Healing Waters by Stephen Arterburn, Nancy Rue Read Free Book Online

blood couldn’t make the puzzle of white ash and black char and gelatinous yellow look worse. Nothing could.
    Nor could anything make it much better. We could clean and medicate, but Francesca was dead wrong. We were never going to return that face to its previous beauty. Those praying people in Lounge A didn’t get that.
    Egan and the Designing Women insisted they would see Sonia, and brushed aside my explanation that this wasn’t the usual ICU where friends and family could visit for ten minutes every hour. When I told them, teeth gritted, that Sonia had to be protected from infection at all costs, they vowed that they would dip themselves in disinfectant if they had to—because what I obviously didn’t understand was that they would do whatever it took to be there to comfort their Sonia.
    Really, I wanted to say to them. Are you going to learn how to debride her wounds? Catch the drool when she can’t close her mouth?
    I didn’t say it. I actually wanted someone else to take care of Sonia in spite of my mother’s insistence from the grave that I shoulder it all. The chances that one of these women would know what to say to Sonia the first time she looked in a mirror were far greater than they were for me.
    I also tried to avoid the constant insistence that I eat something. How can you eat so little? they wanted to know.
    Their eyes held the rest of that question— and still look like Jabba the Hutt?— which I’d seen on people’s faces at dozens of lunch tables and barbecues and buffet lines. I would have gone on the Gandhi diet before eating in front of people who shopped in the petite section.
    When I wasn’t falling under their judgment, I kept moving, even to the point of volunteering to carry the greenhouse-sized collection of floral arrangements that arrived for Sonia into the Mary Kay Lounge, where the number of occupants continued to climb. The new arrivals—hurriedly introduced to me as members of the board of Abundant Living Ministries—shared the group’s enthusiasm for the names on the cards. I didn’t recognize any of them. As for the board members, five seconds after I was told they were Ivey Somebody and Nanette Somebody Else, I couldn’t have identified which was which.
    Every time I went into the lounge, everyone was in some phase of crying. Everyone except me. If I started, how would I be able to stop the flood that would express what I was trying not to feel?
    The conversation in the lounge now centered on someone named Roxanne, who would be on her way as soon as she’d taped her show. No, she would let the station do a rerun and be on the next plane. No, no, she’d come later with Bethany and Yvonne, the nanny.
    That one slammed into me.
    â€œSomeone is bringing Bethany here?” I said.
    The conversation muttered to a stop.
    â€œWell, yeah,” Egan said.
    â€œDon’t even think about bringing that child in here yet.”
    They stared. Some eyes shuttered, others blinked. I wondered who was making the decisions about my six-year-old niece’s life.
    â€œWhen do you think?” Egan said. “So I can let Yvonne know.” “When Sonia is able to talk, you should ask her,” I said.
    Egan folded his arms and crunched his forehead. “When is that going to be? I’m not clear on the timeline.”
    â€œWhenever they extubate her—take out the breathing tube. A week maybe.”
    â€œYou think it’s going to be a week?”
    â€œCould be two.”
    Georgia stepped forward. “You’re saying she won’t be able to talk for two weeks?”
    â€œOr breathe on her own or eat or be touched. This isn’t a sunburn. Two layers of her face have been cooked away.”
    I could hear myself breathing as no one spoke.
    I turned just enough to look at Georgia. “I don’t think you get how serious this situation is.”
    â€œWhat we get,” Egan said,