18. Kate #2
“What I will tell you is what I’ve seen with my own two eyes in this unit year after year, day after day, whether a coma is God-given or induced.
” She gave a shrug with one shoulder. “Somewhere in there, they hear you. They may not catch every word, but they hear your voice and they know you’re in this room and they are not alone.
They know you care, they know they’re loved, and they know that whatever you say is usually the honest truth and maybe you shouldn’t have waited until they were here to say it. ”
Kate felt her own throat thicken. She had not expected that.
“So, talk to her,” Marlene said. “Tell her what she needs to hear, but for heaven’s sake, don’t tell her anything that’ll hurt her. But letting her know she’s loved and you still need her? Costs you nothing, and it might be the thing that brings her back to you. I’ve seen it time and time again.”
“She knows we’re here?” Tessa asked, the note of hope in her voice a little heartbreaking.
Marlene smiled. “I bet she does and if she could talk, she’d thank you for all the years of love, Miss Beautiful and Miss Genius.”
They both laughed softly as she picked up the clipboard. “The day shift is ruthless with the visiting rules, so make your time count tonight.” The door clicked shut behind her.
The two of them exchanged a silent look, then Tessa stood up, leaned over the bed and put her cheek as close as she could get to their mother’s face.
“Mom. It’s Tess. Katie’s here, too. You’re in the hospital, okay?
You had a fall and they fixed you up, but you have to come back to us now, do you hear me?
You don’t get to leave. There is so much you have not done.
You haven’t taught Olive to make a peach pie.
You haven’t taken her on a boat. You haven’t seen her be three, and four, and five, and you told me last night that I was going to be an amazing mom and I can’t…
” Her voice cracked and she took a steadying breath.
“I cannot do that without you. I have no clue how to do that, really.”
A tear spilled on Mom’s cheek, straight from Tessa’s eyes.
“I know you think Dad and I had some special bond,” she said in a rough voice. “But all we ever talked about was you and Kate. And I know you want to see him again, but not yet, please. Fight, Jo Ellen Wylie. Fight for…”
She bit back a sob and kissed Mom’s cheek, staying there for a second before straightening, her shoulders shuddering so hard Kate rose and practically ran around the bed to hold her.
“I’m sorry,” Tessa rasped, wiping her face. “I…love her so much.”
Kate hugged her sister and rubbed her back, hushing her the way she would Emma when she cried. “It’s going to be okay, Tess. She’s going to be okay.”
Tessa pulled back, her eyes red, her nose running. “But if she’s not?”
Kate closed her eyes and drew her closer. “Don’t think about that yet.”
Tessa sobbed again and stepped to the side, grabbing her purse. “I’ll be right back. I need to blow my nose and rinse my face.”
“Okay. I’ve got her. Take your time.”
“You talk to her, okay? I want us to keep talking to her.”
“I will,” Kate assured her, and waited until Tessa slipped out before taking her chair again.
Talking to her seemed strange, but even if one study showed they heard, then Kate was determined. Kate lifted her mother’s hand gently so she could rest her temple against the knuckles and looked right at her face.
“Hey, Mom.”
The ventilator clicked and hissed, taking a deep breath for Jo Ellen.
“It’s me. Tess is fine,” she assured her, not sure why, but she did.
“So am I,” she added. “Mostly fine, you know. Considering you’re in here, I mean.
So…what do you want to talk about? I’m not big on the dramatic ‘I love you and don’t leave us’ stuff.
I’ll leave that to my sister. But I just want to… talk. You know, about life.”
She took another breath and listened to the beeps and ticks, the distant intercom and somewhere, far away, a phone ringing.
“Okay, so listen. I have to say something to you because I was going to ask you about it when we were at that Airbnb, but you and Maggie went off and…well, it seemed like you had fun, so that’s good. Anyway…”
She hesitated and tried to think of how to start.
“I don’t know what to do about Eli.”
Mom’s ventilator gave a noisy sigh as if to say, “This again?”
“I love him, Mom,” she insisted. “I love him so much it scares the heck out of me. I love him the way you loved Dad, I think, and that’s the part that scares me, because I watched what loving Dad like that did to you when he died. I do not have it in me to love a man that much and lose him.”
