moved out of intensive care to a private room on another floor.
On the tenth day there was more good news: Zack was breathing on his own. Also, because the swelling had subsided, the doctors removed the intracranial pressure gauge; and the bone and skin of his scalp were beginning to heal over. They shaved him regularly and changed his diaper as if he were her baby again.
But he was still in a level two coma. Although he could respond to stimuli—pressure to his fingernails or a sharp poke to the bottom of his feet—he wouldn’t respond to spoken commands or open his eyes or squeeze his fingers when asked. Because he was still unconscious, a gastric feeding tube was inserted into his stomach through a small incision in his abdomen. As the doctors explained, this was standard for patients unable to feed normally. He was also put in a special bed that inflated and deflated to prevent bed sores. Braces were attached to his joints to prevent contraction. As requested, Maggie had brought in a pair of Nikes.
By the end of the second week, Maggie could barely restrain panic attacks that Zack would remain in a persistent vegetative state, wasting away while she kept endless bedside vigil like the parents of Karen Ann Quinlan and Terry Schiavo, waiting for him to wake up or die. Already he was gaunt, sunken, and void of the flush of life. But to remind herself of the gorgeous young man he was, she brought in a framed photograph of him she had taken last year at his graduation party. Posed with Damian, Anthony, and Geoff, he glowed with vitality. With his thick ringleted black hair, smooth, high-cheekboned face, and green starburst eyes, he looked like a young Zeus—the same beauty that a long time ago had first attracted her to Nick.
Despite Kate’s claims that he could break through at any time, Maggie felt herself slip into dark fears that went back to early motherhood, when she was alert to every potential threat to her children—too high fevers, toys they could choke on, plastic bags. When they got older, she and Nick would take them to Canobie Lake Park, where they would stroll down the lanes thronged with other parents and kids. While they appeared to be having a happy family time, Maggie’s mind tripped over the possibilities of her sons being thrown from the Flying Mouse or suffering brain damage from a centrifugal ride or frightened into cardiac arrest in the Haunted House or choking on a candy apple. When they became teenagers, a whole new buffet of horrors presented itself—drugs, alcohol, AIDS, car accidents, school shootings.
With Jake’s murder, all her nightmares came true. Adding to the horror, his killers got away with murder, and Nick had descended into an abyss of despair, disappeared into monastic silence, only to die. And now Zack lay in a coma that could go on indefinitely.
It seemed to Maggie that she had become defined by grief in a world that no longer made sense.
6
Jenna Emmons could not believe what she had seen. It was bizarre, horrifying, and the image would smolder in her brain for years.
Her first thought was that it was all the beer from the Theta Chi party—maybe four pints. But those were spread over four hours. She was groggy, but not delusional.
She had returned to her dorm around two thirty and changed for bed. As usual, she went to the window to take in the fabulous night view of Boston. Her room was on the fourth floor in MIT’s Building W1, at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Memorial Drive, in the tower peaked by a cupola shaped like the helmet of Kaiser Wilhelm. It was one of MIT’s trophy dorms and a choice locale she had won in the housing lottery.
From that height, she took in the full span of Harvard Bridge, which carried Mass. Avenue across the Charles River into Boston, whose glorious skyline burned like jewelry boxes stacked up from the river’s edge to the top of Beacon Hill. Tonight a full moon had risen over the eastern horizon, leaving a rippled disk riding the river’s surface.
What arrested her attention were two men walking on the western side of the bridge from Boston. They stopped a few times to look down at the water, then proceeded until they were about three-quarters across, no more than fifty yards from her window. One man wore a hooded jacket. The other was bareheaded and leaning with his back against the rail. The hooded man gesticulated with his free hand, as if trying to convince the other of something. Then the hooded man helped his companion get up on the rail, where he found his balance. Jenna’s first thought was that the hooded man was going to take pictures of his friend with the river and skyline as backdrop. But they continued talking, the hooded man appearing to hold something in his far hand while pleading with the other, who rocked back and forth on the rail like a primate in a too small cage.
Suddenly the men embraced each other for a long moment. The sitting man then braced himself on the rail with his hands. When the hooded man was certain that no cars or strollers approached, he raised a baseball bat and smashed the other on the head.
Even through the closed window, the blow made a sickening crack that sent the victim over the rail and into the black water.
Jenna cried out in horror and disbelief. But what sickened her was the hideous realization that the victim had waited for his companion to bash his head in. That it was on purpose—that they had walked together to just the right spot and waited for the traffic to clear so one could put the other out of his misery.
Before the hooded man walked away, he flung the bat into the water, then looked down to where his friend had fallen and made the sign of the cross.
7
On the evening of the twenty-second day, Damian and Anthony stopped by the hospital. They had been back a few more times since the prayer incident, for which Maggie had apologized. And being the gentleman that he was, Damian said he had no hard feelings. He had even brought her a bouquet of flowers.
Zack was still breathing on his own, with his vital signs holding normal. But he was still at level two.
They chatted for a while. Maggie asked how they were doing in school, then told them how physical therapists came in daily to exercise Zack’s arms, legs, and feet and how she helped. Anthony was in the middle of a funny story about something that happened at the local mall when Zack suddenly rolled his head and made a strange cawing sound.
“Omigod!” Maggie cried out. Instantly she was on her feet and gripping his hand. “Zack! Wake up. Wake up.”
“He’s saying something!” Anthony said.
“He’s breaking through,” Damian said.
“Zack! Zack, wake up!” Maggie cried. “It’s Mom. Please, honey. Open your eyes.”
Zack’s mouth moved as guttural sounds rose from his throat—the first sounds he had made in three weeks. “Get the nurse,” Maggie said to Anthony, who bolted from the room. She rubbed Zack’s hand. “Zack, it’s Mom. Wake up!”
“His eyes are moving,” Damian said. “I think he’s trying to open them.”
“Zack! Open your eyes. You can do it. Open your eyes.”
While she continued coaxing him, Zack’s eyes rolled under his lids as if he were having an intense dream. But he didn’t open them, just kept muttering nonsense syllables.
A few moments later, Anthony returned with a nurse and an aide. The nurse began to rub Zack’s cheek. “Zack, it’s Beth Howard, your nurse. Talk to me, Zack. Talk to me. Open your eyes.”
Zack winced as if registering her voice. He continued muttering unintelligible sounds, but he didn’t open his eyes. “Zack, it’s Mom. Wake up. Please.”
“What’s he saying?” Anthony asked Damian.
Damian didn’t respond but stood transfixed, studying Zack’s face.
“Whatever it is, it’s a good sign,” said the nurse. The aide agreed, her cell phone in her hand presumably to call the resident. “Hey, Zack, your mom’s here. So are Anthony and Damian. Time to wake up. You can do it. Open your eyes.”
More mutterings from Zack as his head rolled slightly on the pillow. Maggie put her ear close to his mouth as he continued muttering strange syllables. “He’s saying something. He’s saying words.”
“Does he know a foreign language?” the nurse asked.
