Between Here and Forever - Elizabeth Scott [5]
“Thank you,” the nurse says. “You can stay and take the soiled sheets away. Abby, can you step out for a minute, please?”
I nod, leave Tess’s room, and wander out of the unit to the waiting area. Today there’s a middle-aged woman sitting in there, head in her hands. She’s wearing sneakers, and both of them are untied. I can tell she’s either going to cry or start yelling at any second, so I go sit in the stairwell.
I wait. I’m good at it, I’ve learned a lot about it the past few months, but when I go back to Tess’s room, the nurse, Claire, and the guy are still there, the nurse and Claire talking quietly.
When I walk in, the guy clears his throat again and speaks for the first time, saying, “Um, can I go?”
“Oh, something something something,” the nurse says to him but I don’t hear it because Tess’s eyes twitch. They don’t open, but there’s definitely movement there, under her closed eyelids.
She’s coming back.
“Wait, please,” I tell the nurse, who does, and turn to the guy. “Say something.”
“Abby,” Claire hisses, and the guy says, “What?” Even his voice is gorgeous, low and soft.
I look at Tess. Yes, there was definitely a sort of twitch there.
“Did you see that?” I say to the nurse. “When he talks, Tess can hear him!”
five
The nurse doesn’t agree with me. She says I’m overwrought, and then me and Clement take a little ride in the elevator. The nurse is pissed that it’s him who comes and gets me, and not someone from security, but Clement points out that at least I’m leaving.
The thing about Clement is that he’s about seventy years old and barely comes up to my shoulder. He sometimes gives bored little kids a “top secret” tour of the hospital, but mostly he just walks around talking to people.
He’s not a real security guard, obviously. But he did give about ten million dollars to the hospital three years ago. For that kind of money, if you want to spend your days walking around the hospital greeting people, fine.
“Are you all right?” he says, and Clement is one of those people who means what he says. I like that about him, so I tell him the truth because I know he’ll listen.
“Tess’s eyes moved.”
“Really? That’s wonderful! What did the doctor say?”
I shrug. “Nothing. The nurse won’t call him. She said she didn’t see anything. She made me leave.”
“Do you think that maybe … sometimes we see things we want to.”
I know about that. I fooled myself into it once, and won’t make that mistake again. “Hey, I like you, but not that much, so don’t think I did all this just to see you,” I say, and Clement laughs his wheezy laugh and then pulls out one of the seemingly endless supply of cough drops he’s always got on him.
“You shouldn’t be so worried all the time,” he says. “You’ll give yourself gas.”
I laugh then too, and he grins at me as we walk outside.
“Go on home,” he says. “And take care of yourself.”
“Me?” I say. “I don’t—I’m fine.”
Before he can reply, I get on my bike and head to the ferry.
When I get home, I fry up an egg, and then wedge it between some bread and eat it while I watch television. Mom and Dad get home when I’m flipping through the channels trying to decide if I want to watch the gritty crime drama about detectives who track down missing people, or the other gritty crime drama about detectives who track down missing people.
Mom turns off the television. “You want to tell me about what happened today?”
“Tess moved. Her eyes were closed, but I saw them moving, like she might blink. Or was going to blink.”
“Abby …” Mom says, and sits down on the sofa. “You can’t …” She looks down at her hands. My mother’s nails are always neatly polished. This week they are a pale pink. “You don’t know how much your father and I want Tess to wake up, and saying things like that only—”
“Hurts,” Dad finishes, coming in and sitting down next to Mom.
“But I did see her eyes move.” This is a good thing, and I don’t see why my parents don’t believe me and why they are sitting on the sofa looking miserable.
“Remember the first week?” Dad says. “You