Tara rests while Dr. Pine and Shannon talk about inconsequential things; everyone is waiting on the arrival of the investigator who will make sense of it all. Tara knows that will require conversation again, the exhausting process on the alphabet board. Dr. Carlisle has promised they’ll experiment with computer software soon, but that’s not going to help Tara now. She’s got to rely on her eyes, nothing else, and she’s got to call up the stamina to make it through. Last mile, running uphill. She’s been here before.
But she hasn’t, of course. She has never had to face that last mile suffering the relentless pain of tubes jammed into various orifices or the maddening cruelty of paralysis. There is no analogy in the world that applies here. She’s not invisible any longer, but she’s also no closer to leaving this bed or even making a sound than she was when she woke up.
Don’t let yourself think that way. Be strong.
She’s tired of being strong, though. Tired of how much everyone cares about Oltamu and his fucking phone. He’s dead, but Tara isn’t, and maybe she’s worse off than him. Endless days like this, endless expenses…what if there’s no finish line? What if this is it?
Remember your thumb.
Yes. Her thumb. Capable of spasmodic twitching. What a win!
You take your wins where you can find them, though. Water could erode rock, drop by drop.
She tunes out the conversation around her and focuses on the channel between brain and thumb. Visualizes it, imagines it like a river, sees her force of will like a skilled rower pulling against the current, forcing her way upstream. Brain to thumb, no turning back, and no portages around treacherous water. You had to beat the current.
The visual takes clearer shape, and she can see a woman who is like her but who is not her, a different version of Tara, more dream than memory, but so tenacious. The rowboat becomes a kayak, and though real Tara is awkward with a kayak paddle, dream Tara is not. She’s strong and graceful, fighting a current that flashes with green-gold light just beneath the surface. As she paddles, the river widens, and the current pushes against her, and then, impossibly, it reverses direction and begins guiding her downstream, an aid rather than an enemy now.
Make it to the thumb. Make it there, and once you know the way, you will make it again. Once you know you can go that far whenever you like, then try another river in another direction. We’ll explore them all, run them to the end. We have nothing but time.
She could swear she feels a tightening in her thumb, a faint pulse of muscle tension.
Yes, it can be done. It’s long and hard but it can be done. Keep riding the current, keep steering, keep—
“She’s on her way,” Dr. Pine says, and at first Tara is convinced that he’s speaking about her, that he’s somehow aware of her journey downriver. Then she sees that his eyes are on his phone.
“Fifteen minutes,” he reports. Then he looks at Tara. “Do you want your parents here?”
The two eye flicks are necessary, but they also take her away from the river, and she feels a loosening of tension in her hand. She was so close. Why did he have to interrupt?
No matter. She’s found the way once, and she will find it again. Over and over, however long it takes. The water was not so bad. Eventually the current had shifted to help her, and whatever produced that green-gold hue beneath the surface was good. She’s not sure why she’s so sure of that, but she knows beyond any doubt that it is a good sign.
I’ll be back, Tara promises herself, and then she gives Pine her attention again. He smiles in what is supposed to be a reassuring fashion, but she can tell that he’s nervous. Who can blame him? It’s not enough to be tasked with bringing a patient back from the dead; now he’s supposed to see that the patient provides witness testimony to some sort of government agent? Even for a neurologist, this can’t feel like another day at the office.
She’d like to smile back at him and let him know that she’s grateful for all he’s done and that she felt better the moment he walked into the room, looked at her with those curious but hopeful eyes, and introduced himself. And used her name. Sometime soon, when she has the computer software that makes all of this less of a chore, she will let him know how much that mattered. Small things, quiet things, but he gave her dignity when others did not.
Shannon isn’t offering any smiles. She’s not even offering her attention. She’s glued to her own phone and seems distressed. Tara watches Shannon tap out a text message and send it, but she can’t read the message because Shannon is shielding the phone with her free hand. It’s an unsubtle way of making it clear that she doesn’t want Pine to see it. Once the message is sent, she stands up, her chair making a harsh squeak on the tile.
“I’ll be right back.”
Pine turns and stares at her. “Where are you going?”
Shannon gives him an icy look. “Is that your business?”
“Right now, I feel that it is, yes. We’re fifteen minutes away from—”
“I know! Trust me, I am aware. I just need to…breathe for a few seconds. Okay?”
Pine doesn’t like it, but he decides not to fight it. He seems to think Shannon is on the verge of a panic attack, which would be a logical assumption if he were dealing with anyone other than Shannon. Tara knows better. Shannon has no fight-or-flight response; it’s only fight with her. If she were flooded with adrenaline, she’d refuse to leave the room. So what in the hell is going on, and why won’t she meet Tara’s eyes?
Then she’s gone. Without a look back.