“I’m not.” It was the first two words that felt right and solid on her tongue. “I think it was the best thing you could have done for me. You woke me up.”
“But I’m back now.” He threw open his arms like he was the gift she’d been waiting for.
“No, you’re not. We’re not. Ever.”
“All right now, all right! Time to let the lady have her space.” The nurse shooed everyone out, telling them she needed thirty minutes or so to run some tests. The room grew quiet and Hope didn’t know what to say. But then the words started flowing.
“Who was that man here, with the really nice smile?”
“His name is Jake. He found you and has barely left your side for over a month.”
“He looks so familiar. I know about him, but how could I?”
“What do you know?”
“His wife left him. He was very sad about it.”
The nurse looked at me. “Between you and me, I don’t think he’s told another soul except you the whole story.”
Hope nodded because somehow she knew that.
“I’m Bette.” Hope watched her take notes and push buttons. “The neuro doc is on his way to take a good look at you, but by all accounts, you’re going to be just fine. Things might be fuzzy for a while, but you’ll be okay.”
Hope looked out the window. She was drawn to the sunlight. The doctor arrived.
“I’m Dr. Ryan,” he said, grinning at her. “You gave us quite a scare, you know that? We didn’t think you’d wake up. And then we almost lost you. You’re a fighter, I’ll give that to you.”
Had she and this doctor met before? It was like this was a dream, and somewhere else was a reality.
He shined a light in her eyes, asked the nurse to run some tests she’d never heard of.
“For any of your coma patients,” Hope asked, “have they ever . . . have they ever told you they saw stuff in a coma, like people and faces, before they woke up?”
“Sure. I mean, just like in a dream, you see people you know, things that are familiar to you. Some of what you hear around you, in the room, can bleed into your dreams.”
“And what about people they hadn’t met yet, in real life . . . but then they see them when they wake up?”
“That’s not medically possible.”
“In what realm is it possible?”
The doctor smiled mildly at her and patted her shoulder, before turning to the nurse. “Let’s make sure her electrolytes are in balance, okay? Hope, I’ll be back to check on you later.”
Bette continued to do her thing. Hope’s attention was drawn to all the cards, all over the room.
“I don’t know this many people.”
“Pardon?” the nurse asked.
“Where did all these cards come from?”
Bette smiled. She grabbed a handful and laid them carefully on the bed in front of Hope. “I think you’ll find one signature more than any others.”
Hope opened the first one. It was signed Jake.
17
Your legs are strong. Your mind is right. You’re on your way to your new life. A lot of people have been praying for miracles for you, sweet girl.”
“Thank you for everything, Bette,” Hope said, hugging her. Then she noticed the little bride and groom, still sitting on the bedside table. She walked to it. Once it seemed so big—it seemed it meant everything. Now it was just a small piece of plastic. She took it in her hand and tossed it in the trash.
Bette watched the symbolic moment, her hands clasped solemnly in front of her.
Hope felt lighter than ever. Just then a woman rounded the corner into the room, wearing pink scrubs and pushing a wheelchair.
“Candy here will take you down to where your mother is waiting with the car,” Bette said.
Hope looked at Candy and laughed.
“What?” Bette asked. Hope shook her head, and Bette grinned. “Another person from your coma world?”
“When will it end?”
“Maybe it won’t,” Bette said with a knowing smile. “And maybe that’s a good thing.”
Candy grinned and rolled the wheelchair forward. “I hear somebody’s been released! Glad to see you looking so alive!”
Hope sat in the wheelchair, put her bag on her lap and looked up at Bette. “I hope he understands I needed some time to think—to come to terms with my life—to realize I know a good thing when I see it.”
“Sounds like a greeting card,” Bette laughed.
“You think he will even talk to me?”
“I think it’s worth the risk to try. Bring him a peace offering.”
“Tuna?”
“Something less potent, more romantic.”
“Got it.” Hope reached out for a hug. “Thanks for everything, Bette.”
“You’ll forgive me for poking your poor little feet?”
Hope laughed. “I don’t know what was worse—needles or tuna.”
Candy rolled her out. As they approached the elevator, Hope let out a laugh.
“What is it, doll?” Candy asked.
Hope pointed to the guy walking by, thin as a rail, a tangling of IVs hanging off him. “It’s just that I saw him once . . . at my house . . . he stole my—never mind.”
“You sure they cleared you for release?”
“I was this kooky before, I assure you.”
Downstairs, she was loaded into the car. She couldn’t wait to get back to Poughkeepsie. It felt like the longest drive ever. She didn’t even need to ask. Her mother knew to take her straight to the nursing home.
“Not too long, now. Doctor’s orders to take it easy.”
