Free In Search of Eden by Linda Nichols Page B

stepped toward him in a brief hug, then stepped back quickly and draped her arm around Eden, who looked miserable and small. His mother came and took his hand, and he wasn’t sure if she was trying to draw strength from him or impart it.
    â€œNothing has changed in David’s condition since I spoke to you,” Sarah told Joseph briefly.
    â€œI want to see him,” Eden said, and Joseph saw Sarah hesitate.
    â€œHe doesn’t look like himself, honey,” Ruth soothed. “Why don’t you wait a day or two?”
    â€œI want to see him!” Tears threatened; her voice tightened.
    â€œLet her see him,” he said, surprising himself and the rest of them, as well. Eden looked at him with gratitude, and oddly, so did Sarah, who seemed relieved to have someone make the decision for her.
    â€œWill you come with me, Uncle Joseph?” she asked.
    He looked at Sarah, who nodded permission. So the three of them went to the desk outside the ICU and waited while Sarah called. Permission was given for him and Eden to come in for five minutes. “Room 910,” Sarah said, back to hugging herself.
    Joseph hit the button on the wall, and the doors opened slowly. They walked through. Joseph looked for the numbers above the doors. They were headed in the right direction, and he couldn’t help but glance inside as they passed each room. Thiswas the Trauma ICU, and each bed looked like a morgue slab with a limp sprawled body snaked with tubes and crowded by machines. Man or woman, all were ground down to the elemental here, and he wondered if he had been wise to advise that Eden see her father like this. Maybe his mother and Sarah were right. If David should die, maybe it would be better if his daughter did not remember him in this state. He glanced down at her face. It was set, and her eyes were frightened. He felt compassion for her.
    He had steeled himself, but even he, who had seen so much in war and crime, was shocked. They stood in the doorway at first, neither one of them moving in. There were three nurses in the room, one adjusting lines, the other punching buttons on the IV machine, the third typing into a computer and talking on the telephone. His brother was swollen to nearly twice his normal size. His head was as big as a basketball, and Joseph wondered how his skin kept from splitting. Eden moistened her lips. Joseph felt profound pity for David and for his daughter. He stepped closer to the bed, moved toward the head, and looked at the face on the pillow, searching for something recognizable. It had been twelve years. He had not expected to meet again like this.
    â€œYou can talk to him,” one nurse said. She was tall and lean with washed-out blond hair and features. “He may be able to hear you.”
    He kept silent. The sound of his voice would not be welcome to his brother and would probably only confuse him. He looked toward Eden. She came forward slowly, stood beside Joseph at the bedside, reached out her hand, and gingerly touched David’s arm. He was covered with a sheet, his arms and legs and head exposed. Some sort of contraption jutted under the sheet over his pelvis— the external fixator Sarah had talked about, most likely. The air in here felt tenuous and unclear, as if life actually hovered and hung, like an image coming into focus and then fading out. A vapor, a mist, kept present only by their magic and machines.
    â€œHi, Dad.” Eden’s voice trembled. She stroked his arm with one finger. “I love you.” A tenuous rise on the last word, a phrasethat expected a comforting reply, but there was nothing from David, just the steady hushing sound of the ventilator, the beeping of the monitors, the hum of their machines. Eden withdrew her hand. She suddenly looked very small and frail, and Joseph reached down and took her hand in his. She stepped closer to him. He covered her with his arms. She was frightened, just a scared little