Luca's Story Ch. 18
Chapter XVIII--You're Going to be OK
_Patti: What's going to happen?
What does the future hold?
So many things that I put off
Assuming I'd have time, assuming I'd grow old
What's going to happen?
And will I be alive tomorrow?
What's going to happen...to me?_
_Dr. Cox: You're going to be okay
All: That's what's going to happen
Everything's okay
We're right here beside you
We won't let you slip away
Plan for tomorrow
'Cause we swear to you
You're going to be okay_
_Patti: I'm going to be okay
All: That's what's going to happen
Patti: Everything's okay
All: Everything's okay
We will never leave you
Right here we will stay
(Plan for tomorrow)
Plan for tomorrow
'Cause we swear to you
You're going to be okay_
_J.D: We hope
Dr. Cox: Shhhhh_
-Cast of Scrubs, "You're Going to be Ok"
The wait seemed to stretch on forever. Luca sat curled up against Alan, who was at the end of a couch. Ronnie and Ray were across from the pair. Ronnie was laying down, his head in Ray's lap, dozing idly. Ray explained they had been putting in less than four hours a night for at least two months at this point, which Luca gave an assenting nod to. The other two members of the band were left behind to ensure that everything was getting put together for the next stop on their tour. Fortunately, however, the next stop was three days off. Ray and Ronnie could push things back a bit.
Harold was standing at the doorway, a cup of coffee in his hand that had gone cold ten minutes ago. He seemed in a whole different world. And, as if to add to the surreality of it all, a spring storm was sweeping through. The third-floor window of their maternity ward waiting room kept filling with the violent, flashing light, followed by the incredible booming of thunder.
"Harold, come sit down," Luca said tiredly. She had said it more than a dozen times so far, but he seemed incapable of hearing her.
Luca finally found herself dozing a bit against Alan's arm. She had been up since school started Friday morning, and now they were pressing on into early Saturday. Just as she was about to fall deep into slumber, the door opened to reveal a tall, lean male owl of forty-something years. He put a hand on Harold's upper right arm and indicated one of the seats, taking one himself. This didn't look good.
"What occurred was a combination of things," the owl began. His eyes closed, and he rubbed his temples. He'd obviously had a hard time of things. His feathers were muddled, and he was in serious need of a preening. He opened his eyes, looking directly at Harold. "She went into labor prematurely. When she did, what occurred was a vasa previa. The blood vessels leading to the pups were all severed, causing catastrophic loss of blood."
"What does that mean?" Harold asked, his voice hoarse. His hands were clenched together. Luca saw they were shaking almost violently.
"It means Rebeccah is fine. But the pups... they did not make it."
"None?" Haroled choked, barely managing to say the word.
"None."
The whole world seemed get a lot darker and a lot heavier. Luca could not imagine what Harold was feeling at that moment. Nobody there could.
"Does she know?"
"Not yet. She had to be sedated. She'll be coming out of it soon."
The delivery room was dark, with only a lamp beside Beccah's bed turned on, casting a lonely glow over her face. She looked so peaceful and warm there. Everything had been cleaned up. There was no real evidence of the pups that had been delivered to the world limp and lifeless. Harold had seen them, all cleaned up. They were the cutest little oddities one would have ever seen, with little black Mohawks of coloration infused with streaks of blonde fur. Their ears were elongated and laid back against their heads, and their tails were short and unusually fluffy. Harold didn't know what to do with them. They just lay there on their sides, silent and unmoving. He had asked to see them, but now he felt like this would be something burned into his mind for the rest of his existence.
And now he stood there, looking down at Beccah. She wasn't the glowing, smiling image of motherhood that one always saw in the shows. She looked like hell. Her hair was still pasted to her forehead from the pain that had been ripping through her body, her ponytail was in ruins, and she was drooling unknowingly from the drugs they had given her to calm her down.
Harold reached out and wiped up the line of drool. Beccah slowly woke up from that, looking up at Harold with a questioning gaze. "What happened?" she asked, her voice rough. "Are they ok?"
