Free The Long Sleep by Caroline Crane Page A

care of it. There were three that I’d
picked out. As soon as they arrived on my computer I sent them to
Ron so he could choose and crop.
    With the pictures finished and my article to
go with them already turned in, I couldn’t do any more. So I set
off to visit the hospital.
    Now that I’d met Arianne I was afraid of
running into her at the ICU. She would wonder what in heck I was
doing there when they wouldn’t allow me in his room.
    The nurse, who now knew me by sight, greeted
me with a big smile. “He’s been extubated! Only an hour ago.”
    It sounded horrible. “What’s that?”
    “The breathing tube. They took it out.”
    “Can he breathe?”
    “He’s breathing on his own. Isn’t that
wonderful?”
    I walked over to the window that looked
toward his bed. She was right. The tube was gone. The breathing
machine was still there, but it was pushed aside and quiet.
    “That means he’s alive,” I said, mostly to
myself.
    “Of course he’s alive,” said the nurse. “He’s
just not conscious.”
    “Will they move him out of ICU?” What if they
sent him someplace too far away for me to visit?
    “That’s up to the doctors. We’ll have to wait
and see.”
    If they moved him to another room that wasn’t
ICU, I could visit. I could hold his hand and talk to him. That
thought gave me a warm feeling.
    I asked the nurse, “Is he allowed to get
flowers in here?”
    “Not here,” she said. “But in a regular room
he can.”
    I had another idea. “If I make a tape, could
I bring it and have somebody play it for him? There’s something I
want him to know that I think would encourage him, if he can hear
it.”
    That made her curious. I explained about the
newspaper, the series, and that we were going ahead with it. She
thought it was worth a try. I promised her a copy of the issue when
it came out.
    With that incentive, I went home to make the
tape. I had a small pocket recorder. Not very good sound quality
but it was something I could leave there with them. Its mini tapes
only ran for fifteen minutes.
    I closed my door so Ben wouldn’t hear and
laugh at me. But I had to talk loud enough to record something.
    Hank, it’s me, Maddie Canfield. The new
girl with The Tiger’s Roar. I’m so sorry about what happened
to you. I’m sorry it was my car.
    I said that so he’d remember who I was, if he
could remember anything.
    But you’re getting better. I know you are.
Anyway, I wanted you to know that we’re going ahead with the
newspaper and the series you planned on the right to die.
    I sort of choked at that point, wondering if
I should even say it now that he was there himself.
    Anyhow, I thought you should know we’re
using your research as well as mine, and I wish you could be
working with us. I hope you don’t mind that we’re not waiting for
you to come back. It’s such a good idea, I figure we should just do
it and get it out there.
    I didn’t want to wait on delivering that
message to him. I wanted to be sure that it was the same nurse, so
I went back to the hospital.
    She was still there. And Hank had a visitor,
an older woman who must have been his mother. The nurse expected me
to know her, probably thought I was a close family friend since I
came so often. I ducked out of there before his mom could see
me.
    It was all so strange, so weird, and so
unreal. I wondered what it seemed like to Hank. I hoped he could
remember me. I’d heard that when a person suffers head trauma they
often have no recollection of what went on right before it
happened. Since we’d only just met that day, there wasn’t any
history of me to remember.
    Once he regained consciousness, we could
catch up. On everything.
    The elevator took its time. I was about to
look for some stairs when it opened. I had to wait while a couple
of orderlies maneuvered a gurney out with somebody on it. A few
other people collected and one of them was Rick Falco, not in
uniform.
    His eyebrows went up. “Are you living here
now?”
    I