Chapter 8
Jo watched the hospital staff wheel her mom into a trauma room. She didn’t realize she was screaming, “Mom! Mom!” over and over again, until Alex gently shook her.
“Jo, come on, snap out of it. Let’s go see what’s wrong.”
They went down the hall towards the room Jo’s mom was in, and stopped outside the curtain. It was drawn open, and they could see people working on the precious woman. Jo sobbed as she stood watching. One of the nurses looked up and saw her, and asked another nurse if the girl was related. The paramedic who was still with them responded for the nurse that the only identification they had found in the wreckage was the registration for the vehicle with Linda Becker’s name on it. They hadn’t found a purse or wallet, yet, or a cell phone. They did not yet know whom to call to contact the family.
The nurse realized, from seeing grieving family members day in and day out, that the young girl crying ten feet away had to be related, probably a daughter. She got the paramedic’s attention and motioned to the girl. “I would guess that there is your relative.”
The paramedic left the room and led the girls down the hall a short ways. “Is Linda Becker your mom?” He asked of Jo, since she was crying harder than Alex was. Jo nodded yes. “How did you know she was here? Did someone call you?” Jo nodded yes again. The paramedic looked stumped.
“Can you tell us what happened?” Alex asked. She didn’t think Jo was able to ask any questions, but knew Jo would want to know.
“Your mom was stopped at a red light. Once the light turned green, she started going, and a drunk driver going the opposite direction decided he didn’t care to stop for lights. He hit her driver’s door going about seventy miles per hour, we estimated. He broke a collarbone, and got a lot of cuts, but otherwise he is fine. He is in the jail hospital. He is being charged with reckless driving, driving under the influence, failure to yield, and a lot of other traffic offenses, and waiting to see how your mother fares before those charges are added. If she recovers he will most likely receive a gross negligence charge. If she doesn’t he will most definitely serve several years in prison. The police officer that booked him was extremely angry. Officer Peters watched as we used the Jaws of Life to rescue your mom. The car was mangled, very badly. I honestly don’t see how your mom survived the crash. And I hate for you to get your hopes up now. She is very badly hurt.”
The tears were running down Jo’s cheeks. She had quieted down, to hear what the paramedic was telling her. It was hard to stop crying, she realized. She felt like her heart was breaking inside her chest. It hurt to breathe, it hurt to stand, and it hurt most of all to hear of the pain and agony her mom was enduring.
“Who called us to tell us to come here?” she heard Alex ask. “We would like to thank him.”
“I don’t know,” was the bewildered response the paramedic gave. “I would have called if I had known who to contact. Most of the time we find a cell phone in the vehicle, and choose the top few speed dial numbers, but in the flattened car, we couldn’t find one.”
“It would have been in her purse,” Jo spoke up for the first time. “She always puts it in there.”
“We didn’t find her purse, yet, either. When did you get the call?”
“At least fifteen minutes before you got here. In fact, we were leaving. The lady at the front desk had no record of a ‘Linda Becker’, and she even checked the other hospital. We assumed it was a really mean crank call, and were leaving when we saw you come in with her,” Alex explained.
“So someone called you about thirty minutes ago?”
Alex looked at her watch. “Yes, that seems about right.”
“That was right when the accident happened. Maybe one of the witnesses knew you or your mom?” He asked Jo.
Alex answered for her. “The man we spoke with didn’t give a name. He told Jo first, then I took the phone and he repeated what he told her, that there had been an accident, and her mom would be coming to this hospital, so we came.”
“I don’t understand,” replied the puzzled man. “That couldn’t have been more than a minute or two after the accident. I hadn’t even arrived with the ambulance yet.”
Alex shrugged, and then pulled Jo back toward the waiting room. The sobbing, stunned girl numbly followed. When they reached the lobby, the clerk who had so patiently helped them earlier, came over to them.
“I’m so sorry about the mix-up. I don’t get the names of the patients until they come in. I’m so sorry I made you think it hadn’t happened. Please, if you can, I need some information about Mrs. Becker.”
The lady led the girls to a small cubicle where she asked history information. Jo was in shock, and couldn’t speak. Alex guessed at most of the questions, as best she could.
When the clerk was finished questioning them they headed back into the hallway toward the trauma room, but were met by one of the doctors they had seen working on Jo’s mother. He wanted to update them. He spoke directly to Jo.
“Your mother has sustained massive internal injuries. Those are bad enough, but she has also received a lot of head trauma. The car she was in was old?” he asked. Jo nodded. “There wouldn’t have been an air bag to cushion her head, then. That explains most of the head injury. We are going to need to do surgery to relieve some of the pressure on her brain. I will be back out in a few hours to let you know how it went.” He turned around and left.
