Kathleen O'Brien - The Rancher's Dream

Grant went in the daytime, mostly, when one of the hands could drive him to Montrose, piggybacking on some errand for the ranch. Crimson went in the late afternoons or early evenings, because it was easier to get a sitter for Molly. If they accidentally overlapped and ran into each other in the parking lot or in the hospital corridors, they never acknowledged that it was awkward.

It was, though.

At home, at the ranch, they’d been able to move past the geyser of sexual chemistry that had sprung up between them that first morning. They’d managed to settle down, even to recapture most of their old comfortable camaraderie. But at the hospital, with Kevin lying there in the dark loneliness of a coma, the memory of that moment seemed to hang over them like a fog of guilt.

This morning the large Montrose hospital was bustling with the usual flurry of early activity. Crimson had bought a colorful balloon to brighten up Kevin’s room, and it bobbed foolishly beside her as she walked past the nurses’ station.

“Cute.” The RN standing at a cart dispensing medications into small cups grinned as she went by. “He’ll love it.”

Crimson smiled back gratefully. She loved the positive energy these wonderful ladies gave off. All of them talked to Kevin as if he could hear them perfectly, so Crimson did the same—even though she didn’t always know exactly what to say.

So many topics were off-limits. Topics like how, just before the accident, she had been on the verge of “breaking up” with him, or whatever you called it when the relationship hadn’t ever quite gotten off the ground in the first place.

You couldn’t Dear John someone in a coma. The fact that Crimson was caught in a romantic no-man’s land was nothing— less than nothing —compared to the trap that held Kevin prisoner in this helpless half-life.

The door to his room stood halfway open, so she pushed lightly and entered, her smile still in place in case, miraculously, he’d opened his eyes and could see it. But he looked exactly the same as he had yesterday. Immobile and terrifyingly remote, as if some tether had been cut, and with every day he drifted farther away from the rest of them.

“I brought you a Donald Duck balloon,” she said brightly, arranging the little cylindrical weight on the windowsill. She tied a bow in the string so the balloon wafted softly at eye level.

“I know you’ll start doing your oh boy, oh boy, oh boy impersonation as soon as you see it.” She pulled the guest chair closer to the bed, sat down and laid her hand lightly on his arm. “But you know what? I’ll be so glad you’re awake I won’t even complain.”

He didn’t respond, of course. The IV continued to plink, and the monitor kept up its electronic hum and rhythmic beep. From just outside the door, voices and footsteps rolled down the hall like waves of energy. But Kevin was utterly silent.

“I wish you could have seen Molly this morning,” she said, refusing to let herself be discouraged. “That front tooth has finally broken through, and she smiles all the time, as if she’s showing it off.”

More silence. But Molly was the one subject Crimson felt comfortable with. No matter how complicated everything else might be, she was certain Kevin would want to know his little girl was all right.

“She’s sleeping better, too. I got one of those teething rings Grant suggested—” She broke off. Just mentioning Grant’s name made her nervous. She didn’t want Kevin to feel he’d been displaced as Molly’s daddy...that she and Grant were the parents now. Even worse, what if some of her new feelings about Grant came through in her voice?

She imagined, sometimes, that even the way she said the syllable was different now. Huskier, leaden with tension and repressed emotions.

“Anyhow, I think there’s less pain once the tooth cuts through. She seems much more cheerful now. And boy, is she eating! When I bought diapers yesterday, I had to get the next size up.”

She chuckled, but the sound echoed eerily in the quiet room, and it felt out of place, like laughing in a church. She wondered why it didn’t sound that way when the nurses did it. Probably because, when a nurse was in here, she didn’t feel so alone.

She didn’t feel so out of her depth.

“Oh! I took a video this morning.” She pulled out her phone and thumbed through her pictures until she got to the right one. She pulled it up, hit Play and held the phone in front of Kevin’s face, as if that made sense. As if he might just open his eyes and say, “A video! Great!”

On the phone’s small screen, Molly waved her hands, grinned and let loose peals of giggles and hiccupping laughter. Occasionally, Crimson’s thumb had covered the lens as she struggled to hold the phone out and the baby up simultaneously. It didn’t matter, though. Because of course Kevin did not wake, did not open his eyes, did not show any signs of being happy to hear his baby’s voice.

“Say, I love you, Daddy!” Crimson sounded like a cheerleader, urging Molly. “Say, come home soon, Daddy!”

And then...at the very moment Crimson said, “Come home soon, Daddy,” Kevin’s finger twitched. Crimson dropped the phone to her lap, staring at his hand. Her heart beat rapidly.

Do it again , she willed him. Do it again .

The light in the room changed as the door opened. Crimson looked up, her heart still pounding in her throat. It was Kevin’s new doctor, Elaine Schilling.

“He moved his hand!” Crimson didn’t leave Kevin’s side, didn’t let go of his arm, but she leaned toward the doctor eagerly. Her voice was tight and thin. “I was playing a video for him—a video of his daughter—and his finger moved. I’m sure of it!”

Dr. Schilling paused as she reached into her pocket to pull out the little light she used to check pupil response, an important indicator, Crimson had learned.

“Well...” The woman’s hazel eyes were kind, but her thin, austere face didn’t catch any of Crimson’s eager enthusiasm. “It’s certainly possible. But we must remember a person in Mr. Ellison’s condition may exhibit reflex activities that mimic conscious activities. It’s wise not to read too much into it.”

Crimson stared stupidly, as if she couldn’t understand the doctor’s terminology. But she did understand. It was simple enough. Dr. Schilling was saying the twitch was just some involuntary misfiring of a neuron. She was saying it probably didn’t mean anything, and Crimson shouldn’t hope for a miracle.

But Crimson was hoping. She had to hope. Who could survive without hope?

She couldn’t. She remembered how—almost fourteen months ago, just barely more than a year—she’d kept diving down into the cold, black water of the Indigo River, looking for Clover, telling herself it wasn’t too late. If a passing stranger hadn’t seen her there and jumped in to drag her to shore, she’d have drowned alongside her sister.

In many ways, drowning would have been better than giving up. She couldn’t remember the man’s face, but she’d never forget his voice, saying, “You have to stop now. She’s gone.” The words had fallen on her skin like razor blades.

So she had to keep hoping. She wanted to tell the doctor that, but she didn’t know how to begin. She let her hand fall into her lap. She must have bumped the Play arrow, because suddenly Molly began to laugh again as Crimson again implored her to tell her Daddy to come home soon .

The doctor frowned, a stern but compassionate expression. She clearly thought Crimson had restarted the video deliberately, hoping to prove her point. She hadn’t—truly she hadn’t—but she couldn’t help staring at Kevin’s hand all the same. Maybe...