“It’s really good, Livvy. It’s the first step of coming out of a coma. It means her body is trying to wake up.”
I stare at the journal and the picture beyond it. “She’s going to wake up?” I barely manage to whisper.
“She’s going to wake up,” Mom repeats softly.
A fierce burning hits behind my eyes. I press the heels of my hands against my temples and ask, “How soon? Do I need to come now?”
“No, there’s no rush. It could still be days, the doctor said. But it’s progress in the right direction. I thought you’d want to know.”
“Yes. Of course I do. Thank you for calling.”
“Oh, the nurse is here to draw some blood. I better go. Talk to you soon, sweetheart.”
We hang up, and I’m left sitting in Farmor’s office, hope and guilt intertwining into a volatile cocktail of emotions.
Finally, and with no small amount of remorse, I close the journal. I can’t keep reading this—not if she’s going to wake up and realize I did so without her permission. Once the small blue book is put away and the picture back in the same spot it has sat in for my entire life, I turn off the lights and walk out of the bakery, locking it up behind me before I can change my mind.
The ICU is quiet tonight—so quiet it’s considered bad luck. A disaster looms when so many beds sit empty.
But I’m grateful for the lack of nurses and doctors rushing every which way, for the absence of codes and alarms going off.
I sit by Farmor, clutch her hand in mine, and watch her eyes. Waiting for another flutter. Praying for a sign that she hasn’t gone out of my reach.
I was so mad at her ... but now, I justache. To talk to her. To be able to ask what happened—what the truth of her life and her love is. I don’t want to pry into her past through her journal—I want her to tell me herself. I want her to explain why she still believes in love.
I yearn to hug her and have her hug me back. I don’t care what her marriage was or wasn’t. I want my farmor back, whether she lied to me or not.
“I still need you,” I whisper. “Please fight. Come back.I need you.”
My breath catches in my throat when her lids flutter, the movement of her eyes beneath the delicate skin easily visible.
My grip on her hand tightens. “You can do it. You can wake up. Iknowyou can. Please ... keep fighting. Wake up.Pleasewake up.”
It’s so faint I almost wonder if I imagine it, but for a split second, it feels as though she squeezes my hand back.
Then the sensation is gone, her hand as limp in mine as ever.
“Was that you? Did you squeeze my hand?”
Her fingers are motionless in mine. Maybe it was my imagination—my desperate need conjuring phantom movements that didn’t really happen.
I bend over her body, wrap my arm around her and rest my head on the pillow next to her head—the closest I can get to hugging her. “I love you,” I whisper.
But nothing else happens. Her entire body is completely still.
23.
I’ve got the crack-corn!” Lou singsongs as she sashays into the family room, holding a massive bowl aloft like she’s won the Super Bowl or is presenting Simba to the Pride Lands. Because of my spectacularly bad week (which they still don’t know all the details of—I haven’t told anyone about the journal yet), Lou deemed tonight ano-sad-topics-only-laughter-and-sugar-and-fun GNO.
“Oooh, gimme, gimme!” Talia makes grabby hands.
“I hope you brought wipes too,” I say as I also reach for a handful of the addicting—but sticky—caramel popcorn Lou always makes for movie nights in.
“That’s what your tongue is for.” She sticks hers out at me.
“Is that all?” Talia waggles her eyebrows at Lou, and she blushes.
“What’s going on?” I ask, baffled at the underlying communication between my two friends.
