The Girl He Used to Know (Page 44)

Tears roll down my face and splash onto the sheet covering Jonathan’s chest. “Yes. Can my brother please come in? Just for a second?”

“Just for a second,” she echoes.

I throw myself into Will’s arms. It’s a strange sensation, this hug. I can’t remember ever feeling so loving toward my brother or wanting to express it in such a physical way. It’s comforting beyond words.

“I can’t believe it,” Will says.

“I can.”

The nurse comes back in the room. “A doctor and a hospital administrator would like to speak with you. It won’t take long. You can come back when you’re done.”

* * *

Dr. Arnett introduces himself and tells us that Jonathan’s respiratory injuries are severe, and he is in critical but stable condition. He warns that there are complications that could arise at any time, and that Jonathan is not out of the woods yet. He is already showing signs of pneumonia, and the risk of an additional infection is high.

From the administrator, we learn that Jonathan was carried out alive late on the day the towers fell. He was found in a small pocket of space surrounded by shattered concrete and crumpled steel. His clothes were cut off as paramedics tended to him before bundling him into an ambulance and sending him on his way. With no wallet or employee badge, he has been treated here at this hospital while the staff waited for someone to claim him.

“I claim him,” I say, and from that moment on, I don’t ever leave his side.

44

Annika

Will invites me to stay at his apartment so I can be closer to the hospital, but for the most part, I sleep at Jonathan’s bedside the way he did for me all those years ago. I can’t make actual medical decisions for him, but I will be Jonathan’s medical advocate, and I tell him I’ll take care of everything I can. I’m not sure if he can hear me, but I talk to him anyway and repeat everything the doctors tell me. I tell him we’re going to be here awhile.

I couldn’t wait to share the news with my parents and Janice and Clay. I don’t think anyone but me thought that I’d ever find Jonathan, and my mom and Janice mostly cried into the phone.

“I’m going to call the Chicago office right now,” my mom says. I’m glad she’s on top of things, because that hadn’t even occurred to me. When she calls me back later, she tells me that no one there believed Jonathan was alive either. I hope they celebrated.

Bradford flew back to Chicago as soon as they lifted the travel ban. He calls me the next day on the new cell phone Will picked up for me. My mom has given him the number.

“We’re all overjoyed that he’s alive. We would have lost even more employees if not for his directive to leave the building,” Brad says. Maybe he’s no longer mad at me for interrupting that meeting. I guess a national tragedy will do that to a person.

“You said he got out of the building. That his name was on the list.”

“There was so much confusion. He went down before I did. I … I really thought he got out.” His voice sounds pretty wobbly.

“Well, he did not.”

“Please let me know if there’s anything we can do for Jonathan, or for you.”

“Thank you. That’s very nice of you. I’m sure Jonathan isn’t thinking about work or that promotion right now.”

“No,” Brad says. “I’m sure he isn’t.”

Before we hang up, Brad tells me that Liz, Jonathan’s ex-wife, did not make it out of the building and that she is presumed dead. “I thought Jonathan might want to know.”

I promise Brad I will tell Jonathan when he wakes up.

I didn’t know Liz, but Jonathan once loved her, so when we hang up, I cry for her anyway.

* * *

Jonathan’s medical team has been slowly lifting the sedation, and two days later Jonathan opens his eyes a little. He looks at me so oddly, I worry that maybe it isn’t him and I’ve been wrong this whole time. But the nurse warned me he would be confused, so I reach gently for his hand and say, “It’s me, Annika. I’m here. I love you, and you’re going to be okay.” He closes his eyes and doesn’t open them again that day.

The next day it’s a little better and he keeps them open for almost an hour. He understands, I think, because he’s looking into my eyes like he knows it’s me. I don’t dare look away. I stare straight back into them, and I hold his gaze and say, “It’s Annika. It’s me. I’m here and I won’t leave.”

