Ashes to Ashes (26 page)

Epilogue

WHEN MY FATHER COMES IN
to visit me, my pain medication has been regulated according to what I've been able to blink to the doctors, and I'm starting to regain my normal vision. His face makes my heart leap. He sees me, and that makes me feel whole again, validated,
here.
Even though I'm dulled by painkillers and weeks of darkness, I remember the heartbreak of not being seen.

Dad holds my hand and tells me how much he prayed for me to come back to him, how he couldn't bear losing me, how he's going to make up for the time he spent being foolishly absent from my life.

I nod at him reassuringly, trying to smile and encourage him. I haven't spoken yet—it seems my voice is missing. The physical realities of this body, the healing I need to do, overwhelm my senses, but when I let my mind wander, it goes to one place:
Thatcher
.

A nurse brings in a tray of mashed food—like something a baby would eat—with a glass of milk covered in plastic wrap. Is this really happening?

The tangible world is so strange to me, so precious and ordinary at the same time. All the while a thousand thoughts are racing through my brain: Where was I all this time? The poltergeists must have been a crazy nightmare my coma state brought on; the Prism isn't real, none of the things I saw were. Still, when I close my eyes, I see bolts of lightning and rain and energy—nothing is solid, nothing is clear. Except for his face.
Thatcher
. I can see him smiling softly, I can see him gazing at me, I can see him anguished. I feel his loss beating somewhere inside me, threatening to overwhelm my gratitude, my happiness at being alive after what I've heard was a terrible accident.

When Nick comes in to greet me, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel. Do I confront him about what I heard? How do I explain that I was there? Was I there? Or did my mind create a scenario where he was breaking up with me so I wouldn't have to feel guilty about my growing attraction for Thatcher—an imaginary guy who my coma-induced mind created?

If Nick really was going to break up with me, would he look so glad to see me? His smile is so big that it's almost cartoonish.

But what if it's true? What if he meant to break up with me, but my near-death experience made him realize what a mistake it would be, made him acknowledge how deeply his feelings for me ran?

“Callie,” he says, rushing over. He hovers above me—he seems unsure how to say hello. He settles for a delicate kiss on the cheek, and I hardly feel its flutter, barely notice its touch. I don't know if I expected a spark, a pull, a flash of energy, but I find myself disappointed.

Nick sits down in the chair by my bed.

“Oh, man, I can't believe you're awake,” he says, looking down at his shoes and not at me. “I mean, thank God. If you hadn't been rushing to get to my house, talking to me on the phone . . .”

I shake my head no and put one finger to his lips.

“I'm sorry,” he says. “The doctor said to talk to you about happy things. Um . . . did you see my gift?”

Nick points to the window, where a shiny crystal charm hangs on a transparent string. He stands and walks over to it. The string is looped around one of the window locks, and when he touches it, it moves in the sun, catching the light and casting tiny rainbows on the walls around me.

“I put it here just after the accident,” he says. “For luck or maybe just so that there would be something pretty in here for you . . . in case . . .”

He looks down at his feet, blushing. “I sound like Carson, right? Trying to bring you luck with something as silly as a prism.”

A tear trickles down my cheek involuntarily, and Nick quickly walks toward me to wipe it away, reminding me of the tear I brushed from Thatcher's face just before . . .

I shake my head to clear it.
Why am I crying about a world I made up
? I wonder, chastising myself for thinking of Thatcher. Nick is real, and he's in front of me. Thatcher doesn't exist. He can't. It isn't possible.

“I don't mean to upset you, Cal,” says Nick. “Maybe I should just go.”

I muster a smile, and he squeezes my hand before he leaves. This touch, it's real. It doesn't make my body fill with energy, it doesn't light me up inside . . . but it's concrete, uncomplicated, solid.

I will myself to feel good about this, about being here, being with Nick. My brain must be completely muddled for me to be mourning a world that I made up in my head instead of celebrating waking up from a coma and getting a second chance at my life with the people I love so much. Mama would have taken this chance . . . I know it.

