December: Chapter 3
Kris called Katy from the waiting room. No one was there yet - at least not anyone that Adam would have wanted there. His parents hadn’t gotten there yet, and neither had his brother. But Kris had called Leila in the meantime, and now he knew more than he ever wanted to about what happened to Adam.
“Katy,” he said, once he had her on the line. Kris did his best to steady his hand, but it was difficult. He had started shaking minutes before, and couldn’t seem to control it.
“Hey, honey. How’s the show?” Katy asked easily. It was just about time to get Jesse to start winding down before bed.
“Katy,” Kris said again, feeling numb, his voice a dull monotone. “You should come.”
Ducking into the other room, Katy spoke firmly, “Are you okay? What happened?”
“I’m fine,” Kris managed, running shaking hand over his face. “It’s Adam. He collapsed backstage before it started. His parents are on their way down here, but Leila said something about a congenital defect. Malformed arteries and blood vessels all tangled up in his brain like a ball of rubber bands. I guess blood built up there over the years, and there was nowhere for it to go, the vessels burst. He got a hemorrhage in his brain, Katy. It’s bad. He’s in emergency surgery right now.”
“Shit,“ she swore softly betraying just how shocked and shaken the news had left her. “All right. I’m coming, okay? Where are you? Where did they take him?” Katy asked, checking on Jesse who was paging through Green Eggs and Ham, reading sections out loud to little Kaleb who sat next to him in the big chair.
“St. Vincent’s,” Kris managed, his voice shaking. He might as well have been on an island the way Adam’s entourage was gathered along the opposite wall, cell phones out, talking in tense voices. He needed his wife right now. But at least she knew. And she was coming.
“Okay,” Katy said, her voice incongruously bright. Kris guessed that she had come around the boys, and was about to tell them some G-rated version of the news.
“Guess where we’re going?” she asked, keeping her voice mysterious and betraying none of the anxiety Kris knew she felt.
“Adam’s show?” Jesse asked eagerly, twirling the end of one cornrow around his finger. Cornrows were his new favorite way to wear his hair. They stayed really good, and Katy didn’t mind doing them. She even said. She only made him get his hair cut when Kris did, to make sure it didn’t get too long. And she made sure he washed it and stuff too.
“Adam singin’?” Kaleb wondered, blinking at Katy with big brown eyes. His blond hair resisted all her efforts to tame it with a brush. It attracted static, and insisted on growing straight up, so it looked like her two-and-a-half year old had stuck his finger in an electrical socket.
“Nope,” Katy shook her head, feeling her heart squeeze painfully at the mention of their friend, who was in such dire shape. “We’re going to Grandma and Grandpa’s for a sleepover.”
“Yay!” Kaleb cheered, clapping excitedly. “You an’ Daddy comin’?”
“Nope, this is special, just for kids,” Katy told him, keeping Kris on the line on purpose. She could tell he needed support, and intended to keep a connection with him until she could actually be there.
Katy busied herself, packing a few things into an overnight bag for both boys, glancing up when she felt someone staring at her.
Jesse’s intense blue eyes held questions and accusations as he gazed at her. “Are you coming back?”
“Yes,” Kaleb reassured, patting Jesse’s leg awkwardly. “Mama ahways come back. ‘Kay? ‘Kay, Jesse?”
Katy abandoned the bag and the packing and knelt in front of the chair, setting the phone on the floor. “I will always come back for you. I promise. You didn’t do anything wrong. This is just some grown-up stuff that I have to see to. It’s got nothing to do with you or Kaleb, okay? I’ll always be back for you. In the meantime, you have fun at Grandma and Grandpa’s. They know all the rules, and they’ll take good care of both of you. Okay? Do you believe me?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Jesse managed, though Katy could see he wasn’t sure.
She talked him through asking permission to make a phone call at Kris’s parents house and how Jesse could always call her and talk. If Katy didn’t pick up the call, he could leave a message, and she would call back as soon as she could. That seemed to help a little bit, and finally, she was able to finish packing.
--
On the other end of the call, Kris prayed. Sometimes out loud, sometimes to himself. And he took comfort in the sounds of his family’s voices on the other end of the call.
It was lonely here, and unfamiliar. He had folded himself into the world’s most uncomfortable waiting room chair, upholstered in sick-looking brown. The coffee smelled rank, like it had been left on the heat all day. It probably even had that nasty filmy layer that developed on top after a while. Not that Kris could drink any even if he wanted to. It wasn’t that he felt sick, really. He just couldn’t do it. It took up vital energy that he needed to use to pray for Adam.
--
Katy arrived within the hour, and there was still no new news, but details they did find out where startling.
Leila was there now and had seen the head CT that had been done. The bleeding from the hemorrhage had been so massive that it had literally displaced Adam’s brain, shoving it off to one side. The blood inside Adam’s skull was the size of Leila’s fist.
She had kicked out “the entourage”, as Kris called them. The group of suits that had accompanied Adam to the hospital, following the ambulance in their cars, to figure out what this would mean for them. Kris was grateful. They didn’t need anybody there who didn’t have Adam’s survival and well-being first and foremost in their minds. And not selfish reasons, but because they loved him.
Katy walked a few feet over and poured coffee for herself. She could feel it burning a hole in her gut, but she knew this was going to be a long night, and one of them needed to be awake for it.
For hours, she and Kris had sat with their heads together, praying and thinking of people to call. Friends of Adam’s that he would want there. Allison was touring overseas, and couldn’t be reached, and Alisan was on her way, fresh from a recording session for her newest album.