“Can I have a moment alone, Mom? With Grandma?”
Her mom smiled and handed her the Columbine flower Hope requested she bring. “I’ll just wait out here for you.”
Her legs still felt a little shaky as she walked in. The home was quiet and she went unnoticed down the hallway to her grandmother’s room. Tinny Christmas music blared through the intercom system in the ceiling. Cheap garland wrapped in tinsel was strung this way and that. A small, plastic pine tree stood humbly in an out-of-the-way corner.
A lot had changed, but this had not: her grandmother sat in front of her window, quiet and still and but a whisper of who she was. Some cards were missing, Hope noticed, from the grouping by the window.
Hope knelt in front of her, eye level. “Hi, Grandma. It’s me. Hope.” She handed her the Columbine flower.
And then, there was a blink. And a look. Her grandmother was looking at her. Into her. “That’s what your daddy named you.”
Hope felt breathless as she nodded. “Yes, Grandma. It’s me.”
“I will never understand why your Momma wouldn’t let us have a funeral for him. After the accident that night. I told her it was wrong, to let you hope we’d find him.” She spoke as clearly as if she’d never been lost inside that mind and body of hers.
Hope didn’t want to lose her back into wherever she’d been. “What are you talking about, Grandma?”
“After his car went into the Hudson, when he was out getting you ice cream. Mint, I believe it was. Even though they never found his body, we all knew he was never coming home. I wanted to tell you, but she wanted to hang on to that . . . she didn’t want it to be real . . . there was another world she wanted to live in, where things might be made right someday.”
Hope shuddered. Was her grandmother speaking the truth or nonsense? She watched her brush the Columbine flower against her shoulder. Why was she suddenly speaking now?
A lot of people have been praying for miracles for you, sweet girl. Bette had told her that at the hospital during her recovery and now it seemed those prayers were transpiring right in front of her.
“Grandma, are you sure?” Hope whispered, but she knew in her heart it wa
s true.
“Such a sweet boy. Such a sweet, sweet boy. Good manners. Shy smile.”
“Who?” And then, like that, her grandmother was gone. The light in her eyes vanished and she gazed out the window, then looked at Hope again, as if she’d never seen her before in her life.
“Well, hello, young lady. Can you get me a flower?”
Hope stood and took a couple of steps back. She noticed the missing cards again. Where had so many of them gone?
The cold winter wind snaked around the heavy headstones, grazing their legs as it went. Her mother huddled against her.
“Why are we at the cemetery?” Her hair was standing straight up in the air, doing its own hallelujah wave, in the wind. “There’s not even a grave here.”
“I know, Mom. That’s the point. I need you to hear me. Okay?”
“Okay, I’ve never spent enough time listening to you, and I want to. Because I noticed, when you were in that coma, you weren’t talking and—“
“Mom.”
“Yes?”
“Dad is dead.”
“No, honey. He’s just . . .”
“Mom. You know he’s gone. You don’t want to know it, but you do. He loved you more than anyone else on this earth . . . except me.” Hope laughed through her own tears. “You know, if he had somehow survived that accident, he would have come home. It’s time to let go.”
It started as the tiniest sniffle, and then it grew to a sob so freeing, Hope imagined that it felt as if every lie she’d ever held on to was being carried off by the wind. Her mom turned and buried her face into Hope’s neck.
“Mom, let’s . . . you know.”
And for the first time since her dad disappeared, Hope was the one who did the praying.
“Thank you so much for driving me,” Hope said. “I can’t drive for two more weeks.”
“Are you kidding me? I wouldn’t miss this for the world.” Becca pitched a thumb toward the backseat. “She’s cute, I’ll give her that, but she literally sucks the life out of me. Milk. Energy. Sleep. I got nothing left except to observe how other people live their normal lives.”
“Don’t look at me! I’m nothing normal.”
“Well, you’re not dull, I’ll tell you that. Dumped at the altar. Attacked and thrown into a coma. Wooed while unconscious. And I thought having a baby was exciting.”
“What ever happened to that girl?”
“What girl?”
“Who attacked me.”
“Your mom didn’t tell you? They caught her just a mile down the road. She was from the Children’s Home. The news said they sentenced her to community service at the YMCA.” Becca’s eyes widened. “What? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Hope shook her head. “Maybe I just saw what my life might have been if I hadn’t had a mom who prayed so much for me.”
Baby Abigail let out a tiny cry from the backseat. Becca nodded toward the building. “So, this Tuna Guy—you think he’s the real deal? Sounds fishy to me.”
“Becca, you were right.”
“About?”
“It wasn’t my geography that needed to change. It was me.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind.” Hope smiled. Maybe reality bled into her coma life, but she’d found just the opposite to be true too. “Okay, it’s now or never. You’re waiting out here, right? In case I have to make a run for it?”
