36. Aftermath of Aftermath

Julian was typing, and Dana was watching the evening news. She perked up upon seeing this item in the crawl: “Bestselling author of ‘Amy Tells All’ hospitalized after possible burglary.”
“Hey, Julian. Your blogger’s in the news again.”
He looked up. He looked at the screen, but by the time he did, the crawl had moved on.
“What did you see?”
“It said she’s in the hospital. Something about a burglary.”
“Shit. Mind if I flip looking for details?”
“No, but it might be faster to Google it.”
He did as she suggested and Googled it.
“She’s at Camden-Clark Memorial,” he said, reading what was known of the nitty gritty. “She’s in critical condition.”
“What else does it say?”
“That she was found by her housekeeper and that there were signs of a struggle. It’s not clear what the nature of the injuries are.”
At that moment, the TV news took up the story. More details came to light as it was learned that her ex-husband was now in custody. It now appeared to be an extreme domestic altercation. Her father, Damien Andersen, a dapper looking man, was doing his best to hold it together as he talked to a reporter.
“She was getting back from a book tour. She’d been on Ellen. I don’t know much yet. It seems as if her ex had something to do with it. He’s been having a rough time lately. But Lana’s tough. I’m not a praying man, usually, but now I’m plugging for her and praying. I’m sure her fans are doing the same.”
“Jeez, Dana. This is… very bad. I’m tempted to go see her.”
“You think they’ll let you? You’re not next of kin. I would think they’d be keeping a grip on stray fans and admirers.”
She saw Julian blinking. He looked like he might start crying. All of a sudden it washed over her again, that deep intuited feeling that her husband had it bad for this woman. Now, being sober, it being early evening, and considering the seriousness of the situation, she could only engage Julian in a heart to heart about his feelings and wishes. She watched him as he sat looking at the news as it moved on to other things. He looked again at his laptop. Sure enough, she observed, a tear rolled down his cheek and hit the keyboard. He wiped that one away, but there were others right behind that one. He put the computer aside and headed for the kitchen. Dana followed him. She found him starring out the window on the back porch, looking out at the stars behind the smudged glass.
“Julian, did you have an affair with Lana Andersen?”
“An affair? What do you mean by affair?”
“You know what an affair is.”
“No.”
“Then, apart from her obvious gift for language and her resonance with the culture at the moment, what about this tragic story is so upsetting? People get battered, unfortunately. Sometimes they get killed. It happens all too often, and you know that. So talk to me, Julian. Tell me the truth.”
He looked at Dana, and walked back in to the house. It was cold on the porch. He meandered, and Dana followed him. They ended up beside the fireplace. He stared at the cold black hearth and she stared at him.
“Yes. I fell in love with her. It happened even before I met her. I was in love with that blog. It was enchanting. My mood was black at that point. It was like I’d been battered by my own process, my own imagination, and Amy was just the thing to show me light and grace. That she was so young gave me hope.”
“I remember all of that. Didn’t you realize that I know you well enough to know when you are pining?”
“I knew you knew, because you’d get fucked up and moan about it.”
Dana laughed.
“So, did you two do the nasty.”
“No. Listen carefully to me, love of my life. This is not Clintonian bunkum. We spoke on the phone twice. I did meet her. She tempted me, but I resisted. I feel responsible at this point for what has happened. Her husband, I think, called my number. My dumb phone wouldn’t let me get back. It was moments after that he hit her the first time.”
“You came home from that ‘walk’ of yours changed. At the time, I thought, ‘that must’ve been some walk.’”
“I felt a bit bad about being deceptive, but pretty good about being pretty good.”
“Pretty good?”
“Well, I was tempted.”
“I can see why. She’s tempting. I’m an old fat woman.”
“Shut the fug up.”
A lull.
“Julian, she might die. She’s critical. If you want to, need to go see her, I completely understand”
“I don’t know. As you say, who knows what it’s like trying to get in to see a sort of celebrity.”
“Yeah. Who knows? But she’s not like Michael Jackson or somebody like that. She’s writer of only one best seller.”
“You want to come with me?”
“The off-duty professor’s wife?”
“Dana, I don’t know why I ever try to deceive you. You are too damned smart.”
“You are too damned transparent.”

Others were appalled by what had happened to Lana and had convened in Parkersburg. Her father topped the list of visitors to her bedside at Camden-Clark, but it included Christine, Jason, Lisa, Ron, Anne, Bruce, and a contingent of people from New York. Her body was very bruised, but this was concealed beneath sheets. His beating had broken her ribs and damaged her internal organs, particularly her lungs and kidneys. The real threat came from the cracked skull and brain damage. The broken neck did not add to the dismal prognosis either. Her face was also bruised, and her hair had been shaved, her skullcap bandaged. Her arms and hands, at her sides, were exposed and still. Her right hand, the one that had held the broken glass was bandaged. She had not regained consciousness, and there was some serious question as to weather she would or could. The doctors had gone over all of this with Damien. He was thinking about signing a do not resuscitate order, should it get down to that. So far, she was breathing on her own. She was tough. Was toughness going to be enough?

