Pandora's Box

Chapter 17

Spring, 2014
Marshfield University Hospital
Wisconsin

There was a quote once, he thought he remembered, from one of those books he read as a child. It had struck Rhys deep inside. That the tragedy of life is not death, but what we let die inside of us while we live.

It rang particularly clear now, as he stared into space, in a corner of the pristine white hospital. Despite it being dark outside, somehow, Marshfield University Hospital was still as bright as day. If one didn't look outside the darkened window, where the occasional car passed, and streetlights shed light on midnight streets, one could almost believe it was daylight.

But for Rhys Jarett, whether it was day or night, it didn't matter. What mattered to him were behind the doors of the operating theater he had been staring at for over three hours. Ever since the ambulance with a bloodied Pandora had arrived, and his lifeless looking girlfriend had been wheeled into the operating theater Rhys had not moved from his spot. Somehow, the irrational part of him feared that if he so much as moved, or breathed in the wrong spot, he would cause her death.

And if she was gone, he knew that whatever he had left inside of him would go along with her.

"Rhys!"

The familiar voice was the very first thing that had made him move in the past three hours. Whipping his head up, he scrambled to his feet when he saw the anxious, worried looks on the faces of Miranda and Gerald Talbott, who came running in. Both were dressed in clothes that didn't even look as if they matched, but neither of them looked as if they cared. Miranda's eyes looked red and puffy, and Pandora's father now looked every bit the former army officer he used to be, as they drew to a stop and simultaneously turned to look up just as the operating theater light flickered off, and the doors opened.

His heart stopped for a second in his chest, when a surgeon covered in blood on his overalls walked out.

Miranda Talbott practically pounced on the surgeon, asking a barrage of questions that Rhys didn't manage to catch in his daze. "Sweetheart," he saw Gerald Talbott move to hold his wife's arms. "Let the doctor speak."

"That... depends." Rhys's heart dropped, when he heard the hesitant tone in the doctor's voice.

"Money is not a question, doctor, ple-"

"Will she wake up?" Rhys asked, his knuckles white.

"High chance she will, yes. For now, we have placed her in an intensive care unit. Visitors are permitted, but two at a time."

Without wasting another breathe, Miranda and Gerald Talbott ran off. Rhys would've loved to see her. To ensure that this was no dream, that she was alive, still breathing, that he would be able to see her again soon, to hear her voice calling his name. To wipe away the image of her lying lifeless, covered in her own blood, unresponsive no matter how loud or often he called her name, how rough he held her. How helpless he felt as he sat there waiting, completely not realizing that his own tears were beginning to mingle with her blood in his hands.

"You okay, son?"

The doctor's question pulled Rhys from his emotional mire, to realize that his eyes had begun collecting tears around it's rim again. Using the back of his hand, he dragged it across his eyes, glasses forgotten and lost somewhere between the process of bringing Pandora to the hospital. "I..."

"She your wife?" he asked.

A pang rang across his chest, when he realized how much he wished those words were true. For if it were, at least he'd have some claim over her, be able to be the first one in to see her. Reluctantly, he shook her head, not trusting his voice to not shake if he spoke.