Girlfriend in a Coma Read online

  "It's the boyfriend. Hey, you—boyfriend—what can you tell us?"

  Richard exits the elevator on Karen's floor. The nurses recognize him anxiously and hold their breath as he walks down the corridor, silver, powerful and serene, breathing deeply, as an astronaut might well do on a foreign planet. He hears his breath from inside his chest.

  He walks in the room and sees Wendy and Linus there. They smile and politely leave the room. Richard kisses Karen on the lips. "Hey, Beb. I'm back," Karen says."Hi, honey. Welcome home," Richard says. "I missed you always." He lowers himself onto his knees before her and kisses her again.

  Silence. They stare into each other's eyes with all the intensity of two people in the flush of first love. "They haven't allowed me to look in a mirror, Richard. I know I look like a rat's ass."

  "You're beautiful."

  "Flatterer. So much for Hawaii."

  "I see you met our daughter."

  Megan props herself up on an elbow beside her mother. "Hey, Dad."

  "Hey, sugar-cakes."

  An awkward silence ensues. "This is whacked," Megan says. "Come on. Get up. Hop onboard. There's just enough room."

  Richard unzips and removes the top of his astronaut's outfit, which peels away from his body down to his belly button like a chrome banana skin. He climbs onto the bed and Karen becomes a human hot-meat sandwich, a witch on one side, an astronaut on the other. Karen feels as if they are all in a row boat, floating, going someplace new. This is a dream, but it's not. Richard feels as though he has found a vein of gold inside his heart, a klondike of feelings he had thought long buried.

  Karen says, "You smell sweaty, Richard."

  Richard says, "I walked over here from Cleveland Dam." A pause. "It's a long story."

  "We're all tired now, aren't we, gang?" Karen says. "Wanna sleep?"

  And they do want to sleep as they realize that they're all tired from walking, from hoping, from waiting, from losing faith and from finding it once more. Richard has his arm under Karen's head. "Yeah, let's go to sleep. It's been so long. And we're tired."

  "Look at us," Megan whispers to both Karen and Richard with a happiness she once long ago reserved exclusively for small animals, birthday cake, and roller coasters: "We're a real family. At last. And forever. And I'm not Death anymore, am I, Dad?"Richard whispers back, "No, but you never were."

  And the three drift toward sleep.

  "And what's with the costumes?" Karen asks almost inaudibly before falling asleep.

  "Costumes? What costumes?" Megan and Richard answer in stereo, drifting along with Karen in their boat that will not tip.

  16 THE FUTURE AND THE AFTERLIFE ARE DIFFERENT THINGS ALTOGETHER

  Stereo.

  Floors away, Hamilton and Pam are now entering new thought cycles. While their brains are too taxed to generate pictures, they are, however, able to hear words, sounds, and music. A choir. Noises as though from heaven: sweet and seductive and lush. Words. Anyone looking at their Intensive Care'd bodies would never know of the concerts akimbo within their minds. Oranges and lemons, say the bells of Saint Clement…

  And then, only after this music peaks, do pictures begin to appear—a slide show: a Houston freeway empty save for a car parked here and there; a rain of mud falling on the houses of suburban Tokyo; African veldts on fire; Indian rivers like thick stews, churning corpses and silks oceanward; a time/temperature sign on a Florida Chrysler dealership flashing 00:00/140°.

  A nurse on duty, meanwhile, watches the two patients. Something is wrong. Off. Not right. And then the nurse notices it: the two patients are detoxifying in stereo. Their heads twist or nod in sympathy. They jerk together—a rehearsed dance of death. She calls another nurse, who records the action on her brother's VCR-cam that she had meant to return later that afternoon.

  A minute or two later, the intensity of Hamilton and Pam's synchronized show begins to involve spastic arm motions and leg jerks Their life signals leap and jag, copies of each other.

  And then the dance is over. The patients resume their own individual sleeps, and the videotape is saved for later.

  This was not supposed to happen.