Her editor, Maya Espina-Goldbaum, had looked at her and turned away, doubling over. She looked again and sighed so deeply that a nurse looking on took a step towards her in the event that she should swoon. The New York contingent also included her agent. Anybody who had worked on that book was quite attached to Amy, the character, and Lana, the artist. Many who could not visit sent flowers. The room was full of these, and the smell was very rich.

Christine and Jason came in with Lisa and Ron. Both Lisa and Christine cried quietly when they saw her. Jason looked down at her and leaned close. He said to her,
“Lana, we love you. We are all her waiting for you to come back to us. We wish that we could have stopped this. We are hoping that you can understand me. If you can hear me, please give a sign. Just a small movement of your finger would be so welcome.” The nurse looked at him and smiled faintly. She’d seen this tried before. Sometimes it worked. Usually, with this kind of trauma, it didn’t. The more apparent effect of Jason’s exhortation was to make Christine cry all the harder. When it was Ron and Lisa’s turn, there was just the sound of Lisa crying.

On another day, Anne and Bruce Sibley visited. Bruce was the one in this pair that became significantly upset. He’d been the last one, he assumed to talk to Scott. He felt responsible in the sense that as he recalled what Scott had said, he might have done something to head this sort of thing off at the pass. What that might have been, he had no idea. The sight of her, all tiny and battered as she so profoundly was, made him weep. Annie, the schoolteacher, was made of tougher stuff. She was the one that took Lana’s hand, the un-bandaged one and said some words to Lana’s inert form.
“My dear, dear friend,” she said, “if you can hear me, I want you to know that we are all here for you. You have so many fans out there, but we’ve known you for most of our lives, and we’ve always been fans. We want you to write a dozen more of these funny, heartbreaking books. You just need to take the time to get better. No pressure. Let your body heal, and let your spirit soar.” The thin lips offered no response. If anyone was home in there, she was very, very deep, and so very far away.

Julian and Dana arrived and asked to see Lana Andersen at the desk. The nurse asked if they were family, and Julian said no, that they were friends. There was no such circus that Julian and Dana had imagined. It was just a quiet, small town hospital. Admitted to the room, the two professors looked at Lana, and then at each other. Julian asked the attending nurse,
“Can she hear us?”
“We don’t know for sure, but we don’t think so. We think she’s actually unconscious. You know, ‘out cold.’ There’s no sign of cognition.
“Julian, do you want to be alone with her?” Asked Dana.
“Yeah. I do.” He looked at the nurse. She shrugged. She and Dana left the room and stood in the hall outside.
“You happen to read the book?” Asked Dana of the nurse. The nurse shrugged and shook her head.
“We don’t get much time to read,” she said apologetically.
“You knew she was a writer.”
“Yes, I know that she is a writer,” the nurse corrected, not so subtly.
“My husband was sort of in the book.”
“Oh. I see.”
“He’s the off duty professor.”
“He’s off duty now.”
Dana nodded.
Julian sat down beside Lana on the bed. He did this very carefully. He was aware of her broken body. He took hold of her left hand. He did not speak. He was not keen on speaking to an unconscious person. It was a bit too much like soliloquy. He was also a bit all cried out on the subject of Lana Andersen. He devoutly wished for a recovery. He had by now heard of the extent of her injuries and understood haw unlikely a recovery was. He hoped in some part of her being, deep in her brain at the stem, where the cells still thrived and beat her heart, his touch would do what words could not. Let her understand that I am here with her and that I love her. Finally, he put his hand beneath her nose. It was a way of recalling for her how she had once herself taken this hand and explored its scent. It was a deeper primal thing that he hoped to share with whatever was left of her. After this he rose and rejoined Dana in the hall.

Julian went back to the front desk, and asked the attendant for a favor.
“I’m wondering if there is any way to make contact with Damien Andersen, Lana’s father. I am a friend of hers, and want to meet her Dad.”
“That’s a bit unusual sir. Are you close to the patient, as in perhaps, in an intimate relationship with her? He leaned in closer, trying to get out of Dana’s earshot. I was a character in her book. I think her father would like to meet me. Under the circumstances, which are extenuating, are they not?”
“I’m sorry sir, I can’t give you that information.”
It was a nice try.

