Ack—the man’s wife is sick, too?
“It’s Alzheimer’s, sweetie. Tests confirmed it this week. She’s fretted so over the fact that she’s not well enough to visit, is afraid you’d worry because we haven’t been by. I promised her I’d stop by to tell you we think about you and pray for you every day. We love you, Sweet Audrey.”
My heart is breaking for this man. How much can one family take?
He kissed her goodbye and I pictured him dabbing at his damp eyes with a handkerchief as he exited.
And my heart is breaking for Audrey, too. Because what if she, like me, could hear him? I’d thought nothing could be as scary as knowing the hospital was on fire and not being able to move, but what if you knew a loved one was slipping away, and you wouldn’t even get to say goodbye?
August 10, Wednesday
IT’S BATH DAY AGAIN, which always makes me happy, but I also look forward to the entertainment because, I’ve learned, Nurse Gina is dating Gabriel, one of the orderlies.
“So how was the second date?” Nurse Teddy asked.
“Better even than the first date,” Gina gushed.
“Look at you, you’re blushing.”
“Stop it. And don’t tell anyone. I don’t want it to be a problem at work.”
“There’s no policy against it.”
“But I don’t want it to be grist for the gossip mill.”
“So that must mean you’re going to go out with him again?”
Gina giggled like a little girl. “Yes. He’s a great guy. And he loves kids, said he’s really looking forward to meeting my son.”
“Does he have kids?”
“No. And he’s never been married.”
“Sounds promising.”
“I’m trying not to get ahead of myself,” she said, “but this is the most excited I’ve been about a man in a long time.”
“Good. You deserve a great guy.”
I’m happy for Gina. She spends a lot of time at the hospital. I’ve heard her volunteer for extra shifts, so I gather she’s a struggling single mom.
“Oh, poor Marigold. She’s starting to get that smell.”
What smell?
“What smell?” Teddy asked.
“Kind of moldy, you know?”
Teddy sniffed. “Yeah, I think I smell it.”
Oh, dear Lord, more vegetable analogies?
“They all get it,” Gina said. “It’s from lying still all the time.”
“I have to admit, this is one of the most depressing wards to work in.”
Thanks… thanks a lot.
“Imagine how it must be for them and their families,” Gina chided. “Besides, Dr. Jarvis thinks Marigold is improving.”
“How so?”
“He says she moved her finger on command.”
“Did anyone else see it?”
“No. He pulled me in to witness, but she didn’t do it again.”
“Hm. Dr. Jarvis has a reputation for being a little ‘out there.’ ”
“I think he really believes she did it.”
“Just because he believes it, doesn’t mean it happened. Of course he wants to be credited with helping to wake up the famous Coma Girl. All I’m saying is be careful about letting him pull you into the middle of something.”
“Okay, I’ll be careful.” Then she tsked, tsked. “Oh, this nail polish has to go before Dr. Tyson sees it.”
“I think we have some remover here—you do her fingers, I’ll do her toes. Wow, she has pretty feet.”
When I get to the afterlife, I’m going to ask God why he wasted my pretty on feet. The sharp ammonia scent of the remover floated up to me.
“Her scars look better, don’t you think?” Gina asked.
“Yes, the cocoa butter is helping. When do you think she’ll be able to lose the head bandage?”
“In a few weeks maybe. Then it’ll be easier to wash her hair.”
“When it grows back in,” he added.
What? Okay, now I’m pissed—why didn’t someone tell me underneath the bandage, I’m bald? I mean, honestly—
I stopped bitching because I was distracted by something… strange. What is that?
“Wow, I need to ask her sister what kind of nail polish she used,” Gina said. “This stuff is stubborn.”
There it is again…
“Try the gauze pads—they have more texture than the cotton.”
“Okay. Yes, that’s much better.”
Wait—I feel that! I can freaking feel her putting pressure on the tips of my fingers!
“Her sister is a looker, huh?”
