Майкл Корита - If She Wakes

The nurses finish with her, add a few more checks to the clipboard beside her bed, and then the black woman hesitates and looks down into Tara’s eyes for the first time.

“This one is supposed to be on the move tomorrow.”

“Yes,” the blonde agrees without looking over, and then they are out of sight, crossing the room and vanishing out the door and into the hallway.

This one.

A body, nothing more. That’s what Tara is to them.

Also a body that is supposed to be on the move tomorrow. Where are they taking her? And why?

Of all the agonies of her condition, none is worse than the lack of explanations. She reentered a world that has moved on without her, and because no one is aware that she’s back in it, no one slows down to clarify anything. Even her most basic questions — How long have I been here? What happened to put me in here? Is there a diagnosis? Is there a plan? Is there hope? — are unanswered, because everyone around her has already had these conversations, probably countless times. Why go backward, then? Instead, they move forward, following a course that was charted while Tara was lost to the blackness. She doesn’t know where it began, let alone where it will end.

An accident? An attack? An illness?

She has no idea. The coma she understands, but its cause remains a mystery. Was she felled by a club or a clot? Her lack of memory in this regard is terrifying. She knows who she is, where she lives, what she does, likes, hates, loves; everything related to her identity is clear. What brought her here, though... she can’t even begin to retrace the steps. She remembers getting out of the shower and checking the clock, which was important because she couldn’t be late for...

For what?

She has no idea. Something important and time-sensitive. Time was her primary concern.

Did they find me there in the bathroom, naked on the floor, steam still on the mirror?

Every now and then, flickers of images will rise and then sink, like leaves carried in a swift stream, but she believes those images aren’t memories, just pieces of the awful nightmare she’d endured prior to waking. A stranger, a cold wind, and a wolf.

The door opens again. She feels Shannon’s presence before she actually sees her. This is how it has always been with Shannon. She buzzes with a different energy than most people, moving through the world with a swirling, nearly chaotic force. It is a force that Tara clings to now, because she can feel the hope draining away from her mother and Rick. They aren’t as bad as the nurses yet, and she expects they never could regard her with such indifference, but... they are drifting that way.

Shannon is with an unfamiliar young woman with short, dark blond hair and blue eyes. She is lean and slim-hipped, an almost boyish figure, though her eyes and athlete’s grace would stand out if she weren’t shuffling in so unhappily, like a child dragged into the principal’s office. She glances at Tara only briefly, and while Tara is growing used to cursory glances, this one feels different. It isn’t that the new woman sees no point in making eye contact with her; it’s that she’s afraid.

“Tara, I’ve found a new friend,” Shannon says with false cheer. Shannon keeps up a steady stream of conversation most of the time she is here, and when she does finally fall silent, she usually leaves soon after. It reminds Tara of the years when they shared a bedroom — when Shannon stopped talking, it meant she’d fallen asleep.

Now Shannon rests her hand on Tara’s arm. The touch is warm and kind. Tara wonders what her skin feels like to Shannon — the same healthy human warmth or the clamminess of sickness? Or something worse?

“Abby’s an investigator,” Shannon says. “She tells me she’s working on your behalf.”

Abby is holding an old, wet shoe box. She clears her throat and says, “Hello, Tara. It’s good to meet you.”

Tell me why you’re here, Tara screams silently. Abby doesn’t, but why would you tell a piece of furniture what your purpose in the room is?

Abby’s attention is back on Shannon when she says, “Have the police asked you any questions about the accident?”

The accident . This is interesting. This is the first time anyone has spoken of what led her to this terrible, trapped place.

“Sure,” Shannon says. “But nobody talked about her phone until your boss called me. The police said it was clear who was at fault. The driver admitted that at the scene. And then he repeated it, on the record.”

The driver. So it was a car accident. This resonates in a way that is both exciting and troubling; it sets off a tingle of memory, but no images come forth, just a feeling of dread.

“I know that. And now he’s going to hire an attorney who will find any way possible to mitigate the driver’s responsibility. It’s not right, but it’s what happens. My job is to get out in front of that.” Abby pauses, then says, “His story has some issues too.”

“Do not tell me you’re questioning his version of things.” There’s a warning in Shannon’s voice.

“I’m not questioning that he was at fault.”

“Good.”

“But—”

“Oh, boy. Here we go.”

“ But I do not like his facts. It’s clear that he hit her car, that her car was stationary, and that she was out of the vehicle. Of course he’s at fault. But he’s also mistaken about the details, and I don’t understand why.”

I was out of the vehicle. Tara feels that tingle again, stronger now, and she wants to grab Abby’s hand and squeeze, wants to tell her to say more, paint a better picture, because she is close to remembering, she is very close, this woman can help Tara bridge the void.

“He’s probably confused because he was staring at his damn phone,” Shannon says.

Abby Kaplan shakes her head, and a muscle in her jaw flexes, as if she’s grinding her teeth.

“The angles are wrong,” she says softly. “The angles and the speed. He was driving terribly, yes, and he was negligent, but if he swerved like he says he did, then he should have flipped that van before he hit her.”

“The police can probably explain that to you,” Shannon says curtly.

Abby shakes her head, eyes distant, as if she is envisioning the scene.

Say what you’re thinking! Tara screams, but of course Abby doesn’t hear her.

“No, they actually can’t,” she tells Shannon. “They haven’t driven the right kind of cars at the right kind of speeds to know what is possible and what isn’t.”

“And I suppose you have.”

The short, slender girl looks at Shannon then, and there’s a spark to her when she says, “Yes. I have.” She takes a breath and the spark fades and she seems sad. “Anyhow, you don’t need to worry about me messing up any claims. It wasn’t your sister’s fault. But... it also didn’t happen the way Carlos Ramirez said it did.”

“So Ramirez was confused.”

“Maybe.” Abby Kaplan turns to face Tara, and this time she lets her stare linger. Her eyes are on Tara’s when she says, “I’m confident she would have a different memory of the way it happened.”

Tara stares back at her from within her corporeal shell, trying somehow to convey how desperately she needs the facts. If someone can just walk her through it, then maybe she can remember.

“Have you talked to the other victim’s family?” Shannon asks. “Oltamu’s?”

“Not yet.” Abby turns away from Tara.

Oltamu. Shannon says the name so casually, but it’s a cataclysmic moment for Tara.

Dr. Oltamu. A visiting speaker. She was driving him from dinner to the auditorium. She was driving him and then...