Ginny
2001, Fort Lauderdale
“Mrs. Dillon. Mrs. Dillon, I know this is a shock, and I know you’ve been severely traumatized, but please try and concentrate. Please answer my last question.”
“I need to see him. They need to let me see my husband!” I couldn’t breathe. “My children. Oh, my God, my children. Where are they? They need me!”
I was at the hospital sitting in a small office with two detectives. How I got there was a bit of a blur. I remember them showing up at the house and asking to speak to me without Jason present. I remember his curious and frightened look as I led them into Tommy’s office and shut the French doors behind us.
I remember hearing what they told me, that Tommy had been involved in a shooting and was in critical condition at the hospital. I remember telling Jason to wake up his sister. Surprisingly, Mimi had the foresight to reach for my purse and phone as we followed the men out the door and into the back of the police cruiser. I remember clinging tightly to Jason and Mimi as I explained to them the little I knew. I remember hearing Mimi using my phone to call Carter, Christy, and Sarah Jo, and she asked each of them to meet us at the hospital. She told me Christy and Carter were on their way and that she’d left a message for Jo.
“Your children are fine. They’re with your friends. You can’t see your husband. Not yet, he’s in surgery. Please—answer the question, ma’am.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t remember what you asked me,” I said honestly before blowing my nose.
“You said your husband was on his way to work. Can you think of any reason why he would’ve strayed from his normal route?” the older of the two detectives asked.
I stopped blowing, my fingers still pressing the tissue tightly to my nose. Tommy was at a gas station that wasn’t on his way to work? I had an instant and roaring headache.
“No,” I whispered. “I don’t know why he would’ve been there. You told me you thought it was random. That there were witnesses that said it was a robbery. They saw the guy running off.”
“We do think it’s random, but after finding out your husband is supposed to testify this year in a trial, we have to ask. We have to check every possibility. We need to make sure it wasn’t a setup. That’s why we’re asking you if you know of any reason he would’ve strayed from his normal route.”
I shook my head slowly. “No. I can’t think of any reason. I saw him this morning before he left. He mentioned stopping for coffee on his way to work, but he never said where. We were going to meet later for lunch. There was nothing out of the ordinary.”
My body stiffened as I realized there absolutely was something out of the ordinary. I had worn that bandana to signal Grizz. The next morning Tommy had gotten shot.
But I wouldn’t let my thoughts travel that path.
“Are we done? Please, I want to see my children. I need to be with them.”
“Of course. We need to be able to stay in contact with you,” the younger, more reserved detective answered. “We need to know the best way to contact you.”
“That won’t be a problem. I’m not leaving this hospital,” I told him as I made my way past them and to the waiting room set up for families of trauma victims.
**********
The next couple of hours dragged. A doctor called me aside and attempted to explain that Tommy was still in surgery due to the severity of his wounds. It was still too much to retain, and the only thing I can remember from that conversation was, “Two bullet wounds. One in the abdomen and one in his chest, and he’ll be in surgery awhile.”
It wasn’t until Sarah Jo had shown up and ushered me into Stan’s office that I was finally able to understand some of it. Apparently, she and Stan had been out of the country and were visiting some friends while on a layover in Atlanta on the return trip. They’d boarded a flight after getting Mimi’s message and were back in Fort Lauderdale in less than two hours.
“You’re the chief of surgery, Stan,” I said to him through blurred vision. “Shouldn’t you be doing his surgery or in there to make sure it’s done right?”
“Ginny, I did go in, and he has our best team in there. I would’ve stayed and taken over if I thought otherwise. It’s going smoothly. It’s extremely difficult because it’s basically two separate surgeries to remove two separate bullets.” Stan’s voice was calm and even. Reassuring.
He was sitting behind his desk. Jo and I sat in wing chairs facing him. She reached for my hand. I noticed her absently grab for where her mother’s pendant normally would’ve been dangling. It wasn’t there. Right after Jo had showed up in the waiting room, Carter was walking toward us to say something when she tripped. As she was falling, she grabbed for Jo and accidentally ripped the necklace from Jo’s neck. She apologized profusely and promised Jo she’d send Bill off to have it fixed and returned to her within hours. I saw the concern in Jo’s eyes—she was never without that necklace—but I calmly reassured her that Carter and Bill could be trusted with her mother’s pendant.
“But it’s been hours.” I clutched Jo’s hand. “It just doesn’t seem like it should be taking this long!”
“Don’t think like that, Ginny,” Sarah Jo said. “It doesn’t mean something is going wrong with the surgery. It means they’re being thorough. Like Stan said, it’s two separate surgeries, and the seriousness of each can affect the other.”
“Exactly,” Stan said. “Each wound has its own separate and serious complications and needs to be treated as such.”
I took a deep breath and sat up straight.
“What complications? Tell me.”
Just then there was a knock at the door. Two men came in. They were Tommy’s surgeons, and they told me he came through the surgery fine, and he was in recovery, but as Stan explained, his wounds were critical. Now the only thing we could do was wait. I looked up at them and waited for them to continue.
