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His cell phone began vibrating in his pocket just as the credits were beginning to roll on the movie he and Anne had gone to for Date Night. He pulled it out, the display revealing it was his mother calling. He showed the phone to Anne. "I'm going to take this outside. Take your time."
As he walked down the hallway to get away from the booming ending credits music, he hit the answer button and held the phone to his ear. "Mom?"
"Get to the hospital at GW now," she ordered with no preamble. "It's T.J."
"What happened?" he asked. But he asked it to empty air; she was gone.
Douglas swiveled on his heel so fast he nearly twisted his ankle. He double-timed it back into the theatre and almost ran into Anne, who was making her way out.
"We have to go," he told her. "Now."
Already used to the ways of the Hammonds, Anne simply nodded and followed him as he fairly ran to their car.
As he started the car, Douglas explained, "T.J.'s been taken to the hospital at GW."
"What happened?"
He steered the car out of the parking lot and then sped down the road toward 66. He prayed that he wouldn't get pulled over because there was no way he was going the speed limit. Then again, if he got pulled over, maybe he could get them a police escort….
"Douglas? What happened?" Anne tried again. "Is he okay?"
"Who knows?" Douglas sighed. Last time he had gotten a call to go to the hospital for T.J. had been when his brother had tried to overdose on cocaine while at a seedy DC bar. He had gone to rehab shortly after, but that was his second try at that. Maybe he was going for a third.
As he pulled onto the highway, Anne put a comforting hand on his knee. It served to ground him enough that he could focus on driving, and they made it up New Hampshire and onto Pennsylvania without incident. That would be just what his family needed, for him and Anne to be injured in a car accident.
He parked in the first space he came across, then ran around the side of the hospital to the Emergency Room entrance. He was vaguely aware of Anne following him, but he didn't wait for her.
Sadly, he knew right where the intake desk was, and, just as sadly, he also knew exactly which pseudonym to ask for. He asked the first nurse who looked at him where Aaron Reed was. The nurse stared at him for about three seconds before the light of recognition went on in her eyes. Anne had arrived at his side by then, so she was there when the nurse offered to show them to the private waiting room for the "Reed Family."
Numbly, Douglas followed the nurse down the hall and into a small room located at the end, only vaguely aware that Anne had taken his hand.
The only person waiting in the room was his mother, who leapt from the uncomfortable-looking chair she was in to grab Douglas in a fierce hug. Anne hung back by the door, closing it behind the nurse to give the family privacy.
"What happened?" Douglas whispered in his mother's ear.
Elaine released her hold on him and placed her hand over her mouth to stifle a sob.
"Oh my God, Mom, what did he do?" Douglas asked, a feeling of dread settling in his stomach like a pile of rocks.
"He tried…." She trailed off, clearly unable to finish. She paused a moment, putting the hand which had been over her mouth a few seconds ago onto her forehead, before trying again. "Douglas, I found him in the car. In the garage. The engine was running." She could get out no more, instead sobbing into her hand once again.
Douglas didn't need a clearer picture drawn for him. He covered his own mouth as he processed what had happened.
His brother had tried to kill himself.
This was the moment his father walked in on, grazing Anne with the door as he barreled in. "What has he done this time? Too much coke? Or is it heroin this time?"
The look Elaine gave him would have felled him if looks alone could kill.
Douglas quickly stepped between his parents and addressed his father. "Dad, stop."
"Well, what is it, then? Does he miss rehab?" Bud persevered. He was nothing if not persistent. And consistent.
Elaine moved to stand in front of Douglas. Douglas could practically see the raised hackles. "He tried to kill himself, Bud. Our baby tried to kill himself."
Bud was stricken silent. If it hadn't been such a grave moment, it would have been one for the record books.
"What? No more smart remarks?" Elaine snarled.
Bud was saved from having to respond by the entrance of a doctor, who introduced himself as Dr. Blake. "Mr. President, Madame Secretary, I have been put in charge of Thomas's care."
"How is he?" Douglas interjected.
"Thomas is suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning. Thankfully, you got to him before his exposure was fatal. The paramedics got him on oxygen quickly, and he continues to receive oxygen to purge the carbon monoxide from his system. He's stable. He is also under a mandatory 24-hour psychiatric watch, meaning that for 24 hours he will be under restraint and constant supervision. Once we're assured he's stable, we will be moving him from the ER to a private room in the psychiatric ward where he will be monitored carefully."
"Will there be any permanent damage?" Elaine inquired.
"We'll have to wait and see," the doctor told them. "Carbon monoxide poisoning can have lasting effects, but it's hard to tell at this point what lingering damage there might be, if any."
"When can we see him?" Douglas asked.
"As soon as we've got him settled up in psych, I can let you in to see him briefly."
"Is he awake?" This was Elaine again.
"He's in and out. He seems aware of what's going on."
"And I'll bet he's not thrilled to find himself where he is, given where he tried to be," Douglas surmised, shooting his mother a wry look, a little more relaxed now he knew T.J. was going to be okay.
"Someone will be by to take you to see him once he's been moved," the doctor assured them before exiting the room, passing Margaret by as she swept in.
"How is he?" Margaret questioned the room. "What happened?"
"He's fine," Elaine assured her mother, guiding her to a seat. "He…. He tried to…." She cleared her throat and tried one more time."He tried to kill himself."
