Every Waking Moment by Chris Fabry Page B

Crenshaw, also known as Cranky Crenshaw. He had been one of her success stories, though the abyss he gravitated toward felt different from dementia. Not as much disease as disconnection and depression. It seemed there was a past cloud that hung over him, and Treha tried to be the warm air that pushed the cold front away.
    She had no real clue of how it actually worked. All she knew was that some were locked inside themselves and couldn’t break through without help. She wasn’t sure where the keys came from, only that she had them. Each time she saw eyes open, she was given something. But what? Hope? A vision of the future? She lived in a world of possibility, where one day someone might call her forth as well. It was a little like the fairy tales of Rapunzel, trapped in the tower. Sleeping Beauty, waiting for the kiss. Perhaps her prince would come. She would awaken and find the world different, her mind repaired.
    Or perhaps there was no one with a similar key for her.
    She knocked lightly on the door and pushed it open. Sunlight faded on the lonely room and she saw his silhouette in the chair by the window, a well-read newspaper folded in front of him.
    “Treha,” Dr. Crenshaw said. It sent a warm feeling throughher. He tapped the chair beside him, identical to his own. “Come in and sit.”
    She kicked off her shoes and sat, drawing her knees to herself and closing her eyes. “All right. Ready.”
    “X-T-E-R-E,” he said, pronouncing each letter slowly.
    As soon as he had said the final letter, she replied, “Exert.” In truth, she had known how to begin the word as soon as he said the first E .
    “Good,” he said. “How about R-E-B-O-D ?”
    “Bored.”
    “No, try another. There are several   —”
    “ Robed . Orbed ,” she said quickly, without effort.
    “Yes, it was robed . I should run a timer, my dear.”
    He gave her the next two words, which she solved just as quickly, and then a list of letters for the paper’s final jumble below a cartoon that was supposed to help.
    The old man laughed, his eyes twinkling. Treha squeezed her legs with her arms and watched him fill the blanks with a pencil.
    “I have been working on this all day, staring at it, moving the letters around in my brain, and you simply hear them and fit them together. It’s amazing.”
    She paused, not responding to the adulation. “How was your day?”
    “Oh, it was full of excitement.” He gestured with a hand, overdramatizing the words. “Way too much to talk about. If I told you all of it, we’d be here all night and my blood pressure would be through the roof.” He chuckled, though he didn’t receive anything back. “How about you, Treha? Anything happen to you today?”
    “I like hearing about you.”
    He folded the paper neatly and she noticed he had mademarks and notes on the front. He put the paper on the small table between them. Sitting back, he took a breath as if gaining momentum.
    “All right, let me see. At breakfast the oatmeal was tepid and the orange juice was warm, so I mixed them together. I was doing it to disgust Elsie, of course. I called it ‘orangemeal.’ And just to get her goat, I tried it, and it turned out not that bad.”
    “So you’re eating again.”
    “I had some toast and the orangemeal, and for lunch I managed to down the mystery meat of the day and some yogurt. Oh, and the Lovebirds were back. Though she’s not doing well. She’s using oxygen now and seems more pale. You probably heard about it. He brought her a rose, a single red rose. I have no idea where he found it   —probably took it from the garden   —but the other women swooned when he wheeled himself up to her. He gave her the rose and kissed her on the cheek as she ate. It makes me sick the way those two carry on. Like teenagers.”
    “I think they are sweet.”
    “Yes, you would. You haven’t seen as much life as I have. There is a fine line between sweet and nauseating.” He smiled and shook as he laughed.