Douglas Coupland - Girlfriend in a Coma

I'd think of Karen often, too. Our first and only time together had been so wonderful. I replayed it over and over in my head, savoring each nuance, her skin like milk atop the snow, the smell of the snow, her underwear's frilled cotton, cold and dry. I never told her I loved her. Schmaltzy, but these things rankle; they count. By summer's end, I'd finally decided that I didn't even know Karen too well—who was she on the inside? This only fueled her mystery. At night, when such moments tended to strike, I'd have a self-indulgent little cry, walk around the yard, then come inside where my parents would be cheerfully watching the national news. I'd go sit with them, putting a good face on everything.By late August, waiting for the birth, I felt as though I was breathing the air inside a capsized boat—steamy, biological and ominous—an activity that could only continue for a little while longer. George, as ever, visited his daughter each day. I showed up less frequently, often in midweek. George and I never talked much; when we did, we'd end up saying the same old vapid niceties that somehow made Karen's coma time seem even longer. He'd also lapse into a mist of maudlin boo-hoos. He'd remember Karen singing 'Oklahoma' in the school play. "She was a pretty girl, wasn't she, Richard?"

"She still is, George."

"Remember the time she played guitar for our anniversary party?"

"I do."

"Such a pretty girl." Then he would sigh and sing a show tune from Oklahoma: "When I take you out tonight with me—honey this is what you're going to see— "

"How's business?" I asked, moving away from this gooey patch.

Lois, on the other hand, while not having completely written Karen off as dead, was certainly the more pragmatic of the two. She had read the statistics on coma patients and the persistent vegetative state. She knew that with each succeeding day, chances for an awakening approached absolute zero.

At the pregnancy's start, Lois treated me about one notch friendlier than she might a sperm donor, but Lois realized that in order to build her custody case for the baby, she would have to try harder to be nice, which must have been torture for her.

And as time went on I became increasingly angry at Lois for shanghaiing the baby. Not that there were many other alternatives, but still—she just barged right in and swiped my kid. It was only through discussions with my father, who painted some all-too-clear pictures for me, that I understood that Lois keeping the baby was the best solution—for the time being.

We met in the hospital corridors. "Oh, hello, Richard. Well. Another day, isn't it? Another day older and another day wiser." Camel-hair coat, white gloves. Her small talk was rather limited; shewas not a particularly creative woman, new attitude or not. What chunks of creative fuel she possessed must have been expended on her hideous accumulation of owl knickknacks. Bumping into her in the hospital's hallways or down on Rabbit Lane, I would brace myself for her curious overtures at warmth. "Richard, you're certainly not looking sick at all. I'd heard you were fluey." (Awkward pause.) "Hmmm. That's a very handsome color on you, you should wear it more often." (Awkward pause.) "Well. She's in there. Everything looks fine." (Lois never again referred to Karen by her own name. Karen had been downgraded to "she.") Lois removed her gloves. "And your parents?"

Lois was definitely changing for the better, though I didn't entirely trust her motives. Lois wanted the baby—as though it were her own. I'm sure she wanted to be right there with the obstetrician, ripping the baby from the womb, herself cutting the cord with her dentures, then taxiing off with her loot, leaving Karen behind in her eternal repose, as though that daughter could be checked off her list, allowing Lois to start on her next project, a new child to raise occupying Karen's old slot.

I still felt as though the secret of the pregnancy was mine to bear alone. Aside from Wendy, there was no one that I could tell who really knew me, which only added to my own feeling of unreality. The two families were taking such pains to appear casually pragmatic: no emotion. My head felt like a watermelon the moment before being whacked with a baseball bat. Kids at seventeen? I could be a grandfather at thirty-four. What kind of role model could I possibly be for my kid? What help would I be with Lois efficiently covering the mother front and nobody expecting anything from me?

My parents seemed serene about the whole birth, digging through the garage for mildewed boxes of baby goodies for Lois. My parents visited Karen once a month. Mom also made effort-filled visits to Lois next door every week or so. Mom would gird herself the moment she rang Lois's doorbell, activating the McNeil's astound-ingly nervous bichon frise into a frenzy of sterile yapping."Hello, Lois."

"Oh, Carol, hello, please come in. My, you do look tired." Careful, I just bought that owl figurine, and it's fragile—here, let me move it out of your way. Well, what have you brought—more clothes for the baby? Stack them next to the other boxes. You're really outdoing yourself; you shouldn't go to so much trouble. Careful! That owl—I'll just move it into the other room. Don't move a muscle. My—the dog never barks like this. And what else—coffee? I suppose you'd probably like some. Why don't I go make some, stay right there. Oh, Carol, please—remove your shoes if you could. I have guests coming over tonight."

"Thank you, Lois."

The child was to be born via C-section, September z, Karen's birthday. The night before, rain stomped the roof like hooves, yet the night air was warm and inviting. I stepped outside onto the rear patio underneath the eaves and sat on a lawn chair. I had been unable to sleep; in order to konk me out I had taken a plump, green chloral hydrate left over from my wisdom teeth extraction a few months earlier. There, under the drum of rain in a lawn chair, I experienced what was to be the only vision of my life. It was this:

My head was the nucleus of a sparking, dazzling, steak-sizzling halo. I rose, I floated from under the eaves, up off the patio, being yanked up into space, toward the Moon. There I met Karen walking on the Moon's dark side, lit only by stars. Karen was so clean, wearing her ski jacket, brown cords, and red clogs, holding her purse. There was wind in her hair, even there on the Moon. She took a drag from her cigarette and said to me in a voice I'd lost for so long, "Hey, there, Richard. How ya doin', Beb? Just look at me! One day we were all walking across the surface of the Moon, then we discovered a way home. Didn't we?"

I said yes.

She said, "I'm not gone, you know."

I said, "I know."

"Take care of Megan, Richard.""I will."

"It's lonely here."

"I'm lonely, too. I miss you."

"Good-bye, Richard. It's not forever."

"Karen, where are you?"

She tossed her cigarette into a dusty gray crater the size of an aluminum ball-barbecue and said, as though I'd asked her the answer to a simple algebra equation, "Well, duhl Until we meet again, Beb." Then she leaped over a crater to disappear behind its edge.

There was a flash of aqua-colored sparks. I rubbed my head. My vision was over.

I returned to the patio; rain still drummed.

The Moon.

Home.

Energized, still not sleepy from the pill, I put on boots and walked down to the McNeil's, making my way through the backyard trees. I came down to where I could see Karen's old room—her light still burning. I came up closer, hidden behind a laburnum tree. I saw baby clothing stacked up against Karen's wall mural of the Moon. Mrs. McNeil came into the room carrying a box, stopped, heaved down the box, sat on top, and sighed with all her body. I'd never seen her in a pose of exhaustion before.