  Lois navigates the Buick as though it were a cumbersome pleasure craft. Hand in glove, she changes gears. George weeps uncontrollably beside her. The implications of today's hospital visit are so fraught with meaning that the two find themselves unable to communicate save for minor grunts. (Seat belt on? Yes. Okay.) Their hopes have leapfrogged too far ahead of them, and how could their hopes not do so? Just two hours ago they might never have imagined feeling as extreme as they feel now. Linus rang the doorbell shortly after nine. George, puttering in the kitchen, was sipping coffee, wondering which azalea he might prune in the afternoon; Lois lay upstairs in bed, half asleep, idly deciding whether to clean out the Christmas decorations. And then came Linus. They had thought that Karen might be dead—the lung condition. Instead, "Karen's awake, Mr. and Mrs. McNeil, and she's talking normally and everything. She asked for you. I think she wants you to go there."George and Lois had reacted with whitening faces, knotted tongues, and the clotted taste of blood in their throats—each for different reasons. George, receiving the one thing he had truly ever wanted in life, and Lois because she feels a wallop of guilt for having ignored Karen across the many years—having given up all hope and lying to George about having visited her. And Lois remembers that she was the one who wanted to "pull the plug"; Lois is the one who just yesterday asked the hospital for "no heroics—just let her go this time."

  Suddenly, Lois has to imagine herself as a citizen of a world containing hope, and it frightens her; it makes her dizzy. And she realizes she may have two daughters who hate her now, instead of just one. There is a flood inside her head, like the broken trees and mud and cracked boulders she once saw burbling down a mountain as a child in northern British Columbia.

  After Linus had delivered the news, George slumped down on a stool below a macrame owl. Lois rubbed his shoulders and told Linus that they would dress properly and be at the hospital shortly. A phone call to Wendy confirmed Karen's awakening.

  "Daddy?" George heard the words and fell into the phone. "Is that you, Daddy? It's me. Karen." George is unable to breathe. Lois fears a heart attack. "It's me. I'm here. I'm confused. My stomach itches."

  Lois grabs the receiver from George. "Karen?"

  "Mom?"

  "I—hi, honey."

  "Hi, Mom."

  "You okay?"

  "I can't really move. Come down. I'm hungry."

  "George, stop crying. Karen? We're coming down right now."

  "Are you at Rabbit Lane?"

  "Same as always. George, do be quiet. Say hello to Karen, for

  God's sake." "Hi." "Hi, Daddy."George was in floods. Lois yanked away the receiver: "Hang in there, Karen. We'll be there right away."

  Megan was nowhere to be seen. She's at Richard's. Lois threw on a twin-set and pearls and spackled the ridges time has eroded into her face. George bumbled into his one "good suit" and had a small jerk as he remembered that this was the suit he bought for Karen's funeral.

  Upon leaving the house, a Valium-enriched Lois was pleased that she had kept her figure and her hair was shiny. Time had hardly touched her.

  The Saturday itself is cold and clear. Their breath steams. Most of the leaves have fallen and Lois rolls down the window and thinks of Karen as the hospital comes ever closer.

  Lois has always kept her feelings on her comatose daughter to herself. George has seen Lois shed tears only once. There was one night maybe ten years ago when she and George had been watching TV. There was a news program on, a show about a crazy man down in Texas who had poisoned a famous historical tree. The citizens of the town were trying to save the tree's life, pumping water through the soil to wash away the poison, but the tree was confused. The tree lost its ability to detect seasons. It became lost in time and would shed leaves and then resprout them in fall and then in winter. Its leaves fluttered and fell earthward
one last time, and the tree died in the end. Lois felt herself losing her breath as she watched this. She went into the kitchen, stood by the cutting board, and tried to compose her thoughts, but the tears broke through and she fell to the floor, a pond of tears in her right hand. The kitchen was dark and the linoleum cold, but George came in, said, "Hush, dear," and held her. They sat together on the kitchen floor, the TV playing in the background.

  A stop sign.

  Lois thinks of Karen—of how much of herself she had seen in Karen but never let her know. Karen, so smart. So full of beans. Lois remembers how she felt after the coma had begun—dry and hollow like the empty plastic flower tubs in the garage. Lois thinksof the miscarriages she has had, especially Megan the First, born in 1970, who miscarried, taking some small but essential part of Lois away with her. The experience made Lois feel like a car with no ignition key.

