She’d take a lot of things over this place if given the choice, but for now, it was the best she could get, so she tried to make the most of every Friday night. Cassie thumbed through her iTunes and pulled up her playlist of Devon’s favorite songs as she walked toward room sixty-seven. She’d planned to introduce him to a new song tonight, partly because she was sick of his playlist and partly because she hoped that somehow, subconsciously, his brain was absorbing all of his interactions and would remember them when he awoke.
Playing new songs for him, or telling him about books she’d read or movies she’d watched was also a good way to fill up the time. Because two hours of one-sided conversation— week after week, year after year— got a little stilted at times. She remembered when they were dating, how they’d talk for hours about everything and nothing, and the feeling she’d had that she would never grow bored of talking with him. And she wouldn’t, it was just that talking to him had taken some getting used to. Some nights she was better at it than others. She’d learned to plan ahead, to think through the things she wanted to tell him. There was less silence that way, and she felt like she was doing something that might help.
Cassie reached Devon’s room and was surprised to find the door ajar. Her heart. Devon rarely had other visitors. His parents had both passed away, his sister lived back east, and the doctors on staff should have all gone home for the evening.
Cassie paused, anxious to find out what was going on, though her mind was already racing with expectation. Something must have happened. It had to be good. She’d have had a call if it wasn’t. No medical team consulted in the hall. There wasn’t a crash cart, though she wouldn’t have seen one of those anyway, even if something had gone wrong. Last year, after he’d had a particularly bad infection that sent him to the ICU, she’d made the difficult decision to sign a “do not resuscitate” order.
She had vowed to do everything she could to bring Devon back from where he was, but if he took a turn for the worse, if his physical condition declined rapidly again, she wasn’t going to subject him to more painful intervention.
But that’s not going to happen. Something good was. Maybe it already had. Cassie stepped through the doorway to find a lone woman wearing pale pink scrubs standing at the foot of the bed, a slim laptop in her arms, which she looked at periodically when taking her eyes from Devon.
A neurologist at last? It seemed an unusual hour for a visit from a doctor, but Cassie couldn’t think of who else the woman might be. Was it possible? Cassie was afraid to even hope that her repeated petition to the state had at last been granted. She’d been requesting a neurological evaluation yearly, near the anniversary of Devon’s accident, since he’d been at Sierra. Each time, her request had been denied. Maybe this time someone with a heart had happened upon her request, someone who felt as she did, that the $145,000 to have Devon’s brain evaluated and a course of therapy prescribed was worth it, that all hope was not lost.
Devon had served the people of Sacramento and California well during his three years on the police force. Couldn’t they serve him now in return, and give him a better chance than they had, sending him off to Sierra for little more than custodial care? He didn’t need a custodian. He needed a doctor, a specialist, who knew how to help patients with severe brain trauma. Maybe at last that doctor was here.
“Hello.” Cassie walked farther into the room and looked closely at Devon, eyes closed— not uncommon for this time of night— limbs unmoving, breathing even. Her gaze shifted to the machine on the other side of the bed. The steady bleep of the monitor always comforted her, though she longed for the day when he wouldn’t need one anymore.
“Hello, Cassandra. It’s so nice to finally meet you.”
Cassie returned the greeting with a tentative smile as she crossed the room.
“Have we met?” she asked, thinking it odd that the woman had addressed her so informally, given that they were strangers. Maybe she’s the doctor who read my letter. She always poured her heart out in those petitions, hoping that sharing their story and reminding the recipient of the person Devon was and could be again might prompt the decision maker to act on his behalf. If this woman had read the letter, she might certainly feel they weren’t strangers.
Cassie set the Ikeda’s bags beside the pictures of her and Devon and her and Noah on the otherwise empty nightstand, then turned to face the woman as she closed her laptop and set it on the foot of the bed. Her dark eyes appeared somber as she walked forward, her hand extended.
