“What’s the prognosis, Doc?” Sofia asked. “Don’t dumb it down. I did a three-episode special-guest run on ER where I played a beautiful but troubled neurosurgeon.”
Dr. Marks squinted at her. “We performed an ablation on his heart.”
Sofia paused. “Refresh my memory?” she asked. “What is a flabation?”
“The electric shock damaged the circuits in his heart. We conducted an electrical physiological study. The SA node was not firing.” Dr. Marks rubbed his eye.
Sofia nodded. “Perhaps break it down for my friend, doctor.”
Dr. Marks turned to Jane. “A piece of his heart was damaged in the accident. It was stopping his heart from beating properly. We inserted a catheter and ablated the damaged tissue with an electrical impulse. We destroyed it.”
Jane understood only a few words, but it was enough. “You destroyed a part of his heart, doctor?” she asked.
“Spit it out, Doc. Is he alive?” Sofia begged.
“He is alive,” Dr. Marks replied. “There was more damage than we thought. We put a pacemaker in.”
“Can we see him?”
The doctor led the women down a corridor to a different room. A small waxen man lay in a bed, his skin gray, his eyes closed. A tube sprouted from his mouth to a steel box that pumped. Another tube grew from the bandage at his wrist and three sprang from his chest. Jane felt confusion as to why the doctor showed them some random, pitiable fellow.
“Fred!” Sofia cried. She ran to him and kissed his hand. “When will he wake up?”
“I was hoping by now,” Dr. Marks said. He rubbed his eye once more.
“What is his condition, sir?” Jane asked.
“I’ve seen worse,” Dr. Marks said. “I’ve seen better. We’ve done all we can.”
“Fred’s father hit him, a few times,” Sofia said. She cleared her throat. “The old man would go after our mother, see.” She forced a laugh. “So Fred would provoke him, and Dad would wallop him instead. He ended up in this place once. Could that have made it worse?”
The doctor looked at her. “Unlikely,” he said.
Sofia nodded and wiped a tear. Jane watched the interaction with astonishment. “What do we do now?” Sofia asked.
Dr. Marks gave a nod. “We wait.”
SOFIA SAT BY Fred’s bedside; Jane stood behind her. He did not awaken. Rob, the young man with the red shirt who had accompanied Jane to the hospital, appeared at the door. Sofia went to him. They spoke, and she returned to Jane.
“They’re asking when I can come back to the set. I need to rehearse a scene. Rob’s kindly reminded me there are fifty people waiting for me, and if there’s nothing I can do here, perhaps I could go, do the scene, and come back. He also was good enough to mention that my contract does not allow me time off for sick relatives.” Sofia looked stricken. “I told him to bugger off. There’s nothing I can do here, but I can’t leave him on his own.”
“I will stay,” Jane said.
“Are you sure?” Sofia asked.
“Go. Do your work. If he wakes, I . . . you shall know the second it occurs. I shall sit here until you return.”
“Thank you.” Sofia kissed Fred’s forehead and departed with the red-shirted boy.
JANE SAT ON the chair by the bedside; night fell outside.
The boxes continued to buzz and whir. Fred wore a bandage on his head. Bags filled with strange fluids entered his arm through tubes.
The woman with the strawberry hair entered the room. She inspected the boxes and made notes with a self-inking quill. She smiled at Jane.
“You were here before,” said Jane.
“I was,” she replied.
“I am a stranger here. Where I come from, I consider myself a woman of intelligence and sense. But here in this place with all of these boxes and tubes, I am ignorant.”
The woman smiled again. “I am Sister Elizabeth. I am the matron here.” She spoke in a Leicestershire accent like Margaret the housemaid’s, thick, warm, and salty like a good beef stew. She walked to one of the boxes. One glass box had an accordion inside. It depressed with a whoosh and Fred’s chest rose up. “This breathes for him,” Sister Elizabeth said.
Jane nodded in astonishment. Sister Elizabeth moved behind her. She pointed to another box. “This one here? This monitors his heart.”
Jane watched the box. “What is that line?” she asked.
“His heart beating,” Sister Elizabeth replied.
Jane smiled. A symphony score of arches and valleys rose and fell across the frame. Fred’s heart beat before her.
“You must be truthful with me,” Jane said to her. “You walk in, note the boxes with your papers, and say nothing. I must know. Will he die?”
“We are doing everything we can,” Sister Elizabeth replied.
“Of that I am in no doubt. Madam, I know it is your protocol to promise nothing. But I do not come from this place. You have cut him open and sewn him back together again. You have seen the inside of his heart. I have never witnessed such genius and wonder. Surely, with all this magic, he is going to be well. Tell me the truth, good lady, or I shall run mad.”
Sister Elizabeth’s face softened. She nodded. “It doesn’t look good. Even if he does wake, there’s no promise he has not suffered brain damage. There’s nothing more they can do.”
“How can it be these magical boxes and tubes are no good? I feel useless. I wish there was something I could do.”
“You could hold his hand,” Sister Elizabeth said.
Jane laughed. “What am I compared to these glorious machines? How could that help?”
“I don’t know, but it does,” Sister Elizabeth said. “I can name every chamber and artery. I can explain the pumping mechanism, the movement of the sinus rhythm, the fibrillation. I can tell you every muscle and valve. But I cannot tell you how the heart works. I do know this. I’ve seen a cancer patient riddled with tumors keep himself alive to see his brother at Christmas. I’ve seen a woman with MS wait until
