I wasn’t trying to be pessimistic, but I knew the statistics on patients who woke from a comatose state. Short-term memory loss. Word-finding problems. For someone with advanced Alzheimer’s, these would be even more severe.
“Of course, yes.” I forced a smile. “Thank you for reminding me how rare this is,” I said, even though I was the last person who needed a recap of anything statistical. I moved back to business. “Do you imagine she’ll remain conscious?”
“Oh, absolutely,” he said. “Progress only moves in one direction, my friend.”
We spoke for a minute more, but the doctor continued to focus on celebrating the moment, while I locked down a plan for recovery. I informed Eastman that I had jumped on the first flight, but wouldhave to leave shortly and return several days from now for a longer stretch.
“Can I spend the night in her room?” I asked.
“Yes, of course,” he said. “We’ll roll in a cot. Normally we wouldn’t all be here at eight o’clock on a Wednesday night, but…” He grinned again, pointing in the direction of my mother’s room.
I grabbed a water from the Coke machine. By the time I was back, an orderly had set up the cot next to my mother’s bed, and Mom was resting. I studied her vitals, observing that her breathing was normal. Her heart rate was 124 beats per minute. Toward the high end of the range for her age, but not out of bounds.
I placed my hand on her arm, thinking of her as a younger woman. When I was growing up, my mom would put on music every Sunday and twirl around the house in a sundress. She would dance around me, delivering advice that her son, who was not like the other boys, needed for life.
She taught me never to compare myself to anyone else. That I was different, and that was that.End of chapter, she would say.End of story.
She also told me that it was beautiful to be unlike others. That if I kept learning, I would always be needed by one person and one organization. Between the two, that was enough for life.
Years ago, when I began working at the FBI and met my ex-wife, Anna, I thought I had found both of those things. Anna was the daughter of Saul Moreno, my first partner at the Bureau. She brought out something in me that was strange and enjoyable, even if it was uncomfortable. Real feelings. And for a while, our life felt delightfully predictable in ways that pleased me.
But things did not go as planned. When Camila was just one, my wife was arrested for RICO violations and sent to prison.
And I was the one who made the phone call to the police.
I fell asleep on the cot. In the morning, when I awoke, my mother’s eyes were wide, and there were tears on her cheeks. I folded up the cot and turned her bed at an angle, so she could see the sunrise coming up over the hills.
“Are you my nurse?” she asked.
I smiled at her. “For the morning at least.”
“And tell me your name again, dear?”
I pursed my lips, answering slowly. Then I helped my mother into a wheelchair and pushed her out the door. We took the elevator down to the grounds, and I moved her around, watching as she surveyed the gardens behind the facility for the first time.
We got to the far side of the looping path, then headed back toward the building. Some urge pinged at me from within, a need to tell my mother that I had violated one of her key rules for life:Never use my intellect as a weapon.It was this violation that had driven a madman to visit her nursing home and inject her with a deadly medicine.
But she would not understand any of this, and none of it would be productive for her recovery.
We took the elevator up to her floor, and I got my mother back into bed. As I pulled the covers up to her neck to keep her warm, the orderly brought in breakfast, and my phone rang. It was a number from the Bureau, and I stepped into the attached bathroom to answer.
“This is Olivia,” a voice said. “I have Director Poulton for you.”
I waited a beat, and the director came on.
“What the hell, Camden?” Poulton said, his voice ringing with annoyance. “You’re not in D.C., and you’re not in Florida, either?”
Late last night, I had penned an email to the director, telling himI would not make the 9 a.m. meeting with him and ATF Deputy Director Kemp—due to personal matters.
“I’m in Dallas,” I said.
“Jesus, are there missing women there, too?”
“Well, statistically speaking, I’m sure there are—”
“Don’t be a smart-ass,” Poulton cut in, and I realized the structure of the joke I had inadvertently constructed.
“My mom woke up,” I said, and Poulton went quiet. He’d had a front-row seat on the day my mother was attacked. It was Craig Poulton, in fact, who had pushed me on that case, driving me out of my comfort zone. It was something my mom had done all my life, so I’d accepted the shove. But I didn’t see until it was too late that I had goaded our suspect past a line. I’d made it personal between him and me. That’s when he took his rage out on my mother.
