Daron's Guitar Chronicles Volume 12

1037 House of Pain

House of Pain

The next several days are kind of a blur in my memory. There was a lot of sitting around, waiting for news. Waiting for the results of various tests. Waiting for a doctor to come talk to us. Waiting to see how she would respond to medicine or treatment.

Waiting to know what to feel.

She was thirsty a lot of the time, that much I remember. And she was asleep a lot, too.

I do remember at one point, when she still wasn't allowed to drink, and her tongue and mouth were too dry to talk, she waved a hand toward us. You could tell the difference between the wave that meant yes and the wave that meant no. She wanted me to hold her hand. So I stood at the side of her bed and held her hand.

This happened more than once, but later, when she could talk, she would actually call my name. Quietly. Like she didn't have the strength to call it out. But no matter how softly she said it, I could hear it. We could all be sitting along the wall of her room, in a row of identical chairs, reading newspapers or books or whatever, and she'd wake up from a nap and just say "Daron" and I'd go hold her hand.

One time she almost apologized for it. She patted our clasped hands with her other one and said, "It's just I feel so much better when you're holding it."

"I know what you mean. When I was in the hospital after the explosion, with the bandage over my eye–" I covered my eye with my free hand. "–Ziggy came and held my hand and it was like the second he touched me, I felt better." I might have been mixing up one hospital visit with another but the sentiment was still true.

"Amazing, isn't it?" She smiled at me and her lip cracked but she didn't seem to feel it.

Eventually they cleared her to have a chip of ice every few minutes, so if she wanted one, I'd slip an ice chip into her mouth from a Dixie cup on a rolling table next to me. I could do that with my free hand without letting go of hers.

At some point the nurses showed me I could lower her whole bed and sit next to her instead of standing the whole time.

I remember getting hungry and ignoring it because really, what was hunger compared to what she was feeling? The rest of them went off to find food while I stayed put. When they came back, Remo took my place in the chair by the bed and I went out in the to hallway and wolfed down a burger that Courtney had brought for me in a take-out bag. The reason I remember it is because at the time I don't think I'd ever had a more delicious burger in my life. Juicy and thick and salty. I truly appreciated it.

One time I couldn't hold her hand, though, was while she was getting a CT scan, so that's when Remo and I had it out. You knew that was coming, right?

We were hanging around the outside of the hospital, outside a doorway where people would duck out to smoke, except neither of us smoked. There were some bushes hemmed in by low, slate-topped retaining walls, where you could sit if you didn't mind sitting on something as hard as a rock (because it was a rock).

The weather had decided to go back to summer-like, at least in this part of the day, and Remo rolled up his sleeves as he paced back and forth. I sat on the wall.

I opened the subject by saying, "Court's gotta go back. She's finishing her last semester, you know?"

"Already?"

"Yeah, she applied previous credits or something and she's done with her requirements, so as long as she finishes her thesis, she'll get her diploma this May."

"That's next month," Remo said.

"I know. Which is why she's gotta go." I really didn't want her to. I felt kind of like while I was holding Claire's hand, Court was metaphorically holding my other one. If she left, it'd be just me and Remo, because Flip was about to leave, too.