Alex led Jo to the emergency room lobby once more. A short while later, a nurse came and quietly told Alex that there was a special room for family of surgery patients in another part of the hospital. It was much quieter than the ER waiting room, and she would take them there, if they wished. Alex looked at Jo, who stared back blankly. Though she had stopped crying, she was still in shock, and couldn’t decide anything. Alex thanked the nurse, and asked her to lead the way.
Once Jo was settled in the surgery waiting room, Alex called her parents who would be worried by this time. It was nearing eleven o’clock, and Alex had been due home for at least an hour. Alex told her parents over her cell phone what had happened, and where she was. They were concerned for Jo, and agreed Alex needed to stay with her friend. They asked if Charlie was with them too, and Alex reminded them that Charlie and her family had left for New York that morning.
“You need to call Charlie and let her know, Alex,” Kendra Turner wisely recommended. “If you were gone, and Jo was going through this, you would be livid when you found out that they didn’t tell you.”
“I guess you are right. I just figured there was nothing Charlie could do from New York.”
“She can support her friend, Alex. That’s all Jo needs right now, anyway.”
Alex spoke with her parents a few minutes longer then hung up. They were coming to the hospital to be with the girls. They had known Jo and her mother for many years, and felt Jo could use their presence. Meanwhile, Alex called Charlie. She knew it was almost two o’clock in the morning where Charlie was, but her mom was right. Charlie needed to know.
Charlie’s cell phone rang five times and went to voice mail. Alex left a message, “Charlie, its Alex. Call me. It’s important.” She hung up and waited three minutes. Then she called again. This time, on the fourth ring, a groggy Charlie answered the phone.
“Alex, it’s really, really late. Did you forget there’s a time difference here?”
“Charlie, listen to me. Something happened.” Alex could hear rustling over the cell phone and, then a thump. Silence for a moment, then the phone was picked up again. Charlie had dropped it, it seemed.
“Alex, sorry, I was trying to sit up and I’m not familiar with this motel bed. What’s going on, what happened?”
Alex took a deep breath. “Jo’s mom was in a car accident. It’s bad. They don’t know if she will make it.”
“Oh, no!” Charlie gasped. “What happened?”
Alex briefly explained the accident, trying to keep her tears from flowing.
“Oh, why did it have to happen to Linda? Why do all the good people in the world get hurt? Why couldn’t the drunk have gotten the bad injuries and Jo’s mom only the superficial ones? It’s not fair.” Charlie was quietly sobbing. She and Alex both loved Jo’s mom. “Thanks for calling, Alex. I’m going to wake Daddy up and get home as soon as I can. Stay with Jo at all times, okay?”
“As if I would leave her? Come on, Charlie, you know me better than that.”
“Yes, I know. Tell Jo I will be there as soon as I can,” Charlie said as she hung up.
The next hours were tense. Jo hadn’t spoken a word, but Alex knew she had to be in shock. Alex mourned for the agony her friend was enduring, as well as for the friend she herself was losing. Jo had no other family other than her mom, unless, of course, you counted the mystery grandparents that may or may not still be alive, and didn’t even know Jo existed. Alex brought Jo hot chocolate, and sodas, and snacks from the vending machine, doing anything she could to help Jo. Sometimes, Jo ate, other times, she declined the offering. The Turners had been with them since Alex called them. They were a silent sense of security to Jo, and Alex was grateful for their presence as well. Jo had given them a watery, tearful smile when they first got there, but hadn’t even looked at them since.
About an hour after Alex had called Charlie, Alex’s cell phone rang. Charlie and her family were booked on a flight leaving New York in a few hours but wouldn’t arrive home until late in the afternoon. They had decided to all come home to be with Jo. As with Alex’s family, the Allens loved Jo, too, and honored her mother. They had always been amazed that Jo was such a well-balanced girl with her mom being a working, single parent. They honored Linda Becker for her accomplishment, and wanted to be with Jo in her time of need, just as the Turners had. So the whole family was coming home as fast as they could.
Around one o’clock in the morning one of the doctors came into the waiting room, still in his surgical garb, and informed Jo and her friends that the surgery had gone well, and the swelling on the brain was going down. That was as much as could be expected this early. He would come back later and give them an update, he told them. Grateful tears slipped down her face as Jo smiled and thanked him.
A short while later a different doctor came into the room, in a rush. He told Jo that her mom had gone into cardiac arrest, most likely from the injuries her body had sustained, and though they had gotten her heart going again, her mom was no longer breathing on her own, a machine was breathing for her, but she was stabilizing. Jo was devastated. The tears flowed freely as she dropped her head and began weeping once again. She thought she had cried all the tears she had left, but she was wrong. Alex sat next to her, silently crying with her, rubbing her shoulders. Alex was beginning to lose her strength in light of the new information. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could be strong for her friend, and looked toward her parents across the room. Her mother saw her look, the fear in Alex’s face, and mouthed the words, “You can do it,” to Alex. Alex slowly nodded her head. Yes, she could be there for Jo. Later, Alex could mourn for her second mother. Right now, she needed to be strong for Jo.
