Saving Meghan Read online

  “Hey, let her go,” someone called out. “It’s her damn kid!”

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” shouted another supporter.

  “Sit down, lady!” This third voice, a female’s, called out. “I’ll kick your ass if you make me miss this flight.”

  “Ma’am, if you don’t take your seat this instant, I’m going to have you forcibly removed from this plane,” Katrina threatened.

  “Yes!” Becky cried out. “That’s what I want. Kick me off right now. I need to be with my daughter. I can’t fly to California, don’t you understand?”

  Becky turned to see a large man approaching her from behind. He had a bushy mustache and thinning dark hair that gleamed beneath the cabin lights. As he flashed some sort of ID to Katrina, his fingers clamped around Becky’s left arm, which he then wrenched painfully and awkwardly behind her back.

  “I’m an air marshal,” he gruffly announced to Katrina. “Please tell the captain we have a situation here, and we need to get this plane back to the gate—now. Ma’am, I’m taking you into custody for interfering with a flight crew.”

  Becky heard some cheers mixed with plenty of boos. In her peripheral vision, she saw cell phones out, small lenses recording her meltdown for the whole world to see. Soon it would be all over Twitter, Facebook, maybe the news. The air marshal yanked Becky’s other arm behind her back with total disregard for tendons and range of motion. A second later, Becky felt the clamp of cold steel biting into her flesh as he secured his handcuffs around her delicate wrists.

  She’d never done the “perp walk” before, and understood now the desire for a clipboard or hoodie to shield her face as the air marshal escorted her (and her carry-on luggage) off the gangway and back into the departure lounge. As a woman, she thought she knew what it meant to feel degraded when men groped her, touched her, approached her, catcalled her, but this was dehumanizing on an entirely different level.

  It was a short walk from the departure gate to a waiting electric-powered cart that the air marshal had summoned on his radio. People gawked at Becky as the uniformed driver, an employee of the airport, drove her away. They were understandably curious. What could she have done? Even Becky could appreciate the odd sight—a tall, slender woman manhandled by a brute like the air marshal. It hardly made for a fair fight.

  Becky tried to hold it together as the driver weaved the cart between clusters of airline passengers all making their way to gates or other destinations. She felt less conspicuous while seated, as nobody could see the handcuffs around her wrists. She was aware of the crime she’d committed, but not the penalties it might carry. All Becky wanted was to get at her purse, which held her phone. Meghan was still in the hospital. For all she knew, her daughter could be gone.

  “Please, please,” Becky said, willing strength into her voice. “You don’t have to do this.”

  The air marshal answered coolly, “You didn’t have to interfere with a flight crew.”

  Some minutes later, Becky found herself in a stark room constructed entirely of gray concrete bricks located somewhere in the bowels of the airport. Overhead lights reflected harshly off a metal table positioned in the center of the room. She looked across the table at several members of the TSA, all dressed in crisp blue shirts pinned with gold badges. Their shifting glances and nervous looks told her they were not trained to handle a distressed mom in handcuffs.

  “Dave, I think you may have overstepped your bounds here,” one of the TSA agents offered a bit apprehensively.

  Dave.

  At least now Becky knew her captor’s name.

  Just then, the room’s only door swung open, and in stormed a strong-featured man in his fifties, with ebony skin and short-cut dark hair. He had on a charcoal-gray suit brightened with a bold red tie, which distinguished him as a person in charge. When he looked at Becky and saw the handcuffs in place, his stern aspect softened. His gaze shifted over to Dave, the air marshal.

  “Unlock her,” he said. “You went way, way over the line here.”

  “She interfered with a flight crew,” Dave protested in his defense. “She should be charged.”

  “I can’t believe you blew your cover for a situation the flight crew could have handled. Just so you know, I spoke with the captain, who informed me that he would have willingly returned to the gate to let this poor mother off that plane. Now, let her go.”

  Dave muttered to himself as he complied with the order. Becky rubbed at her wrists, which were ringed red in the matching contours of the handcuffs.