  And Lois thinks of Richard—such a dolt at the beginning when Megan was born. Then he became a drunk. And he switched careers again and again. No stability. Only recently has Richard come to feel like true family and seems to have leveled out. He isn't so daft these days. He tries to make adult decisions. He is sensible. "No, George," she had said last month, "he's doesn't have all his ducks in a row yet, but he's on the right path. Or let's hope."

  Local TV cameras and lighting men throng inside the hospital lobby and the visitors' parking lot. There are trucks with satellite links, news reporters having makeup applied—a sedate but purposeful circus. George and Lois know the cause of this scene, and they instinctively scurry into a side entrance that George has sometimes used over the years. They slip down corridors and bump into a nurse who beams with pleasure at seeing them. She escorts them to Karen's new room. "It's such a miracle," says the nurse. "Never have I … well, I'm sure you know what I mean."

  At the room there are people milling around outside the door. George and Lois see Wendy and beeline her way. Wendy smiles: "She's having a small nap right now. Not a coma. Simply a nap. Richard and Megan are in there sleeping with her, but don't worry about that. It's good for her. She needs to be held. I've given orders nobody except family be admitted. You saw the posse downstairs."

  Karen awakens from her nap soundlessly. She hears Wendy on a phone over by the door. She sees and feels Richard and Megan on either side of her, their breath, their heat. How did this happen? Why am I here now? Seventeen years. Ooh. Has the world changed much!

  Has the world changed or have I changed? Richard is no longer cute—he's … handsome, and hairy now, so much broader than he was … last night! He's a man now. Larger. A man. Good looking,but—a man, not a teen. He smells differently than he did last night— no—the same yet more intense. Megan, too. A daughter? A dream! But only last night I was young and alive. Megan smells like fresh white corn, fresh from the cob, a sweet scent of youth. Karen wonders if Megan and Richard are friends. Does Megan like Mom? Maybe. Probably not. Mom makes it so hard for people to like her. Why does she do that? My stomach hurts, she thinks. And it tickles, too. Cramping. Hunger. A tube into my stomach. Gross. Have I had periods over the years? Now? Will I be able to eat solids? I'm not even a baby now. I'm a fetus. Why is my head so clear, so lucid?

  Karen tries to move an arm and the effort is torture. Her nose itches, but her tendons are too unexercised for her to reach and scratch. Her body is in complete but dreadfully creaky shape. Her jaw hurts and she feels like a chopped-down tree. I'm so far gone. My body! Wait—this is too much. I can't worry about this now. She is immobile but alert, and she is curious. She shuts her eyes and opens them and finds all that she sees hard to believe. She doesn't want to talk to strangers. She wants it to be Sunday morning. She wants it to be just any other day. Just imagine—all the other people in the world have been awake for seventeen years!

  Wendy leaves the room; there's noise outside the door; she comes back with a phone—no cord—and seeing that Karen's awake, asks her to say hi to Mom and Dad, which seems odd as she only just saw them last night. After the call, she quizzed Wendy: "What year is it again, Wendy?"

  "1997."

  "Oh. Oh my."

  "Karen, I want to ask you a favor." Wendy's voice was hedgy. "Hamilton and Pam are really sick, but they'll be okay soon enough. They need something to give them hope."

  "They're hopeless?"

  "In a way. They're without hope. It's in their heads. Can I bring them up here with you? It'll help them." "Are they really doing drugs?"Doing drugs—what an old-fashioned word. "Yes. Pathetic as it sounds. Drugs are different these days. You'll learn it all soon. How do you feel?"

  "Fantastically awake. They OD'd?"

  "Yup."

  "Bring them in—I want to have lots of people around me. But only people I know."

  "Your mom won't be too thrilled."

  "I'll deal with her." She smacks her lips. "Can I have a sip of water?" Wendy rushes over and holds a glass. Karen notices her wedding ring. "Thanks. How long have you and Linus been married?"

  George and Lois nudge the door open soundlessly. The room is dim. The parents are startled to see Megan and Richard there on the bed with her—Unorthodox, but then hospitals aren't the same citadels of reflex cruelty and loneliness they once were. Richard is snoring and Megan is breathing warmly. And there is Karen. Her eyes are open and smiling. "Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad," she says under her breath. "Shhhhh … the kids are asleep." Her jaw aches.

