Chapter 17

Claire’s turn:

Our second semester started off well enough, though Shelly looked even worse and Jane was still eating with her boyfriend. The next day was going okay, too. I worried some when Shelly didn’t show up for lunch, and a little more when neither she nor Jane showed up for French.

I was almost home when it all went wrong. That’s when I got a text message from Jane:

Shelly’s in icu

What the fuck!? I stopped and just stared at my phone for a couple of seconds to make sure I was reading it right. My first thought was the worst — had the depression gotten to be too much for her? She’d definitely looked like she was going downhill the day before.

“Charley!” I yelled as I went through the door. “Shelly’s in ICU!”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “She looked worse yesterday, but not so bad that I was more worried than I have been about her. I just got a text from Jane.”

Fifteen minutes later, we were pulling up to the hospital. Jane was outside, under cover of the portico, talking on her phone as we walked up. She saw us and waved us over, then stopped and looked puzzled. Her puzzled look didn’t last long.

In a tone of pure ice, she said, “Didn’t you hear what I said? Shelly’s in the hospital — in intensive care! I don’t give a damn what you want to do — she’s more important.” She paused, listening again, then calmly said, “Jack? Would you do me a favor, please? Go to hell, and take your idiot friends with you.” Then she stabbed at the phone to disconnect it. After standing there staring at it for a minute, she began to cry.

I closed the distance between us and wrapped my arms around her while she sobbed.

When she’d finished, she said, “I should have done that weeks ago. Still, better late than never. Come on, let’s see what’s happening now.”

Seeing Mr. Reinhold talking to someone in scrubs, we headed that way, but stopped far enough away to give them privacy. After the other person left, we walked up to him, and he gave each of us a hug. Still holding Jane, he said, “At least they know what it is now. She’s got a type of bacterial meningitis, and it’s hit her hard. They think they caught it in time, and she’ll be okay, but they’re not sure yet. At the moment, they’re just trying to get her fever down.”

I’d read enough to understand at least a little of how much danger she was in. Meningitis could kill her, or leave her crippled. Even if it didn’t, it could take a long time for her to recover.

Charley picked up the conversation. “Do you know what happened? Claire was saying that Shelly didn’t look great yesterday, but it wasn’t that bad.”

“She told me yesterday after school that she felt a little off, you know, tired and achy,” he said. “She’s been so run down lately that I didn’t think too much of it, so I just let it be.” He sighed, then shook his head.

Jane then went over what had happened at school that morning. “When we met up after first period, she complained her neck was so stiff, she could barely turn her head. All I knew was that she looked terrible. Not just depressed, she looked exhausted. She was also flushed, and her hand was shaking. When I touched her forehead, she was burning up. I just grabbed her hand and dragged her to the nurse’s office — if she’d argued, I was ready to get someone else to help carry her. When we walked in, the nurse didn’t even ask what was wrong — she just grabbed her thermometer.

“Uh, I’m pretty sure the nurse isn’t supposed to swear in front of students, but she did anyway when she saw the readout. Then she shooed me out of her office. A few minutes later, an ambulance pulled up, and...” After taking a second to regain her composure, she wiped her eyes and continued, “And then they were putting my best friend in it.”

She took another couple of breaths, then said, “I let Grandpa know what’d happened and that I was coming down here. He just gave me a hug and told me to go. I waited until you were done with classes to let you know, since the doctors were still trying to figure out what was wrong.”

Just then, Jane’s parents walked in. Her mother went right to Mr. Reinhold and gave him a hug, while her father did the same for Jane. Sean showed up shortly after Jane’s family. He told us that Tom was at work, but he’d be there as soon as he could.

A little later, the doctor we’d seen earlier returned and pulled Mr. Reinhold aside. The conversation didn’t take long, then he went back in to wherever he’d come from and Mr. Reinhold came over to us.

“They’re pretty sure they got everything sorted in time, but she’s going to be isolated in ICU for at least the next 24 hours, if not longer, so he said we should all go home and get some rest.”

Jane gave him an incredulous look, and he held up his hands. “Don’t look at me, that’s what the doctor said. I didn’t bother to ask him how I’m supposed to rest when my only child’s in ICU with a life-threatening infection.” They shared a hug then.

Mrs. Wells then asked her daughter, “Are you okay, J?”

Jane turned to her mother, her eyes brimming with unshed tears, and said, “My best friend in the whole world is lying in there with an infection that could kill her. No, I’m not okay, Mom. I’ll survive, but I’m not okay.”

Mrs. Wells rushed to her and wrapped her in a hug. “I’m so sorry, honey! That was a stupid thing to ask. If we leave, will you give us a call when you want to go home? You’re in no shape to be driving tonight.”

Jane nodded. “I promise I’ll call. In fact...” She reached into the pack she used for school and took out her keys, handing them to her mother. “I know I can’t do anything here, but I also don’t think I can leave until I hear more.” She turned as though she were going to sit down, but then turned back. “Oh, and Mom? You were right about Jack all along. I broke up with him today.”

Tom showed up a little later, so we went through the explanations again. He took Sean’s hand and sat down with him, looking stunned. Jane’s parents left soon after that, but said they’d be available if someone needed them.

Soon we were all sitting, leafing through the magazines and newspapers that were scattered around. If the others were anything like me, though, they had no idea what they were seeing — it could have been Ranger Rick or The Economist for all the attention I was paying to it. We were still doing that when the doctor came out again at 7:30 and motioned Mr. Reinhold aside for a quick conference before going back in.