  The man who’d come to Becky’s rescue pulled over a chair. He sat down beside her. “Ma’am, I’m Reginald Campbell, head of TSA here at Logan. I am so very sorry for what you’ve been through.”

  Becky regained her composure. “I know you think I’m going to threaten you with lawsuits and whatnot, but I only want my purse with my phone in it so that I can check in with my husband and make sure my daughter is all right.”

  “Of course,” Reginald said, retrieving the purse from the corner of the room where Dave had tossed it. “If you don’t mind, we just need to see some ID for the paperwork.”

  Becky’s hands trembled as she fished her license from her wallet and her phone from her purse. She handed the ID to Reginald and then checked her phone, which showed a series of texts from Carl. The last one eased her anxiety considerably.

  Meghan is resting in the ER. Seems stable. She’s asking for you. Are you able to get here?

  Becky texted back: Don’t let them discharge her. Be there soon.

  “I need to leave now,” Becky told Reginald. “I have to get to the hospital. Am I under arrest?”

  “Well, Mrs. Gerard,” said Dave the air marshal, taking it upon himself to answer. He stood and exhaled loudly in a way that pushed out his ample midsection like a balloon. “You’ve created a serious situation for yourself.”

  “Stop it, just stop it,” Reginald snapped. He handed Becky back her license. “No, Mrs. Gerard, you are not under arrest. You’re free to go. And we owe you a sincere apology. I also suspect you’ll have your airfare refunded and a free trip coming your way.”

  But Dave was not through. He had to save face somehow. There was a brief, albeit stern, lecture on how to properly engage the flight crew during an emergency, and then some forms to sign, and threats of a stiff fine and possible jail time if she ever disrupted a flight again, all of which Becky said she understood just so they would hurry up and let her go.

  Eventually, Reginald took Becky to another dingy room where piles of confiscated luggage languished, each piece representing someone’s horrible day. There Reginald explained at least one reason why he’d shown her such compassion.

  “I had a son who died of leukemia a few years back,” he explained. “Those last moments we had together were the most precious of my life. If I were in your position, I’d have done the same thing.”

  “I suspect you wouldn’t have been on that plane in the first place,” said Becky, who had yet to forgive herself.

  She felt Meghan’s pain, her daughter’s illness, as though it were her own. Exhaustion took root inside her bones, where it calcified to make activities once routine (grocery shopping, laundry, cooking, yard work) an effortful chore.

  Of course, the brunt of Meghan’s care had fallen on her, the mother. At times Becky felt angry for the burden, and immediately afterward she’d be consumed with guilt. How dare she feel anything other than tremendous empathy when it was Meghan who suffered the most? These were things Becky wrestled with in the quiet dark—dreading what tomorrow might bring—while Carl slept peacefully beside her.

  Becky’s community of online friends, built up over a year and a half through her Facebook group, Help for Meghan, regularly posted positive affirmations, which she’d turn to when in need of a mental pick-me-up.

  I breathe in calmness and breathe out fear.

  I let go of my anger so I can see clearly.

  I may not understand the good in this situatio
n, but it is there.

  She had invited friends whom she knew would want regular updates on Meghan’s health to join the group, but word spread the way word does on the internet, and before long, strangers began opting into the public group. Initially, Becky kept the group public, thinking it would be good to cast as wide a net as possible. Members offered advice on doctors, made assured diagnoses, and suggested treatments without ever having met Becky or Meghan, all to no avail.

  Becky was never one to turn to God for answers. Cora had instilled in her children no sense of the divine, which left Becky unmoored as Meghan’s condition worsened. Her online group had evolved to become her church as well as her religion. It was there she’d turn when needing solace and support. Carl tended to focus more on solutions and answers, at the expense of a compassionate ear. Becky knew not to cast blame. They were both pushing through the dark, and in the process, sometimes, oftentimes, losing sight of each other.

  Becky thanked Reginald for his kindness as she got ready to depart. Instead of a handshake goodbye, Reginald pulled her in for an unexpected hug, something she so often wished Carl would do.

  She thanked Reginald again before rushing out the door, luggage in tow, in search of a cab to take her to the hospital, praying that if her worst nightmare came true, she’d arrive in time to say a final goodbye to her precious daughter before she was gone.

