I blinked. That was a lot, even for me. “That happens, though, right?” I asked, my voice an ashy croak. “People die during surgery all the time.”
“Not like this,” she insisted. “I’ve never seen anything like it. At one point, the attending surgeon actually called time of death, and stopped trying to revive you. They were about to turn off the machines, and suddenly your heart started beating again.”
“Oh . . .” I said lamely. What were you supposed to say to something like that? Oops?
The doctor took a deep breath and pressed on. “When you finally stabilized, my attending surgeon called the army and got your records from the hospital in Germany. They were . . . kind of amazing.”
I had been airlifted to Germany after I stumbled out of the desert in Iraq, covered in blood. I didn’t remember that part, though. And I certainly didn’t want to talk about any of it. I mostly just wanted this woman to finish her presentation, so she could leave and I could go back to sleep. “Is there anything else I have to know?” I asked.
Dr. Towne gazed at me, a little wide-eyed at my indifference. I’d heard that some people get really freaked out about being “dead” for a couple of minutes, but it wasn’t like it was the first time it had happened to me. “We want to run some tests, maybe do an MRI to figure out why . . . I mean, how you managed to recover.”
“Is there any indication that my heart’s going to stop again?” I asked blandly.
“Well, no, but—”
“Then no more tests,” I interrupted her. “That’s final.” I wasn’t going to spend a minute more in the hospital than I absolutely had to. After a moment, Dr. Towne nodded tightly, and I suddenly felt a wave of exhaustion. I felt awful: weak and nauseous and aching despite the painkillers. “Imma sleep now,” I mumbled, and was out.
Chapter 3
The next time I opened my eyes, it was just after two o’clock, and my eighteen-month-old niece was doing a little bopping dance on the edge of my bed, her big blue eyes dancing with the secret merriment of babies. I felt something in my heart fill up at the sight of her, looking so happy and unaware. She really was okay.
“Hey, kid,” I rasped. The juice and the rest had helped, but my throat still felt like it’d been rubbed with steel wool. My eyes focused in on my mother, who was sitting in the chair next to me, supporting Charlie so the baby could lean against the mattress. She looked exhausted and haggard, which was saying something. Mom was usually one of those women who’s always put together, with carefully styled red-black hair and a colorful scarf gracing her neck like a personal token. Everyone who knows her well can read her level of stress by the condition of her clothes and makeup. Today, though, her hair was matted against one side of her head, and she wasn’t even wearing powder or mascara. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen my mother without makeup. She looks so old, I thought.
“Hey, Mom,” I whispered.
My mother looked up from Charlie, holding my gaze for a long moment before she burst into tears. “Hi, honey,” she managed to say. Charlie craned her neck once to check on Grandma’s crying, but then turned back to me, blissfully unconcerned. She pounded her hands happily against my sheet, obviously itching to climb up and crawl all over me.
“I’m okay, Mom,” I ventured.
“You’ve got to stop scaring me like this,” she said through her tears.
“It was for a good cause,” I replied weakly, stretching out my right fingers to touch Charlie’s hand. She grinned and pounced on my thumb, trying to drag it into her mouth. I’d made the mistake of letting her do that before, though, and I wanted to keep all of my fingers. I pulled them back.
“I know, but . . .” my mother began helplessly, then shook her head, unable to continue. I couldn’t blame her. She’d nearly lost me once, then Sam had died, and now I’d put her through another scare.
“Where’s Dad?” I asked, trying to change the subject.
She sniffed. “He was here all morning, but he had to go to the office for a couple of hours.”
“How’s the herd?”
She rolled her eyes. “Ugh. The two yellow dogs got out of the back gate again, but John rounded them up. Oh, and Raja wouldn’t let the other cats eat until this morning, which made them just vicious.”
Raja was my biggest cat, and he fancied himself the lord of the house. “Sounds about right,” I said, smiling a little.
“The police want to speak to you as soon as possible,” Mom added.
I automatically sat up a little, and immediately regretted it. “Did they find the couple? Or at least figure out who they were?” I asked.
She shook her head. “But they let us take your purse from the store. It’s in there.” She pointed to a closed closet near the door. “Oh, and Dad and your cousin Paul took your car back to the cabin when they were feeding the herd. The keys are inside on the kitchen counter.”
I smiled wider this time. It was good to have family. “Thanks, Mom.”
We chatted for a few more minutes about my dad’s upcoming sixtieth birthday and my mother’s new favorite nail salon, where she wanted to take me when I was out of the hospital. Charlie grew tired of smacking my covers after a while and made a serious effort to climb onto my bed. My mother pulled her off. “We should probably go,” she said regretfully. Her eyes were glued to me, like I might evaporate if she looked away. “It’s past Charlotte’s nap time. Your cousin Jacob is coming to sit with you in a few minutes.”