Mr. Reinhold closed his eyes then took a deep breath before walking over to us, pulling Jane up into a big hug, and kissing her forehead. He held her for a minute, tears running down his face, before he said, “I’ll never be able to thank you enough for getting her to the nurse as quickly as you did. Her fever’s coming down. They won’t know for certain until they do a scan tomorrow, but he thinks she’s going to be all right.”

When he said that, the tension left me like air from a balloon. As soon as it did, I also realized I needed to pee, but Jane was still faster.

Shortly after we came back from the bathroom, Charley suggested we should all go get some rest. Jane asked the guys if they wanted a lift with her mom. They thought about it for a moment and accepted once they realized they weren’t in any shape to be driving in the wet and dark.

Food was the furthest thing from our minds when we got home. We barely managed to undress before crawling into bed and falling into an exhausted sleep.

With Shelly’s empty seat playing the role of Banquo’s ghost, even Jane’s return to our lunch table couldn’t lift the mood very far.

Trish had still more bad news. “Uh, Jane, I heard some rumors that Jack is spreading about you. He’s saying that he broke up with you because you’re lousy in bed.”

Jane surprised me when she smiled. “I wonder how he’d know that? Anyway, Claire and Charley were there when I dumped him.” Then she got serious. “I’m not worried about him, or about anything he says about me. All my worry’s reserved for Shelly. I’m sorry I forgot to let you know yesterday, Trish.”

“I’m shocked you remembered to let anyone know,” Trish said. “You must have been almost frantic.”

Jane nodded. “It was so hard to sit there, unable to do anything, not even knowing what was happening. I talked to her dad while we were waiting, and told him it was my fault. If I’d taken more time with her, or made more of an effort, she might not have been feeling so bad to begin with, and she’d have been able to fight off whatever she had.”

“What did he say?” Sean asked.

“He told me not to be silly. I have my life to lead, and Shelly needs to understand that.” She clasped her hands and stared at them for a second, then in a quiet voice said, “She will get better. I know she will. She just has to.”

Tom went over to her, pulled her up, and hugged her. From where he was standing, he was the first to see Principal Wells walking toward us. When the principal arrived, Tom turned Jane so she could see him, and she transferred her hug to him.

“Shhh, it’ll be all right,” he said. “Tom Reinhold just called.” Jane’s head jerked up to see her grandfather’s face. “He asked me to let you know that her scans looked normal. She’ll be fine.”

That brought her tears. After a minute or two, she looked up and said, “Thank you, Grandpa. I needed to hear that so badly.”

He bent and kissed her forehead. “Try to concentrate in class, but your parents expect you to head over to the hospital right after school.”

Trish looked at him and spoke for all of us. “Thank you, Mr. Wells. We all needed to hear that.” Then she looked at me and said, “Can I give you a lift over after school?”

I nodded and thanked her for the offer. At breakfast that morning, Charley had suggested getting a ride with someone, though she’d be by after she got off.

Though we stopped by daily, it was Saturday before we were allowed in to see Shelly. Even after five days, she looked pretty rough, but she managed a smile when we walked in.

“Hi, Charley, Claire,” she said. “Dad said you’ve been here every day. Thank you.”

The hand she reached out to me shook some, but she still grasped mine.

“We all have,” I said. “Trish didn’t make it that first day because no one remembered to let her know, but she’s brought me over every day, since.”

“I know. Dad told me. He also filled me in on how I got here, but I don’t remember any of it. I remember going to school and Jane looking worried, then nothing until I woke up here. From what Dad said, I may well owe her my life. The doctors are saying I had a pretty close call — it hit me fast and hard.”

“I’m surprised she’s not here right now,” Charley said.

Shelly gave a weak smile. “She was here earlier, but she told me she needed to take a nap since she hasn’t been sleeping well. She promised me she’d be back.”

Her dad came in then, so we stepped out into the waiting area. When he came out again, I asked how long she’d be in the hospital. He said it would probably be late in the week. It all depended on how she did when they let her get up and walk.

She must have done well, since they released her Tuesday morning. I got a text from her dad saying that she was home, doing well, and she’d probably be back in school the following week. She was back on Friday.

In the end, it only took her a couple of weeks to catch up in her classes, and by then she’d regained her strength and was back to her normal, chipper self.

As we were packing for the trip to Chehalis I asked about taking our bikes along. It looked like there were several trails in the area that might be interesting.

“No, sweetie,” Charley said. “Believe me, we won’t have time to go for a ride while we’re there.”

“Really? What about after we leave the office?”

“Well, we probably won’t leave their office until 6 or 6:30. After that, we’ll meet up to get something to eat and discuss what we learned that day. I know you’re used to my hours here at home, but client visits mean a lot of long days.”

I winced. She had me there — I always thought of her hours as ending early enough to go play after work. “Sorry. You’re right, I wasn’t thinking about it that way. That just means we’ll need to go down on our own some time.”

“Oh, we can definitely do that. I’m thinking we might want to do a bike tour from Mt. Rainier to the ocean this summer if we have the time. We could do most of that on the trails if we wanted to.”

Now that sounded like a plan. “Let’s do that! I don’t mind riding on the roads, but I feel like I can relax and look around more on a trail. Back to packing — what else do we need?”

“We’re pretty much set,” she said. “Bill’s pretty casual, so we could probably get away with jeans, but I prefer to wear chinos if I’m dressing down for a client visit.”

She finished putting a couple of things in the suitcase, then turned around and tackled me! After getting me down on the floor, she straddled my waist, leaned over and started kissing me while she ran her hands up under my shirt. An hour later, we both collapsed into bed, where we gently cuddled up and drifted off to a well-deserved night’s sleep.