But Eugene didn’t laugh, and Patricia didn’t call.She remained in a somnolent state that wasn’t quite a coma but what the doctors called a severe depression.Pam visitedevery day, but not once did Patricia acknowledge her presence.
So she asked endless questions of John, but with the funeral over, he was deeply involved in the business.“Picking up the pieces” was the expression he used, and Pam took it for the insult it was.She also knew it wasn’t true.The business was solid.John was just going ahead with all the things Eugene had resisted.He had little time for Pam.
The doctors were the ones who answered her questions.From them she learned that her mother had suffered a spinal injury and had no feeling from the waist down.“She’s paralyzed?”
“That’s right.”It was a female doctor who told her, sitting with her in the easy chairs at the end of the corridor.
“For how long?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“But you will soon?”Pam asked, not caring that she sounded frightened.Of all the doctors, she liked this one the best.She was young and softspoken, more approachable than some of the men, and she was very gentle with Patricia.
“Once the swelling goes down and the injury itself heals, we’ll be better able to evaluate your mother’s condition.”
“Will she be able to walk when all that happens?”
“We don’t know.”
“She will.She has to.When she feels better, will she start talking, too?”
“Probably.”The doctor paused, tilted her head, and asked, “Has she said anything to you yet?”
“No.She isn’t sleeping.She just stares at the wall.”
“She’s upset.”
“At me?”
“No.At herself, maybe.”
“But why?She didn’t cause the accident.”
“Sometimes when people suffer traumas like your mother has, they don’t think as clearly as you or I.”
“Will that change, too?”
“We hope so.”
“When?”
The doctor shrugged, smiled sadly, shook her head.“We just don’t know, Pam.”
Pam hated answers like that.So had Eugene.“There has to be something we can do to help her.”
“There is.You can visit her like you have been and talk to her.Tell her about what you’ve been doing in school.Tell her that you miss her and want her home.Ask if you can bring her anything.She’ll hear you, even if she doesn’t answer.”
Trusting that to be the case, Pam did talk.She told Patricia what she’d done that day and what she was planning to do the following one.She told her that she missed her and wanted her to come home.She told her about all the things they could do together when Patricia was feeling better.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t tell her the things she really wanted to, for fear they’d only upset her more.She couldn’t tell her about the funeral and how many people had come out in Timiny Cove.She couldn’t tell her how much she missed Eugene.She couldn’t tell her that she was afraid that her whole life was changing, thatshe’d never get to Maine again, that she’d never have the fun she used to have.She couldn’t tell her how awful the house was, how quiet and grim, or how John seemed to go out of his way to annoy her during the rare times he was at home.He didn’t talk with her, he talkedtoher.He wasn’t interested in what she was thinking or doing.He had no patience with her fears.
But day after day Pam went to the hospital, a comfortable walk from the house, and day after day she talked until she ran out of things to say.Then she sat in a chair by her mother’s bed, doing homework sometimes, or watching television, wishing sometimes that she could curl up next to Patricia on that hard white bed and cry thé way she ached to do.Most often, she simply watched Patricia, waiting for a sign that she knew she was there.
It came after a month.Patricia looked at her, gave her a small, sad smile, and Pam felt happier than she had in days and days.But the news that came at about the same time wasn’t good.The spinal damage was permanent.Patricia would never walk again.
Whether because of that news or because of the depression she’d been in since the accident, Patricia didn’t show any significant improvement after that.Pam was sure she’d given up, and nothing she said by way of encouragement had any effect.From time to time Patricia looked at her, offered a fleeting smile, but otherwise she remained in the silent shell into which she’d withdrawn following the accident.
After two months, the doctors recommended that she be moved.“Why can’t she come home?”Pam asked John, when he told her their decision.They were eating dinner,just the two of them in the large dining room where John always insisted on taking his meals.He thought it was elegant.Pam thought it was empty.