A nurse came in a later, and asked Jo if she would like to sit with her mother. Jo jumped up, ready to go, and grabbed Alex’s hand. “I need Alex too, okay?” The nurse nodded, and led them to an isolated room. Jo went in and saw her mother with tubes coming out of her nose, mouth, and chest. Her mother’s long hair was gone, replaced by a hat of gauze. There were cuts all over her mom’s arms and face. Some of them had stitches in them. Weeping silently, Jo sat down in a chair near her mother’s head, and tried to find her mother’s hand in the jumble of wires and tubes surrounding the bed. She sat there, tears streaming down her face, holding her mother’s hand. Alex cried with her from a chair on the other side of the bed.
Jo wondered if today was the last day she would have with her beloved mother. She gently touched the wounded face with the back of her hand. Tears welled up in her eyes again and again and spilled down her cheeks as she watched her mother and prayed for some sign of life. The nurse let them stay for about ten minutes, and then told them it was time to go. Jo leaned over and kissed her mom on the cheek, and they went back to the waiting room. When they arrived, Alex’s mom asked how Jo’s mom was doing, and Alex tearfully told them everything she could remember about the room, the tubes, and the wires. Jo sat on a couch and stared at the wall, trying hard not to hear.
Outside in the hallway, the doctor who they had seen last rushed by. She heard some alarm going off behind the closed doors of the nearby section where her mom was, but tried not to worry. There were a lot of people in there besides her mom; maybe someone else was having a problem. She hoped it wasn’t her mother.
She looked at the clock on the wall; it read two thirty-seven. No wonder she was tired. She decided to stretch out on the waiting room couch. She was exhausted from crying, and worrying, and being up late. Using the arm of the couch for a pillow, she closed her eyes and tried to rest.
Alex sat in a chair watching her friend. She felt so bad for Jo. This was the worst thing that could happen to her friend. If her mom died, she would be all alone in the world. Jo hadn’t yet gotten a job. And there was no way to get to a job, now that there was no car. Always the practical one, Alex tried to imagine what to do with Jo, if her wonderful mother didn’t survive, but she came up empty. Jo would be devastated, she knew, so would she. And she had no idea what to say to her. While Jo was resting, Alex slipped over to where her mom and dad were quietly talking, across the room.
“Mom, Dad, I want Jo to come live with us. We can put another bed in my room. She has no one, Mom, you know that. And even if her mom survives, I’ve seen her. She will be in here for months. Jo can’t live alone way out there in that trailer park. There’s no transportation from there, anyway. The city bus doesn’t go out that far. She’s like a sister to me. I want her to come live with us,” she pleaded.
Kendra nodded solemnly. “Alex, honey, your dad and I were just discussing that very thing. We already talked about pulling the twin bed out of storage, and making you share. I’m glad you want that, too. I know that if it were us lying in a hospital bed, Linda would have taken you in an instant. So yes, I agree. Jo comes home with us.” Alex somberly smiled, relieved that her parents had agreed so easily. Alex hugged her parents and went back to sit down across from Jo, to continue her faithful vigilance at the hurting friend’s side.
Alex had just sat back down across from Jo, watching over her, when both of the doctors who had worked on the precious mother came into the room. Their faces were grim. It didn’t look good. Alex got up and went over to the couch, and sat next to Jo, gently shaking her awake. It had only been a few minutes since she had stretched out. “Jo, the doctors are here.”
Jo sat up, and looked at the doctors. Fear settled in her face as she saw their countenance. “What’s wrong?”
“Miss Becker, we are very sorry. We have done all we can do for your mother. She is rapidly declining. Between the blood loss, the internal injuries, and the head trauma, your mother cannot survive. She has had yet another heart attack, and now the swelling is increasing in her cranium again. She is being kept alive by machines, but there is not a chance she will ever recover from this.” Jo was weeping as she listened. She assumed they were done when they quit talking, but they continued to stand there. She looked up at them.
“Is there more? What is it?”
One of the doctors looked at the other. The second one nodded, and the first doctor gave a really big sigh. Then he spoke. “What I’m about to say is going to be really hard to hear.” Alex grabbed Jo’s hand, and squeezed it, letting Jo know she was there. “You mom sustained a lot of injury, as you know, but her liver and kidneys somehow escaped damage. I’m not sure if you had ever discussed with your mom about her wishes to be a donor or not. However, her blood type makes her a perfect candidate for organ donation. And we would like your consent to help your mom save other people’s lives, since she cannot save her own.”
“I don’t understand. My mom is still alive, and you want her organs?”
