In the end, Megan opted to tell them. They absolutely had a right to know. She decided to call her father at work. He would probably a lot easier to talk to than her mom.
“Megan?” Drew asked, surprised that she had bothered to call. Any time his children called him at work, it meant one of two things: something horrible had happened (or was about to happen) or something so wonderful had happened that they could not contain themselves until he got home. He sincerely hoped that it was the latter.
“Jess is in the hospital.” So much for that.
Drew swallowed hard. He pressed for information. She had little to offer.
“OK,” he said, keeping his composure.
“OK?!” Megan replied, surprised by his apparent nonchalance.
“Does your mother know yet?”
“No.”
“I think you’d better let me tell her.”
Megan agreed that this was a good idea. She would round up her siblings and visit her sister. Their parents would meet them at the hospital.
“Do you think it’s serious?” Carrie asked.
“I don’t know. Ricard sounded very shaken up.”
“I hate that buttface,” Stephen snidely commented.
“Whatever it is…I’m sure it’s not his fault.”
“Don’t be too sure,” Carrie suggested.
While her siblings slammed their future brother-in-law, Megan’s thoughts ran much bleaker. After all, Jessica was pregnant. What about the baby?
When Megan was in 10th grade, she spent a little time volunteering at a hospital. Though her duties were strictly minimal, she nonetheless felt like she was doing some good in the world. She was scared at first: everyone there was suffering. Some would continue to suffer. Some would go beyond suffering until they suffered no more. Nonetheless, Megan saw a certain magic in it. Just before they were discharged, patients seemed so happy; so alive. Carpe diem was at its apex above the hospital door.
The hospital that housed Megan’s sister, like the one that Megan volunteered at, was busy but not in a television-friendly sort of way. Anthony Edwards and George Clooney were nowhere to be found. No one was yelling “stat!” and there were no gunshot victims limping in off the street and claiming it was an accident. Megan took a deep breath and approached the reception desk.
“Hi. Jessica Alder?”
“Are you family?” the receptionist asked her.
Meg nodded.
“She’s in ICU,” she said, handing her a pass. “No children, please.”
“But she’s my sister!” Carrie protested.
“Wait here for Mom and Dad,” Megan told her siblings.
“But…”
“Trust me,” Megan said. Her own troubles seemed a world apart. She was strong now. She had to be.
It wasn’t as bad as she thought. Jessica was hooked up to an IV and looked impossibly tired, but was still in one piece. From the way Ricard was carrying on, however, she might as well have been dead already.
“Why don’t you take a breather,” she said to her fiancé. “Meg’s here now.”
Tear-stricken, Ricard ducked out of the room and slinked woefully down the hall.
“Meg,” Jessica said, her voice sounding scratchy and hoarse. “Thank God.”
“What happened?” Megan asked. “Are you going to be OK?”
“Oh…I’m just fine and dandy,” she replied sardonically.
“Jess…”
“It was an accident! I was in a bit of a hurry, but still quite alert. Some mental deficient was yapping away on their cell phone and paying even less attention than I was. I reacted…too slowly, it turns out, there was a collision and now I’m a bit banged up. Que sera, sera.”
“When Ricard called, I thought it was something much worse.”
“Well…there was some…. internal damage.”
Megan sensed she was trying to put a good face on things. She was lying, she was pretending, she was denying again.
“I called Dad,” Megan confessed. “He and Mom will be here soon.”
Jessica’s face went pale. “You did what?!”
“Look, I know you guys fight sometimes, but they are your parents too. They HAD to know!”
“Megan!”
“What?”
She began to sob. “I lost the baby. I lost the baby and Mom is going to think it’s all my fault. I lost the GODDAMN FUCKING BABY!”
Megan felt herself becoming ill. She was sick with guilt. Now she knew why Ricard was so insistent she didn’t tell anyone. Now she understood.
“Jess, I’m so sorry.”
“Lot of good that does me now!”
“I’m going to…” Megan began and then trailed off. Numb with pain, she staggered out of the room and made her way down towards the lobby. As she was going, she encountered her parents coming in the opposite direction.
“Well?” a harried Nancy asked her. “Is it anything serious?”
Megan didn’t have the strength to answer her. Let her discover for herself. She made her way past her parents and continued her descent. A moment later, she could hear her mother’s scream transcend the hospital corridors like the savage, shrieking wail of a banshee.
Carrie and Stephen too were eager for information.