“You got it.”
Hope got out of the car, took a deep breath and stood in front of Heaven Sent Flower and Gift Shop. The last time she’d seen that sign it was on the side of the truck and only read HEAVE, which was exactly what she did.
The building number was 352. No surprise there. Large snowflakes began to fall lightly across her face. For fun, she stuck her tongue out to catch a few.
But there was no time to waste. She opened the front door of the shop and little bells rang. Two elderly ladies greeted her in unison. Their sweaters matched and they looked like sisters.
She spotted him, his head down, at work on something important. When he looked up, his face lit exactly the way she thought it would.
“You’re out!”
She wore a playful, mischievous grin. “I know who you are.”
“The guy who sat by your bedside, bored you silly ’til you woke up?” He set his pencil down. The two ladies giggled and moved to the back of the shop.
Yeah, she had her flirt on.
Out of her bag she took a hand-drawn card, filled with every color imaginable, the whole rainbow and more.
Two caricatures were sketched on the front of the card. She watched his face and she knew he recognized himself and her. She really loved to see him smile.
It read: Do You Like Me? She flipped to the inside: Yes, No or Maybe So.
He looked up at her, his eyes awash with . . . delight?
Yeah, delight.
“Don’t say no,” Hope said.
“Hope, I . . .”
“Don’t say no.” Comatose, she realized, makes people bold.
He walked to the other side of the counter and stood very close. “I’m not. I simply wanted to point out that on the inside, you’re asking me to make a choice but you don’t say what you think. How you feel. We need a rewrite.”
“I think . . . I’m um, my thoughts . . . they’re telling me we need to believe again, believe it’s worth the risk. Believe our pain has brought us to this place. Sappy, huh?”
“Just right. I’m glad you’re here. I wanted to ask you a question. How does a girl in a coma send a guy greeting cards?”
“What do you mean?”
He reached behind the counter and pulled out a stack of envelopes to hand to her. There was no mistaking the writing was her grandmother’s. Hope pulled out the first card. She’d made this one on a Wednesday sitting under a tree at the park, simply signing it Hope. One of dozens over the years.
It struck her right then, that this was the boy her grandmother always talked about, the shy one with the gentle heart—the one she had no interest in since the day he gave her that first card in grade school. It was her grandmother who could never resist a guy with intimate knowledge of flowers.
It left her breathless and hopeful all at once—so full-circle in an otherworldly sort of way. She stared into Jake’s eyes.
“What’s a girl gotta do to get a job around here, writing her own stunningly witty greeting cards? Maybe a line of ‘pony up’ cards.”
“Well, this is a family-owned business. You have to be family to—”
And then she went all cliché on herself to interrupt him and plant a kiss on his lips. They melted into each other. It was the corniest, mushiest greeting-card moment ever. “You’re hired,” he said, his finger brushing her cheek.
Somehow I already knew that.
Discussion Questions
1. What was your favorite part of the novel? Why?
2. Who is your favorite character and why?
3. Who did you want Hope to end up with and why?
4. In the novel, Hope goes through a crushing blow, being abandoned at the altar. What is the most disappointing experience you’ve had? How did you respond to it?
5. Where do you look for hope in the midst of difficult circumstances? What encourages you?
6. Like Hope, have you been able to use humor to get through difficult times in your life? If so, how have you used it? Do you know of creative ways to use humor to help others going through a difficult time?
7. Cici, Hope’s mother, seems to bury her pain by pretending bad things don’t happen. Do you know anyone who uses this coping mechanism? Have you used it yourself to try to avoid dealing with pain? What was the result?
8. If you were writing your own greeting cards, would you write make-up cards or break-up cards?
9. Write a s
ample greeting card of the type of card you wished you had received when you were in pain over a trial. If you think someone may be helped by it, make it into a card especially for that person.
10. Did you enjoy the story in the real world or in Hope’s coma world better? What was it you liked best about it?
11. What do you think is the biggest mistake Hope makes along her journey? How could she have done things better?
12. Did you understand the symbolism of the lady janitor in the hallway at the YMCA, that she represented where Hope feared she’d end up if life didn’t change? Do you face fears about where you will end up one day? What are you doing to combat those fears?
13. Hope has to overcome a lot of fears to chase after her big dream of being a greeting card writer in NYC. She leaves the safety of her job and her home. What is your biggest dream? Have you chased after this? Is there anything holding you back from trying? Are there any big moves you need to make in order to go for your dreams?
14. What do you believe about the verse, Romans 8:28, that talks about how God works all things together for his good?
Greetings from the Flipside Page 23