They went out to eat, and tried to think of a way to meet more of the ‘cast of characters.’
“Could we do a Spokeo search and locate Damien that way?” Suggested Dana.
“That’s worth a try.”
Meanwhile, Bruce Sibley once again, had the dubious distinction of being the only person who went in to visit Scott. After he’d turned up at Wood County, Scott explained his crime. He’d been booked and held, he’d contacted Bart, his long suffering attorney, mostly for shits and grins, since he now considered some prison or other his likely home for the foreseeable future, and he’d resigned himself to this fate. He did not know that he had not killed Lana. He considered himself a murderer and not an attempted murderer. When he eventually found this out as the fact of the matter, meeting in his cell with Bart, he just shook his head at his ineptitude.
“Should have got the poker and finished her off,” he muttered.
“Keep talking like that, Mr. Andrews, and I won’t be able to do a damn thing for you. Are you going to plead guilty, as charged?”
“I might.”
“Just so you understand the charge, it’s not yet murder. She’s hanging on.”
He kept his mouth shut on the second go around.
The police had promptly investigated on the basis of Scott’s confession and found that the evidence matched his account, right down to the broken glass and the cats, now melted. Due to the media attention, the Sherriff prepared a statement. The Sherriff prepared it, and Wolf Blitzer ran it. Bruce got in to see him after Scott had been transferred to Greenwood. The one hope Scott had for representation was the transfer to some other prison in the WV system. Prisoners don’t get the lockup of their choice.
“I saw Lana, Scott.”
He looked away.
“You topped yourself.”
“You showed up to tell me that?”
“I showed up to see if you had a shred of humanity left. We used to be friends. I’m going to need you to sign some papers. I’m dissolving the partnership, remember?”
“You send ‘em, I’ll sign ‘em. If these maniacs in here will let me.”
“I’m not privy to many details about what happened there with Lana.”
“What? I made a statement. Didn’t that get into the papers? Internet? CNN?”
“The statement was that you attempted murder.”
“There you go.”
“How’d you get so ripped up?”
“What’s it say in her book? She’s a cat. She’s fast and she’s got claws.”
“Claws?”
“Well. If you want the gory details, I’ll tell you this. I got there and she wasn’t home. I think my plan was to knock on the door, and when she answered it, beat her to death with a fireplace poker. I had that from before, when we had a potbellied stove out at the Field. That was the ‘premeditation’ part. But when I got there, she was not home. So I kicked in the door. The damn cats hissed. That little Siamese one took a swat at me. So, just to make things a bit simpler for hiding out in there and whacking her off, I grabbed the cats…”
“You didn’t.”
“I put them in her freezer. There was plenty of room in there. She never was a big meat eater.”
“Jesus. I don’t know who you are.”
“I’m a lost cause.”
“So by the time she showed up, after not more than a day and a half…”
“You were in that house for a day and a half?”
“I think. I wasn’t thinking straight, paying attention to time. Things like that.”
“I had worked up quite a case of the ass.”
“So how’d you get all cut up, you still haven’t said.”
“She caught on about the cats. I sort of taunted her with it. I was steamed. I really did plan to kill her, you got that part down, buddy?”
“I don’t get why.”
He looked away again.
“You are as bad as my lawyer.”
“I’m trying to get this. I need to know if I’ve befriended Satan all these years.”
“Check mark the yes box.”
“The cuts.”
“She grabbed a glass and broke it. She came at me with it so fast I couldn’t even get in a poke shot. She chased me up the stairs. Things happened fast. I turned around at the top of the stairs and kicked her. A high kick to the stomach, if you want the true comics version.”
“She cracked her head on the landing. I heard it. It was like a pop.”
“That was it?”
“No. Then I kicked the shit out of her.”
“Jesus.”
“Satanic Scott.”
“But, really, there’s sort of an element of self defense the way it went down.”
“So says Bart.”
“What do you say?”
“I say I’m guilty.”

Bruce never saw Scott again after that. He sent papers; Scott sent ‘em back all signed. Bruce more or less kept the story about visiting Scott to himself. He let all the rest of it come out in the trial, which it did.

Julian called Damien Andrews and introduced himself.
“I’m Professor Julian Gray. I know your daughter.”
“Oh. Yes! I was hoping you’d make contact somehow. She spoke of you quite a bit for a while there. I almost hoped you’d, you know, take up with her. Of course, she said you were happily married. I don’t wish your wife any choppy water.”
“I did, do, love Lana very much. I hope you can appreciate how torn I was and how torn I am now.”
“Oh, I do. She’s a gem.”
An awkward moment followed as the facts of the bad prognosis echoed around these wordsmiths use of the present tense. They both knew, deep down, that what Lana had been was over. Even if she lived, her brain was damaged, her neck was broken, and her body was ruined.
“We wish you all the best, my wife and I. I guess I just wanted to say how proud I am of Lana, of all her gifts and of all that she accomplished.”
“So kind of you. Call me again, anytime.”

Lana lived another two weeks, finally died of her injuries on March 4th 2013.