Joan had been the first Adam’s real group of friends to arrive. It didn’t matter it had been two and a half years since he or Kris had seen her, or that she was several years older than both Kris and Adam. They had been teammates on a trip to Costa Rica. Kris, Adam and Allison had gone as part of Idol Gives back, to film segments, and Joan had come with her church group on a mission trip there. Joan hadn’t been their favorite person at first, but ended up proving herself over and over, both on the trip and afterward.
She talked her way past security who manned the doors of the waiting room, insisting that she be allowed inside.
Now, Joan was helping Katy, making the rounds. Together, they made sure everyone was hanging in there the best they could. Joan sat and talked with Leila for hours, distracting her with funny stories of their time in Costa Rica.
“Are you okay?” Katy whispered, rubbing Kris’s back. Dark shadows had developed under his eyes. A cookie sat untouched on a napkin on the wooden armrest of his chair.
Kris shook his head. He didn’t feel anything. He only knew that the world as he knew it was falling in around him, because Adam, the strongest person Kris knew, his best friend, might not live to make it out of surgery.
Time passed, and a man he recognized eventually as the neurosurgeon working on Adam walked in.
Kris stood quickly with Katy, Leila, Joan, and Adam’s father and brother, who had just arrived.
“He’s alive, and he’s breathing on his own.”
These were the only words Kris heard before he fell against Katy’s shoulder, relief closing his throat.
Adam had made it. Of course he had made it.
Kris breathed easier while Adam’s immediate family prepared themselves to see their son in recovery in a few hours. They graciously vacated the couch, allowing Kris and Katy to curl up there together and try to sleep, but it was difficult, despite Joan bringing them a blanket and covering them with it, reassuring both of them that if anything changed, she would let them know.
Alisan and Tyler both arrived in the coming hours. Both walking in with eyes haunted and darkened with grief. Alisan had circles so deep around her eyes they looked bruised, and Tyler, who was one of Joan’s church buddies on the Costa Rica trips, was conversely eager for new information. Tyler looked like she regularly kept these types of hours.
Tyler curled up on one end of the couch by Kris, while Alisan did the same on the other, camping out by Katy.
The four talked in hushed voices until Kris fell into a fitful sleep, awakened a few hours later, by Katy, shaking his shoulder.
“Adam’s up. He’s asking for you,” she told him gently.
--
Kris was instantly awake, despite it being 4:30 in the morning, and having gotten almost no sleep. He walked down the brightly lit halls, feeling his stomach knot in anticipation.
Leila had sweetly warned him about how Adam would look. Told him that the right side of Adam’s head had been shaved, that he had a scar. There were lots of tubes, she said, but encouraged him not to be scared of them. Adam was in there.
They still weren’t really sure how much Adam would know, who he would recognize, or if he would even be himself after an ordeal like this. Your brain housed vital functions as well as your personality. So, Kris knew he could easily be changed by this, and he prayed that he would be strong enough for whatever he would see. He asked Katy to come along, too, and Leila said that was alright. She accompanied them back, while her ex-husband and younger son went out for some air.
Kris saw the room, surprised at just how open it was, with windows and no door, just off the nurse’s station.
The bed was elevated, or at least Kris thought so. It looked like he was some kind of shrine on an altar or something. He tried to approach Adam’s good side, since it made the most sense. But Adam was facing the opposite wall, and wouldn’t turn his head, so Kris and Katy walked around the bed, as Leila got down beside Adam’s face to let him know they were there to visit him.
Despite all of Leila’s warnings, Kris found himself unprepared for what he saw. Adam’s face was sweaty and pale. What was left of his hair was a tangled mess. His eyes wandered in a way that made Kris’s stomach clench.
He jumped a little when he heard Adam try to speak. His voice was weak and so hoarse that Kris couldn’t understand a word.
Adam added clumsy hand gestures.
Then, eventually, Kris understood.
“You. Okay?”
Kris blinked, nodding automatically.
“Katy?” he mouthed.
“I’m right here,” she spoke up softly, taking his hand, and squeezing it.
“And Joan’s here, and Tyler, and Alisan. They’re all in the waiting room for you. And they’ll come say hey when you’re feeling better,” Kris rambled.
“Hermana,” Adam rasped, his eyes falling closed.
“She’s on her way,” Kris lied, knowing Adam was asking about Allison, and knowing that as soon as she did know, what he said would be true.
“We should let you rest,” Katy decided, taking Kris by the hand, after pressing a gentle kiss to Adam’s sweaty brow. There was a bag of stuff that looked like blood lying next to his hand, and Katy shivered, making sure not to jostle or touch it.
“Don’t want it to happen again,” Adam mumbled at Kris’s back.
“Don’t worry,” Leila reassured. “It won’t. It’s okay now. I’ve got you.”
But Kris felt light-headed and nauseous, knowing the truth, and still shaking with its gravity.
This wasn’t okay. Not even close. That was Adam, for sure. Worried about everyone else, but it wasn’t Adam, too. That arteriovenous malformation in his brain had reduced him to a shell of his former self. He appeared to have literally shrunk in the passing hours, looking physically smaller than his six foot frame.
This Adam was lost and scared.
But so was this Kris. He guessed this version of himself, and this version of Adam probably had a lot in common.
Outside the room, Kris fell against Katy’s shoulder, finally allowing himself to fall apart.