The Agent's Daughter (17 page)

Melina nodded, composed herself and
continued. She successfully negotiated the right turn at the end of
the street as well as the three turns that it took to get out of
their neighborhood and onto the main street. The first light that
Melina came to was red. She gently applied the brakes and came to a
perfect stop behind the line. Melina looked over at her dad and saw
that he was holding onto the passenger door handle as if he were on
a rollercoaster ride.

“
Are you making a right
turn here?” Evan asked in a snotty rhetorical tone.

“
Yes, I am.”

“
I don’t hear a signal,”
he said. “If you don’t signal your intentions, people won’t know
what you are going to do. That leads to accidents.”

Melina looked at her dad again. She had
never seen him like this. If she did not know better, she would say
that he was nervous. His voice sounded different. He even sounded a
little mean. She put the right turn signal on and went back to
waiting for the light.

“
What are you waiting
for?” Evan said, agitated.

“
What!” Melina said. “It’s
a red light.”

“
Unless it is marked, you
can turn right at a red light when the traffic allows.”

“
Oh. I must have missed
that in class.”

Melina looked to make sure that no cars were
coming and made a right turn. Satisfied that she was doing okay,
she started to relax as she drove toward the next light a mile in
the distance. Evan still had a death grip on the passenger door
handle.

Evan glanced over at the speedometer and
then blew up. “Melina, slow down! The speed limit is forty miles
per hour and you are doing fifty!”

Melina couldn’t take it
anymore. She slowed down, signaled a right turn and pulled into the
parking lot of a mini mall. She parked in the first available
parking space located in front of a sandwich shop and turned off
the engine. Then she turned to look at her dad, prepared for the
biggest fight she could imagine. Only, he wasn’t looking back at
her. He had his face buried in his hands and was softly
muttering
no, no, no
.

“
Dad, what is the matter?”
Melina said with equal parts shock, anger and concern.

“
I have a slight problem
with this. You being a driver,” he said.

“
Ya think?” she
said.

Evan forced a smile. “It’s more than just a
dad worried about his little girl. There is something else you
should know. I haven’t wanted to tell you because I wasn’t sure how
you would react.”

Melina shifted in her seat. “Is there
something I have done?”

“
No, no,” he said. “It’s
nothing you have done. It is something I have done… it is my fault
that Mom got into an accident.”

“
What?” Melina said. “You
weren’t even there. She was alone. It was determined that some hose
had come loose, and that caused the car’s brakes to fail. That was
why she ran that red light and went into that intersection. How are
you at fault?”

“
Whose car are we driving
now?” Evan said.

“
It’s Mom’s. She was
driving your car the night of the accident.”

“
Exactly,” Evan said. “She
hated that car. After that friend of mine threw up in the back
seat, she even started referring to it as The Barfmobile. She said
that she could still smell it.”

“
So why was she driving
it?”

“
On the day of the
accident, I took Mom’s car to the store to buy some groceries
because her car had the bigger trunk. As I was leaving, she asked
me to put gas in her car because it was almost empty. On the way
there, I got interested in the baseball game on the radio and
forgot to get gas in her car. Later when Mom went to leave to run
an errand, her car had no gas, so she took my car.”

There was a long silence as Melina waited
for her dad to continue. To get to his point. But he did not seem
to have anything else to say.

“
Is that the end of your
story?” Melina asked. “Mom took your car and you feel responsible
for her getting into an accident?”

“
If I had just filled up
her car with gas, she would have driven her own car and not mine.
That should have been me in that car.”

Melina thought for a moment. “Dad, is this
why you won’t go in to see Mom when we go to the hospital?”

Evan looked up at her. “I can’t face her. I
can’t be in that room and have your mom look at me with those sweet
brown eyes, knowing that I am responsible.”

Melina leaned over and put her arm around
Evan’s shoulder. “Dad. It was not your fault. Mom happened to be
driving the car when something faulty happened. Yes, she hated that
car, but she still drove it on occasion. Something could have
happened any one of those times.”

Evan felt better that Melina did not think
he was responsible, but she had not changed his mind.

“
Would you mind if I
finished the drive to the hospital?” he said.

“
I will make a deal with
you,” Melina said. “You finish the drive, but when we get there
then you come with me into Mom’s room.”

Evan sat up and looked her in the eye. He
knew this was something significant to her.

“
It’s a deal.”

Melina and Evan both got out, and they each
headed toward the opposite side of the car. As Melina got to the
front of the car, and she slowed down to let her dad go by, she
glanced into the window of the sandwich shop. She stopped in her
tracks when she spotted Alex sitting at a table near the window.
Then she saw who was sitting opposite him at the table …

Ellen Barlow.

Melina stared into the window. Ellen looked
up, spotted Melina and gave her a fake, exaggerated look of having
been caught at something. Melina ran to the passenger side of the
car, opened the door, and then paused to take one more look into
the sandwich shop window. This time her eyes met Alex’s. His eyes
grew wide at the realization as he saw Melina look down, get into
the car and close the door.

“
You okay?” Evan
said.

“
Let’s go,” Melina said
coldly.

Evan backed the car up and pulled out of the
parking lot onto the street. Melina pulled her phone from her
pocket and pressed a button on the screen. After a moment, the
phone flickered and then shut off.

…………………………
.

The rest of the drive to the hospital was
quick and without conversation. Evan was lost in thought at the
prospect of facing Laura. Melina was contemplating the meaning of
Alex having lunch with Ellen. But once they got to the hospital,
Melina’s spirits began to lift when her thoughts shifted to seeing
her mom. Nothing was going to ruin her visit.