He gets better every day and I tell him to squeeze my hand if he understands what I’m saying, what the doctors are saying. His grip is as weak as a baby’s, but he does what I ask. The doctors have gradually been turning down the ventilator and now they want to extubate Jonathan to see if he can breathe on his own. The sounds he makes when they remove the tube and he tries to breathe are terrible, and I can hear them clear out in the hallway, where they asked me to wait. If the staff notices my physical reaction—the flicking and bouncing I’m doing—they don’t mention it. When they let me come back into the room, Jonathan gasps and tries to speak, but no sound comes out, and he closes his eyes and goes back to sleep. It scares me, but they said he did okay and is just tired because breathing is really hard work.

The next time he wakes up, he seems a little more coherent. Not much, but enough that he utters, “Annika?” His voice is so hoarse from the tube that I can barely hear him.

“Yes, yes it’s me. It’s Annika. You’re okay. I mean, you have a lot of broken bones and some respiratory issues, but you’re going to be fine.”

Jonathan’s pelvis is not so much broken as it is shattered, and the legs are a mess, too. Pretty much every bone from the waist down has some kind of damage, but the doctors say he will heal in time. His respiratory health is still the biggest hurdle he’ll have to overcome.

“How did you get here so fast?” he asks, because it must be confusing to lose so many days the way Jonathan has. Maybe he thinks it’s still September eleventh.

“I didn’t arrive until three days after the planes hit. No one could fly after that. I had to drive.”

He blinks like he’s confused. “For a minute, I thought you said you drove.”

“I did. You needed me, Jonathan, and here I am.”

45

Annika

Jonathan is discharged from the hospital three months later and we fly home on a gray drizzly day in December. It doesn’t feel dreary to us, though. It feels like heaven to finally leave the confines of his hospital room and walk outside, to breathe fresh winter air that is only vaguely tinged with the smell of smoke. Or maybe I’m just imagining it.

There have been endless, grueling weeks of physical therapy and breathing treatments. There have been some setbacks, including another very scary bout of pneumonia. The antibiotics weren’t working, and Dr. Arnett, whom I had come to know very well, pulled me aside and warned me that Jonathan might not survive.

“I know this is difficult to hear,” he said. “But I want you to be prepared. His condition is very grave.”

That seemed so unfair to me. To make it out of the tower only for your lungs to succumb to an infection one month later. Janice and Clay came to the hospital; Will was already at my side. Everyone seemed resigned to the fact that Jonathan would not be granted another reprieve. His fever rose and nothing the doctors tried was working, and I spent the better part of a day sobbing on someone’s shoulder.

But Jonathan is the strongest person I know, and he did survive. And now we are leaving the hospital hand in hand, the way I always told him we would even on those days I wasn’t so sure I believed it myself.

Will arranged for a car to take us to the airport. He came by earlier to say good-bye. I cried in my brother’s arms, overcome by all he had done for me, and when he pulled away there were tears in his eyes, too. I feel like Jonathan and Will are almost brothers now, considering how much time they spent together. Will was great about watching over Jonathan while I ran to his apartment to grab clean clothes or take a shower.

I used every bit of vacation I had, and when it ran out, I put in my resignation at the library. They said they’ll hire me back when I’m ready to return to work, and Jonathan said it shows how much they value me as an employee. It makes me feel really good to hear things like that, because I never really know what people think of me, at least the ones who don’t say rude things to my face. I will go back, because I love my job at the library, but I’ll wait until Jonathan is fully recovered, because right now he still needs me a lot.

His bones are healing and he’s walking okay. A little slow, but who cares. Well, he does. But I know he’ll get faster.

He doesn’t know what he wants to do, but he’s not going to work for Brad anymore.

Life’s too short, he said.

* * *

My parents are there to pick us up at the airport. It makes me sad that Jonathan’s mom isn’t here, too, and that he doesn’t really have any family left. We’re going to live at my apartment. Jonathan knows how attached I am to it, and since he still has a lot of recovering to do, he said he doesn’t care at all where we live as long as we’re together. By the time we arrive home from the airport and I walk Jonathan into the bedroom, he’s leaning heavily on me. He doesn’t admit that he’s hurting, but sadly, I know all too well what Jonathan’s pain face looks like. I get him settled in bed and crawl under the covers with him. He wraps his arms around me and kisses the top of my head.