Coma Girl: part 2

by Stephanie Bond

  Then I heard the muted chirping of a Skype call being made. Had Dr. Jarvis decided to take advantage of the quiet to chat with his girlfriend?

  “This is Dr. Oscar,” a man’s voice came from a device.

  It took me a few seconds to recognize the name as the neurosurgeon at Walter Reed Army Research Institute my brother Alex had mentioned to my parents. Dr. Jarvis had found a piece of paper where my mother had written the information.

  “Dr. Oscar, good morning, this is Dr. Jarvis at Brady Hospital in Atlanta. I talked to your assistant yesterday.”

  “Yes, he gave me the message. I understand you’re calling about the comatose patient Dr. Tyson is treating.”

  “Th-that’s correct.”

  “I understand the patient’s insurance denied the claim for the experimental cocktail.”

  “Yes, sir, but we’ve filed an appeal.”

  The man made a thoughtful noise. “That’s a longshot, unless the hospital board is behind you.”

  “We’re optimistic,” Dr. Jarvis said, then cleared his throat. “I wanted to talk to you about the treatment protocol so once we receive approval, we can administer the cocktail as soon as possible.”

  “I already briefed Dr. Tyson.”

  “My apologies, sir. Dr. Tyson asked me to step in, and considering what’s on the line, I wanted to get the information directly from you.”

  “Alright then. For my own information, I’d like to see the patient’s updated Glasgow stats.”

  “I’m with the patient now,” Dr. Jarvis said. “I can give them to you real time.”

  “I’m ready,” Dr. Oscar said.

  I listened as Dr. Jarvis moved around my bed, checking and reciting my vitals in response to the neurosurgeon’s questions. When the remote doctor asked if I responded to commands, Dr. Jarvis didn’t hesitate.

  “Yes, the patient moves her fingers when I ask her to.”

  “Pupils?”

  “The pupils are dilating.”

  He didn’t add “sluggishly.”

  “The pupil dilation and response to commands shows improvement. I’ll work up a new protocol. Shall I email it to Dr. Tyson?”

  “Er, no,” Dr. Jarvis said quickly. “Send it directly to me.”

  While he gave the doctor his private contact information, I was smiling inside. Dr. Jarvis was going rogue.

  August 5, Friday

  “COMA GIRL, our little secret is really eating me.”

  Roberta was back. And if our little secret was eating her, she obviously keeping pace by eating everything in the bakery case. Since she’d arrived, she’d wolfed down a vanilla bean cupcake, a butterscotch brownie bar, and was working on her second honey bun.

  “But I’ve decided to keep my mouth shut,” she said, licking her fingers. “I looked it up online and you weren’t breaking the law, so it doesn’t matter. But did you know it’s against the law to text and drive in this state? How did I miss that? And how do they expect you to let your boss know you overslept and won’t make it in on the dot? I mean, if I stopped to do that before I got in the car, I’d be even more late.”

  I can almost see her logic.

  “I forgot to bring your mail, but it’s piling up again.” She sighed. “Marigold, when are you going to wake up? It’s so sad to see you like this. And it’s sad to see all your stuff around the apartment. By the way, I hope you don’t mind, but I borrowed your ladybug scarf to wear to a dinner party. I got a lot of compliments on it.”

  I don’t mind.

  “And um… there’s another thing. A reporter from a local TV station was waiting outside the apartment this morning. He asked me a lot of questions about you. I told him I was late for work—which was true—but he left me a card, asked me to call him.”

  Uh-oh. Reporters have a way of weaseling info out of people.

  “I don’t intend to call him, but girl, he was cute.”

  Double uh-oh.

  “Not that I’m interested. I’ve got my Marco, you know.” Then she sighed again. “Although he’s been scarce lately because he’s been busy moving things forward with the divorce and all.”

  Uh-huh. Leopards don’t change their spots. My guess is Marco is bouncing back and forth between his wife’s bed and Roberta’s. But that’s for Roberta to figure out. And who am I to give out romantic advice? The only man I’ve ever cared about is happily planning his nuptials to someone else.