“Is she going to OK?” Carrie asked.
“Does she have a cast?” Stephen pestered. “Or stitches? Is she gonna need a transplant? What about…”
Megan shook her head and sat and silence.
“Megan?” Carrie asked. “Please tell me.”
“I can’t,” she replied weakly.
“Sure you can.”
She knew that their parents probably wouldn’t want them knowing right away. She also knew that they would not take it well. She decided to tell them anyway.
“But…but…she can’t,” Carrie protested, beginning to cry.
“No way,” said Stephen. “That sucks! That really really sucks.”
“It happened,” Megan said quietly. “And now everyone is just going to have to deal with it. I’m going to make sure Mom and Dad haven’t killed her yet. If you see Ricard around, be nice to him, OK?”
Carrie nodded. Under the circumstances, she was perfectly willing to call a truce.
When Megan returned to Jessica’s room, she found that a stalemate had been achieved. No one was saying anything and everyone’s face was full of accusations and anger. It was a grim deadlock.
“Guys, come on,” Megan urged. “Say something, please.”
“It wasn’t my fault!” Jessica snapped. “If you think for an instant that I’d be that…that stupid…”
“No one is blaming anyone…” Drew tried to intervene.
“No one thought it WAS your fault,” said Nancy. “But since you keep accusing your own family of thinking that way, maybe you are that stupid. Your own, family, Jessica!”
“Oh, some family you’ve all been. First, you don’t want me and then you can’t stand that I’ve gone on with my own life and it’s so goddamn different from yours. Ugh….this was a mistake. Please just leave.”
“No one is going anywhere,” Drew asserted.
“Dad,” Megan spoke up.
“Yes, Meg?”
“I think…I don’t know, maybe we should give her some time….”
Suddenly, everyone was staring at her. Megan felt like sinking into a hole in the ground.
“All right,” Nancy said stiffly. “We’ll be just down the hall.”
Megan was about to file out behind her parents when Jessica grabbed her arm.
“You stay,” she commanded.
Megan was willing to oblige.
“Since when did you become the mediator?”
Megan shrugged. “I guess I’ve always been.”
“Well, since you are the one REMOTELY sane person I can talk to right now, I’ll let you in on a little secret. I hate it. All of it. I hate that I got in an accident and I hate that my baby is dead. I hate that Mom blames me and Dad doesn’t know what to think. I hate that loathsome cur of a driver I collided with even though it might not have been their fault. I hate Ric for treating me like I’m made of porcelain and weeping over me and the baby every two seconds. Most of all, right now, I hate ME for allowing this to happen.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“Ah, but it is. Are you familiar with the concept of hubris?”
Megan nodded. “False pride.”
“I had a nice life. A GOOD life. Perhaps too good. I was finally in control of steering my destiny towards the desired end, and, at such a relatively young age too. And now this.”
Megan thought back to the day Ted dumped her. She felt like the world was going to end. In fact, she herself almost got into a car accident.
“I know what you mean,” she said.
“The worst, I fear, has yet to come. They have to run some more tests, make sure nothing else is wrong with me. Recovery is going to be a bitch. It’s going to be tough on Ric as well. I don’t know how or if at all he can handle it. There’s just so much…”
“Maybe you should take a break,” Megan suggested.
Jessica scoffed. “A break. What do you propose? Skiing in the alps? Cashing out my 401K and heading down to Boca? Get real, Meg.”
“No, I…hold on…”
Megan ducked out of the room. She needed to think. Everything that happened had happened in cycles. When she was down, her family pulled her up. When Carrie was in crisis, she was there to help. Who did Jess have? A terribly devoted but otherwise ineffectual fiance? A circle of superficial bohemians posing as friends? That wouldn’t do. She needed someone to be with her. She needed family. But this family?
Megan closed her eyes and tried to remember what it was like when Jess was living at home. There were fights, but it wasn’t that bad…. not until the end, anyway. Teen angst could be a killer, especially if it is given time to foster. But Jessica was older now. More mature. There was still a lot of defiance in her, but Megan held out the hope that things could be worked out. Maybe, if she came home for a little bit, things would be OK. Maybe. It was what she wanted. Maybe. But would her parents go for it? Would Jess? Maybe.
A.)“Why don’t you come home?” Megan proposed to her sister. “At least until you feel better?”B.)It was a fool’s folly, Megan thought. Besides, she had done enough damage for one day.