Lee “Scarecrow” Stetson
Lee jumped up as soon as he heard the racing footsteps, recognizing their cadence. Carrie was barely two steps behind him as he sprinted through the door and out into the hallway. He managed to grab Jamie’s waist just in time. The child fought him, squirming and struggling as if his life depended on it, and when Carrie caught his legs so that he couldn’t kick out, he began screaming at the top of his lungs. They ended up carrying him back into the waiting room.
“Jamie! What the hell is going on?” he finally panted after they had him down on the couch.
He was still writhing, striking out in what Lee could now see was something akin to blind panic. To his surprise, Carrie quickly reached in and slapped Jamie.
The strike had been gentle, but it had the desired effect: he quieted down and stopped fighting them, dissolving instead into hard, gulping tears. “It’s Phil — Phillip — he — oh God, why?”
“Why what?” asked Lee as he and Carrie exchanged a nearly panicked look of their own. “What happened to Phillip?”
Jamie stilled completely for a long moment, as if drawing his strength together. “He died too!”
“He what?”
But Jamie burst into tears again. Carrie laid one of her hands on each of their shoulders. “Lee, I think he said that Phillip didn’t make it.”
“That can’t be right. Amanda told me he survived the accident and just needed surgery. Which was finished because they were allowed to see him. That meant he was stable. The doctor even said so!”
“Lee.” Tears were sliding down her face now, too. “You also heard Dr. Dawson say that the chances weren’t yet a hundred percent.”
“But Phillip’s strong, and he was in good physical shape from all that baseball, and basket…ball, and…” Lee heard himself beginning to sputter and clamped his mouth shut. This wasn’t happening, was it? Why wasn’t Dotty’s death enough? Why wasn’t Amanda’s shooting, only eight months ago, enough? Was it ever going to end?
“Sit down before you fall down.” He was barely aware of the hand that had been on his shoulder moving to his elbow, guiding all of them toward the furniture. Lee staggered to a chair and collapsed onto it, head slumping over his lap, shuddering through the nausea while excoriating himself for weakness. He’d seen death before. Hell, he’d seen people he loved die before. Dorothy, Frenchie —
Carrie shook him. “Lee. Come on, now. Jamie needs us.”
Fighting for even breaths, he pushed himself up. “He must’ve misunderstood something. Maybe Phillip had an emergency, and it looked like —”
“Can you stay here long enough for me to check?”
He managed to nod.
“Can you keep an eye on Jamie while you do it?”
He nodded again, although his breathing was still erratic.
She stared at him for another long moment before climbing back to her feet and heading out the door. It wasn’t long before she came back in, her face a mask of horror. Joe and Amanda were right behind her, and they looked even worse.
“No,” Lee whispered, but now that he’d had a chance to pull himself back together, it was a protest, not a denial. “Oh, damn it. No. What happened?”
“One minute everything seemed fine, but the next…” Joe shook his head as he stumbled toward Jamie and the couch. Carrie sank down next to him, pulling him against her. The tears that had been sliding down her face had segued into quiet sobs. Across the room, Jamie sat up, his face bright red as he continued sniffling. Amanda stopped just inside the door, swaying on her feet, her eyes blank and unfocused, reminding him sharply of the way she’d looked when he’d first been shoved into the holding room at Addi Birol’s safe house.
Lee didn’t remember getting to his feet, but he must have, because he wrapped his arms around her as hard now as he had then, rocking them both back and forth. “Amanda. Oh, God. Are you all —” he broke off. Of course she wasn’t all right. “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry.” The endearment, something he usually only used in private, slipped out without warning, but he didn’t care. “Did they tell you what went wrong?”
She just shook her head. He looked over at Joe and Carrie. He was favoring his right hand and kept pulling away every time she bumped it as she attempted to pull him into a hug. Finally he shook his head, murmuring something too soft to hear, and she contented herself with holding his left hand.
“Mom?” Jamie’s whisper was harsh. Lee hadn’t even been aware of him standing up and coming over to them. Based on her lack of reaction, Amanda hadn’t been either, now was she noticing now. He shifted just far enough to pull Jamie into his arms alongside Amanda. Slowly, far too slowly, one of her arms came up around her son as well. She was shuddering hard, her voice softly keening, but the front of his shirt was dry: she wasn’t crying.
Lee wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. She’d cried earlier, so she wasn’t just pushing everything away, but —
The waiting room door opened, and the doctor came in, his own steps dragging. “Mr. and Mrs. King and — I’m sorry, what did you say your last name was?”
“Stetson,” rasped Lee.
“Mr. and Mrs. Stetson. Thank you. Do you have a few minutes?”
He pulled back from the hug. “Jamie? Amanda?”
Amanda looked up at him dully, and Jamie’s eyes were still wet and red, but they both seemed to know where they were. He guided them down to the couch that Jamie had abandoned, initially intending to position Jamie in the middle between them. After another look at his wife, though, he put himself there instead so that they could both lean on him. It was, he told himself, mostly for her benefit, but there seemed no point in denying that he needed the comfort as well.
“I’m, ah, I’m Doctor Warren Dawson. I took over after your son’s surgery —”
“But didn’t keep him alive,” said Joe. “And my son has a name: Phillip.”