  She cleared her throat. “Duncan came by the bakery today.”

  Right on cue.

  “He put down a deposit on the wedding cake and the groom’s cake.”

  Blackberry, I’ll bet. It’s his favorite.

  “The groom’s cake is blackberry, with caramel icing. I told him that was a good choice, and it wasn’t too late to change his mind about the pink grapefruit wedding cake. He said that was his fiancée’s idea, and I got the feeling that he’s completely whipped.”

  That hurt. It’s hard to imagine Duncan being so mesmerized by someone that he’d just go along, but isn’t that the way love is supposed to be?

  “In case you’re interested, the wedding is in November. Sounds like it’s going to be huge. The cake is five freaking tiers.”

  Wow. Most of the wedding cakes on Pinterest wedding boards are three layers, sometimes four. Five is… impressive. Repeating, not that I’ve ever haunted the Pinterest wedding boards.

  “I thought your name would come up,” she said. “But it didn’t.”

  Of course it didn’t. Why would it?

  “Gotta run. Later, Coma Girl.”

  August 6, Saturday

  “ALEX SENDS HIS LOVE,” Mom said. “He’s hoping to get leave soon for a visit home, but he doesn’t know when that will be. I told him Dr. Tyson said the experimental drug isn’t going to work out for you, and he’s really disappointed.”

  I wondered if Dr. Tyson had found out what Dr. Jarvis had done and shut him down. But if he’d been reassigned, he hadn’t come back to reclaim his iPod which still played classical music… and played… and played…

  It’s to the point now where I can almost see the notes on a sheet of music. I learned the basics of reading music in middle school, but haven’t used it since. Still, those long-dormant lessons are coming back to me—the staff, the clef, the parts of a note, and acronyms to help remember the notes: Every Good Boy Does Fine, and FACE. I can recognize a C note, so I’m building from there.

  “And Winnie calls every day to ask about you. She sent me the oddest gift—a pendant she found somewhere.”

  Ah—the amulets the psychic had conned Winnie into buying to help “pull my spirit back through the tunnel.” Winnie had purchased one for my mom.

  “Anyway, I suppose she meant well, but it’s too ugly to wear.”

  So apparently my mom can’t even be tricked into faux helping me.

  “Your father sends his love, too,” she said. “He was called away on business. One of his municipal accounts in Georgia is a town called Climax and apparently they were the victim of some prank because all the town’s signage disappeared overnight.”

  Okay, that was kind of funny.

  “We’re still waiting to hear from the district attorney’s office on what charges will be filed against Keith Young.” She made a frustrated noise. “He’s all over the news, tossing around a football and hamming it up for the camera like he doesn’t have a care in the world.”

  The chair creaked as she shifted her weight.

  “Sometimes I get so furious, I think I’m going to lose my mind!”

  My mother rarely gets emotional, so I’m riveted.

  “I just want this to be over,” she cried.

  Over, as in me waking up, or over, as in me going the other direction?

  A knock on the door sounded, then it squeaked open.

  My mother sniffed, then asked, “Can I help you?”

  “I was hoping to see Marigold Kemp?” a woman asked.

  I know the voice, but can’t place it.

  “I
’m her mother. Are you a friend of Marigold’s?”

  “Not really. My name is Tabitha. I’m a student of hers.”

  Oh, of course—Tabitha!

  “You must have the wrong Marigold Kemp,” my mother said. “My daughter isn’t a teacher.”

  “She teaches me at night, once a week.”

  “Teaches you what?”

  I wish my mother would let it go—she was going to embarrass Tabitha.

  “Um… I’m not the best reader. But I have a good job, and my boss said he could promote me if my reading and writing skills improved. I went to an agency and they connected me with Marigold.”

  I can almost hear that info settling into my mother’s mind.

  “Oh. I didn’t know Marigold… did that.”

  “She’s a volunteer,” Tabitha said. “And she’s a great teacher.”

  But she’s being generous. She’s an eager learner, and she made my job easy. I’m ashamed I haven’t thought of Tabitha and how my absence might have affected her progress.