Cassie accepted it warily. On closer inspection, the woman did not look anything like Cassie imagined a neurologist might. She’d always imagined someone young, who hadn’t been practicing too long, but had gone through residency recently enough to know of all the cutting-edge research and therapies for brain injury patients. This woman, if she was a doctor, had probably gone to school decades earlier.
Not that she couldn’t be just as good, just as up to date, as someone half her age, Cassie told herself. But something about the woman didn’t seem to match with the scrubs she wore. She didn’t even look like a nurse, or at least the ones who worked at Sierra. Cassie couldn’t guess her age, but the soft, delicate skin of the woman’s hands and the creases on her face dictated that she was too old to be working in a facility where life and death walked a fine line and emergencies were a constant.
She wasn’t exactly frail but neither did she look like the type who could lift many of the patients, as nurses here often did to perform basic care routines. Her mostly dark hair was swept back into a stylish bun with an antique, pearl-embedded comb helping to hold it in place. Crow’s feet lined the corners of almond eyes that seemed to be taking Cassie in as well, and the woman’s perfectly manicured brows rose, as if assessing her.
“Are you new here?” Cassie had thought she was at least acquainted with all of the employees.
“Oh no. I’ve been in this area for quite some time.” The woman’s gaze grew almost tender. “Though I was away for a while recently, visiting Sisters, Oregon. Lovely little town.”
“Were you a doctor there as well?” Cassie asked, wishing the woman, whoever she was, would either explain her presence or leave her alone so she could spend what was left of visiting hours with Devon.
“Not exactly, though you could say that I’ve helped mend a heart or two.”
“You’re a cardiologist?” Cassie’s eyes flickered to the laptop on Devon’s bed, then up to his monitors again. There was nothing wrong with Devon’s heart, was there?
“I’m not a cardiologist.” The woman shook her head. “But I do like to help people. Please, call me Pearl.” High cheekbones lifted with her kind smile.
“You’re here because you think you can help my husband?” Cassie pressed her lips together to hold back the barrage of hopeful questions she wanted to ask. This is it, the premonition I felt earlier.
Pearl hesitated a moment before responding. “I can help him, though not in the way that you desire me to.”
“What do you mean?” Cassie asked, not at all liking the sound of that. She wanted Devon to wake up and begin to be himself again. What other way was there to help him?
“He is trapped.” Pearl swept her arm gently over the bed. “Your husband is not dead, yet he is not among the living either.”
Cassie felt her throat thicken as she nodded. “I know. He needs to wake up. Can you help him?” Her hope of a moment ago was fading fast, and in its place a new trepidation moved in. Something about this doctor, or nurse or whatever she was, seemed off.
“I am only a human being,” Pearl said, “and a healer of hearts, not minds. Devon wants to be released from the prison his body has become. He wishes to be free.”
“Can he be?” Cassie stepped closer to Devon’s bed, near enough to touch his arm and feel that his skin was warm. Perhaps Pearl meant that he would be different when he awoke, that he would not be the same man he had been. Cassie knew this was a very real possibility, but just as she refused to be
lieve he would never wake up, she refused to believe that Devon couldn’t find himself again once he did wake up.
“Can he be free?” Cassie asked once more. I am ready and willing to meet the new Devon and to help him remember the old.
Pearl’s eyes sought Cassie’s and held them, searching in a way that discomfited. It was as if the woman had access to her very thoughts.
“The power to free him lies within you, and only you. Devon lingers on Earth because your heart calls to him to stay. If you would release him, he would go and find peace at last.”
“You mean he would die?” Cassie’s voice rose as she took a step backward. “What are you? Some kind of advocate for euthanasia? You don’t even work here, do you? How did you get in?”
“I am at work right now,” Pearl said firmly, though empathy still tinged her words. “And no, I am not and have never been in favor of so-called mercy killing under any circumstances. To do so would be to dishonor our ancestors and God.” She retrieved her laptop from the end of the bed but did not open it again. “I am not discussing any procedure, medical or otherwise, that would end your husband’s life.”