“I'll let Carson come in,” says Nick. “I can almost hear her scratching at the door.”

He leans over to give me another quick kiss on the cheek.

“I'm so sorry, Callie,” he says, his face serious. Then he turns and walks out.

In a burst of energy, Carson pushes open the hospital curtains. She's careful with me, but she still manages to give me a huge hug—it's the kind I missed so much while I was in the Prism. I blink to erase my confusion, so I can stay in this moment—this
real
moment—with Carson, instead of going into my coma dreams again. She lays herself across my lap and stares at me with wide, excited eyes.

“Callie, you won't believe what you've missed!” she sings. “Did you know you woke up just in time for junior year? School is about to start! Way to sleep through the entire summer!”

I stifle a laugh—it hurts when it starts to bubble up, but I am glad to want to laugh again, to be alive again. The fog around my brain is lifting a little because of clear-eyed Carson, who never changes for anyone or any situation. I think of how I imagined her when I was hallucinating
(yes, that's what it was, a hallucination . . . )
—keeping hope alive that she could bring me back from the dead.

She starts going over tons of gossip that she knows I'd never have cared about, and still don't, but it's fun to hear her talk. Dad and Nick were so careful with me, so gentle. It's nice to have Carson treating me normally.

As I listen to her energetic chatter, my nagging worries start to fall away. There are no poltergeists, there is no Prism, no body possession or group of Guides. I wonder why Ella Hartley entered my subconscious with such a presence, and I make a mental note to visit her grave when I get out of the hospital.

But why is there a sting of doubt underneath my thoughts? I stare at the prism that Nick brought, zoning out a little while Carson talks.
Prove it to me, Thatcher
, I think.
Prove that it was real, if it was.

“I guess being in a coma made you appreciate life and all that,” Carson is saying when I tune back in, not so much asking me as hypothesizing out loud. “By the way, I'm never letting you take a risk with yourself again! You're too valuable as a best friend. I mean, you should have seen me without you. I was
lost
! Shuffling around the house, whining to Georgia, baking like there was no tomorrow. I must have gained three pounds!”

I widen my eyes in mock shock.

“Well, you know that's a lot on me!” she says. “I'm short! Oh, but Callie, what was it like being in a coma? I mean, do you remember what you dreamed about or—maybe it isn't dreaming, maybe it's more like a trance state?”

She pauses and leans in, whispering now. “Or maybe your spirit actually leaves your body?”

I stare at her, willing her to mention something I remember—the séance, the night in the car with the radio. Maybe Thatcher can make her say it out loud.

But she stops talking and looks up into the air like she's thinking hard about something. And I suddenly realize that I am so, so sleepy.

“Cars,” I say.

Her eyes brim with tears. “Callie! You said something!”

Oh, yeah, I did.

My voice is unsteady, weak, but functioning. I guess I have a few weeks' worth of sleep caught in my throat.

“What is it?” she asks. “What did you want to tell me?”

“Tired . . . ,” I start.

“Oh, my manners!” she says. “Of course you're tired, and I'm just prattling on about myself. I'm sorry, Cal, forgive me!”

She squeezes me once again around the waist and turns for the hallway.

“I'll be back every day,” she says, blowing me a kiss.

Then she runs out the door, and I hear her flag down a nurse.

“She's talking!” Carson yells.

 

When my best friend leaves, I stare at the prism and watch it dangle in the window, catching the sunlight and sprinkling bright colors onto the tan linoleum floor. I must have known it was here subconsciously, somehow—the Prism. I created a whole world in my head, with ghosts and haunting and Guides and poltergeists. How very detailed it was! I hear myself sigh out loud as I try to accept the fact that it wasn't real.

What
is
real is that I have another shot at living my life. And I remember the regret I felt, while I was in the coma, at not having appreciated each day and the people who loved me. I make a silent vow to do that—to hold on to the little moments, the ones that I used to consider boring or trite or just plain unimportant. I don't need any more thrill seeking to make me feel alive. I just have to remember how I felt when I was . . . almost dead.

