My husband spent six months in a coma after falling down our basement stairs. When he finally woke up, he remembered something strange about our youngest daughter. I thought she was hiding a childish secret. I had no idea how wrong I was.
“Mom, I want to go home.”
Lily said it the second the elevator doors closed.
“We’re going up, honey.”
“I know.”
“You begged me for a week to bring you.”
“That was before.”
“Mom, I want to go home.”
“Before what?”
She folded the card in her hands. It was already the size of a postage stamp.
“Is this about Dad? Whether he’ll remember you?”
“Will he?”
“He remembers all of you. He asks about you every day.”
“Even Owen?”
“That was before.”
“Hey,” said Owen.
He’s thirteen. He’s worn Eric’s baseball cap every day for six months. It sits on his eyebrows like a roof.
“Dad’s been awake five days after six months in a coma. Today you finally get to see him.”
“Lasagna will blow his mind,” said Max.
He’s fifteen. He taught himself to cook from videos while I lived at the hospital. Apparently it’s his love language now.
“He remembers all of you.”
Lily didn’t laugh. She’d made her father a card every Sunday since the fall. Twenty-six Sundays.
“Mom?”
“Yes, baby?”
“If Dad asks me something, can you answer instead?”
“Ask you what?”
“About that morning.”
“Before what?”
“You called 911 all by yourself. You were the bravest person in that house.”
“I only heard a crash.”
“From upstairs. I know.”
Her voice dropped to almost nothing.
“It’s my fault Dad got hurt.”
Max looked at me in the mirror. Owen stopped chewing his gum.
“About that morning.”
“Lily, it was an accident.”
“You don’t know that.”
The doors opened. She walked out with her head down.
For six months, whenever I asked about that morning, she cried. So I stopped asking.
I called it good parenting. Others might call it avoidance with a nice haircut.
Eric sat propped on pillows, thinner, with hair that had grown back in the wrong direction.
“It’s my fault Dad got hurt.”
“Max, is that a mustache?”
“It’s a shadow.”
“Owen, is that my hat?”
“It’s mine now.”
“Keep it. Looks better on you.”
Owen went the color of a tomato.
“Lily, it was an accident.”
Lily stayed by the door, clutching the card.
“Hey, peanut,” Eric said. “Come here.”
She crossed the room like the floor might give. She hugged him like he was a carton of eggs.
He read the card twice. Kissed her forehead.
“Best one yet.”
“You haven’t seen the others.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Then I’ll start with the best.”
For an hour we talked about school, lasagna, and what he’d eat first at home.
I let myself believe the worst was over.
Hospitals are generous with false endings.
“Claire,” Eric said, casual as weather. “Did Lily tell you why she wanted to leave that morning?”
She hugged him like he was a carton of eggs.
“Leave? She was sick.”
“She wasn’t sick. She packed her ladybug suitcase.”
“The sleepover one? With the antennae?”
“She wasn’t sleeping over. She wanted me to take her somewhere before you got home.”
“Where?”
“She wouldn’t say where. Or why. She just made me promise you wouldn’t find out.”
I let myself believe the worst was over.
