chapter twenty-six
Alone in the apartment, I don’t sleep well. But somehow I drift off by dawn and then sleep through my alarm. I lurch out of
bed when my eyes do at last open. William is due in ten minutes. When he left last night, he offered to come back and drive
me to the hospital today. I hurry to my dresser to pick out clothes, and I freeze.
Perched on top of my jewelry box is a stuffed puffer fish.
I don’t breathe. I feel as though the world shuts off around me.
When I suck in air again, the spell breaks. I hear cars outside the window. I smell the cleaning supplies that we doused the
apartment in last night. And I see the fish, fragile and brittle and old and beautiful.
Trembling, I reach out and touch a spine. It’s pliable under my finger and very real. I draw my hand back. I stare at it,
at its puckered lips and unblinking eyes.
Maybe my mother put it here. There were several weeks between when I fell into the coma and when she checked into the hospital.
She could have found this somewhere, a yard sale, a store that sells oddities, eBay, and placed it here for me to find when I woke up.
It would be like her to leave me a present.
She likes to surprise me with things she thinks I’ll like.
One morning, when I was around fifteen, I woke up to discover an entire bag of sea glass on my plate for breakfast, in lieu of toast. I used it to make a mosaic mirror frame.
It hangs in Mom’s bedroom. I could bring the mirror to the hospital, I think, except I don’t think she’d like to look in the mirror right now. It’ll stay here.
I’m aware that my thoughts are spinning, spiraling. I can’t stop them.
I need to get to the hospital, to ask Mom about the puffer fish. She must have put it here, but how would it enter my dream
if she bought it after the car accident? Maybe it was here before, and the accident had wiped the memory away. It had wiped
away the memory of the crash itself. Who knows what else I’ve forgotten?
I comb through the apartment, looking for other differences. I find minute ones: different books on Mom’s bedside table, a
beige sweater I’ve never seen, new magazines . . . all things easily explained by the weeks I was in the coma. I return to
the puffer fish.
There’s a knock on my door.
William.
Grabbing a blanket off my bed, I wrap it around me and waddle to the door. I open it, but I can’t make myself smile. “Hi.”
“Are you all right?” He looks perfect, impeccable in his scrubs.
“Just . . . didn’t sleep well,” I tell him. “Worried about my mother. Overslept. I’m not dressed yet. Sorry.”
“Sure. I understand.” But he looks worried now. I wish I could explain. I definitely cannot explain. He comes inside, and I shut the door behind him.
I want to be with Mom now. I have to know if .
. . Stop, I tell myself. The fish had to be from Mom.
I was in a coma. Of course I was. Every doctor in the hospital thinks so.
There are X-rays and photos and hospital records.
Plus William talked to me while I was in my coma.
I’d momentarily forgotten that. “What did you talk to me about? When I was in a coma. What did you say?”
“Described things in the hospital. Read to you sometimes. Just a visit or two a day, so you’d know someone was out here. You
had friends that stopped by, too. Coworkers. Especially in the beginning.” He pauses. “Do you want coffee? I was going to
grab some coffee. There’s a Peet’s Coffee on the corner of Hempsted and Latoya.”
“Okay. Yes. Thanks.”
He leans forward as if to kiss me, but I feel as if my brain is mired in sludge and I don’t react fast enough. His lips brush
my cheek. He withdraws. We look at each other for a moment. My smile is strained, and I’m certain he can tell, though that
doesn’t register in his face. The silence grows awkward.
“I’ll fetch the coffee,” he says.
“I’ll shower,” I say simultaneously.
I shower in record time and am dressed and staring again at the puffer fish by the time he returns. He rings the doorbell,
and I let him in again. “Can we drink it in the car?” I ask.
“Of course.”
I’m silent on the drive, pretending that sipping the coffee takes all my concentration. My heart, though, is beating fast
as a hummingbird’s wings. At every stop sign and traffic light, William shoots glances at me. His forehead wrinkles as he
looks at me, and several times he seems on the verge of speaking but stops himself. I feel vaguely guilty for making the drive
so uncomfortable, but all I can think about is Lost.
One very important facet of Lost.
No one leaves Lost. Not without the Missing Man. Even the dead don’t leave.