“Yes, she’s very pretty. The mom, too.”
Yeah, yeah—my family is gorgeous and I’m a troll. Shut up already because I feel that!
I remember reading somewhere a person’s nailbeds are so sensitive because of the concentration of nerve endings. And a few times I’d been tested for pain response, I recall Dr. Tyson instructing the person to push on my nails. So it made sense that the pressure and the chemical stimulation of the polish remover would stir up dormant sensations.
Hallelujah! I focused like a laser on the ends of my fingers, and the sensations became stronger. Soon I could feel faint pressure on my toes, too. God bless Sid and her industrial nail polish. I know enough to know the more they massage my nails, the stronger the connections to my brain will become. I readied myself for a rush of physical awareness in the event my body came alive, knowing full well acute pain might be one of the first things I registered. Bring it on.
“All done,” Gina said.
“Me too,” Teddy said, and the sensations ended.
No! Don’t stop now!
But they were busy putting their bath cart back together. I listened to the bangs and squeaks, feeling utterly helpless.
“Ready for lunch?”
“Sure.”
“Whad’ya bring?”
“A Lean Cuisine. You?”
“Chicken salad…”
August 11, Thursday
“WE’RE BAAAACK.”
It’s Aunt Winnie and her scammy psychic sidekick Faridee.
Well, okay, so a couple of things she’d said had come about, like Karen Suh’s ex-husband coming to visit the next day, and my ‘message’ being delivered when Dr. Jarvis had found the note my mom had written about the Army neurosurgeon, but I was still perturbed over the way she’d conned my aunt into buying those bogus amulets.
“How are you, dear? I visit your Facebook page every day—people all over the world know about Coma Girl. Your mother has been keeping me updated—when she’s not working. I understand her real estate business is booming from all the exposure.”
What? I didn’t know Mom’s business had taken off. And while some part of me knows Mom is probably concerned about paying the bills I’m accumulating, another part of me feels a little used.
“Well, you look wonderful,” my aunt lied.
“Yes, so ethereal,” Faridee added. “Like an angel.”
Mental eye-roll.
“Faridee wants to see if she can connect with your thoughts again,” my aunt said. “I’ve been wearing my amulet every day. I hope you’re closer to coming back to us.”
I’m just hanging out here in the spirit tunnel, waiting for a nudge.
But out of love for my aunt, I played along as Faridee instructed my aunt to rub her amulet and recited a chant to help our minds find each other. Just in case her brain stumbled upon mine, I settled on an empirical plea to get someone to stroke my response center: Polish my nails… Polish my nails… Polish my nails…
“There she is,” Faridee announced.
“Oh, how amazing,” Winnie said.
Polish my nails… Polish my nails… Polish my nails…
“Hello, Marigold… thank you, it’s good to see you again, too.”
Oh, brother, here we go.
“I’m here with your Aunt Winnie. She wants me to help you come back to your family.”
“Tell her she’s a
celebrity,” Aunt Winnie said. “I always knew she was the special one.”
Aw, Aunt Winnie.
“You are a celebrity, Marigold. The entire world is calling you Comma Girl.”
“That’s ‘Coma Girl’,” my aunt corrected. “You know, because of the coma?”
“Oh, right.”
Really, just… really?
“The entire world is calling you Coma Girl,” she said. “I can see you are still enjoying the spirit world.”
Lady, would you shut up and listen? Polish my nails… Polish my nails… Polish my nails…
“Is she closer to coming back through the tunnel?” my aunt asked, her voice hushed. “I have a blister on my thumb from rubbing the amulet.”
“Marigold,” Faridee asked, “are you ready to come back to this world?”
Polish my nails… Polish my nails… Polish my nails…
“Wait—she’s speaking to me. She says to thank you, Winnie, for believing in the power of the scroll amulet to escort her home.”
Argh!
“What else can I do?” Winnie asked.
“She says… she says she’d like to talk to you directly.”