  CHAPTER 3

  Becky thrust a fifty through the Plexiglas divider to the driver of the yellow cab—who, at her request, had disregarded the speed limit for most of the trip.

  “Thanks,” she said, even before her taxi had come to a stop beneath the ambulance entrance of Saint Joseph’s Hospital. Saint Joe’s did not have the same renown as the Boston hospitals, but it was closest to her Concord home.

  The red neon glow of the emergency sign on the portico overhang lit Becky’s face as she rushed through the automatic double doors, through the waiting room, and directly to Reception. The opaque sliding-glass window opened on cue, and a receptionist greeted her with a halfhearted “May I help you?”

  “Yes, I’m here to see my daughter.” Becky huffed out the words, a bit winded from her short sprint. “Meghan Gerard. She’s in the ER.”

  “Just a moment,” the receptionist replied, showing no great concern for Becky’s obvious agitation.

  “My husband is with her,” Becky announced. “I shouldn’t have to wait out here.”

  “Just a moment,” repeated the receptionist. To punctuate her request, she slid the glass window closed shut, leaving Becky in the company of the ten or so folks in the waiting room.

  Becky retreated to a corner, away from the masses, wanting to separate her suffering from theirs. She had just taken out her phone to text Carl when she heard someone call her name. Glancing up, Becky focused on a reassuring matronly woman standing in front of the automatic doors to the ER. She was dressed in blue scrubs and had a stethoscope draped around her neck. Becky raced over to her.

  “Mrs. Gerard, my name is Alexandra. I’m Meghan’s nurse.”

  “Is she all right?” Becky’s voice carried the weight of her worry.

  “She’s doing just fine,” Alexandra assured her. Her strong accent exposed her Boston origin. “She’s resting in bay twelve. It’s been a long day, and she’ll be very glad to see you. Your husband has been here, of course, but he’s not her mother, if you know what I mean.”

  Becky knew exactly what Alexandra meant, and gave her an extra mark for perception. Carl was certainly a good provider, no question about that, but it was Becky who’d been commander of Meghan’s health issues as well as comforter-in-chief for years now.

  How many unproductive sojourns to the doctor or the hospital had they endured? How many times had they found themselves frustrated to the point of tears at being dismissed without any answers, without a diagnosis? How many bottles of failed prescriptions remained in the medicine cabinet? How many nights had she gone to Meghan’s room, summoned for consolation?

  Becky threw open the curtain to ER bay 12 to find a stretcher bearing her fifteen-year-old daughter, who was attached to a monitor recording vitals, oxygen saturation, and heart rhythm. A pitcher of water and a big container of Gatorade were on a tray beside the bed. Carl sat in a chair in the corner of the bay, eyes glued to his phone instead of engaging with his daughter.

  He rose from his seat as Becky came to Meghan’s bedside.

  “Oh, sweetheart. I’m sorry I wasn’t there when it happened,” Becky said. “I should never have been on that damn plane.”

  Even though my mother is dying, thought Becky. Even though I will probably never get to say the three words my therapist told me to say in her presence: “I forgive you.”

  Becky reached for her daughter’s hand while leaning into Carl, who had come to stand beside her, his strong arm wrapped tightly around her shoulders. He placed a gentle kiss on her cheek.

  She fought back tears as she went through the familiar rundown of questions, all delivered with the reflex of a preflight checklist: “Are you feeling all right? Do you need anything? What can I do to help? Tell me what happened.”

  Meghan answered each question dutifully, but without much embellishment: “I’m fine. No, I’m okay. I’m just tired.”

  Poor child has to be utterly exhausted, thought Becky.

  Carl provided background that Becky already knew, but now, face-to-face, instead of over text and phone, his narration took on new vividness.

  “Holly left when I explained you’d gone to the airport, but the twins stayed behind because they wanted Meghan to play soccer with them.”

  “You shouldn’t have let them,” Becky said, more sharply than intended.

  “It was my fault, Mom,” Meghan said, coming to her father’s defense. “I didn’t even run that hard.”

