in.  What your son had endured is unimaginable and we felt maybe Justin would understand the gravity of what he's participated in if he saw the results of it."

Justin's face paled when he saw what Jaime looked like.

"The results of it? My son is in a coma!" I shouted. "They don't know if he's going to survive and they don't know if he'll ever wake up, if he does survive. And if he does wake up, they don't know if he'll even have any quality of life. Your client might have killed my son! And while he's here, walking around, my son is clinging to life by a thread! Do you understand what that means?"

I screamed at the boy.

The lawyer apologized again and bundled Justin off and away. I was seething. I wanted to punch someone. I wanted to scream. I wanted to run as far as I could, scream into the void.

I wanted my son back.