“How can she do that?”
“If you take my upcoming seminar on communicating in the next dimension, you can learn.”
Oh, for Pete’s sake.
“Of course I’ll take it,” my aunt said. “How do I sign up?”
“I can take your reservation now. It’s only four hundred dollars.”
“Will you accept a credit card?”
“Yes, but I offer a ten percent discount if you pay with cash.”
“I’ll stop by the ATM on the way out.”
Are you hearing this?
“Wait,” Faridee said, her voice low and dramatic. “I’m getting something else from Marigold.”
“What?” my aunt asked.
The finger, if I could lift my hand.
“This is strange. Is your family… Polish?”
“No, neither her mother or father.”
“She keeps saying the word ‘Polish.’”
Holy crap, the kook could hear me, but she couldn’t get the word right? It’s “polish,” you thief, not “Polish.”
“Hm… I wonder what she could mean?” my aunt mused.
“There’s Polish sausage,” Faridee suggested.
“And Polish rye bread. Maybe she’s hungry.”
“Does she like Polish dancing?”
“The polka? Not to my knowledge.”
“Wait—there was a Polish pope, wasn’t there?”
“John Paul, I think, the Second. And he died.”
Faridee snapped her fingers. “That’s it—she’s with Pope John Paul II in the spirit world.”
Wow… what a whopper.
Winnie inhaled sharply. “She’s with a Pope? Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I have to get back to church.”
I give up. Things had gone completely off the rails.
“She said to come back soon,” Faridee said. “And she will have more to tell. Marigold’s story is far from over.”
I hope that much is true.
August 12, Friday
“I HAVE BAD NEWS,” my dad said.
He sounds so anguished, I’m worried something has happened to Mom or Sid or Alex.
“The Escort is in worse shape than I thought.”
Ah… of course—my car.
“I was sure the guy at the shop I use could fix it, but he said he can’t.”
Hm, well it has a hundred fifty thousand miles on it, so it’s probably time for a new car anyway.
“But I’m not giving up. I called around and found another mechanic who’s supposed to be great and he agreed to take a look at it. I’m going to have it towed there in the next few days.”
The car isn’t worth saving, but fixing it seemed important to Dad for some reason… I suppose it gives him something to focus on.
“I know your mom talked to you about moving back home for a while when you get out of the hospital, and I figure you might like to take some time off to recover fully before you go back to work. So I was thinking… maybe you could go with me on the road for a few days. How does that sound?”
It sounds as if he’s trying to hit the rewind button… and it’s a sweet gesture. But I’m already wondering what we’d talk about for hours and hours in the car.
“It wouldn’t be all sales calls,” he said. “We could stop off and see some museums and maybe hit a few flea markets. Do you still collect books?”
I’m more into eBooks these days, but I still wander into bookstores occasionally. Tabitha and I meet for tutoring sessions at a public library, and it had reignited the luddite in me. Dad isn’t much of a reader, but it’s nice he remembered I am.
“Maybe stop at a casino to play the slots and see a show? Would you like that?”
Who wouldn’t?
“And there are lots of state parks along my route. We could go hiking. How does that sound, sweetheart?”
It sounds nice, Dad.
“I said, how does that sound?”
It sounds nice, Dad.
“I said, HOW DOES THAT SOUND?”
He’s shouting now and banging his fist on something, which, if you know my quiet father, is uncharacteristic and rather terrifying.
The door burst open and a voice I recognized as Nurse Teddy’s said, “Is everything okay in here?”
“Yes,” my dad said, sounding more like himself. “I’m sorry. I… don’t know what came over me.”
“It’s okay,” Teddy said, but his voice was tentative, as if he were scanning my father for signs of another outburst. “Would you like to talk to someone, Mr. Kemp?”
“What do you mean?”
“A Chaplin, perhaps, or maybe a family counselor?”
“You mean a shrink?”
“Not necessarily, but someone who understands what you must be going through.”