“As you know, he suffered two bullet wounds,” said the doctor with the silver goatee, whose name I’d already forgotten. “The one that struck his lung caused air to escape, and the lung collapsed. We put a chest tube in to remove the air and blood in his chest cavity. His lung expanded, and the bleeding has apparently stopped.”
I let out the breath I’d been holding.
The second surgeon cleared his throat. “The second bullet, the one in his abdomen, damaged his spleen and his liver, which caused a severe amount of blood loss. We removed the spleen and part of the liver. The blood loss was tremendous. We had to give him thirteen units of blood.” His eyes were gentle. “Because of his shock and the massiveness of the transfusion required, his blood won’t clot, and we’re trying to correct this by giving him various clotting elements.”
I started to shake. Jo gripped my hand tighter.
“We anticipate eventually being able to control this failure to clot, but his kidneys and brain have gone through a protracted period of time without being adequately supplied with blood. And there has been damage to the tissue to those two organs, as well as others. Whether those organs will recover, we don’t know. Only time will tell.”
I went back to the waiting room in a daze and found my children. I took them both into the small hospital chapel and explained everything I could.
I was holding them tightly and sobbing when I felt arms wrap me from behind and a familiar voice said, “I’d have been here sooner, Ginny. I had the boys out on the boat.” It was Alec.
I can’t remember details after that. Who came. Who went. Who offered to help with Mimi and Jason. Who offered to keep us fed and our clothes clean. Who would notify their schools and our church. Like a well-oiled machine, the acquaintances we’d made over the years, who came from vastly different walks of life, all melded together to make sure my children and I were cared for.
I was in too much shock to realize I’d never really let myself get close to people who weren’t inside my tiny circle, yet the support they showed me and my children was beyond heartwarming and appreciated, even though I wasn’t in a good enough place emotionally to express that gratitude. I was in a fog.
That first day, the three of us were led into the ICU and allowed to stand at his bedside for just a few minutes. I’d been warned that the trauma of seeing his father might be too much, but the ICU nurses gave into my pleading after seeing how badly Jason was taking the news.
They’d been right. The tubes, machines, and wires were too much for him. Jason broke down when he saw his father and started crying. I clung to him and wanted to console him but couldn’t bring myself to leave Tommy’s side. What if this moment was the last one?
One of Tommy’s nurses, Jonell, recognized the need in my eyes, and she gently pried Jason away from me and guided him out to our trusted friends in the waiting room. Mimi took my hand and quietly sobbed, never taking her eyes off Tommy’s face.
I don’t know how much time passed. Someone, I think it was Christy, brought me a change of clothes and toiletries. I was allowed to shower and sleep at the hospital. I wasn’t sure if that was a privilege given to all family members of trauma patients, or if I was given special treatment due to Stan’s status. I made sure my children knew I loved them and wanted to be with them, but I couldn’t leave their father’s side. They both understood and chose to stay at our house with Carter instead of being sent to stay with different families.
Now my children were back, and we stood huddled in the small ICU room watching Tommy. After the shock of seeing his father that first time, Jason approached Jonell all by himself and said he was ready to see his father again. She looked at me with a questioning glance and I nodded. We all linked hands, talking to him and looking for any sign that he’d heard us. An eyelash flutter, a change on any of the various monitors. We were desperate to know if he would wake up.
“Does he know I’m here? Do you think he can hear me?” I asked Tommy’s second nurse. Her name was Jennie, and she was changing his IV bags. The kids had returned to the waiting room. “It’s been more than two days.”
She smiled kindly at me. “It’s possible. He’s still under sedation, but they changed his medication. It should allow him to have some awareness soon without dulling his pain medication. He should be able to open his eyes or squeeze your hand soon.”
Her eyes scanned me with concern. “Have you eaten? I know you don’t have an appetite, but you have to eat something, even if you force it down. You need to be strong for him—and them.” She nodded her head toward the path the kids had followed out.
“I’m not hungry.”
“My grandma made the best banana bread this side of the Mississippi, and she left me the recipe. You know what that means?”
I shook my head.
“It means that now I make the best banana bread this side of the Mississippi. Now, I brought a piece in for Jonell, but she’s always saying I ruin her diet, so how about I go swipe that piece I brought her and bring it to you?”
I smiled and nodded, gratitude washing over me. She finished what she was doing, then I watched her walk toward the telemetry station and say something to Jonell, who looked up, smiled at me, and gave me the thumbs-up.
I turned my attention back to Tommy. Taking one of his hands in both of mine, I softly caressed the top of his, doing my best to avoid the IVs.
“Tommy, your nurse Jennie, one of the nurses who’s caring for you, well, she said you might be able to hear me now. I hope you can. I hope you can hear me tell you how much I love you.”
He wasn’t responding, but that didn’t keep me from talking.
“So many people are praying for you. I’ve been praying, too. I know we’re supposed to pray for God’s will, but I can’t help myself. I’m praying for my will. And my will wants you back, Tommy.”
I leaned over and whispered in his ear. “I tried to tell you that day on the beach. There was never a choice to make. I’m never leaving you, Tommy, so please don’t leave me. Please wake up.”
I was almost positive I felt him gently squeeze my hand. My heart thudded and my soul was filled with hope.
He was coming back to me.