Harold bit his lip, gripping her hand tight in his own. His silence said everything. They both began to cry.
Luca, Alan, Ray and Ronnie stood up as they saw the pair coming down the hallway; Harold walking, Beccah in a wheelchair as per hospital rules. They silently went by their four friends in silence. Nothing was said, nothing had to be said. The four friends followed along behind in sad silence. It was like a funeral procession as they made their way down the hall towards the elevators.
Nurses stood aside with knowing faces, trying to give condolences with their sad gazes. The doors closed behind the group. Still nothing was said in the elevator.
It wasn't until they got outside that anything happened. The overhang for the drive lane in front of the hospital kept them safe from the torrential downpour. Once past the hospital doors, Beccah stood, shoving off the cautioning hand of the nurse that tried to stop her. The nurse insisted something about having to keep her in the chair until she saw Beccah was safely in a vehicle and on her way home. Beccah didn't listen. Instead she kept marching on across the empty roadway until she was standing out in the open rain. She turned her face up to the pelting, stinging bullets of water and dropped to her knees. Harold was already running up behind her, the temporary heaviness in his limbs letting him go. He had only just reached her when she began to scream with every bit of effort she had in her. Everyone sobbed and cried. Even the nurse was openly weeping. The more Harold seemed to try to get Beccah up off the pavement, the more she fought it until, finally, he gave up and simply held her there, in the middle of a huge thunderstorm, crying beside his screaming girlfriend.
Two days passed. Ronnie and Ray had gone Monday morning, and Beccah remained cloistered away at home while school was in session. Harold was nowhere to be found, either. In fact, every effort to contact either of them had ended with equally dismal replies of the two "having to be alone for a while." Even so, Luca was determined to get in contact with them after school this very day. But that meant having to get through a whole day of school before taking any action. The temptation to skip out of classes kept pestering her.
Finally, it was during her lunch hour that the temptation overtook her better reasoning abilities. Making her way towards the back of the school, Luca was intending to hop the fence past the baseball diamond while gym class was out for the lunch break. Just before she got out the back door, she heard his voice.
"I heard what happened. I'm really sorry."
Luca turned to face Zee. He had his pack slung over his shoulder. His baggy t-shirt was hiding the two mosquito bite-size breasts that he'd formed, but he was still doing well keeping the fat content so low it barely showed. He was also wearing a pair of gym shorts and trainers. "I'm not the one you should be apologizing to, Zee."
"You're going to go see her now?"
"Yeah."
"Might I come with?"
Luca considered it. She wanted to say no, she wanted to tell Zee off for just now reappearing and showing an interest, but she thought better of it. It was amazing what tragedy could do to make people wake the hell up.
"Yeah, but no talking unless spoken to."
"Fine."
So Zee followed Luca along to Beccah's house, both of them going along in complete silence. Once there, they found nobody home. Luckily enough, Zee was still keeping himself fit and athletic, and climbed up to find Beccah's room empty. They went to Harold's house and found the same thing. That's when Luca was starting to worry.
"Maybe they ran off?"
Luca raised a warning finger for Zee to keep quiet. She didn't need emotional entanglements to further cloud her judgment. "My house."
"What makes you think they'd be there?" Zee asked, following her along.
"Considering it's like their second home, I wouldn't be surprised."
"Still the same old gang, hm?"
"Minus one ass and plus one nice guy," Luca stabbed, and immediately she regretted it. But it was out there. All she could say was, "I'm sorry."
"I deserve it," Zee said, swallowing his medicine proudly, shoving his frozen hands into his sweater. The storm front had brought one final, vengeful cold snap from up north.
Once up at the house, Luca held up her hand, stopping Zee. "You stay here until I say otherwise."
Zee looked like he wanted to protest, but he didn't. Luca opened the doorway and stepped inside. Her rule broke immediately. The smell of vomit slapped both her and Zee in the face, and they found themselves looking at Harold kneeling over Beccah with a panicked expression on his face. Beccah had a bottle of Randal's Single Barrel in one hand, drained. There was vomit everywhere. "Please help," Harold whimpered up to Luca, tears filling his eyes.
