While My Sister Sleeps. Barbara Delinsky

hard, but you’re used to hard stuff. Think what it’s like at that twenty-first mile when you hit the wall and feel dizzy and weak, and you’re sure you can’t finish. But you always do. You always manage to dredge up a little more strength.’ The respirator breathed in, breathed out, but not a finger moved. ‘Do it now, Robin,’ she begged. ‘Let me know you can hear me speak.’ She waited, then tried, ‘Think of the games you play. When you run, you imagine that long, smooth stride. Imagine it now, sweetie. Imagine the pleasure you get from moving.’

      Nothing happened.

      Brokenly, she whispered, ‘Am I missing it, Charlie?’

      ‘If you are, I am, too.’

      Discouraged, she sank back into the chair and brought Robin’s hand to her mouth. Her fingers were limp and cool. ‘I know I saw something,’ she breathed against them, wanting only to keep them warm.

      ‘You’re exhausted,’ Charlie said.

      She looked at him sharply. ‘Are you saying I imagined it? Maybe your problem is that you don’t want to see it as much as I do.’

      There was a pause, then a quiet, ‘Low blow.’

      Kathryn had known that the instant the words left her mouth. With his warm hazel eyes, shoulders that were broader in theory than fact, and a loyalty like none she had seen in any other person before or since, Charlie had been there for her from the start. The fact that she could accuse him of less showed how stressed she was.

      Stressed? She wasn’t stressed. She was devastated. Seeing Robin like this was killing her, and that was even before she thought of the long-term meaning. This wasn’t just a setback. It was a catastrophe.

      Charlie understood. She could see it on his face, but that didn’t excuse what she’d said. Slipping an arm around his waist, she buried her face in his chest. ‘I’m sorry. You did not deserve that.’

      He cupped her head. ‘I can take it. But Molly can’t. She’s trying, Kath. None of us expected this.’ His hand lowered to massage her neck at just the spot where she needed it most.

      Kathryn looked up, haunted. ‘Did I push Robin too far?’

      He smiled sadly. ‘You didn’t have to push. She pushed herself.’

      ‘But I’ve always egged her on.’

      ‘Not egged. Encouraged.’

      ‘If I hadn’t, maybe she wouldn’t have pushed so hard.’

      ‘And never run a marathon in record time? Never traveled the country inspiring others? Never eyed the Olympics?’

      He was right. Robin lived life to the fullest. But that knowledge didn’t ease Kathryn’s fear. ‘What are we going to do?’

      ‘Ask for an EEG.’

      Her panic shot up. ‘What if it shows no activity?’

      ‘What if it doesn’t?’

      Charlie was the face of quiet confidence. Always. And she loved him for it. But this was too soon. ‘I can’t take the risk. Not yet.’

      ‘Okay,’ he said gently. ‘Then what about friends? They can’t get through to you, so they’re calling me. We need to tell them the truth.’

      ‘We don’t know the truth.’

      He chided her with a sad smile. ‘You aren’t asking to have her transferred, which tells me that you accept the MRI results.’

      How not to, when the pictures were so clear? ‘Okay,’ she conceded. ‘Let’s tell them there are irregularities. That’s the truth. We don’t have to tell them everything, do we? I can’t bear having the world think the worst.’

      ‘These are friends, Kath. They want to talk to you. They want to help.’

      But Kathryn didn’t want sympathy. She wasn’t the type to talk for the sake of talking; she couldn’t bear the thought of giving progress reports to friend after friend, especially when there was no progress to report. And what were friends supposed to do?

      No. No calls. Kathryn didn’t want people saying things that she wasn’t ready to hear. ‘I can’t talk with them yet. I just can’t. Handle this for me, Charlie?’

      Molly struggled at the hospital. Showing no improvement at all, Robin lay pale and still, a cruel parody of the active person she had been, and Kathryn was appalled at mention of an enlarged heart. ‘Absolutely untrue,’ she declared. ‘Robin would have told me if she had a serious problem.’

      Molly kept her voice low. She had never thought of her brother as being particularly insightful when it came to human nature, but she wasn’t doing real well herself. What better time to test his theory than with something as difficult as this? ‘You might have stopped her from running. What if she didn’t want that?’

      ‘Robin may be daring, but she isn’t stupid, and she certainly isn’t self-destructive. Why in the world would you believe a stranger over your sister?’

      ‘Because I can’t ask my sister,’ Molly said softly still. ‘I’m just trying to make sense of this, Mom. Did the doctors mention an enlarged heart?’

      Confused, Kathryn looked at Charlie, who said, ‘Yes. We assumed it was something new.’

      ‘Did anyone in your family have an enlarged heart?’

      Charlie shook his head and deferred to Kathryn, who said, ‘I have no idea. I never heard of anything, but doctors didn’t know as much in my parents’ or grandparents’ day. Besides, it’s the kind of thing a person wouldn’t know unless he had symptoms.’

      ‘Did Robin have symptoms?’

      ‘Molly. You’re assuming it’s true. Please. And why does it even matter? This is water over the dam. Robin had a heart attack. It’s a fait accompli.’

      ‘For her maybe, but what about for Chris and me? Shouldn’t we know whether we’re at risk?’ Realizing how selfish that sounded, she added, ‘If Robin knew she was at risk, she never should have run so hard. She never should have run alone.’

      ‘She always ran alone.’

      ‘Most runners train in groups. If she had a heart condition, shouldn’t she have made sure there were other people around just in case?’

      ‘You were supposed to be around.’

      Molly might have argued, but her mother was right. Somberly, she said, ‘Yes. I’ll have to live with that. Always.’

      Kathryn seemed taken aback by the admission, but only briefly. ‘Besides, there was someone else there.’ The Good Samaritan.

      ‘He didn’t have to come see us, Mom,’ Molly said, still cringing at her mother’s outburst. ‘That took courage.’

      ‘It was guilt. He wants to be absolved.’

      ‘He was concerned,’ Molly argued, deciding that Chris’s theory wasn’t worth beans. Loud voice, soft voice–she just couldn’t get through. ‘He wasn’t the one who put her here. If we’re talking cause and effect, what doctor would have let Robin run marathons if he knew she had this condition?’

      ‘Like a doctor could control what she did? Please, Molly. You were the first one defending doctors last night. Why the change?’

      ‘I don’t want my sister to die!’ Molly cried, eyes filling with tears because Robin was lying there, totally unresponsive. ‘When we were kids,’ she said brokenly, focusing on her sister, ‘I’d be on her bed, moving closer and closer, imagining that I would wake her up with just the power of my eyes, and she’d lie perfectly still until I got really close. Then she’d bolt up and scare me to death.’ She took a shaky breath and looked at her mother. ‘I’m sorry. I feel