"Oh my God!" Margaret exclaimed, unknowingly mimicking her daughter and grandson when she slapped a hand over her mouth in shock. "What on Earth would possess him to do such a thing?"
They all looked at her like she was kidding.
Margaret glared back at them. "I know he's got problems. Huge, giant problems. But I didn't think things were this bad. Did you?" She looked directly into Douglas's eyes.
Douglas shook his head. "No. I had no idea. Last time we talked, we were talking about our plans for Christmas. He gave me no clue he was even thinking about trying something like this." Unspoken was that if Douglas didn't know, no one did.
"When can we see him?" Margaret asked.
"As soon as they get him settled in a room," Elaine answered.
Silence took over the room for a moment. Everyone found a seat in which to wait, although everyone was still on tenterhooks.
Douglas sat with his elbows on his knees, his head resting on his thumbs, trying to figure out when it was that T.J. had stopped coming to him with his problems. When had things gotten so bad, so out of hand, that T.J. had done this without even giving Douglas a chance to help? Anne placed her hand on his left leg, trying to offer silent support.
"Damn fool child!" Bud yelled out of nowhere, after about five minutes of silence had passed. "What on Earth is wrong with him?"
Elaine looked up at him sharply from her seat on the opposite side of the waiting room. With steel in her tone, she said, "Really, Bud? Are we going to do this here? Now? When just a few hours ago our son decided he didn't want to live anymore? Seriously?"
Bud opened his mouth as if he did, indeed, want to cover this ground right then, but he just as quickly shut it and sighed instead.
"Thank you," Elaine told him.
No one else tried to say anything, and silence once again pervaded the room. For an hour. Douglas passed the time by obsessively checking his phone for messages and trying without success to read each and every magazine in the room. If you had asked him later what he read, he could have recalled nothing.
Just when it was becoming clear that Elaine was going to go tear someone a new asshole if they didn't come give them an update, a nurse came to get them to take them to see T.J.
When they all stood to go with her, she held a hand up and shook her head. "Only two or three of you at the most tonight. Visiting hours start at nine a.m., and you can all take turns then, but he's too worn out to handle all of you now."
"Elaine, you, Bud, and Douglas go," Margaret instructed. "Anne and I will take our turns in the morning. Just make sure to tell him we love him." She went to wrap an arm around Anne, who nodded her agreement.
Elaine smiled gratefully and then rose, along with Bud and Douglas, to stand in front of the nurse. Somberly, then, the three followed the nurse down the hall, into the elevator, up three floors, and down another hallway before arriving at a room in the corner.
"Only one or two of you at a time, please," the nurse requested.
Naturally, Bud and Elaine went in first, leaving Douglas to cool his heels in the hallway. It was very quiet in this part of the wing, although if he listened close, he could hear some low keening not too far away. He was immensely grateful that T.J.'s status as a Hammond afforded him a private room.
Douglas couldn't decide whether he hoped T.J. was awake or asleep when he was allowed to go in. On the one hand, he wanted to let T.J. have it, scold him for scaring them all so badly. On the other, it might be enough just to see his brother, be assured he was alive and more or less well. Save the lectures for later.
After about five minutes, his parents exited the room. Bud held Elaine close to him as she cried softly. "We'll wait for you downstairs, son," Bud told him. Douglas nodded and watched them move away until they were halfway down the hall. With a deep breath, then, he gripped the handle to the private room and went into a space bathed in a mixture of dim light from the lamps mounted above the bed and the moonlight pouring through the partially open blinds on the corner windows.
T.J. was awake. His gaze locked with Douglas's the moment he entered the room. Douglas slowly walked to his brother's bedside.
The first thing he noticed was that T.J. was attached to the sides of the bed with leather cuffs. Douglas assumed this was part of the 24-hour watch. When he tore his attention from the incongruity of his brother being tethered to the bed for the express purpose of keeping him from further hurting himself, he refocused his attention on T.J.'s face.
There was a cannula offering life-saving oxygen through T.J.'s nose. Tears glistened in his eyes, but he didn't shift his gaze from Douglas's face.
Douglas offered what he hoped came across as a supportive smile. "Hey, Tommy."
"Dougie, I…."
Douglas shook his head, working hard to tamp down his anger. "Don't."
T.J. also shook his head. "I'm sorry."
Douglas crouched down so his head was level with his twin's, and T.J. turned his head so he could once again meet Douglas's gaze. "What were you thinking?" Douglas whispered harshly.
T.J. pulled in a shuddering breath before roughly whispering, "I just wanted it all to be over."
Inhaling his own pain, Douglas reached out a hand to brush back T.J.'s bangs. "Oh, Tommy."
"I'm sorry," T.J. repeated forcefully.
"Me, too," Douglas replied. "I'm sorry, too."
Douglas continued to soothe his brother's brow and it wasn't even a minute before T.J.'s breaths evened out in sleep. Douglas ran his hand one more time across T.J.'s hairline, then rose to be able to lean over and kiss T.J.'s temple. "I love you," he whispered. "Stay with me."
With one more look to remind him that T.J. was still alive, Douglas left the room. The clock on the wall opposite where he stood told him it was nearing 2 a.m. He sighed. It was late by many standards, but time to start putting his family back together. Again.
End (16 July 2012)