The Aftermath

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Angie dies twice while the team working on her attempts to flush her system of the opium poison in her veins. Despite the use of naloxone she dies twice and then slips into a comma. Angie is hooked up to a ventilator, to keep her breathing. Her heart rate is monitored with an ECG. They monitor her brain with an EEG every six hours. She remains in the ICU for the first forty-eight hours.

Tom and Samantha take turns waiting in the lobby for Angie to wake. The doctors prepare them for the worse, but are optimistic about Angie's recovery if she comes out of the coma. She has survived the worst, the overdose. She has lapsed into coma due to hypoxia, lack of oxygen to the brain. There could be brain damage, the doctors tell them. She may stay in the coma for weeks or months. She may come out of it in a vegetative state and remain that way for weeks. One thing the doctors seem to all be in agreement about is that Angie isn't just going to sit up and be all better. It will be gradual. She will come back in stages.

Teri calls and asks to do the story. Tom tells her what he knows, and Kemp gives her the details he has. Bobby is still at large, so Teri and Julia remain in their gilded cage. Drew has joined them with Samantha and Tom. The four bedrooms are all in use now.

Kemp has sent a team to Tom's house to secure the doors, clean the walls, and remove the damage. Tom talks with the crew on the phone, giving directions about what to throw away and what to move to the garage.

On the third day, after the story is released, Angie is moved into a private room. Visitors begin to arrive from her school. They bring cards and letters and flowers and little things they made or poems they wrote. They come, they stay in the waiting room with Tom, or Samantha for a while, and then they leave, back to their lives. Samantha is warmed by these visits and Tom is grateful to them for this reason.

Tom posts on Facebook every day, several times a day, sending photos of visitors, and pictures of Angie, and giving updates. The updates are all the same, but he posts them anyway. Friends begin to answer, to wish Angie well. They begin to remember that Tom was not guilty. They ask him questions in private messages and he tries to answer the ones which are not too private, too prying. At least they are curious and talking again.

On the fourth day Jim Stewart is moved to the downtown jail, and into their medical ward. Tom breaths a small inner sigh of relief. Periodically for the last few days, Tom has pondered on going down and finishing what he started in the warehouse. It would be stupid of course, but there were times it was an obsession.

Tom takes the night shift, and Samantha takes the day shift. Drew sometimes comes with Samantha. Then hours tick by. Tom is getting good at staring at walls and thinking nothing. His mind is completely blank. There are no thoughts, no worries, no rotor blades of choppers coming in, nothing. White noise. Wasteland.

When they let him, he sits in the room with Angie and talks to her about what has gone on. He reads the cards and the poems her friends have brought for her. He tells her about the flowers. He tells her that Stewart is far away now, and never coming back. He tells her it is safe to wake up now. The bad men are gone and she is safe. He tells her it is alright that she broke her promise, that he is not mad at her. She can come back now.

Kemp is back in his office, running his small army. He has missed many days and there is a pile up of needs to meet. The publicity has improved his business ten fold, he tells Tom, and tells him not to worry about any of the bills. "With the new business coming in, it will be the best investment this company has ever made. I've already talked to the other partners, and we all agree."

Tom thanks him, because he doesn't know what else to say.

The police have kept Tom's gun until the D.A. or the Grand Jury make a ruling. There could still be a charge of the illegal use of a firearm, his new lawyer tells him. Charlie is still in the clean room, though the doctors are optimistic about her recovery.