She felt her throat thicken and swallowed the lump. If Mom could hear her talk, she could hear her cry and she hated when Kate cried.
“And he’s asking me for something I don’t know how to give him.
He wants me to come…all the way to where he is.
I know you probably don’t understand, but stay with me.
I’ve been doing the work. I have read the books, dug through something called ‘apologetics’ which is more truth claims than apologies.
And I got…as far as I can get. And I think it might cost me everything.
But I cannot do what he wants me to do. I can’t fake it or ignore it or… ”
She grunted, deeply sick of the topic by now.
“So, I was going to ask you about it,” she continued. “I wanted to get your opinion. I know you like him, but want the best for me, so…I need your opinion.”
She stared at her mother’s impassive face, unchanging, unmoving. She wasn’t going to get that opinion.
But if she could hear?
“Okay. New rule. If you think I should let go of all my reasons and marry him—if you think the right answer is yes? Then squeeze my hand. One squeeze. That’s it. One squeeze.”
She waited but the hand in hers did not move.
“Mom.”
Nothing.
“Come on. Easy one. One itty bitty squeeze.”
Her mother’s fingers remained still.
“Okay, maybe you don’t know the answer to that. How about one squeeze if you love me.”
She waited, looking at her mother’s face, then her hand, her vision blurring with tears she so did not want to shed.
“Well, I know you do,” Kate managed to say against a tight throat. “And I love you with my whole heart and soul and do not want to live one day without you. So, please, get better, Mom. Please.”
Kate lowered her mother’s hand back to the blanket, very gently, and pressed her own hand flat over the top of it, holding it there.
“Worth a shot, Mom.”
She dropped her head back as if that could force the tears to return to their ducts. She stared up at the drop ceiling, a tiny water stain in one corner, a vent.
But that’s not what she saw. Instead, she looked beyond to…whatever beyond might be, if anything was. And if it was? Maybe Artie Wylie was there, looking right back down at her.
“Dad,” she said quietly. “Listen, if you are anywhere in the vicinity of this room, I need you now. I know she wants to be with you. I know she’s missed you every day for a year because we all have, but especially Mom.
But, Daddy…” Her voice cracked. “We need her down here a little while longer. Could you help, somehow? Send her back if she shows up. Tell her it’s too soon. ”
Okay. That was silly. Who talks to the ceiling?
“Eli,” she whispered, almost smiling. Yes, the man talked to the ceiling, the sky, his fists pressed together, his heart all in. Eli prayed. She had no doubt he was doing that right now.
Could she?
She swallowed, looked up, found the stain.
“No, I can’t,” she breathed. “I did, remember? I asked you for proof of your existence just…oh. Yesterday morning, I think. The last morning I remember. Anyway, that was all I asked for. A little proof.”
She choked out a mirthless laugh and looked down at her mother, so close to death it literally could happen any moment.
“And this is your response.” She shuddered at the thought. “My mother on a vent with a hole in her head. As proof of existence, this is not your best work. You failed.” The tears spilled freely now. “You failed utterly and completely.” She ground out the words. “Thanks for nothing.”
The door opened.
Kate turned, expecting Tessa but it was Marlene, with her clipboard against her hip and her face composed.
“I’m so sorry, hon, but we need to do suctioning, a line change, and neuro check. About twenty minutes. I’m going to ask you to step out and take a break.”
Kate rose and swiped at her eyes. “Of course.”
Marlene paused at the foot of the bed and looked at Kate with kindness and a sad smile. “You’re doing fine, honey. You’re doing exactly what she needs.”
Kate bent over the bed and kissed her mother on the forehead, on the side without the bandage, the way her mother had kissed her ten thousand times in her life, and she straightened, got her bag, then went to the door.
In the corridor, the fluorescent light was bright enough to make her wince. An orderly at the far end of the hall pushed a machine on wheels. She leaned against the closed door and sighed, more mad than sad.
Mad at life, at the situation, at the loss, and at Eli’s God, who should not have let this happen.