Life Blood --X---Page 33

What always struck me, though, was the number of photos of
Sarah. They were everywhere in the open space, on tables, the
desk, several on the walls. Mostly they were old, several blown up
and cropped from snapshots, grainy. The space felt like a shrine
to her memory.

When Lou let me in, I was greeted by a spectral face, a

wheelchair, and a valiant attempt at smiling normalcy. Maybe Lou
thought it was real, was progress, but I was immediately on guard.
        It was Sarah's eyes that caught me. They pierced into my soul
and we seemed to click, just like always, only this time it was as
though all our life together passed between us. I had the sense
she was trying to tell me something with her eyes that went
beyond words, that she was trying to reach out to me, perhaps to
recapture that shared understanding we'd had years ago.
        Lou introduced me to a Mrs. Reilly, a kindly, Irish-looking
practical nurse who was part of the outpatient package the
hospital provided. She wore a white uniform and was around
sixty, with short-bobbed gray hair and an air of total authority.
She'd just finished feeding Sarah a bowl of soup, and was
brushing out her cropped blond hair, what there was of it.
        Mrs. Reilly glanced at me, but never broke the rhythm of her
strokes. "She's tired now, but she's already stronger than she
was."

Then Lou spoke up. "They called me early yesterday morning.
But by the time I got around to trying to reach you, you'd
vanished. So I rang Dave and he told me where you were, up
there with that crackpot." He was grinning. No, make that
beaming like the famous cat. "By last night, she was walking with
some help, so they said she might as well be here. Like I said, it's
a miracle."

"You brought her home just this morning?" I couldn't believe the hospital would discharge her so soon, but this was the HMO Age of medical cost-cutting.

"Only been here a couple of hours." He pointed to a shiny set of parallel steel railings in the corner. "That's for physical therapy. Right now she can only walk with somebody on either side
holding her, but in a few days, I figure . . ." His voice trailed off, as though he didn't want to tempt fortune. Then he turned toward
Sarah. "In a few days, right, honey?"

She nodded, then finally spoke directly to me. "Morgy, I want some clothes. Please. I hate these horrible hospital things. I never want to see them again."

I noticed that she'd started crying, a line of tears down each
emaciated cheek. Was it something to do with seeing me? I
wondered. Then she began trying to struggle out of the blue bed
shift she was wearing, though she didn't have the strength.
        "I'll get you something great, Sar, don't worry." I reached to
stay her hand. It was, I thought, extraordinarily cold, even though
the loft itself was warm as toast. What kind of clothes should I buy
for her? I found myself wondering. Blouses with buttons?
Pullovers? What could she manage? Maybe I'd bring some items
from home first and let her try them out. We used to be about the
same size, though now she was all skin and bones.
        I moved a chair next to her, took her other hand, and leaned
as close as I dared. I desperately wanted to put my arms around
her, but I wasn't sure how she would respond to my touch. Her
eyes, however, were clear and had never looked a deeper blue.
"Sar, what's the matter? Why're you crying? You should be happy.
Your dad's right here and he loves you and we're going to take
wonderful care of you."

"Who? Him?" she asked, looking straight at Lou, her blue eyes like an unblinking camera's lens.

The plaintive question took my breath away. Hadn't they been talking for two days?

"Don't pay any attention when she says things like that," Mrs. Reilly declared, her voice just above a whisper. "She's still not quite herself. She drifts in and out."

She seemed to be drifting in and out at the moment, though it was mostly out.

Then she looked directly at me, only now her eyes were

losing their laser-like focus, were starting to seem glazed. "Who're you?" She reached out and touched my unwashed hair, running her hands through the tangled strands.

Next she stared off, terrified, her eyes full of fear.

"The smoke," she whispered. "The knife. I'm next."

Abruptly she was off again in the reverie that had enfolded
her that first time in the hospital. Or at least that was what I
guessed.

"What are you talking about?" I felt like shaking her, except I was too shook-up myself.

She turned back, and for a moment she just stared glassy-
eyed, first at me, next at Lou, and finally at Mrs. Reilly. Then she
reached for a glass of orange juice on the table beside her. She
looked at it as though it were some potion, then slowly drank it off,

not pausing once. Outside, a faint police siren could be heard,

and I was afraid it was distracting her. Anyway, something told me her momentary séance was played out. Her face had grown calm and rested, though I could barely repress a tremble.

"Whatever you think," I said finally, slipping an arm around her shoulder, "we're both right here. And we love you and we want to help you get better."

She didn't say anything more, just closed her eyes and drifted
away. But it wasn't back into a coma, since her breathing was
growing heavier. I wanted to grab her and yell at her and demand
that she come back to us, but I was fearful of what effect it might
have.

"What the hell was she talking about?" Lou asked finally, his voice quavering.

"I don't know," I said, as puzzled as he was.

That was when Mrs. Reilly spoke up. She was the only one not upset.

"When they come out of a coma, sometimes they're not right
for a while." She patted Sarah's hand then gave it a solicitous
squeeze. "I once had a man wake up and start talking about
magic trips through the air, about how he was a dual citizen of the
earth and the sea. He was talking like a lunatic. One day he would
know his family, and the next he would look at them and start
screaming they'd come to kill him. You just never know how these
things will go at first. But she'll be herself before long." She lifted
Sarah's limp hand up to her cheek, then kissed it. "You're going to
be all right, dear. I've seen enough like you to know."
        "Then what do you make of what she just said?" Lou asked
her, having given up on me. "Earlier this morning she was fine.
Knew who I was, everything. Then the minute Morgan comes in,
she starts making up that loony jabber."

The sanguine Mrs. Reilly just shrugged as if it didn't really
matter.

For my own part, I didn't necessarily like him implying my

arrival had caused her to relapse into her dream world of terror. It seemed to me that whenever I showed up, she started trying to tell me what was really eating away at her soul.

Well, I told myself finally, maybe she's regressed back to
when we were kids, when we only had each other to share our
secrets with. What if we've rebonded in some new, spe
cial way? It would be natural, actually. She's trying to reach out to
me, like long ago.