I come to visit her every day and I’ve started my own routine. It became a priority to write her a note on a Post-it, telling her what we did tonight and then hang it on the wall and I even threatened more people than I should have, telling them if they take my notes away, I’ll make them regret it. Illegal yes, but they think I’m coping. With what they have no idea.
Livy, on the other hand, decides after the third day that the only thing more boring than a hospital is having to sit still in a hospital. She bounces between drawing pictures and eating the marshmallows out of the nurse’s snack supply. I keep her out of the room as much as I can, but some days she insists.
“She’ll wake up if you sing to her,” Livy says with the conviction of a televangelist. So, we sing. We read to her. I try it all. But most of the time, I just tell her that I love her, hoping it will wake her up as if I’m living in a fucking fairytale. Which I’m clearly not.
People keep trying to send food, or flowers, or fruit baskets with cards that say things like “Wishing Jenna a speedy recovery!”
Speedy, my ass.
Isla visit every other day.
The first time she came, she brought a pack of crayons and two reams of blank printer paper. “We’re going to decorate her room like it’s the goddamn Museum of Modern Art, what do you think Livy?” Isla said and of course Livy jumps right into it, and now there are three dozen crayon masterpieces taped to every available wall, expect the one I’ve been plastering with my Post-its.
Livy’s handwriting is barely legible, but every page says the same thing: “We love you Jenna, Colton and Livy.” I never asked to add my name, but she did anyway. Today’s drawing is of a three-headed dog, one head for each of us, with a heart where the stomach should be. I’m going to interpret it as love and not as the family Cerberus keeping Jenna from crossing the river Styx. Isla and I redid the podcast, letting the world know that Jenna is the love of my life, and when it aired, it went viral. Apparently. I didn’t check my phone.
Sometimes I wish I could sit in the other waiting room—the one across the street, where my ex-wife is waiting for her trial. But I visited her once, and all it did was make my hands bleed. They wouldn’t let me see her, not at first.
“Not safe,” the guard said.
By the time I got in, Mira looked like she’d aged a decade. No makeup, a purple bruise on her chin from the “accident”. I can’t believe that’s all she got. Just a tiny bruise while Jenna is fighting for her damn life.
“You ruined my life,” I told her, not caring a bit if that’s like a triumph to her.
“You ruined mine as well,” she just said. Her voice was flat, like she didn’t care. “It’s just fair.”
I hope she rots in hell.
I don’t remember throwing the chair, just that it made a hell of a noise, and that after, they pulled me away. And her? That bitch just laughed.
I’ll never tell Livy that her mother was the one driving. I can’t. She deserves at least one version of reality where her mom didn’t try to kill her other family. Because that’s what Jenna is. Family. My everything.
The nurse comes in to check the monitors. She’s the one with the pink hair and the tattoo that looks like a snake eating its own tail. I’ve seen too many nurses. They come and go.
“Any changes?” I ask, already knowing the answer. She shakes her head. “But she’s fighting, Mr. Kirillov. You can see it in the numbers.”
I nod like I understand. Maybe I do. Or maybe I’m just desperate for anything that sounds like hope.
At midnight, I tape up my post it: “We’re waiting for you,” it says, “all of us. I love you, —C.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
Jenna
The first thing I register is the absolute certainty that I’m about to die. This isn’t melodrama. I have actual, physical, evidence.
For instance, one of my legs bends at an angle not endorsed by the American Medical Association, and something warm and wet has been pooling under my head for—wait, how long have I been here? And where is ‘here’?
“Mrs. Davis?”
The voice is thin and quavery, like a violin string about to snap. It belongs to a nurse with kind eyes and a name tag reading “Monica, LPN.” So, I’m in hospital and I’m not dying. “Can you hear me?”
I try to say yes, but it comes out like a dying goat. Monica nods, apparently fluent in Trauma Goat. “You’ve had a bad accident, and you’ve been in a coma for two weeks. But you’re going to be all right.”
Two. Weeks?
I want to shout. To say anything but I can’t even get one sound out. My tongue feels like it’s been shrink-wrapped.
“Water,” I croak, pointing at the bedside table.