  “It’s very kind of you to stop by,” my mother said. “Unfortunately, Marigold is… asleep.”

  “I understand. I just wanted to drop off this card. When she wakes up, will you give it to her? I picked it out myself.”

  “Of course.”

  My mother can’t appreciate how long it must’ve taken Tabitha to read through a section of greeting cards and choose one. But I can. Of the adults I’d tutored, she’d come the farthest, and she’d had the most to learn.

  Tabitha said goodbye, then my mother fell silent. I could picture her staring at Tabitha’s card. She had probably written my name in neat block print using a ruler.

  “Marigold, you never told me you were a literacy volunteer.”

  It simply had never come up.

  She made a pensive noise. “What else don’t I know about you?”

  And maybe it’s me, but she sounds a little… angry?

  August 7, Sunday

  I KNOW IT’S SUNDAY from the rounds of church bells ringing outside my window… and from the sound of Detective Jack Terry’s boots on my floor.

  “Hello, Marigold, it’s your favorite detective.”

  That’s true.

  “I see it’s just us today—good. I brought chili dogs from The Varsity and a couple of frosted orange shakes. If you don’t wake up in the next ten minutes or so, I’m going to have to eat your share, too.”

  This man has good taste in food.

  “Braves are in St. Louis today, are you with me? We probably don’t stand a chance, but we might get a miracle. Actually, we could use a couple of miracles today, couldn’t we? Are you about ready to get out of that bed?”

  Am I ever.

  He gave a little laugh. “If Carlotta was here, she’d make a crack about this being the first time I tried to get a woman out of bed.”

  Ah… the fashionista with the Coma Girl T-shirt had a name.

  “But,” he added under his breath, “Carlotta is not here.”

  I wondered where she was.

  “So, I’ve been looking into your background. Carpet, huh? I’ve been thinking of recarpeting Serena, so maybe when this is all over, I’ll pay you a business call.”

  He’s talking in man-shorthand, but if my mushy brain is connecting all the dots, his boat is named Serena, and she needs new carpeting. We don’t sell marine-grade stock, but Mr. Palmer could hook him up with a wholesaler. But the really interesting part of the whole spiel is his boat is not named after fashionista girl. So who was Serena?

  He dragged a chair across the floor, then set about tearing into paper bags, releasing mouth-watering smells of the four basic food groups—grease, preservatives, salt, and sugar.

  “Your older brother is a war hero, and your younger sister is in law school. That’s a lot of pressure on both ends. No offense, Marigold, but it looks like landing in this coma is the most interesting thing you’ve done.”

  With that smooth tongue, no wonder Carlotta was elsewhere.

  “Seriously though, you’re a sensation. Are you going to wake up and enjoy some of this attention… or are you going to milk it a little longer? Couldn’t blame you. How often does someone get to hide out from life?”

  A few beeps later, the tinny roar of a crowd surged into the room.

  “Game’s starting.”

  Okay, who does this philosophical cowboy think he is, crashing my coma with fast food and baseball and metaphysical questions?

  Because he’s a little bit right, darn him. As long as I’m asleep, I’m Coma Girl. But if and when I wake up, I’ll go back to being Marigold Kemp.

  And no one really cares about her.

  August 8, Monday

  “DID YOU MISS ME?” My volunteer poet gave a little laugh. “Or were you hoping I wouldn’t come back?”

  Not at all. Now that I’m getting back into culture via the classical music looping on the iPod Dr. Jarvis left me, I’m even remembering some of the poetry I learned in school—Robert Frost, T.S. Eliot, Sylvia Plath. When our teachers had made us memorize the poems and recite them in class, I thought I would die of stage fright. I was a gawky kid and did not like being on display. Every word had been torturous, but the experience must have woven the words into the fabric of my brain because as soon as the first phrases of “The Hippopotamus” came back to me, all nine stanzas had unwound. I’m eager to hear more Emily Dickinson, and try to commit it to memory, too.

  Although so far, Dr. Tyson has been right… my childhood memories are surfacing more readily than what had happened yesterday. My mind is operating on a first-in, first out method of recall.

  “I had some medical appointments of my own,” he said.

