twitch, a flutter, a rise to consciousness.
Except, you haven’t.
This is followed by denial. Any moment now, you are going to wake up in your own bed cursing the crazy nightmares that always follow a tequila bender. It’s laughable, really, theater of the absurd: the image of you playing nursemaid to a father you cut out of your life years ago. Then again, you know that you had no tequila last night. That you are not in your own bed but in a hospital.
That leads to catatonia, as you become just as unresponsive as the patient. Nurses and doctors and technicians and social workersparade in and out, but you lose track of the number of visits. These nurses and doctors and technicians and social workers all know your name, which is how you realize that this has become a routine. You stop whispering—an instinct, since patients need their rest—because you realize your father can’t hear you, and not just because ice water is being injected into his left ear.
It’s part of a test, one of an endless series of tests, to measure eye movements. The way it’s been explained to me, if you change the temperature of the inner ear, it should cause reflexive eye movements. In people who are conscious, it can be used to check for damage to the ear nerves that can cause balance problems. In people who are not conscious, it can be used to check for brain stem function.
“So?” I ask the neurology resident who’s performing the test. “Is it good news or bad news?”
She doesn’t look at me. “Dr. Saint-Clare will be able to tell you more,” she says, making notes on my father’s chart.
She leaves a nurse to wipe my father’s face and neck dry. The nurse is the fifteenth one I’ve met since I’ve been here. She’s got intricately twisted braids swirled into a style on top of her head that makes me wonder how she sleeps at night, and her name is Hattie. Sometimes she hums spirituals when she’s taking care of my father: “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” and “I’ll Take You There.” “You know,” she says, “it wouldn’t hurt to talk to him.”
“Can he hear me?”
Hattie shrugs. “Different doctors believe different things. Me, I think you’ve got nothing to lose.”
That is because she doesn’t know my father. Our last conversation had been far from a positive one; there’s every chance that just the sound of my voice will trigger some angry response.
Then again, at this point, any response would do.
For twenty-four hours I have been living in this room, sleepingupright in a chair, maintaining a vigil. My neck hurts and my shoulders ache. My limbs seem jerky, unfamiliar; the skin of my face is slack as rubber. None of this feels real: not my own exhausted body, not being back here, not having my father comatose four feet away from me. Any minute now, I expect to wake up.
Or my father to.
I have subsisted on coffee and hope, making bets with myself: If I’m still here, there must be a chance for recovery. If the doctors keep finding new tests, they must believe he’s going to get better. If I stay awake just five more minutes watching him, he will surely open his eyes.
When I was a kid, I used to get so scared of the monster that lived in my closet that sometimes I’d hyperventilate, or break out in hives. It was my father who told me to just get the hell out of bed and open the damn door. Not knowing, he said, is a thousand times more horrible than facing your fear.
Of course, when I was a kid and I bravely opened the closet door, there was nothing upsetting inside.
“Um,” I say, when Hattie leaves. “It’s me, Dad. Edward.”
My father doesn’t move.
“Cara came to see you,” I tell him. “She got banged up a little in the crash, but she’s going to be fine.” I don’t mention that she left in tears, or that I’ve been too much of a coward to go to her room and have more than a superficial discussion with her. She’s like the only person in the village willing to point out that
Except, you haven’t.
This is followed by denial. Any moment now, you are going to wake up in your own bed cursing the crazy nightmares that always follow a tequila bender. It’s laughable, really, theater of the absurd: the image of you playing nursemaid to a father you cut out of your life years ago. Then again, you know that you had no tequila last night. That you are not in your own bed but in a hospital.
That leads to catatonia, as you become just as unresponsive as the patient. Nurses and doctors and technicians and social workersparade in and out, but you lose track of the number of visits. These nurses and doctors and technicians and social workers all know your name, which is how you realize that this has become a routine. You stop whispering—an instinct, since patients need their rest—because you realize your father can’t hear you, and not just because ice water is being injected into his left ear.
It’s part of a test, one of an endless series of tests, to measure eye movements. The way it’s been explained to me, if you change the temperature of the inner ear, it should cause reflexive eye movements. In people who are conscious, it can be used to check for damage to the ear nerves that can cause balance problems. In people who are not conscious, it can be used to check for brain stem function.
“So?” I ask the neurology resident who’s performing the test. “Is it good news or bad news?”
She doesn’t look at me. “Dr. Saint-Clare will be able to tell you more,” she says, making notes on my father’s chart.
She leaves a nurse to wipe my father’s face and neck dry. The nurse is the fifteenth one I’ve met since I’ve been here. She’s got intricately twisted braids swirled into a style on top of her head that makes me wonder how she sleeps at night, and her name is Hattie. Sometimes she hums spirituals when she’s taking care of my father: “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” and “I’ll Take You There.” “You know,” she says, “it wouldn’t hurt to talk to him.”
“Can he hear me?”
Hattie shrugs. “Different doctors believe different things. Me, I think you’ve got nothing to lose.”
That is because she doesn’t know my father. Our last conversation had been far from a positive one; there’s every chance that just the sound of my voice will trigger some angry response.
Then again, at this point, any response would do.
For twenty-four hours I have been living in this room, sleepingupright in a chair, maintaining a vigil. My neck hurts and my shoulders ache. My limbs seem jerky, unfamiliar; the skin of my face is slack as rubber. None of this feels real: not my own exhausted body, not being back here, not having my father comatose four feet away from me. Any minute now, I expect to wake up.
Or my father to.
I have subsisted on coffee and hope, making bets with myself: If I’m still here, there must be a chance for recovery. If the doctors keep finding new tests, they must believe he’s going to get better. If I stay awake just five more minutes watching him, he will surely open his eyes.
When I was a kid, I used to get so scared of the monster that lived in my closet that sometimes I’d hyperventilate, or break out in hives. It was my father who told me to just get the hell out of bed and open the damn door. Not knowing, he said, is a thousand times more horrible than facing your fear.
Of course, when I was a kid and I bravely opened the closet door, there was nothing upsetting inside.
“Um,” I say, when Hattie leaves. “It’s me, Dad. Edward.”
My father doesn’t move.
“Cara came to see you,” I tell him. “She got banged up a little in the crash, but she’s going to be fine.” I don’t mention that she left in tears, or that I’ve been too much of a coward to go to her room and have more than a superficial discussion with her. She’s like the only person in the village willing to point out that
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