“Miss Becker, please understand. If there were any hope for your mother at all we wouldn’t be here asking you this. I realize it’s hard to hear, but your mother is dying. She may live for a week on the machines, but it might be less. Each day that the machines keep her alive, her good organs will become weaker. I know this is a hard decision, but she cannot make it herself, so she needs someone who can legally decide for her.” He stopped and looked at her, realizing how young she was. “You are eighteen, aren’t you? I didn’t think to ask you that.”
Jo looked up startled. “No, I’m seventeen. My birthday is tomorrow.” As she spoke the words out loud, she realized what she was saying. She dropped her head into her hands and began weeping. Between sobs, they heard her mumbling softly to herself, “Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday to me.” The doctors looked puzzled.
“Today is her birthday,” Alex explained. “Today is her eighteenth birthday.
The doctors sympathized with Jo, but knew there was nothing that could be done. “I am sorry you have to bear this, but you are legally responsible to make the decision for your mother unless there is another relative. Does she have a sister, or maybe a parent still alive?” one of the doctors asked hopefully.
Jo shook her head. “No, I am all she has. And she is all I have. Can I spend some time with her, please?”
The doctors led the sobbing girl to her mother’s room once again. Jo searched her precious mother’s face for any sign of life; a smile, a movement, a rising of her eyebrows. She watched for anything that would indicate to Jo that her mom was still in there somewhere. Then she wept silently as she held her mother’s hand, noticing that her mother was even paler than she had been an hour ago when Jo saw her.
“What would you do, Mom?” she asked the silent form on the bed. “What would you tell me to do if you could talk to me? I don’t want to be alone. Mom, I’m not ready to be on my own. Please, Mom. Please. ” There was no response from the mother. Jo rubbed her mother’s arm, and kissed her hand. She stroked the beloved cheek of the woman who had always been there for her. And she wept. “Mom, I don’t want to decide this. Mom, please just wake up. I can’t let them kill you.”
Suddenly an alarm sounded from the machines surrounding her mother. Several people rushed in, and pushed Jo aside, working on the still form on the bed. Jo stood at the back of the room, silently crying, and watching. The two doctors were there, and a different one she hadn’t seen before, as well as two or three nurses. They pushed on her mom’s chest, and put some electrical paddles on her body. She saw her mom’s body rise up off the bed, and fall back again through her tears. And she knew this was the end.
“Time of death, 3:43 a.m.,” one of the doctors said. No one noticed her standing there. They slowly left, one by one. She went back and sat beside her mother. One of the nurses had removed most of the tubes, and she could see her mother’s dear face. She laid her head on her mother’s still frame, and let her tears flow. It wasn’t long before she realized someone was in the room with her. It was one of the doctors who had approached her in the waiting room.
“I am very sorry to have to ask you this, but there isn’t much time. Your mother is gone; she doesn’t need her body anymore. As a legal adult, and her only living relative, I am asking for your consent to help your mom save someone else’s life. Please, Miss Becker, do it for your mother.”
Jo realized helping someone else is what her mom would want to do. And she was overwhelming relieved that she didn’t have to let them kill her mother, as well. Her mother had made that decision herself, and Jo loved her for that. Therefore, the very first legal decision Jo made as an adult was there, in that hospital room, when she nodded to the doctor, and allowed her mother to be wheeled away to another room somewhere, to save someone else’s life.
There were a few papers she had to sign. She had never considered her signature before, and it was still very childish, the way she put her name down on the documents they handed her. What a silly thing to think about, she chastised herself, when your mother just died, but she was too tired, too grief-stricken, too numb, to function much longer. Finally, after the last document was signed, she asked Alex if she would take her home.
“You are coming home with me, Jo. I talked to my mom and dad, and you are coming to live with me, until you are ready to move out. They were all for it, so you don’t have to think I pressured them. They love you as much as I do, and want you to stay with us. And we won’t take no for an answer.” Alex smiled at Jo, and they hugged.
Jo was grateful for the love and support, as she leaned on Alex and whispered, “Thank you,” into Alex ear. Jo walked over to Sam and Kendra and gave them hugs, and told them she appreciated them more than they could know.
Kendra held her and patted her back, and said, “We will see you girls at the house.” Then she and Sam left for home, and bed.
Alex gathered up the paperwork the hospital had given Jo, and the other things Jo had brought in with her. The photos and important papers Jo had unwittingly brought to the hospital were safe and sound in Alex’s purse where she had put them. Alex put her arm around Jo, and led her outside. It had been a little over six hours since the dreaded phone call. A lot can happen in six hours, Alex thought.
“I know it’s late, but can we go by my house, to get some clothes before we go to your place?” Jo asked as they got into Alex’s car. “And my pillow. I need my pillow.”
“Sure,” Alex replied and backed out of the parking space, heading toward Jo’s house.
The ride was a silent one. Both girls were emotionally and physically exhausted. It had been a long night. Jo l