My mind registers her words, but my body won’t respond. All I can do is listen.
“Can you squeeze my hand?”
After some struggle, I manage to bend my middle finger.
“Excellent.”
I sense another presence in the room. A man. He speaks to the woman. She’s a nurse. I know this because I’m finally grasping that I’m in a hospital and something terrible has happened to me, but I don’t know what. I can’t remember much of anything, except for where I’vejust come from, which leaves me heartbroken and devastated to have left it behind.
The doctor pinches my arm. He asks me to open my eyes, but they weigh a thousand pounds. It takes a while before I can push them fully open.
A white ceiling. I blink a few times, but I have no strength. I fall in and out of consciousness, and I savor the sensation of floating in space, among stars ...
It’s so quiet in space, except for the pumping of my blood through my veins and arteries, and the random movements of my cells—like tiny bubbles in the ocean of water that makes up my physical body. I could float there forever.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Amanda
I wake and go to the kitchen, where I find a note from Dad. It’s written with a Sharpie and stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet.
Good morning. I was up early so I went to the hospital to sit with Mom. Have some breakfast and come when you can. I’ll be here all day.
I leave the note on the refrigerator for Connor and look down at Oscar, who’s staring up at me, tail wagging. “Let me guess. You need to pee.”
His eyes are intense, like two laser beams of pure desperation.
“Let’s go.” I lead him down the basement stairs, across the rec room to the sliding glass doors, and let him out. The subzero temperature strikes me like sandpaper, and I can see my breath. I watch Oscar trot across the patio stones to a small patch of grass under the maple tree where there’s no snow. He relieves himself and hurries back. I let him in, slide the door closed, and relock it. “Good job. Now let’s get some breakfast.”
As soon as we return to the kitchen, the phone rings. I move around the island to answer it. “Hello?”
“Good morning. Is this Amanda?”
“Yes,” I reply as my heart begins to race because I recognize that it’s someone from the hospital. I’m terrified of bad news. I barely slept a wink last night, dreading the phone call I didn’t want to receive.
“I’m calling from the ICU,” a woman says. “We have good news for you. Your mom’s awake.”
“Awake?” Happiness and relief flood through me, unstoppable.
I hold on to these words for a few seconds and wrap myself up in them. But then I remember the doctors’ warnings—that Mom might be left with reduced motor skills or other long-term disabilities. “Is she okay?”
“She’s weak and groggy,” the nurse explains, “but the doctor is with her now, and we’ll know more as the day goes on.”
“Is my father there?” I ask.
“He’s not here at the moment, so you might want to come in. It would be good for your mom to see you.”
I hate the fact that none of us was at Mom’s bedside when she woke up. Where is Dad?
Adrenaline surges through me. All I want to do is get to her room as fast as possible. “We’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Thank you for calling.”
“My pleasure,” she replies.
I hang up and run to the stairs. “Connor! Mom’s awake! Get up! We have to go see her!”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Sienna
