A Sister's Forgiveness by Anna Schmidt Page A

behind her, her clothing open, exposing her thin upper body. Jeannie felt Geoff’s grip tighten. “Can we cover her? She gets cold so easily,” he said.
    One of the white coats glanced at a woman in scrubs who nodded and turned to Geoff and Jeannie, taking their elbows as she gently ushered them into the area just outside the sliding glass doors of the cubicle. “The doctors need to put in a tube to help her breathe,” she said. “We’re doing everything we can. Just please wait right here and let the doctors do their job. You’re just a few feet away from her. She knows you’re here.”
    Geoff and Jeannie nodded in unison, and the nurse went back inside the cubicle and pulled a curtain closed behind her. Geoff wrapped his arms around Jeannie, and she rested her cheek against his chest, feeling the strong pounding of his heart against her face. Somehow that gave her strength.
    “She’ll be all right,” she murmured. “Tessa is a fighter—quiet, yes, but you always said you’d rather have a strong silent player on your team than one who—” She was babbling, and Geoff quieted her by stroking her hair and tightening his hold on her. The question uppermost in her mind—the question of what happened—could wait. For now all that mattered was that Tessa was getting the medical help that would bring her back to them. Jeannie closed her eyes and silently prayed for her daughter’s full recovery as she forced herself to ignore the mental pictures of her beautiful daughter forever crippled or living in a coma or somehow less than her smart self. The idea that Tessa might die was not allowed.
    “Mr. and Mrs. Messner?”
    They looked up at a short, stocky man with Albert Einstein hair and wire-rimmed glasses. “I am Dr. Morris. Your daughter is bleeding internally. We need to perform surgery immediately. Will you give consent?”
    The nurse who had ushered them from the room stood behind the doctor holding a clipboard with some papers. Geoff ripped it from her hand and glanced at it, searching for the blank space to write his name. “Here?”
    “And on the next page as well,” the nurse said.
    Geoff scrawled his name in both spaces and handed the clipboard back to the nurse. “Can we see her before you take her to surgery?”
    Dr. Morris pulled back the curtain and with a single glance cleared the small room of medical personnel. “Make it quick. We need to go now,” he said, and Geoff nodded.
    “Thank you,” Jeannie said, her voice choked with fresh tears.
    She and Geoff approached the gurney that held their daughter as they had once approached her crib when she was a baby, hesitant and with a certain sense of disbelief. Then it had been because they had been blessed with this beautiful new life and given responsibility for watching over her. Now their disbelief grew out of a surreal sense that everything that had happened to their little family in the last hour had been some kind of horrible nightmare.
    “Hey, sweetie,” Geoff crooned, taking Tessa’s small hand in his large one. Tessa’s fingers twitched, and Geoff glanced at Jeannie, his eyes filled with fresh hope.
    Jeannie moved to the other side of the gurney and took Tessa’s other hand. “We’re right here, Tess. Dad and me—right here. “Her voice broke, and silent tears dropped onto the sheet the nurse had covered Tessa with. Jeannie found herself fascinated by the polka dot pattern her tears were creating there. She had never felt more helpless in her life.
    “You need to fight, Tessa,” Geoff said. “That’s the way you help the doc get you back to us. You hear me?”
    He was using the voice he used in a game when he wanted to inspire his players to keep playing hard against an opponent that was much bigger and stronger than they were. Jeannie felt an inexplicable annoyance. This was their daughter, not his basketball or football team. The doctor cleared his throat, and Jeannie was aware that he had pulled open the curtain and was