THIRTY-SIX

MARBLEHEAD HUMMED WITH THANKSGIVING WEEK contentment. The chilly air carried the comforting scent of burning logs. Hibernating boats huddled on winter dry docks and dreamed of warm weather. Twinkling Christmas decorations made their merry debut. Around Engine Company 2 on Franklin Street, life was especially good. There hadn't been a big blaze since the School Street Fire.

Charlie was wearing the uniform of a full-time paramedic at the station, now also his home until he found a place of his own. On this utterly uneventful Friday, as the clock in the rec room chimed six--time for a shift change--Charlie grabbed a coat from his locker and headed out to the Rambler. With a few extra turns of the key, he brought the old car to life. Sure, it was almost ready for the scrap yard, but it was a good ride, and sometimes he could drive all day and late into the night just to feel the road rushing beneath him.

Tonight Charlie had only one place to go. He headed down Pleasant Street, veered onto MA-114 toward Salem, and within minutes pulled into the parking lot of the North Shore Medical Center. He walked right through the lobby, waved to the admission nurses, and went straight to Room 172. He knocked gently, then opened the door.

Tess was alone and asleep in her coma. Bandages and ventilator gone, she was pale, but was breathing on her own now. Her hands were folded on her chest, and she seemed completely at peace. He had memorized every single detail of her oval face, her pale lips, and her long eyelashes. It was so strange. He had touched every inch of her that night in the cottage, and yet he didn't know her physically at all.

In eight weeks, Charlie had studied all sorts of books and articles on brain injury. The longest, best-documented complete recovery from a coma was two and a half years, but he had uncovered even more-amazing cases, like the Albuquerque woman who had arisen from a sixteen-year sleep one Christmas day and had asked to go shopping at the mall, and the fifty-three-year-old Toronto shopkeeper who had fallen into a coma and had awoken thirty years later wondering, "What's on TV?"

Those were the extreme examples, but he knew something miraculous could also happen for Tess, and, in a way, it already had. God had answered his prayers. She hadn't vanished from the cemetery because she was moving on to the next realm. She had disappeared because she was trying to return to this life.

He had spent so many hours here by her bedside in this room that had been made homey by Grace and her friends. There were plants from Kipp's Greenhouses and get-well cards from Mrs. Paternina's science class. Hanging over her bed, an autographed poster of Tom Brady, the Patriots quarterback and Super Bowl hero, said, Get well soon. Photos of her dad fishing on his lobster boat and of Querencia in sea trials crowded the bedside table.

"Big weekend for your boys," Charlie said, sitting down beside her. He pulled The Boston Globe sports page from his coat pocket and read her the highlights. "Looks like the Jets plan to challenge your linebackers with some new tight end they drafted."

This was Charlie's ritual now, but he was nonetheless watchful that he not slip back into his old habit of following a fixed routine. Sometimes he stopped by in the morning. On other occasions he dropped by after work. One week he would skip a few days, then another he would show up steadily for a stretch.

He wanted to be there for her, but he also wanted to live his life. He had picked up tickets for a New Year's trip to the Pacific Northwest to see his mother. And he was planning a backpacking adventure across Africa and Asia a year from now.

With each visit, Charlie always gave Tess the latest. Today he shared the delicious new scandal in town. Reverend Polkinghorne had been caught naked on the dock of the Eastern Yacht Club with two-- yes, two--of his flock: Sherry Trench and Gena Carruthers.

Charlie believed Tess was listening to every word of every story. He tried to make things quick and funny. He wanted to charm her, even in her sleep. Sometimes he imagined her throwing her head back in laughter. Other times he pictured her giving him grief when he went on too long.

When he was tired of talking, he went to the window to watch the sun go down. "It's gorgeous tonight," he said. "You ought to see it." He still felt that alarm inside warn him that he needed to be in the forest. But then he saw the moon rising and he knew Sam was still out there.

It was dark now. The hospital was silent. It was time to go. "Night, Tess," he said. "I sure miss you." He kissed her on the cheek and had started through the door when he realized he had forgotten to say something. "I'm having dinner with Tink tonight," he said, going back to her. "We're heading over to the Barnacle. I wish you warned me how much that guy could eat. There aren't enough clams in the ocean to fill him up." He reached forward and pushed her bangs away.

Then Charlie saw her lashes flutter and her incredible emerald eyes open, and he wondered if he was imagining them.

Date: 2014-12-29; view: 624