 

The hospital physical therapist comes in to see me a few times. While she helps me regain strength in my arms and legs—which are wobbly and thin from lack of use—she asks me simple questions. About my name, my address, what year it is, who's president. I pass that part with flying colors, and I wonder if she's ever going to delve deeper, ask me what I experienced when I was in the coma. But she doesn't. I guess the hospital is concerned with my
life
, not my death.

I started to ask my dad about the subconscious, and he gave me a long explanation about how synapses in the brain fire when someone is in a coma, how they can create sights, sounds, other worlds that seem incredibly real.

Then he warned me not to talk about much, even if it's just made up, because there are reporters who have been sniffing around, people who want to ask me all kinds of questions about my “near-death experience.”

So I shut up.

 

“Oatmeal mush again?” I say to Patricia, the nurse who comes every morning to prop me up on pillows and check my vitals. “Can I get an extra cookie at least?”

I smile big, because I ask this every day, and every day she gives in. She feels bad for me, I think. Visiting hours are just a small fraction of the afternoon, and the TV only has a few channels.

She pats my arm as she undoes the Velcro cuff and smiles at me. “You'll be out of here soon enough, and then you can eat anything you like,” she says.

“Really?” I ask.

“Tomorrow,” says Patricia, her eyes shining. “We just got a release date for you, and your dad's taking you home in the morning.”

My grin is huge as I lie back on my pillows. For eight days now, I've been put through a battery of tests by the doctors and fed lots of Jell-O and soft foods. The nurses agreed to take out my IV once I showed them how much I could eat. Oh, man, did I miss food! Even this hospital stuff is a taste sensation in my mouth.

What I can't stand, though, is how much everyone who visits coddles me. My dad talks softly, which is so unlike him, and Nick's only been twice, both times hovering over me like a nervous bird, like he might break me. There has been a steady parade of well-wishers—people from the church we used to go to, neighbors, Curtis Simmons and a few of the guys from the sheriff's department . . . even our school principal, Mr. Faulkland, who brought me a giant bouquet of sunflowers. But they all kind of stood over me, looking afraid. Like at any moment I might slip back into oblivion, and if they were there when it happened, they'd be somehow to blame. I understand how they feel, though—life is fragile, worthy of reverence and gentle care. The old me didn't realize that at all.

Still, I sometimes get tired of their nervousness. Only Carson acts like herself—lying next to me on the bed, painting my toenails while she tells me about her various boyfriend possibilities for junior year. She even tried to sneak Georgia in once (“That dog is dying to see you!” she told me), but she got caught by an orderly and was banned from visiting hours the next day, so I told her not to attempt it again. I can't live without my daily dose of Carson. It's the only thing keeping me sane.

When Dad comes this afternoon, he asks me if I want anything special for dinner on my first night back at home. “We'll eat out on the porch,” says Dad. “Did I tell you I put in a swing like you always wanted?”

I flash back to being with Thatcher on the porch swing at Dodsons' Farm. A throbbing despair works its way into my heart, one that I can't quite explain. It feels like there's a part of me missing
. But it was all in my head
.

I find that I'm having to remind myself of that a few times a day—I have to fight to stay out of my thoughts and in the world in front of me. Still, I can't help but repeat my request every night when the lights go out.
Thatcher, give me a sign. Show me that it was real.
So far, nothing. Which should make me feel even more certain that it was all in my mind, that the Prism doesn't exist.

The only thing that keeps me hanging on is the dull pain in my heart, the one that feels like the ache of truth, a physical manifestation of the loss I experience whenever I think of Thatcher. On my last night in the hospital, I ask again for a sign. But this time I add,
If you're not giving me a sign because you want me to move on and forget you, I won't. Don't think you can do that to me—I will keep trying to find you.

I'm not sure even I believe what I've said—it sounds crazy. But I know him, or the him I created in my mind, and that's the type of thing that he'd respond to. I hope.