“No one understands what I’m going through,” my dad said in a low voice. “And we’re not the kind of people who talk about our problems.”
“Okay,” Teddy said gently. “But visiting hours are over, so maybe you should call it a night. The patients need their rest.”
“Right,” my dad said, sounding utterly defeated. “I’m not helping. I’ll go.”
When he left, I wondered how things were at home between him and Mom. They hadn’t visited together in a while—were things strained?
If their relationship is strained, I’ll never know. We aren’t the kind of people who talk about our problems.
August 13, Saturday
“IF YOUR MAIL KEEPS ROLLING IN AT THIS RATE, one of us is going to have to sleep with the super.”
Roberta heaved a sigh as she dropped into the chair next to my bed.
“And seeing as how you don’t seem inclined to get out of that bed, I guess I’m going to have to take one for the team.”
Her laugh cheered me considerably. I’d gotten so worked up over not being able to signal anyone about feeling my fingers and toes, every little thing set me off. I was angry at the unending classical music rotation, angry at the useless rosary hanging from my bed rail, angry at the machines beeping around me.
I totally understood my dad going off when he visited, because inside, I, too, was railing at God. Why did this happen to me?
And like most of the men in my life, God is leaving me hanging.
“I brought a brownie cake milkshake for dinner,” she said, slurping. “Brought one for you, too. Want a sip?”
Since I can smell the rich chocolate, I assume she’s holding the straw near my mouth. I tried to make my lips move, but my brain was like sludge—maybe I’d fried it from all the internal tantrums.
“No? Okay, more for me.”
Another hearty slurp sounded, then she tore open an envelope and described the sweet card signed by a classroom in upstate New York. Their words of encouragement humbled me and made me regret my peevishness. As she continued readin
g notes from strangers (and counting cash), I softened more and more, especially when I heard the grief-stricken words from relatives of coma patients.
“I hope someone is reading these words to you and you are hearing them,” Roberta read. “Just as I read to my son Amos everyday with the hope he can hear me.” Roberta sniffed, then blew her nose. “That one got to me.”
It got to me, too. Because as hard as a coma is on the patient, it’s worse on family and friends because they don’t know what to do, and how long to hold out hope.
“Hm, this one seems personal—do you know a Joanna Fitz?”
Joanna! She and I had met in a college literature class and become fast friends. She lived with her doctor husband and twins in Pennsylvania. I hadn’t seen her in ages, but we stayed in touch through social media and the occasional phone call.
“She says she’s so sorry to hear about your accident and will come to visit when you wake up.”
Roberta went on to other cards and letters, but I confess I only half listened. I was too busy coveting Joanna’s life. She had made it all seem so effortless—attract a great, ambitious guy who wanted a true partner in life. Be so synergistic that instead of having one baby, you produce twins. Then immerse yourself in motherhood while your husband pulled in enough money to set you up in a country club mansion. Don’t get me wrong—Joanna deserved every bit of her good life. But why didn’t I? What made women like Joanna the kind of people who were most likely to succeed, and people like me most likely to wind up in a coma?
And just like that, the slow boil started again. I’m tired of everyone’s sympathy and good wishes. I resent the cash contributions, as if people are dropping money into a beggar’s cup to assuage their own guilt enough that they could go on living their coma-free lives feeling as if they’d done their duty.
I’ve never been an angry person, but now it seems like the only thing I have to hang on to.
August 14, Sunday
“IF WE KEEP MEETING LIKE THIS,” Detective Jack Terry said, I’m going to have to give you my class ring.”
Ordinarily, his remark would make me smile, but I’m holding out, determined to stew over my predicament. Look where playing nice has gotten me in life.
Besides, I’m not going to become one more in what I suspect is a long line of women who think Jack Terry is all that.
“Braves versus Nationals, we need a win. So what do you think about the Braves moving to the burbs?”
Coma Girl: part 2 Page 3
