Майкл Корита - If She Wakes

Gerry said, “I’ve got the number she called from, and that’s all I’ve got.”

“It’s a start.”

“You need to work fast. This is going to go in one direction or the other very quickly.”

“An object in motion tends to stay in motion,” Dax Blackwell said cheerfully, “unless an external force is applied to it. Let’s see if we can apply a little force. What’s the number?”

Gerry read it off. “See what you can do with that, and let me know in a hurry.”

“If Abby calls back, is your client going to answer that phone again?”

“How the fuck do I know?” Gerry snapped.

“I suppose you don’t.”

“Of course I don’t. Just do your job.”

“Right,” the kid said, and he disconnected.

Gerry looked from his own phone to Oltamu’s and found himself wishing Oltamu’s would ring. I’ll make that trade, Kaplan. I had high hopes for this kid, but they’re vanishing fast. You call back, and I will absolutely make that trade.

But for now...

He couldn’t make the trade until Kaplan called back. In the meantime, he could give the kid a chance to clean up the mess. Keep two plays alive until the right one announced itself and then act decisively. That was how you won.

Gerry would win this yet.

When both doctors enter the room together, Tara knows it’s bad news. They’ve decided on an alliance, neither wanting to make the other crush a family’s hope. Teamwork, then; they’ll break hearts together. At the sight of the doctors, Mom and Rick and Shannon all rise to their feet, their voices loud and chaotic and too cheerful, as if pleasantries can change the outcome. Dr. Carlisle is all warm smiles and soft tones; Dr. Pine looks like a Zen shark, a good-natured predator swimming past potential victims, not yet sure if he’ll turn and devour them. He eludes Rick’s awful bro-hug-handshake hybrid with grace, then walks to Tara’s side and looks her in the eyes.

“When this is all over,” he says, “I want you to tell me everything that was said about me behind my back.”

The room goes silent, and Dr. Carlisle appears vaguely annoyed. In that expression, Tara sees the results of the test — she passed, and Dr. Carlisle wanted to make the announcement.

She passed. Tara is positive. They know that—

“She’s alert,” Dr. Carlisle says, the annoyed expression gone and a radiant smile in its place. “Not just alert — fully and completely aware, cognitively and emotionally. Her results are extraordinary. Not unprecedented, but close. Every lobe reacted as it should have; her visual, auditory, and processing responses to the movie were perfect.” She turns to Shannon and says, “And she certainly had an emotional response to the girl at the beginning of the movie. You weren’t wrong about that.”

Chrissie, Tara thinks. Why can’t anyone ever remember her name?

That’s when Mom falls on her knees beside the bed and presses Tara’s hand to her face, her tears soaking Tara’s palm, and then Shannon is there, saying how she always knew it, but her quavering voice gives her away, and Rick is the only one who holds back, but Tara can’t blame him for that, and she’s grateful that he’s actually pausing to thank the doctors and is touched by the emotion in his voice.

“She’s hearing us?” Mom says, staring at Tara with wonder. “You’re sure? Right now, she’s hearing me?”

“Every word,” Dr. Carlisle promises, pulling a chair up beside the bed. Dr. Pine stays on his feet, smiling but pacing. Like any shark, he must keep moving or he will die.

“And she’s always heard us?” Shannon asks, and Tara wants to laugh at the poorly suppressed guilt in her voice. Shannon is probably conducting an inventory of everything she let slip in moments when she thought she was alone. No matter what confidence they all professed, none of them were sure that Tara could hear a word. Now they are getting an awareness of that ghost in the room.

“I can’t tell you when she came back or whether she’s been alert the entire time; all I can tell you is that she is now,” Dr. Carlisle says.

“What does that mean for her prognosis?” Shannon asks. Mom looks wounded by the question, as if it’s in some way undermining the joy of what they’ve just been told, but it is also the question Tara would ask if she had a voice.

“Entirely unknown,” Dr. Pine says. “But it only helps. One of the greatest challenges in rehabilitating the brain is the constant testing and guessing it requires from the medical team, from the family, everyone. Based on Dr. Carlisle’s results, Tara is going to be able to help us enormously there. She may not have her voice, but she should be able to communicate. If we know what she’s experiencing, feeling, and requiring, that is a tremendous advantage in treating her successfully.” His eyes are locked on Tara with excitement.

I’m an opportunity to him, she realizes. Something he’s been waiting for for maybe his whole career. It’s an odd sensation but not a bad one — he wants to see if he can bring her all the way back. That’s a goal Tara can get behind.

“There may be even more reason for celebration,” Dr. Carlisle says. “When reviewing the video of Tara’s face during the test, Dr. Pine noticed what seems to be some oculomotor progress.”

“Oculomotor?” Mom echoes tentatively.

“She can blink?” Rick asks.

“Not quite... or at least not quite yet, ” Dr. Pine says. “But the progress she’s demonstrating since our initial tests may be more useful than even Tara knows.”

He’s studying Tara’s eyes while moving his hand in the air like a conductor. The longer he does it, the more delighted he seems.

“Vertical eye motion,” he says. He sits and perches with perfect posture on a stool beside her bed; he looks like a bird of prey. “She’s regained that. Consistent with locked-in syndrome.”

“Locked-in syndrome?” Rick asks, and he looks at Tara with something between concern and horror. The name seems self-explanatory, and terrifying. They’re all learning now what Tara has been living with for days.

“Charming name, isn’t it?” Dr. Pine says. “But it’s clear, at least. Tara is with us, but Tara is trapped.”

Mom murmurs something inaudible and puts her head in her hands.

“Not all bad, though,” Dr. Pine continues. “Locked-in syndrome prevents outbound communication, yes, but it also, perhaps, provides some protection. And now that we know she’s in there, we can work to bridge the void.” He studies her with a slight incline of his head, then smiles. “Excellent.”

Tara tracked the motion with her eyes, and he saw it. The rush of euphoria this realization brings is almost overwhelming, and if she could cry, she would. He sees me. He sees me!

“Locked-in syndrome is caused by an insult to the ventral pons,” he says. “But with vertical eye motion, she’s not as trapped as she was before. She should be able to communicate.”

An insult to the ventral pons, Tara thinks. That’s the term for having your brain knocked around your skull and leaving you unable to move or speak — an insult ? The word seems woefully insufficient.

“Essentially, her condition has caused paralysis with preservation of consciousness and retention of vertical eye movement. She has some voluntary eyelid motion, but her response to the blink requests, as you saw, showed a lack of control.” He leans forward and lifts a pencil with his thumb and index finger. “But there’s progress. I think Tara is in control of her vertical eye motion now. Aren’t you, Tara? Show them.”

He lifts the pencil slowly, then lowers it. Mom gasps; Rick puts a hand on her shoulder that seems designed to steady himself as much as her, and Shannon stares at Tara, enthralled.