Page 206 of The Encore’s Crown

“One call,” he says. “Anything changes, one call.”

Ronan points between Rithy and me. “Eat something with a vegetable in it.”

Rithy flips him off.

“Hey, I'd offer but my dick isn’t a vegetable.”

“If it were, I’m sure Freja would get her five-a-day easily,” Rithy mumbles, already laughing at his own joke.

“Oi, the sad boy has jokes all of a sudden,” Ronan says, backing through the waiting-room doors and blowing him a kiss.

Then they’re gone, and the waiting room feels emptier without them. Natalia is still here every day. She learns that Rithy will eat the breakfast sandwich from the cafeteria only if she removes the slice of rubber they call egg. She discovers I can tolerate the chicken noodle soup if she dumps enough pepper into it and brings me two packages of crackers instead of one.

I don’t remember telling her either thing. Food simply starts appearing beside me exactly the way I’ll eat it. She keeps lip balm in her purse for Rithy because the hospital air dries his mouth out. She brings me clean shirts and makes me change when I start smelling like antiseptic and sweat. At night, she wedges herself against me in the waiting-room chair and lets me hold her until my hands stop shaking.

The ICU enforces a two-person limit until one of the nurses, Marisol, takes pity on us. She speaks to the charge nurse and gets an exception approved as long as the three of us stay quiet and move out of the way when anyone needs access to Ma.

It makes everything easier. Rithy sits on one side of the bed. I take the other. Natalia uses me as her personal couch and I'm more than happy with the arrangement.

We talk to Ma because the nurses tell us hearing may return before anything else. Rithy fills the room with enough nonsense for all of us. He tells her Ronan wore mismatched shoes to the hospital. He complains about the coffee and promises to replace her ruined albums with new ones, even though we all know there were photographs destroyed that no one can replace.

I don’t know what to say.

Most of the time, I hold her hand and tell her I’m there.

On the fourth day, Dr. Reynolds shows us the newest scans.

“The bleeding has stabilized,” he says, pointing to a pale area on the screen. “It’s beginning to resolve, which is encouraging. The swelling around her airway has also decreased.”

“Then why isn’t she awake?” I ask.

“We’ve kept her sedated while her airway and brain recovered. We’re reducing those medications now, but it can take time for them to clear, particularly after severe trauma.”

“How much time?”

“I can’t give you an exact answer.”

I hate him a little every time he says that, even though I know it isn’t his fault. He tells us Ma is beginning to initiate more breaths over the ventilator. She moves both sides of her body when they stimulate her, and her pupils react normally. They are all encouraging signs, but none of them tells us what she will be like when she wakes.

If she wakes.

He doesn’t say that part anymore. He doesn’t have to.

Later that day, Marisol orders us out of the room.

“All three of you,” she says. “Twenty minutes. Fresh air.”

“We’re fine,” Rithy tells her.

Natalia stands and stretches. “She has a point.”

They walk around the hospital grounds while I run. I don’t change clothes. I don’t stretch. I step outside and start moving because if I don’t put the pressure somewhere, it’s going to tear through my chest. I circle the building until my lungs burn.

Every time I pass Natalia and Rithy, they’re walking slowly beside each other, shoulders nearly touching. Once, Natalia reaches out as I go by and brushes her fingers across my arm. On the next lap, Rithy holds up the bottle of water she brought and tells me I’m too famous to collapse dramatically in public and to drink something. I grab it and keep running.

They keep walking.

For twenty minutes, none of us are trapped in the room with the machines.