Lone Wolf

“Judge, a man’s life or death hangs in the balance here. This happened only moments ago, or I would have given notice earlier.”

“I’ll allow it.”

So once again I climb into the little wooden balcony built for a witness. “Cara,” Zirconia asks, “where did you go during the lunch break?”

“To visit my father in the hospital.”

“What happened when you got to his room?”

I look right at Edward, as if I am telling him the story, and not the judge. “My dad was just lying there, like usual, like he was asleep. His eyes were closed and he wasn’t moving. But this time, when I started talking to him, his eyes opened.”

Edward’s jaw drops. Immediately, Joe leans toward him and whispers something in his ear.

“Can you show us?”

I close my eyes, and then as if I am a doll coming to life, I snap them open.

“What happened next?”

“I couldn’t believe it,” I say. “I got up and walked around the bed, and he kept looking at me, all the way until I sat down next to him again. He watched me the whole time.”

“And then?” Zirconia asks.

“Then his eyes closed,” I finish, “and he went back to sleep.”

Joe is leaning back in his chair with his arms folded. I’m sure he thinks this is my Hail Mary pass, my eleventh- hour attempt to make up some crazy story that sways the judge in my favor. The thing is, it’s not a story. It happened, and that has to mean something.

“Clearly Mr. Ng thinks it’s incredibly convenient for you to have witnessed this,” Zirconia says. “Is there anyone who can corroborate what you’ve told us?”

I point to Rita, the nurse, who has slipped into the back row of the gallery. She’s still wearing her scrubs and her hospital ID tag. “Yes,” I say. “Her.”

LUKE

The hardest part about being back in the human world was relearning emotion. Everything a wolf does has a practical, simple reason. There is no cold shoulder, no saying one thing when you mean something else, no innuendo. Wolves fight for two reasons: family and territory. Humans are driven by ego; wolves have no room for it and will literally nip it out of you. For a wolf, the world is about understanding, knowledge, respect-attributes that many humans have cast off, along with an appreciation of the natural world.

The Native Americans know that wolves are mirrors for humans. What they show us are our strengths and our weaknesses. If we don’t respect our territory, the wolf will invade it. If we don’t keep our children close by, if we don’t value the knowledge our senior population has accrued, if we leave our garbage around, the wolf will overstep its bounds to let us know we’ve made a mistake. The wolf is one of those creatures that links everything in the ecosystem. Where they exist in the wild, they regulate the prey populations-not just by controlling their numbers but also by assuring their parenting skills. If a wolf is in the area, there will be fewer cold-related fatalities among other animals, because domestic animals are taken inside or hidden in brush, or herded around a youngster to keep her warm and protect her from the threat of the wolf.

When I lived with the wolves, I was proud of the reflection of myself.

But when I came back, I always paled in comparison.

EDWARD

After all the hours I spent in his hospital room, by his bed, maintaining a vigil, my father opened his eyes when I wasn’t there.

Story of my life.

Joe’s already called a recess so that he can talk to Dr. Saint-Clare, and he’s told me that I shouldn’t believe everything I see, and neither should Cara. “It’s evidence, but it doesn’t mean a thing until the doctors explain it,” he said.

And yet.

What if it had been me in the room when my father woke up? What would I have said to him?

What would he have said to me?

I wonder if the conversations you’ve never had with someone count, if you’ve been over them a thousand times in your mind.

Rita Czarnicki sits on the witness stand now, reciting all her medical qualifications and the number of years she’s worked in the ICU. “I was checking the IV,” she says. “Mr. Warren’s daughter was in the room, talking to him.”

“Did you assess your patient’s condition when you entered the room?”

“Yes,” Rita says. “He was unresponsive and still appeared to be in a vegetative state.”

“Then what happened?” Cara’s lawyer asks.

“As his daughter was talking, Mr. Warren opened his eyes.”

“Are you saying he woke up?”

“Not like you’re thinking.” The nurse hesitates. “Most VS patients lie with their eyes open when they are awake and closed when they’re asleep. But they still have no awareness of themselves or their environment and are totally unresponsive.”

“So what made this event remarkable?” the lawyer asks.

“Mr. Warren’s daughter got up very quickly and moved from the foot of the bed around to the side, and his gaze seemed to follow her before his eyes closed again. That’s tracking, and that doesn’t happen with VS patients.”

“What did you do?”

“I immediately paged the Neurology Department, and they attempted to stimulate Mr. Warren into reactivity again by touching his toes and digging beneath his fingernails and verbally prompting him, but he didn’t respond.”

“Ms. Czarnicki, you heard Cara’s testimony. Did she exaggerate Mr. Warren’s responsiveness in any way?”

The nurse shakes her head. “I saw it myself.”

“Nothing further,” the attorney says.

“Mr. Ng?” the judge asks. “Would you like to cross-examine the witness?”

“No,” Joe says, standing. “But I do wish to recall an earlier witness to the stand. Dr. Saint-Clare?”

The neurosurgeon doesn’t look happy to have been called back to court. He raps his fingers on the edge of the witness stand, as if he has somewhere else he needs to be. “Thank you, Doctor, for making time for this,” Joe begins. “It’s been quite an afternoon.”

“Apparently,” the doctor says.

“Have you had a chance to examine Mr. Warren since you testified this morning?”

“Yes.”

“Has there been a change in his condition?”

Dr. Saint-Clare sucks in his breath. “There’s some discrepancy about that,” he says. “Apparently Mr. Warren opened his eyes this afternoon.”

“What does that mean?”

“Unfortunately, not a lot. Patients who are in a vegetative state are unaware of themselves and their environment. They don’t respond to stimuli except for reflex responses, they don’t understand language, they don’t have control of bladder and bowel function. They are intermittently awake, but they are not conscious. We refer to