Little
Charlie is asleep now, finally, and I have some time to write. In fact, I need to write. I need to process
everything that’s happened.
I know I
said I wasn’t going to be posting until after New Year’s, but I wasn’t
expecting anything important to happen that couldn’t wait and well, something
did.
Since we
were flying out mid-morning on Saturday, on Friday we had our last day of
skiing. Over the course of the week Lucy had moved from the easiest trails to
the intermediate, though that progress had just been made the day before. Fred
had spent so much of his time with her he wanted Friday to go on the expert
trails with me. I mean, I didn’t expect we’d really be skiing together, just on the same trails.
But Lucy
didn’t like the idea of being separated from Fred. She said she was sure she
could handle the expert slope, it didn’t look that hard, and Fred had been such a wonderful teacher. Fred,
Hannah, Charlie, and I all tried to tell her she shouldn’t go on the black
diamond trails. We followed her up to the chairlift trying to convince her it
was a bad idea. She just said, “I’m determined, I’m skiing it.”
She got
away from us and joined another group going on the chairlift. We all followed
behind, anxious about making sure she was okay. Hannah said she was sure she
would be fine just this once, but being so new to skiing she would realize we
were right and go back to her intermediate trails. I didn’t share Hannah’s lack
of concern.
Well, we
watched her get off the chairlift and start her way down the slope, and I could
tell she was unstable, gaining speed too quickly without the skills of how to
navigate. We got off the lift, and I hurried down to try and catch up with her.
But Lucy’s speed was out of the control, making her veer closer and closer to
the trees, and before I could reach her, she hit one. After a sickening thud
and crack, she fell to the ground, unconscious.
I heard the
other three scream from behind me, while I got over to her as quickly as I
could. Fred was by me in an instant, asking, “How is she? What’s wrong with her?”
I didn’t dare
remove her helmet, but I lifted the visor to make sure that she was still
breathing. At this point, Hannah was in full hysterics, screaming and crying,
while Charlie stood there, looking shocked and helpless.
I told Fred
to go get help, and he left to alert the ski patrol. I began checking Lucy for
any other obvious injuries, such as broken bones or anything, but nothing I
could find. People skiing had begun to stop and mill around us, so I told
Charlie to make sure they stayed back, or even better, kept on skiing.
It was a
nightmare, not having the training to do anything else without risking more
injury or, even worse, death. Charlie, as a doctor, would be able to help
someone else, but not his sister. His hands kept shaking, and I didn’t trust
that he was thinking straight.
I know the paramedics got there as
quickly as they could, but it seemed like forever when Lucy was unconscious on
a freezing mountain. When they finally came, they had to Life Alert her off the
mountain. Hannah, who had gone from blubbering into shock, wouldn’t leave Lucy’s
side. She went along in the helicopter, since someone needed to give the
paramedics any necessary information about Lucy.
Everything is a blur, I’m sorry if
this doesn’t make sense. There was just so much to take in that I’m still
reeling from it. I did manage to stay in control as Fred, Charlie, and I left
the ski resort. I called Marie while driving to the hospital—Charlie and Fred
still weren’t processing things well then—and told her what happened. Or what I
could among all of Marie’s screaming and hysterics. Ben, Harvey, and Lisa drove
with Marie to the hospital where we met up with them.
After hours of waiting to hear
anything, comforting Hannah, Charlie, and Marie to my best ability, and trying,
but not succeeding, to contact Lucy’s parents, the doctors finally updated Charlie
and Hannah on Lucy’s condition.
She was (and still is) in critical
condition with swelling on the brain, so the doctors put her in an induced
coma. The doctor said that they won’t know for sure how she’ll do, and that
there are risks involved with the induced coma, like blood pressure lowering,
heart failure, and an increased chance of infection, but it was the only thing
they could do to have a chance to save her life. Thankfully nothing has
happened to her spinal cord, but still. She may not…she might die.
Fred, the whole time, was agonized.
And not in the showy way of Marie. He just sat in a hospital chair, elbows on
his knees and face in his hands, sometimes rocking back and forth. When we went
to get dinner at the hospital cafeteria, he wouldn’t go with us. He wouldn’t
eat at all.
Finally, we got a hold of Lucy’s
parents. They had been at the zoo with Little Charlie and missed our calls.
Hannah and Charlie couldn’t bear to tell them, so I had to break the news. It
was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. Lucy’s mom began crying and
so her dad had to talk, but his voice kept cracking, and I couldn’t be sure he
wasn’t crying, too.
We had to make a decision then. Harvey
and Lisa said that they would gladly open up their cabin to Lucy’s parents, but
they didn’t have enough room to add two more people to the party. Two of us had
to leave to make room.
Charlie suggested that Fred and
Marie go back, which made Marie furious. She said that I wasn’t even Lucy’s
family, and that as her sister-in-law, she had every right to be here with the
rest of the family. Charlie reminded her about their son and how someone would
need to take care of him. Marie said I could do a good enough job of it until
Lucy was more stable.
Fred spoke up then and said that
the only person today who had been helpful at all was me, and that if anyone
stayed, I should, just to keep everyone sane and make rational decisions. He
said that without me, Lucy would probably be dead. It was a very nice thing to
say, in fact I think the first kind thing he’d said about me in years, but I
saw where he was coming from. He thinks I’ll be able to think for everyone else
while they’re emotionally compromised, so this compliment is really just a
practical one.
However, Marie wouldn’t hear about
me staying, and I didn’t want to push it. I agreed to go with Fred back home.
At this point, all of the flights
back home were full, and Lucy’s parents couldn’t leave without anyone to take
care of Little Charlie. So we spent one more night at the cabin, and then took
an earlier flight out.
Fred and I didn’t speak much in the
airport or on the plane. He was grieving, and after my own shock had
disappeared and I didn’t have to think about keeping things as calm as possible,
it hit me that Fred was in love with Lucy. No one acting the way that he had—frantic
and terrified and depressed—could be anything but in love.
I sat next to him the whole plane
ride knowing this, which led to a strange mixture of feelings. It was hard
realizing that I’d lost Fred forever, and that he loved someone else while I’m
still holding a flame for him. But Lucy, the woman he loves, is fighting for
her life. How could I be so selfish as to be depressed about Fred when Lucy
might not even live? When that will mean Fred has to face such agonizing
heartbreak all over again? And, let’s face it, I never had a chance of being
with Fred again the moment I didn’t take his hand in that courthouse. But it hit
me fully during that plane ride. Because he has no love for me anymore, not
even a shriveled piece of it. His whole heart belongs to Lucy, and nothing that
might happen to her will change that.
We took a taxi from the airport.
Fred went back to Adam and Carrie’s, while I picked up my nephew and took him
back to his own place as Lucy’s parents left to hurry to their daughter.
I’ve been trying to distract myself
with Little Charlie, but even as we play games and eat lunch and dinner and
watch a movie, everything’s been swimming in my head and heart and I can’t get
rid of it.
I tried to stop her. If she’d only
listened to us, none of this would be happening. She’d be okay and we’d all be
home and happy from a wonderful trip. Yes, Fred would have come to realize he
loved Lucy anyway and done something about it, but at least then I could allow
myself to be sad about it, without this guilt over being jealous of a woman in
a coma.
I just don’t know what to feel
right now.
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