If it’s real . . . The hope hurts so much that I don’t complete the thought.
At the hospital, I sign in at the front desk, and then I ride the elevator up with William. He pushes the button for seven—he has lockers there with spare scrubs for days when he’s in the hospital twenty-four hours. “Lauren . . .” he begins. He sounds unhappy.
“I’m only worried about my mother,” I lie. “Really. I slept terribly.”
He believes me. The circles under my eyes must be even darker than I thought they were. The elevator doors open, and I manage
to smile at him as he exits. The instant the doors shut, I drop the smile, and I pace. The elevator rises. I know I’m clinging
to an impossible hope. I’m supposed to be reconciled to my mom’s fate. I thought I had come to terms with it. But here I am,
hoping for the impossible. It is far, far more likely that I simply forgot the puffer fish and it entered my subconscious
and joined my coma dream.
The elevator reaches Mom’s floor. I wave to the nurses, who jot down my name on the visitors register. I think that this is
the first time they’ve seen me in my own clothes. I speed to Mom’s room. I want to burst in with my question. But I check
myself at the door. I tiptoe inside.
She’s asleep.
I shift from foot to foot, waiting. She doesn’t show signs of waking up soon. I can’t wake her, even to ask her this. She
needs her sleep. Sighing, I sink into the chair. I fidget, watching her. At last, I grab the paper and pencil, and I begin
to sketch Peter.
He takes shape through my fingers. I know every curve of his face. I capture the look in his eyes, the sardonic twist of his
lips. I fill out his body in broad strokes, trying to catch the flow of his coat. I draw him in a crouch as if on a rooftop,
looking at me, his hand extended, as if he’s waiting for me to join him on the roof. Bending over the paper, I focus on his
hands. It takes three tries before I’m satisfied with them. I add the swirl of his tattoos to his chest.
“It’s nice to see you draw again,” Mom says from the bed.
I look up. I don’t know how long she’s been watching me.
“Can I see?”
For an instant, I don’t want to show her. This seems personal. But I’ve already told her everything about my dream. She knows
about Peter. I go to her bedside and show her.
“Last night didn’t go well?” she asks.
“Last night was great.”
“That’s not a sketch of William,” she points out.
“Mom, I have to ask you an odd question.” I sit on the edge of her bed, careful not to bounce her tubes or wires.
“Yes, William’s father was excellent in bed.”
“Not that question!” I feel my face flame red. I’m positive that uncomfortable questions about last night are coming, and
this is far too important to be derailed. “In my room, on my dresser, I found a stuffed puffer fish. Have you seen it before?”
“Stuffed puffer fish? Is this a trick question?”
“I want to know if I’m forgetting things. You know, because of the . . .” I tap my forehead. “Do you know where it came from?”
“Never seen one.”
“Really? Are you 100 percent certain?”
“Yes. Sounds like a knickknack I’d remember.”
I exhale and then I can’t stop smiling. “How would you like to leave the hospital? Go on a little trip with me?”
She gestures to the IV. “I’m not exactly portable. And, Lauren, no offense, but you don’t know the first thing about nursing.
Remember how you fainted when our cat had to get shots?”
“In fairness, that was mostly because of the smell. I swear that vet smelled like formaldehyde.”
“I can’t argue with that. But, Lauren, I told you before, I can’t ask this of you. It’s a lot to take care of me. Too much. You have a life, a job. Have you called them yet? Please tell me you have. Your friends are worried about you.”
“I will, I will,” I lie. I push forward before she can call me on the lie. She can read me better than anyone. “I’ll talk
to Dr. Barrett and . . .”
“Talk to me about what?” asks a familiar, smooth voice from the doorway.
I look up and wish I weren’t holding a sketch of Peter. I quickly put it down. He sees my movement.
“You drew again. Great.” He looks at Mom. “I saw some of your daughter’s artwork last night. You’re right. She has real talent.”
He checks the chart that hangs from the foot of Mom’s bed. “How are you feeling today? Can you rate your pain?”
“I continue to think that’s the stupidest question ever,” Mom says. “It’s random. How do I know what a four is? How do you
know that my four corresponds to anyone else’s four?”
“Humor me.”
“Four.”
“Great.”
“Or 4.2.”