Cassie sank onto the edge of Devon’s bed, wanting to find relief in this statement but not quite believing it. She took Devon’s hand in her own and lifted it to her, pressing their joined hands close to her heart.
“When a love is strong, as yours and Devon’s, there is an almost tangible connectivity between hearts.” Pearl’s voice had softened, and when Cassie dared to look at her again, she saw only sympathy in the older woman’s eyes. “No doubt you’ve heard of elderly couples who pass away within days of one another. Their hearts literally cannot survive without each other. Such beauty in a love that deep.” Pearl’s gaze turned inward, her lips half curving in a melancholic smile. “Your love and Devon’s love is strong, as evidenced by his lingering this long, but it is not that strong. You haven’t had fifty years together, and for the last five years, your heart has been divided, split between your love for Devon and love for Noah.”
“How do you know about my son?” Still clasping Devon’s hand, Cassie pushed off the bed and stood.
“I know that you love him dearly and that you would never leave him.” Pearl searched Cassie’s eyes once more. “ I know that the two of you can have every happiness in the future.”
“We’re happy now,” Cassie said, growing more agitated by the minute. It was obvious this woman wasn’t a neurologist or a visiting specialist offering a miracle. She had no business being here, intruding into her, Devon’s, and Noah’s lives. “If you’ll excuse me, I have only an hour to visit with my husband tonight, and I’d like to do that in private.”
“Visiting schedules have changed for today,” Pearl said. “It was on the notice at the nurses’ station in the hallway.”
“No one said anything.” Cassie placed Devon’s hand carefully back on the bed and moved toward the doorway, intending to check out this notice. Hours never changed, and even if they had, immediate family were always allowed in to be with their loved ones, day or night. She only needed to check in and get a bracelet, showing she’d been cleared to stay. The few times she’d done that, they’d given her the paper bracelet but never made her put it on. It wasn’t as if they didn’t know her well after all this time.
“The staff did not know I was coming,” Pearl said. “I find it better to get a true assessment of a situation if I arrive unannounced.”
An auditor or inspector? Cassie knew that both insurance companies and health providers sent representatives several times a year to make sure patients were being properly cared for. Was Pearl one of those? “Do you work for Kaiser or Sutter?”
Pearl smiled and answered vaguely. “Yes. I work for those higher up.”
She can’t or won’t tell me.
“If you would like to return tomorrow, you will find visiting hours as they were previously.”
“I would like to stay tonight.” Cassie inclined her head toward the bags on the nightstand. “Friday evenings are my time with my husband. I have to arrange a babysitter, and I always bring dinner.”
“Yes, I know.” Pearl’s mouth compressed in a straight line, and she folded her arms in front of her. “Cassandra, you and I both know that Devon is not going to eat one bite of that sandwich you brought him.”
“He might smell it,” Cassie said defensively. “Sensory stimuli is important for brain injury patients. You never know what might trigger a reaction, signaling the mind to wake up.” Doctors had told her as much, shortly after the shooting. They’d also told her chances of that happening were slim, especially after Devon moved from a coma to a vegetative state, but a chance was a chance. As long as there was any possibility for Devon, she wasn’t going to give up on him.
“He’s had the opportunity to smell those sandwiches for six years,” Pearl said, her voice quiet. “And you’ve played his favorite songs so many times you almost can’t stand them anymore.” Her gaze drifted to Cassie’s phone sticking out of her pocket. “It’s time for you to try something else, to allow what should have happened six years ago to happen now. It’s time to let go.”
“I’m getting security.” Cassie strode toward the door. “I don’t care who you work for. You don’t have any right to talk to me like that, to imply—” She didn’t bother to finish her sentence but marched out to the hall to the nearest nurse’s station. Veronica and Lynn should be working. They knew how much she loved Devon, that she’d do anything for him. They would help her get rid of the crazy woman in his room.