  “I heard someone cry out that Meghan fainted, and I came running,” Carl continued. “Got there in seconds. Danielle said she went pale before collapsing, and Addy said something about her stiffening up. She was breathing but unresponsive, so I called 911. By the time they got to the house, she was coming around, but she didn’t make any sense until she was in the ambulance, and even then she still seemed a bit confused.”

  “Has Dr. Walker seen her yet?”

  Becky knew the name of the head cardiologist at Saint Joe’s, same as she did the neurologist and every other doctor who worked there.

  “No,” Carl said. “Dr. Clemmons said it was dehydration and nothing more.”

  “Dr. Clemmons is an ER doctor, not a heart specialist. She needs an expert evaluation, Carl. Dammit,” Becky muttered. “I should never have left you in charge.”

  “Becky, come on, don’t be like that,” Carl protested.

  “Just wait a minute,” Becky said in a huff. “I’m getting someone who knows what they’re doing.”

  “The doctor said she’s fine,” Carl said to Becky’s back as she was leaving.

  There was a subtle bite to the way Carl delivered the word “fine.” He had infused it with layers of meaning. At some level, Becky understood Carl’s reluctance to accept that Meghan was indeed direly ill with something strange. Test after test and doctor after doctor had failed to yield any meaningful result. But she knew better. There was a time bomb waiting to go off inside her precious daughter’s body, spreading disease and sickness in all directions like shrapnel. The fainting episode had to have been scary for Carl, but clearly not terrifying enough to dispel his many doubts. For the first time in his life, Carl had encountered a problem for which money could not buy a solution.

  Meghan had stared at her mother from the confines of her stretcher bed, offering nothing more than a weak smile. Pity and sadness consumed Becky. Her daughter was so obviously ill. Her arms too thin, face too gaunt. The ER’s harsh lighting had given Meghan’s already-pale skin a ghostly pallor. Her blond hair, normally full of body, lay flat against her head, as if no single part of her was allowed to be healthy.

  People said Meghan looked like
her mother, with the same electric-blue eyes, but there were features of her father’s handsome face present as well. Despite her frailty, Becky’s daughter was still a beautiful girl, but the smile that lit her face now was just an echo of who she once was.

  Becky stepped out of the ER bay with her phone pressed to her ear. She had Dr. Walker’s number in her contacts, same as the neurologist, pulmonologist, and various other specialists she could summon like Aladdin rubbing his magic lamp.

  “Hello,” a man’s voice said after the call rang through.

  “Gary, it’s Becky Gerard. I’m sorry to call your personal number, but you told me to phone anytime I had a problem, and, well, I have a problem.”

  Gary. Married. One daughter in her early twenties. Cornell grad. Living in New York, working as a lab tech at Mount Sinai Hospital. Thinking about medical school, to her father’s delight. He’ll probably be tan from his vacation to Costa Rica. Oh, if Cora had had access to social media in her heyday, it would have been like an addict mainlining their favorite drug.

  “What’s happening, Becky? What’s going on?”

  Dr. Walker’s concern sounded genuine, although Becky knew he’d take great interest even if she called about a leaky faucet. That’s because she had helped him by spending a couple of hours reviewing his daughter’s rental agreement, and then a good thirty minutes on the phone with her, dispensing advice about getting rid of the application and amenity fee, making sure she had the right to use the outdoor space, and how not to get charged for damages that were there before she moved in.

  No surprise, Dr. Gary Walker was deeply grateful for Becky’s help. Was she ashamed to use her real estate experience to ingratiate herself? Not in the slightest. By her count, Dr. Walker had examined Meghan at least half a dozen times now for various episodes—scary heart palpitations, shortness of breath, unexplained chest pain—and he always took Becky’s calls.

  Becky recounted the situation for Dr. Walker’s benefit, though he’d already heard about the incident on the airplane. As Becky had feared, cell phone video of her had wormed its way onto the internet, making headlines in the online editions of Boston newspapers, getting minor mention on some national news outlets, and plenty of traction on Twitter and Facebook. Becky’s phone had exploded with text messages from worried friends, all of which she would return later.