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38
YAKOV
Nikandr is sitting up tall in bed. It’s the most alert I’ve seen him—but he still isn’t here. Not really. His eyes are glazed and unseeing as Dr. Tung moves around the end of his bed, squeezing various toes and tapping his calves.
“Do you feel this?” she asks again and again.
Each time, Nik shakes his head.
No.
Dr. Tung orders the nurses to place compression socks on his feet. “I’ll be back to see you again soon, Nikandr. Until then, rest up. You’re doing great.”
Nik doesn’t reply. He just lies back on his pillow, eyes staring straight up at the ceiling while two women wrestle the tight socks over his legs.
He’s lost so much muscle mass since he was hospitalized. I could see the difference in his face and arms, but seeing him without blankets makes it even more obvious. He looks the way he did as a scrawny teenager when he grew twelve inches in six months. He doesn’t look anything like the man they first wheeled into this room.
Dr. Tung heads for the door, but I cut her off. I pull the curtain around Nik’s bed closed and face her. “What’s going on?”
“Your brother has better cognitive function than I predicted he would. His speech and comprehension is far beyond what I expected. You should be proud of him. And yourself. I think all of that talking helped him tremendously.”
“The talking didn’t do much for his legs, I guess,” I snarl.
She frowns. “I’m sorry. The bullet passed very close to his spine, so this was always a possibility. It’s not something I like to bring up until necessary, especially when I wasn’t sure he’d even wake up.”
“Now, he is awake and he can’t fucking walk.”
“For now,” she says calmly. “The paralysis could be temporary. He just came out of a long coma, so I don’t want to make any determinations now. We’ll get him into physical therapy as soon as he’s ready and see what can be done.”
I want a solution. I want her to tell me that she’ll hit a button and fix my brother. But even the merest possibility that he’ll walk again is better than nothing.
I sigh. “Thank you.”
“Your family has been through a lot the last few months,” she says. “Your brother is awake. Try to forget about everything else and enjoy it.”
Nik is still staring at the ceiling when I pull the curtain back. He doesn’t show any sign that he sees me approaching, but he asks, “What was that about?”
“I was just talking to Dr. Tung about when we’re going to break you out of here now that you’re finally awake.”
“Who?” he asks.
I’m confused for a second before I remember that Nik barely knows Dr. Tung. He just met her for the first time a couple hours ago. She’s been taking care of him for months, but he wasn’t conscious for any of it.
“Dr. Tung has been with you since the night you got to the hospital. She’s been calling me every day with updates about you.”
“Thrilling stuff, I’m sure,” he rasps. “Tell me: did I take any shits while I was unconscious? I’ve been thinking about that since I woke up.”
Of course Nik is already making jokes. He just woke up from a months-long coma and is paralyzed from the waist down, but he’s trying to make light of it.
“Catheter. If you look on the other side of your bed, you’ll see the clear plastic bag where it all ends up.”
“Glamorous,” he mutters. “I had no idea I was putting on that kind of show.”
“Why do you think I always sit on this side of the bed?”
Nik goes to lean over the railing to see the bag, but when he tries to draw his knee up for leverage, nothing happens. His legs are as good as dead weights in the bed. He can’t reach.
“I’ll take your word for it.” He sighs, flopping back into the bed.