The nurses’ station was vacant, and just as Pearl had said, a plastic-encased notice stood front and center, proclaiming that visiting hours, for this evening only, had been altered.
In all Devon’s years here, this had never happened, nor could Cassie recall when at least one nurse hadn’t been at the desk. She walked farther down the hall, peeking into partially opened doors, listening for familiar voices, but none came. She circled the floor, found the front desk unattended as well, and returned to Devon’s room. A security guard she’d never seen before stood in the hall, his arms crossed over his uniformed shirt, the gun at his hip reminding Cassie painfully of Devon dressed in his PD uniform. Pearl waited for her in the doorway.
“Your dinner is getting cold.” She held out the bags and shake cup. Cassie snatched them from her and tried to step past Pearl into the room.
“Search your heart, Cassandra.” Pearl moved surprisingly fast and efficiently for someone her age. Though her frame was tiny, she managed to block the entire wide doorway. “Open yourself to other possibilities, and I promise that both you and Noah will be blessed with much happiness, joy, and love.”
“I have love,” Cassie insisted as she blinked rapidly, furious that this woman had brought her to tears.
“Then use it,” Pearl advised, “and free your husband from his prison. You can keep him trapped in that bed another six years or longer, or you can tell him he is free to move on, and then you can move on.” She stepped backward into Devon’s room, her hand on the door handle to pull it closed.
“Wait,” Cassie pled. “Please let me sit with him. I won’t make a sound. I won’t interrupt your work.”
Pearl shook her head. “I’m sorry. I can’t do that.” Her lips pursed, then seemed to soften as she studied Cassie’s face. “The hospital cafeteria next door is a nice place to eat. They have a microwave you could use to heat your dinner. Why don’t you wait there for an hour and come back after that. You can visit with Devon then.”
“I—”
“Or Mike can escort you to the lobby.” Pearl inclined her head toward the guard. “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.”
“No.” Cassie managed to turn from the door. Leaving wasn’t what she wanted, but at least she would be able to see Devon in an hour, after Pearl left, and to reassure herself he was okay. She didn’t like the woman or the cryptic way she spoke. Cassie wiped tears from the corners of her eyes as she walked down the hall, promising
herself that she would find out who Pearl worked for, and at the least she would report the woman for her inappropriate and curt bedside manner.
The front desk was still deserted, so Cassie left Sierra, assuming that other inspectors must be overseeing patient care in other rooms. Perhaps the regular nurses were accompanying them, or maybe they’d been asked to leave, too. Maybe something had gone wrong with one of the patients, and the care center was under investigation. She’d always felt that Devon was treated well there. No one was doing anything to help him get better, but at least she’d known he was adequately being watched over. But what if there was cause for concern? She wished she knew what was going on.
If only I’d arrived earlier.
If I’d just come straight from Mom’s.
If only— Cassie stopped herself mid-thought. This was a game she knew better than to play, because every single “if only” always circled back to a single one.
If only Devon had never been hurt.
Asher’s hand hovered over a bowl. “Can I get Jello?”
“Go ahead,” Matt said, grateful that at least one of the boys was happy with the dinner selection. Cassie’s fries hadn’t satisfied them for long. They’d begun whining about two seconds after he’d dropped her off, so he’d decided to feed them at the first available place. He’d spotted it as he did a U-turn in the Sierra Long-Term Care Center parking lot, and the hospital cafeteria sign came into view.
“Two Jellos?” Asher asked, his hand already reaching again.
“One.” Matt slid the tray forward before Asher could take a second bowl. A few feet behind them, Austin was dragging his feet, scowling at all of the salads on the other side of the glass. How Jenna had ever gotten that kid to eat any vegetables or fruit was beyond Matt. He really wished he’d paid more attention to what and how she’d cooked that the boys liked. He wished he’d paid more attention to a lot of things.
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