For the second time in two days, Luca found herself sitting in a waiting room at the hospital. Zee was respectfully sitting in a different bench, and Harold was beside Luca. Alan was away on an assignment, and wouldn't be back that evening. Ronnie and Ray weren't answering their phones. They were probably too busy with setting up for their next big show.
"Is she going to be ok?" Harold asked after a long, dead silence that stretched for the better part of an hour. When he had tried to follow along with Beccah, the same thing happened as last time. They held him aside with suspicious looks, just in case he was some abusive boyfriend. He probably wouldn't be cleared this time until they had a chance to speak to Beccah personally and confirm this wasn't due to Harold's behavior. But Harold relented in his attempts to follow along. He knew better than to fight it when people were looking for the slightest evidence of abuse to lock your ass up.
"I've seen my dad drink a lot more than that and live. I think she'll be alright."
"Why would she do such a thing?" Harold continued. He didn't seem capable of understanding the self-destructive act.
"Did you see her Friday night after we got out of the hospital? I don't blame her."
"Still, I'm here for her. Why didn't she call me?"
"She doesn't want anybody, Harold. She wants her pups. They're gone."
Harold slouched forward, putting his face in his paws. "I'm so sorry... I spoke badly about her that night at the concert. It's all my fault."
"No," Luca said, putting a hand on his back. "It's not your fault, hun. I never would have guessed Beccah capable of doing such a thing, either. I am curious though," Luca said, trying to redirect the conversation, "What were you two doing in my house?"
Harold sighed. "Well, I went to her place to try to find her. The house looked like it had been torn apart in a search for something."
"You were inside?"
"I found a spare key hidden by the back door," Harold admitted. "It looked like Beccah had searched every cupboard in the house."
"Her parents aren't heavy drinkers. Whatever they did have, she probably got to and then couldn't find more."
"How much did they have?"
"A bottle of Manischewitz at most, really."
"So that's why she would go to your place."
"Probably. And I leave my window unlatched all the time."
"Not the last time I checked," Zee said, then his jaw snapped shut hard on his tongue. The pair looked at him.
"Remind me to kick your ass for that when we're done here," Luca said, returning her attention to Harold. "Look, we'll just see how she is when we see her. For now, just try to relax."
"Alright," Harold said with a sigh. "Alright. I'll try."
The trio was now in Beccah's hospital room, Zee sitting off to the side silently. They had each been given a thorough questioning about what caused Beccah to get so wasted. Then they were allowed to see her.
"What were you thinking?" Luca said with a bit of a whine. She gripped Beccah's left hand. Beccah didn't answer. She simply kept staring at the window, where the sun was making its path towards the horizon to end this day.
"Baby?" Harold said, sitting alongside her on the bed, placing a hand on her arm. He pushed his glasses up his muzzle. "Are you ok?"
"Fine," she rasped. But still, she kept staring out the window.
"Beccah, I'm sorry about what happened," Zee said, getting up the nerve to stand at the end of her bed. He still had his pack slung over his shoulder.
"So am I," Beccah whispered.
The conversation did not go much further than that. Once she was walking down the hallway, Luca encountered Beccah's parents.
"Is she ok?" Beccah's mother asked with a worried gaze down the hall.
"She's fine."
"I shouldn't have said what I did this morning."
"What do you mean?" Luca said, analyzing the mother's face.
"This morning, before I left for work. Luca and I were arguing about her going to school... and then I yelled at her. I told her that now that she doesn't have cubs to ruin her life, she can go back to focusing on her future."
Luca gasped and backed away.
"You what?!" Harold said, his voice coming from behind Luca. Luca quickly turned and stopped him short from getting right up into Beccah's mother's face.
"No, Harold. Just stop. This isn't worth it."
Harold seemed to reconsider his actions, but still looked straight at Beccah's parents. "I don't see how two furres with a little girl of their own could ever say such things to someone who lost her own children. You should be ashamed," he spat, and marched past with Luca in tow. Zee was down the hall, and quickly rushed after them.