when she was first hurt. But the doctor says she isn’t responding, not like you think. Her brain activity is … minimal.”
“Minimal,” I echo, my appetite gone. Tess has been in the hospital long enough for me to learn its language, and minimal brain function means the doctor thinks Tess—the Tess I know, the Tess whose books and clothes are waiting for her upstairs—is gone. The doctor thinks al that’s left is a shel .
“We thought you might go with us today because—wel , your father and I have decided to transfer Tess to a …” Mom presses her hands together, knotting them so her knuckles meet in a straight, white-edged line. “To a long-term-care facility. It’s out past Milford, in Oxford Hil .”
“What?” I say, stunned, and stare at Dad. “Why?”
He looks down at the table. “Our insurance won’t—they have to go with the doctor’s assessment, or say they do, and we can’t afford to keep her in the hospital for much longer.”
“How much longer?” I feel like I can’t breathe, but I know I am, I am stil speaking.
Stil living.
“About a week,” Mom says. “Maybe a little longer, but we’re not sure. We have to wait for the paperwork for the home to be finalized.”
“What if she wakes up?” I say. “No one wil be there. She’l be al alone and—”
“She won’t be alone,” Dad says. “Your mother and I are stil going to go see her. That won’t change.”
“And me? How am I supposed to ride my bike out to Oxford Hil ? It’s like twenty miles from the ferry, and I can’t—” I stop, swal ow the words.
I can’t say what I want to. I can’t say, “I can’t do this.” I can’t say, “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life here or in a room with Tess.” I can’t leave my parents alone when the one person we al know would make a mark on the world is locked inside her own mind.
“I—I’l have to start visiting her with you again,” I say. “I can come meet you after you get off work, like I used to.”
“No,” Dad says.
“No?” Mom and I say at the same time.
“You have school,” Dad says. “You need to start thinking about col ege, about the SATs. You have things you need to do.”
“Dave,” Mom says. “If she wants to see Tess, we should—”
“I gave up everything to sit by John’s side,” Dad says. “You—look at what you did for your brothers, for your mother. I don’t want that for Abby.”
“She’s not doing that,” Mom says. “She’s visiting her sister. She’s not—she’s not you, Dave. She’s not me.”
“When’s the last time you went out?” Dad asks me, and then looks at Mom. “We both know she doesn’t go out, Katie. She goes to school, she goes to the hospital, and she comes home. We let her keep doing that, we keep Abby with us, and before you know it she’l be where you were when you were eighteen. Where I was after John died.”
Mom’s face pales, but she says, “If she wants to see her sister, I don’t think you or I should tel her—”
“Three times a week,” Dad says. “That’s it. After Tess—after she’s moved out of the hospital, that’s the most she can go.”
“You don’t get to decide that. She’s not you, David! She’s not going to shut down and turn her whole life into one big—”
“She won’t spend al her time rattling around the house or at the hospital?” Dad says, cutting her off, and Mom’s eyes flash ful of something that looks like memory and fear. “She doesn’t yel at people when we aren’t around, doesn’t sit hunched over like she is now, like she’s miserable?”
“Stop!” I say.
And then I say it again, louder, my voice echoing in the kitchen, and the words just pour out of me. “She’s not —stop talking about Tess like she’s gone. Stop talking about her like she’s not here. She is here, and she’s going to wake up. We can’t … we just can’t think she won’t.”
Weirdly, Mom’s face fal s. I’m agreeing with her; I’m tel ing her that I know I need to be here, that I understand how important Tess is. But she’s looking at me like I’ve hit her.
“Abby, I—honey, Tess isn’t going to be the same,” she says. “Not ever. You do understand that, right?”
Dad shakes his head at her, like he wants her to stop talking, and I should be happy that he’s giving me what I’ve secretly longed for. That someone, final y, believes I need a life that isn’t al about Tess.
I’m not happy.
I’m not happy, because it’s like he doesn’t believe that Tess can wake up.
Like he doesn’t believe she ever wil .
“I don’t understand you,” I tel him, and get up, walk up to my room. I don’t slam my door. I close it gently, like Tess would.
No one comes after me. I hear my parents talking. I can’t make out what they’re saying but hear the murmur of their voices, and when I hear nothing but silence I go back downstairs.
They’ve left me a note. They’ve gone to see Tess. They love me. They’l be back soon.
I crumple the note and go back upstairs. I stand in Tess’s room.