The doctor pulled up a folding chair, positioning it between the two couples. “Mr. King, I understand that you’re upset but try to hear me out. I promise I’ll answer your questions afterward. It looks like Phillip suffered from what’s called a pulmonary embolism. It’s when a blood clot or an air bubble develops, travels to the lungs, and then lodges there. If I had to guess, I’d say it was likely from one of his legs. They were bruised pretty badly in the wreck, but not enough to break a bone, so the surgery hadn’t focused there.”
“You’re blaming the surgeon? Instead of taking responsibility yourself?”
“No, Mr. King, I’m not assigning any blame at all. These blasted things —” he broke off long enough to shake his head. “When you’re talking about a traumatic injury, they can’t be anticipated or predicted. And even when we’re prepped, half the time it’s not enough to keep them from causing respiratory failure, which is what happened here. Phillip’s lungs just couldn’t shake the embolism, and when his heart got involved —”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Joe,” murmured Carrie. “Let him finish.”
“Phillip’s heartbeat sped up because his body was trying to dislodge the embolism. But the recent injuries meant that it wasn’t properly regulating, either, and…” Dawson sighed. “It actually tried to work too hard, seized, and caused a progressive systemic failure.” He paused. “I’m so very sorry. It — most pulmonary embolisms happen as a result of something called deep vein thrombosis, or DVT, which can happen after someone sits too long.”
“Especially on a plane,” said Lee after glancing quickly at Carrie. “I’ve heard of it.”
She gave him a relieved look, indicating she’d understood that he was also trying to de-escalate Joe’s obvious anger.
“Yes,” the doctor replied, who hadn’t noticed the interplay. “So I’ll admit we’d been more focused on treating the traumatic injuries and then preventing any post-surgical infections. I’m not sure I could’ve advised going back in and doing another surgery so soon, and the medications that dissolve clots quickly can cause severe bleeding which might have actually made things worse. The bottom line was that there wasn’t enough time to undo the damage before Phillip’s body simply overloaded to the point where it completely collapsed.”
“And if you had been focused on it right away?” Joe’s voice had gotten harsh.
“We might — and I emphasize might — have been able to prevent this by starting a blood thinner just as soon as he came out of surgery. But with all the bleeding, an anticoagulant would have been the last thing that either the surgeon or I would have recommended. Mr. King, I understand that you’re upset —”
“Upset?” Joe was back on his feet. “I’m beyond upset. Phillip was fourteen and did sports, and his mother and I made sure he ate right and was up on all his shots. He couldn’t have been any healthier if we’d tried! So why wasn’t his body able to fight off this pulmo — embo — whatever it is you called it?”
“Because,” said Dawson, standing slowly to face him, “even the healthiest body can’t stand up to some kinds of trauma. Look, Mr. King, I have three children of my own, and I couldn’t even imagine losing one of them. But medicine isn’t perfect, and sometimes we simply cannot treat something no matter how hard we try!”
By now, they were nose-to-nose, and Joe’s next words came out in something close to a snarl. “I want a second opinion.”
“So do I.” The doctor remained remarkably calm. “Cases like this go to automatic review, and I look forward to getting the results. If you and Mrs. Stetson will authorize an autopsy, we can even —”
Beside Lee, Amanda stirred. “No.”
“Amanda! Don’t you want to know if this quack did anything wrong?”
“It won’t bring Phillip back.” Her voice was quiet and small, and Lee felt his heart break even more. “Unless…would it help you learn a way to save someone else?”
“Probably not,” admitted the doctor.
“Then no. I don’t want him cut open. Just…just let us have the…” she didn’t finish the sentence. “I don’t even know what we’re supposed to do now.”
“We’re supposed to get some answers and find out what happened, instead of just —” Joe’s voice broke, and he took a gulping breath. “No. I can’t accept this. Children survive car crashes all the time, even bad ones! They’re not supposed to…” he trailed off. “We’re not supposed to have to bury them before they ever finish…finish…growing up and…” he sank back onto the couch, shuddering. Carrie wrapped her arms around him, rubbing his back and speaking to him in a low voice.
Lee looked down. Amanda was staring straight ahead, her face pale and her hands shaking. “Amanda. Hey. You still with us?”
There was no response.
Jamie took her hand. “Mom?”
After what seemed like forever, she nodded. “I’m here. I just — I don’t —”
Neither did Lee. He dimly noticed that Dr. Dawson had left the room. It gave the five of them some privacy, which he appreciated, but a part of him knew that they couldn’t stay at the hospital for the rest of the night. There needed to be more phone calls, more planning. Did they even know of a good funeral home?
Funeral home. The skin on his face tightened, and he needed several breaths before he could speak again. “We should…we should go somewhere more comfortable.”
Across the room, Carrie nodded. “Not the house.”
“Why not?”
She gave him a sharp look. “Because Phillip and Dotty —” she cut herself off, but he got the meaning. Right. Amanda’s house was the last place they needed to be right now, with its pictures and reminders of them everywhere you turned.
“Okay,” he acknowledged. “Then where?” His arms were busy holding Amanda and Jamie, but he was able to sweep his eyes around the room. Carrie nodded again, clearly understanding his meaning. They couldn’t go anywhere public. Not right now.
“Our place is twenty or twenty-five minutes away this time of day,” said Carrie. “Is that too far?”
Lee shook his head. “Let’s get out of here.”