Sensing that her dad may have trouble, she
walked arm-in-arm with him as soon as they got out of the car. She
was right as Evan slowed when they approached Laura’s room. He
suddenly felt as though he had to explain why he had not been in
her room in months. Although she would not be able to hear him, he
needed to tell her. But he did not have the words yet. Melina, on
the other hand, was more than ready. She grabbed the door to the
room and swung it open.

“
Let’s go Dad. We’re goin’
in.”

Melina swept into the room and greeted Laura
with a loud and happy ‘Hey Mom’ and an enormous hug. Evan slunk
behind and stood at the foot of the bed. He was clearly
uncomfortable.

“
Look who I brought
today,” Melina said with obvious happiness. It sounded like the
opening of a conversation. Evan reflexively looked over at Laura
for her response. He felt a sting in his psyche when she did not
respond.

But Melina continued as if it were a
conversation. “Lots of things have happened since I was here last
week. Let’s start with the biggest news. Do you remember that boy
Alex that I told you about that is in my physics and language arts
classes? You know, the one that I’ve had a crush on since the
beginning of the school year? Early in the week, we were assigned
to be lab partners on the new magnetics unit that we are studying.
Once we got to talking, he said that he kinda liked me. Great,
huh?”

Evan felt strange. Like he was intruding on
their conversation. He slowly backed away from the bed. He grabbed
a soda from a mini refrigerator in the corner of the room and sat
down. Melina did not notice. She was still talking to Laura.

“
We hung out together at
school all week, and he has been walking me to my classes. Last
night he came over to study, and while we were sitting on the
couch, we held hands. There was no kissing though.”

There was a loud noise as Evan choked on his
soda.

Melina briefly looked at Evan and then
continued. “Tonight, Alex and I are supposed to go out together on
our first date, but on the way here, I saw him in the sandwich shop
having lunch with another girl from school that I know for sure is
interested in him. I don’t know what to do.”

Evan sat back in his chair. He had no idea
any of this was going on. But now it was clear to him why it was so
crucial for Melina to come to the hospital. Laura could not hear
her, but Melina was still talking to her about things a daughter
would talk to a mother about. Things she would not feel comfortable
talking about with her dad. She needed this.

Melina continued to talk for another hour,
telling her mom about everything that happened to her that week.
She detailed conversations she’d had and told of things she had
done and people she had met. She spent twenty minutes on Angela
alone. All the while holding up one-half of a conversation and
never showing the slightest sadness.

After a while, Evan stood up and came over
to the side of the bed. “Do you mind if I talk to your mom for a
while, kiddo?”

Melina backed away and sat down in the chair
as Evan took her place by the side of the bed. He took one of
Laura’s hands into his own, held it to his lips, and kissed it.

“
I realize that I have not
visited you for a while,” he began. After a moment to gather his
emotions, he continued. “I have not been able to face you. I feel
that I am responsible for your accident. If I had just filled your
car’s tank with gas, you never would have been driving my car.
Melina has tried her best to convince me otherwise, but I will
spend the rest of my life knowing that it is my fault that you are
here. I am so sorry.”

Melina stood up and walked to the foot of
the bed. Her mom had a look on her face that she had not seen
before.

“
Laura, I miss you so
much. I have never told you this, but I fell in love with you the
day we met. I have loved you every second since then. I will love
you until the day I die.”

Evan put his head down on Laura’s chest and
closed his eyes.

“
Dad, look!” Melina
shouted.

Evan looked up at Melina, who was pointing
at her mom’s face. He looked over at Laura. Her face was still
expressionless, but there was a single tear running down her
cheek.

He stood up and pushed the emergency call
button to summon help. Seconds later, Laura’s doctor rushed into
the room.

“
Doctor Johnson!” Melina
cried. “Look at the tear!”

The doctor ran to the side of the bed to
take a closer look at the tear. He shined a light into Laura’s eyes
to check her pupil dilation, and then grabbed her wrist to check
her heart rate.

He turned to Melina and Evan. “Her dilation
is a little improved over normal, and her heart rate is a little
elevated. This makes no sense, even for Laura.”

“
What do you mean, even
for Laura?” Evan asked.

“
I know you have not been
around for many months, but I thought that your daughter had you
kept you up on her condition.”

“
Well… no. That would be
my fault,” Evan said.

“
Laura has presented us
with a condition that no doctor we have contacted has ever seen.
When we first received her as a patient, she was in a deep coma
with little brain activity. Then, as the month wore on, she gained
more brain activity. Not complete recovery, but measurable
improvement. However, at the end of that month, all improvement in
the brain activity ceased and she regressed back to the state she
was in when we first saw her.”

“
So she got better and
then got worse?” Evan asked.

“
I wouldn’t say she was
better, but we could tell from the brain scans that Laura’s
condition was improved from when she arrived. But here is the weird
part. After her return to the earlier state, she started to get
better again. This also lasted for about a month and then the same
thing happened. She regressed back to her initial state. This
pattern has happened five times. Not longer than five weeks and not
shorter than three weeks. It’s as if her brain is trying to
reboot.”

“
Could her tears be an
indication that the cycle is broken and that she is getting
better?” Melina asked.

“
It is too early to tell.
The tear could still be involuntary, a reaction to hearing your
father’s voice,” the doctor said as he walked to the door. “I’ll
run a new series of tests as soon as I can and see if there
actually is something going on. For now, I must go back to my
rounds. Goodbye Melina, Mr. Roberts.”

Melina looked over at her dad who held out
his arms to her. She walked over to him, and he gave her a hug.

“
Thank you for making me
come back here,” he said. “I will no longer doubt that Mom is going
to get better. You have my word.”