Jack was strong-willed and fiercely independent, but he had nostalgic hankerings that could squelch his better judgment—like announcing his resignation from Carleton Prep’s English Department to open a place that served eclectic old-world cuisine—thus the name, Yesterdays.
Jack liked teaching and was popular, but he could not see himself committed for life—and after ten years he was growing weary of the budget cutbacks and increased class sizes to the point that education was losing out. So in a carpe diem mind-set, he decided to follow an old passion. From his Aunt Nancy he had developed a talent for cooking. And his old friend Vince Hammond had agreed to be his partner. The risks were high, of course, and in spite of Beth’s protests, Jack had broken the bank. But that was Jack: a can-do will propelled by mulish single-mindedness.
She was still furry with sleep as she caught the phone on the fourth ring. “Mrs. Koryan?”
“Yes?”
“Is Jack Koryan your husband?” and the man named their address.
A spike jabbed her chest. “Yes.”
“This is Dr. Omar Rouhana. I’m an ED physician at the Cape Cod Medical Center in Barnstable. Your husband is here. There’s been an accident and he’s seriously ill.”
“What?” Beth was now fully awake. ED. What’s ED? Emergency Department? “What happened?”
“We think it’s very important for you to come down to the hospital. Is someone with you—someone who can bring you in?”
“Is he alive? Is he alive?”
“Yes, he’s alive, ma’am, but it’s important for you to be here, and we’ll explain the details when you arrive. Do you have children?”
“What? No. Will you please tell me what happened? Was it a car accident?” There was a long pause during which Beth could hear her own breath come in sharp gasps.
“You husband was brought in by a Coast Guard rescue squad. He was found on a beach on Homer’s Island. What we’d like you to do is to come in so we can talk about this further. Can you get a ride?”
They were stonewalling her, refusing to give details. She did all she could to control herself. “Is he conscious? Can you please tell me if he’s conscious?”
“Well, I think it’s best—”
“Goddammit! Is he conscious?”
“No.” Then after a dreadful pause, the doctor added, “Would you be coming from Carleton, Massachusetts?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that’s about ninety miles away. Can somebody drive you, or would you like us to call the local police to bring you in?”
God! Was it that bad? She did not want to spend the next two hours riding in the back of a police car with a perfect stranger. Nor did she want to bother Vince or other friends. “I can drive myself.”
The man gave her directions that she scribbled down.
“What happened to him?”
Again the doctor disregarded the question. “And please bring any medications your husband’s been taking.”
IT WAS A LITTLE BEFORE THREE A.M. when Beth pulled into the lot of the CCMC. From the scant details, she guessed that Jack had probably blacked out while swimming, which meant he had suffered a lack of oxygen. As she entered the emergency entrance, she wished she had called Vince.
The ED lobby was a tableau in bleak fluorescence. Two people occupied the reception area—one man asleep across two chairs, and an elderly woman glaring blankly at a television monitor with the sound turned off. The woman at the reception desk had expected her, because when Beth identified herself she stabbed some numbers on the phone. “Mrs. Koryan is here.” In seconds a physician and a nurse emerged through the swinging doors. Their faces looked as if they had been chipped from stone. They introduced themselves, but Beth didn’t register their names and followed them to a small conference room off the lobby and closed the door.
“He’s dead, isn’t he?” Beth asked.
“No, he’s not dead, Mrs. Koryan,” the doctor said. “Please sit down. Please.”
Beth slid into a chair across from them. Their faces were grim. Their badges read Omar Rouhana, M.D., and Karen Chapman, R.N. “Mrs. Koryan, before we let you see him, we must first warn you that your husband experienced serious trauma. Besides nearly drowning, he suffered acute toxic burns on his body.”
“Burns?”
“He got caught in a school of jellyfish.”
It sounded like a bad joke. “Jellyfish?”
“We don’t know the details, but a coast guard officer at the scene reported a large school of them. Fortunately, he bagged a couple, and we’re in hotline contact with marine biologists at Woods Hole and Northeastern University’s marine labs at Nahant to assist with toxicology screening.”
“Wha-what are you saying?”
“That your husband got badly stung,” Nurse Chapman said. “And he’s not a pretty sight, I’m sorry to say.”
Beth nodded numbly. Then the nurse got up and took her arm and led her through the Emergency Department door and down a hall toward the curtained bays, an orchestra of electronic beeps and hums rising around them. They stopped by the third bay, and the nurse pulled back the curtain. The doctor and nurse had done their best to dull the shock, but they could never have prepared Beth for what her eyes took in.
The immediate impression was that this was not her husband but some hideous alien parody: Jack was spread-eagled on a stretcher. His eyes were patched with gauze, his genitals were draped with a white cloth, and his feet were balled in bandages. Tubes connected to monitors, machines, and drip bags from all parts of his body—mouth, head, arms, and privates. One had been surgically implanted under his collarbone and connected to drip bags. But what nearly made Beth faint was Jack’s body: It was bloated to twice its size, and his neck, chest, arms, thighs, legs, were crosshatched with oozing, angry red welts and glistening from head to foot with analgesic goo. He looked as if he had been brutally horsewhipped then pumped with fluid to the bursting point.
Instantly the air pressed out of Beth’s lungs in short staccato gasps, as she stood there stunned in horror while trying to process what had become of Jack—that beautiful man she had married with the thick black hair and star-burst green eyes that drove his female students to distraction. Beth’s own eyes fell on the small rose tattoo on his right arm in memory of the mother Jack never knew. Then she burst into tears.
The nurse put her arms around Beth. “I know, but the good news is that his heart rate is strong, and that his vital signs are good.”
“Wh-why’s he so bloated?”
“The toxin. It causes water to leak into the tissue and cavities of his body, which is why we’re hydrating him.”
“The tests won’t be back for a few days,” the doctor said, “but so far the lab work shows no major abnormalities in his blood.”
“What did this to him?”
The doctor took the question. “The marine-lab people think it’s some rare kind of creature found in the tropics. Until we get a tox screen, we’re treating him with steroids and antiseizure meds to keep him stable.” The doctor checked Jack’s chart. “Already his temperature is approaching normal.”
Jack’s eyes were wadded with dressing, and what little of his face she could see was a puffed mask of red and purple. His lips looked as if he had been beaten with fists—blue, swollen, bloody, painted with disinfectant, and an endotracheal tube jammed down his throat. Except for the tattoo, there was no reminder that this was the same man she had fought with just hours ago. Her heart twisted: Their last words had been contentious—about his going out to the island.