Майкл Корита - If She Wakes

“What does it matter when you’ve got a driver whose guilt is already established?”

“I’m just trying to find out whether the phones survived the wreck,” she said, and then she regretted that phrasing — survived was not the right word for a phone. “If one did, it might contain something useful.”

“Useful to whom?”

“To... I mean, to everyone. It could provide clarification on a few points of—”

“Are you trying to get out of a claim? Is that the idea? Because I promise you, if you guys pull any bullshit to make this more expensive to my family than it already is, I will get that story on the front page of the New York Times .” She looked Abby up and down and then added, “Or on Fox News. Whatever hits your company harder.”

“That would actually be the Portland Press Herald, then.”

“This is funny to you?”

She was leaning in, and Abby almost stepped back but then decided not to give her the satisfaction. “No. But before you start shouting threats, you might want to remember that I’m working on her behalf.”

“Oh, that is such crap. The college hired you to find out if they had any risk. That’s the truth.”

She wasn’t wrong, of course. Abby started to offer a pat reply about how the college intended to work hand in hand with the family, but something about Shannon Beckley’s heated eyes made her dispense with the bullshit. “They’re going to have someone do it,” Abby said. “It’ll be me or it’ll be somebody else, but they will have someone ask questions.”

Shannon studied Abby for a moment and then said, “Come see her.”

“What?”

“If you’re working on her behalf, I’d like you to come see her with me. We can talk with her, right?”

Abby blinked at her. “I thought... I was told that...” Shannon waited, eyebrows raised, and Abby felt she was talking her way into a trap. “That she’s nonresponsive,” she finished finally. “Was I misinformed?”

“We’re not sure.” Shannon Beckley softened her tone. “Maybe she’s hearing it all, maybe she’s not. We just don’t know. At first it was a medically induced coma to try to limit the swelling in the brain, but now they’re bringing her back out of it, and...” She cleared her throat. “And we’re waiting on more tests.”

“I understand,” Abby said. “And I’m sorry. I can’t imagine what that’s like.”

Bullshit, Abby. Why lie?

For an instant, she almost corrected herself. Almost told the truth to this sleep-deprived stranger with the searing stare, almost told her that she knew the situation all too well.

All she got out, though, was a question: “Has she had an fMRI yet?”

“No, but it’s scheduled.”

Abby nodded. “They usually start there. Then other scans. There are lots of ways to try to determine if she’s... aware of things. Different doctors have different ideas.”

“Too many ideas. I’ve been reading about all of them, and it’s exhausting. There’s a university hospital nearby where they have the patient watch a movie while undergoing an MRI, and they scan the brain for an emotional response. They’ve had good results with that.”

“Like that Hitchcock film,” Abby said. Shannon Beckley looked offended, and Abby realized she thought that Abby was comparing Tara’s situation to a movie and headed her off. “Some researchers use an episode called ‘Bang, You’re Dead’ from Alfred Hitchcock’s old black-and-white TV series. A kid picks up a loaded gun, and the audience knows it’s loaded, but the kid doesn’t know. So the audience reacts emotionally as he goes from place to place carrying what he thinks is harmless and what the audience knows is deadly. That activates different areas in the brain of someone watching it. It shows awareness.”

“Tara hates anything in black-and-white. If she’s not in a vegetative state now, the sight of a black-and-white TV show might put her into one.” She forced a laugh that choked at the end, like an engine running out of gas, and then she looked away and tried to gather herself. Abby didn’t want to offer any canned condolences or well wishes, knowing exactly how exhausting and hollow those grew, and so she tried to follow the attempt at humor.

“Tell the doctors she’s got to see a favorite movie of hers, then, because you want to know if her memory is activated. That sounds legitimate.”

She was kidding, but Shannon Beckley said, “You know, that’s not a bad idea.”

“Actually, it probably is a bad idea. The doctors have their protocols for a reason. They tend not to like input from an insurance investigator.”

“I’ll find a more credible source, don’t worry.” Shannon regarded Abby curiously. “So you’ve dealt with a case like hers before?”

“Not a case.” Now Abby regretted telling her anything. This woman, who was just a few years younger than Abby’s thirty-one, was clearly not in the Luke London fan club, because she hadn’t reacted to Abby’s name. But she would Google it at some point, and then she’d have new questions.

“You spend that much time reading about coma patients? It’s a hobby?”

“I get a lot of newsletters, trade magazines, crap like that.”

“Your trade magazines deal with advanced coma protocols?”

“They’ve got to fill space,” Abby said. “Listen, let me just introduce myself and explain what we are—”

“Let’s go into her room for all this talk.”

The way she said it made Abby feel as if Shannon were baiting her, as if she sensed fear. “It’s not my job, I mean, it’s not my place to be in there.”

“Actually, it’s anyone’s place. The doctors have encouraged us to talk to her. That’s what I’m supposed to be doing right now. So join me. Who knows — maybe she’ll respond to you.”

Luke? Luke, baby, if you’re in there... do something. Speak, blink, squeeze my hand, slap me, just do something so I know!

“Okay,” Abby said, her mouth dry. “Sure.”

She followed Shannon Beckley through the double doors that parted automatically as if hurrying out of her way.

The nurses think Tara is brain-dead.

They treat her as an empty shell. They adjust her in the bed to prevent sores from forming, turn her and spread her legs and clean her, unaware of the horrifying humiliation, handling her roughly and without interest, talking around her and above her. They don’t bother to speak to her, to introduce themselves. She can’t even be certain they’re nurses. Therapists of some sort, maybe? How do you know what they are doing when they don’t bother to explain it? If they have any hope for her future, they don’t indicate it. All she picks up from them is apathy; all she feels is pain and shame.

A young blond woman wipes Tara’s ass and complains to a gray-haired black woman about the amount of time her fiancé spends with his friends smoking cigars in the garage right below their bedroom, which fills her clothes with the awful smell.

“He just doesn’t get it,” she says, and then she rolls Tara back over without so much as a glance at her face, holding a soiled diaper with her free hand.

“A phase, maybe?” the black woman suggests. “Something he’ll get out of his system now, and after the wedding it will be different?”

“I’d love to believe that. But I’m not sure that I do.”

The blonde discards the diaper, peels off her gloves, and looks down at Tara without any interest, then she consults a clipboard and makes a note. Is there a box you check when you wipe someone’s ass? If so, can they add that you’re required to do it discreetly and with apology or compassion? Or tell the patient your damn name, at least?