  Her voice! She's back! George blubbers while smooching Karen's cheeks, oblivious to the scene he creates. "Hi Dad." George is lost to emotion, as Karen smiles and raises happy eyebrows over George's shoulders toward Lois. Karen winks. It is hard for Karen to be sentimental, because in her mind she has only had a quick nap since 1979.

  Richard awakens just then. "Hi, George. Oh. Excuse me. Here. Oh. Let me move out of the way and down off this thing. Lois. Hi—" Richard clambers off, the top part of his silver astronaut suit dragging behind him like a beaver tail. George hugs Richard. Lois, meanwhile, has stayed away from the bed. Her purse is clutched to her chest. She comes nearer. She locks eyeballs with her daughter.

  "Hey, MOOT." Karen says.

  There is a silence. "Hello, Karen." Another silence. "Welcome back." Lois gives Karen a small kiss.George and Richard shut up. Karen sees that time has done little to alter her mother. Some gray hair here, a wrinkle there—the posture and voice are timeless. "You look as good as ever, Mom," Karen says.

  "Thank you, dear." Lois has not visited Karen for almost a year now. She is finding it hard to overlook Karen's deterioration. "Can you eat now, sweetie? Are you hungry?" The old food games have begun already. "I brought an owl figurine to cheer you up."

  "Thanks." It's as if seventeen years have never happened.

  Megan touches her mother, holds her neck and rubs it with her hands. Karen's gray hair is limp and sad and has been cut with blunt scissors; Megan holds it to her nose and the hair smells dusty and sweet. All her life Megan has felt jinxed, that people around her would come to bad ends. Richard, too, has felt the same way for years, though neither of them knew it of the other. Megan has been dressing in black for so long now, and has been chasing an early death; it seemed only fitting—the drugs, the fearsome boyfriends, and the fast cars. Why would anybody miss her? Richard—whoops Dad—might miss her, but then he'd most likely go drink himself into the center of the Earth to forget her. That's unfair. He did quit drinking for real. But then didn't he fob her off on Lois and George? Lois—glad to have me out of her hair. George? George is nice, but he's always liked Karen better.

  Megan soon accompanies Richard, Lois, George, Wendy, and Linus into another room. The hallways have been cleared. Wheels squeak. It's quiet.

  The group arrives at a new, larger room. Inside, Uncle Hamilton and Aunt Pam are already there, conked out in separate beds, resembling dead extras in a sci-fi movie. Drugged out losers, Megan thinks, but then she reminds herself that she really has no right to condemn on that front. Where does this judgmental streak come from? Megan decides she
's going to go straight edge: She's never going to do a drug ever again. Even aspirin. She is going to be the mother that Karen never had. She is going to protect her—keep her smart, make herwhole. And then Megan remembers why she is even at the hospital: last night with Skitter on the mattress in Yale's basement, a pot dealer friend of Skitter. She'd told Linus that the morning-after pill was for her friend, Jenny, but it wasn't. Megan knows that she is pregnant. It was meant to be.

  17 EVERYBODY'S LYING

  "I want them all in the same room because they'll all give each other intentive to get well."

  Pam and Hamilton hear Wendy's voice and open their fogged eyes to see white curtains. They hear background snatches of other voices. Hamilton's throat hacks up a clump of blood-phlegm; Wendy, standing beside him says poker-faced, "Welcome back to prime time, douche bag."

  "Wendy? Ooh. Ahh. I feel like a paper sack of burning dog shit. What time is it?"

  "Time to change your life, you screwed-up junkie."

  "Hamilton—are you there?" calls Pam.

  "Assuming we're not dead, yes, dear. What time is it, Wendy? Where are we? What are we doing here?" Lifting his head feels like lifting a swarm of hornets,

  "It's Sunday, kids. And you are both in the hospital. You're here for emergency supernumerary mammectomies."

  "Super what*."

  "We're removing your third nipples."

  " What? Ow! Don't talk like that, Wendy."

  "Hospital humor. It's my style—oh and don't give me that little wounded look: 'Ooh, I'm so surprised.' You came one eyelash close to death, you bastard." She walks over and looks into Hamilton's eyes and then slaps him gently.