The hospital room is abuzz with joy, yet Shannon seems distant.
Tara doesn’t understand this at all. Shannon, her champion, the one who would never quit on her, is somehow the most distracted person there. She’s left the room four times now, and each time she returns, the phone in her hand, she seems farther away. She’s stopped looking Tara in the eye and she seems, inexplicably, more concerned now than she was before Dr. Pine and Dr. Carlisle arrived with their good news.
What does she know that I don’t?
Recovery prognosis. That has to be it. Either the doctors have been more honest with Shannon than they’ve been with Mom and Rick or Shannon is doing her own research. Maybe Shannon understands already what Tara fears—it would have been better if she’d failed the tests, because there’s no return to real life ahead of her. Nothing but this awful limbo, only now they all know she’s awake and alert, and that means they feel an even greater burden of responsibility. Endless days of one-way chatter, countless hospital bills, all to sustain an empty existence. This would defeat even Shannon’s willpower.
But the doctors are excited, and the disconnect there is confusing. It’s also something Tara can’t focus on any longer, because Dr. Pine is demanding all of her attention. In his hands he has a plastic board filled with rows of letters, each row a different color. The first row is red, the second yellow, the third blue, then green, then white. At the end of the red row is the phrase end of word. At the end of the yellow row is end of sentence.
This is Tara’s chance to speak.
“It’s going to feel laborious,” Dr. Pine warns, “and you might get tired. It’s more work than people would guess.”
He’s right about that. Even the yes/no answers were draining. But Tara is a marathon runner. She knows how you keep the finish line from invading your thoughts too early.
“Do you have enough energy to give this a try?” Dr. Pine asks.
She flicks her eyes up once.
“Terrific. What I’m going to do is ask you to spell something. You get to pick what it is. You’re in charge now, Tara, do you understand?”
She flicks her eyes up again and feels like she could laugh and cry simultaneously—she’s paralyzed, but he’s telling her that she is in charge, and right now, that doesn’t seem as absurd as it should. The simple possibility of communicating is empowering, almost intoxicatingly so. Her message is within her control. Such power. So easily taken for granted.
“Tell us whatever you want to tell us,” Dr. Pine says, “but I’d suggest a short message to begin. The way we get there is simple—we’re going to spell it out together. That means I’ve got to narrow down the first letter of the word. So I’ll ask whether it’s red or yellow or blue. You will tell me yes or no. Once I have the color, we’ll go through the letters. You’ll tell me yes or no. If I’m trying to go on too long, you’ll tell me that we’re at the end of the word or the end of the sentence.” He studies her. “It’s not easy. But stay patient, and let’s give it a try. Do you have a message ready for your family?”
Does she have a message? What a question. She’s overflowing with messages, drowning in them. There is so much she wants to tell them that the idea of picking just one thing freezes her momentarily, but then she remembers to flick her eyes upward, because he has asked a question and is waiting on the answer. Yes, she has a message.
“Great,” he says. “Now, is the first letter red?”
Two flicks. No.
“Yellow?”
No.
“Blue?”
One flick.
“Is it I?” No. “J?” No. “K?” No. “L?”
One flick. Tara is exhausted, but she has her first letter on the board.
Next letter. Not red, yellow, or blue. Green. Then she gets a break—finally, it’s the first letter in the column. One flick, and she has her second letter on the board: O.
It’s harder than any race she’s ever run. She’s exhausted, and the focus makes her vision gray out at the edges, blurring the columns and letters, but she’s not going to quit now. Not until it’s out there. Her first words, tottering forth into the world like a newborn. She has to deliver them, even if they’re also her last.
L
O
V
E
End of word
Y
O
U
They’re all crying now, Mom and Rick and Shannon; even Dr. Pine might have a trace of mist in his eyes, but maybe that’s Tara’s blurring vision.
“Tara,” he says, “you just spoke. And they’ve heard you.”
She wants to cry too. She’s so tired, but she has been heard, and it is remarkable. It feels like all she has ever wanted.
“Do you have another message you want to share with us right now?” Dr. Pine asks.
Two flicks. No. She got out the one that mattered most. She can rest now.
She fades out, grateful for the break, as Dr. Carlisle begins to talk excitedly about computer software that should make this a faster process, and Rick asks if there’s a more holistic approach, which makes Shannon tell him to shut up and let Dr. Carlisle finish, and Mom tells her not to talk like that. The conversation is a chaotic swirl but Tara is not put off by it because they know she’s there now, they know she’s hearing it all. She’s so relaxed, relieved, and so, so tired. The last thing she hears before she drifts off is Dr. Pine excusing himself from the room. That makes her smile. She thinks he’s happy to leave Dr. Carlisle to handle this mess.
“I have to make a phone call,” he says.
Yeah, right, Doc. People have used that excuse around my family before.
The last sound she hears before sleep takes her is the soft click of the door closing behind him.