  Maybe that’s why he volunteers—because he spends a lot of time in the hospital himself. I hoped it isn’t something serious. Some people just get dealt a bad hand.

  Yes, I’m feeling sorry for myself. Sue me.

  “How are you doing, Coma Girl? Are you getting better in there? Figuring things out?”

  Not really. When you have a lot of time to think, you analyze things too much, start scrutinizing and dissecting and second-guessing. Before you know it, everything has folded back onto itself.

  “Believe it or not,” he said, “there are a lot of people who would trade places with you because from where they stand, your life is peaceful by comparison.”

  He is probably right. How many people numb themselves to life with alcohol and drugs and other mind-altering substances? Aren’t they, in a sense, seeking a coma-like state?

  “I’m going to read to you now. This is from a poem titled ‘A Prayer.’ ”

  He has such a nice voice I wonder if he’s an actor… or maybe in broadcasting.

  “I meant to have but modest needs, such as content, and heaven; within my income these could lie, and life and I keep even. But since the last included both, it would suffice my prayer; but just for one to stipulate, and grace would grant the pair. And so, upon this wise I prayed, Great Spirit, give to me; a heaven not so large as yours, but large enough for me.”

  I repeated the words after him, but they got away from me quickly. Still, even after he left, the sense of the poem stayed with me, like a toothache.

  Life has a way of getting out of hand, especially in a country of abundance. Before the coma, I had been content with my small life. But as Coma Girl, I’ve received more attention from my family and friends and total strangers than I’ve ever gotten in my life.

  And I like it.

  And I’m getting pretty irritated at the implication from some that I’m being greedy.

  Then again, perhaps my dormant Catholic guilt is kicking in. Because just as the childhood memories were flooding back, so were the emotions from that precarious time I thought I had successfully squashed.

  August 9, Tuesday

  I’VE BEEN THINKING a lot about my three ward mates lately, but not particularly good things. Like when you’re relegated to a group you don’t want to be in, such as the team
of scrubs in P.E. (Yes, life is all about high school.) But instead of bonding with the scrubs, you get mad at them for even being there? Because if they weren’t there, you wouldn’t have to be lumped in with them.

  I’m angry at the other vegetables for being vegetables in the first place. At what point had they simply given up and submitted to the limbo? It makes me angry to think about them, because they are ever present reminders of what I might become.

  I eavesdrop on their checkups because I’m morbidly curious. Audrey Parks, who is in bed one, had apparently at one time been a good candidate for recovery after her water skiing accident. She had responded to verbal cues and had even vocalized a few times before sliding into a deeper coma. After two years, she now scores straight ones across the Glasgow Coma Scale for pain response, eye movement, and vocalization. Three is the lowest score possible on a scale of 15.

  In bed four, Jill Wheatley is about the same, with a four on the Glasgow scale, but with the added insult of a ventilator—which, can I just say, is noisy as hell. She has been here an astonishing four years, which I gather isn’t normal, but there’s some dispute about a possible Do Not Resuscitate order violation and a legal challenge over who should serve as her medical guardian, so she’s in legal purgatory. I get the general feeling everyone has forgotten about her, poor thing, because she hasn’t had a single visitor since I became oriented. Dr. Tyson is trying to find her a bed in a nursing home.

  In bed two, Karen Suh is faring a little better, with no vocalization and no eye movement, but a clear response to pain that earned her a total score of seven. She’s the one who fell off a ladder cleaning her gutters. Her ex-husband Jonas has been visiting her more regularly, although for only a few minutes here and there. Still, it’s something and I dearly hope she can hear him.

  Today, however, Audrey Parks has a visitor, and I’m intrigued.

  “Hello, Sweet Audrey, it’s Dad.”

  His voice was deep and warm and kind, like a TV Dad. I guessed him to be around sixty, which meant either Audrey was a little older than I had assumed, or her parents had had her later in life.

  I heard the kiss he gave her, probably on the cheek or forehead. “I’m sorry it’s been so long since I came to visit. Your mom has needed me, so I’ve had to get my hours in at the store in between.”