But she tries again and again, and her thumb rests limply against her index finger.
She’s lost track of Shannon’s words, but now hears her say, “Listen, I might have been one of the last people to talk to her. I sure think it would be useful if I could talk directly to the police instead of through a handler from the college.”
Pause, and Tara hopes she’ll begin clicking the pen again, but the pause is brief and then Shannon says, “Fine, just please give me a call back so I can explain this to my family.”
Shannon disconnects, lowers the phone, and stares at the wall with an expression that Tara hasn’t seen many times on her sister’s face: helplessness. The only memories Tara has of this look come from early childhood, in the days after her father’s death, when her mother’s depression was the darkest, the battle with medications the worst; even big sister Shannon had no idea what to do.
Put down that phone, Shannon had told Tara one terrible day after Tara had picked up the phone to call 911 for their unconscious mother. Shannon’s helplessness was gone from her face, replaced by fury. If you call, they’ll take us away, don’t you understand that?
Tara had put down the phone. Shannon sat with their mother until dawn, washing her face with a damp cloth and making sure that her head was tilted to the side so she couldn’t choke on her own vomit. Then she made Tara breakfast and sent her to school with instructions to keep her mouth shut about the situation at home; Shannon was handling it.
She had, too. Somehow, she had handled it.
Shannon turns to her, one eyebrow cocked, and Tara could swear that they’ve bridged the void somehow. This happens with people occasionally, with Shannon more than anyone else and most frequently when they are alone in the room. Now Shannon looks at her and says, “I think you should have gone to a state school, mi hermana. You could’ve saved a lot of money in student loans for the same level of incompetence.”
Tara laughs. She doesn’t move or make a sound, of course, but she laughs, and some part of her believes that Shannon knows it.
“The college hired an investigator for your case,” Shannon says, “who then apparently killed her boss and ran away. Talk about bringing in the best and the brightest.”
She’s smiling; she always seems happiest when she’s being sarcastic or cutting, a trait that makes relationships a struggle for her. Then the smile fades, her focus shifts away from Tara, and it is evident that she feels like she is alone in the room again.
Which breaks Tara’s heart.
“Abby seemed like she cared,” Shannon says softly, clearly speaking to herself now. Then she gives a little snap-out-of-it head shake, pulls a chair to the side of the bed, sits, and looks hard at Tara’s face.
“Regardless, she gave me a good idea, T. I did some reading last night, and I made some calls this morning, and I have good news — you get to watch a movie.”
Watch a movie? The television is always on. Mostly, Tara hates that. If she were able to change the channel, it wouldn’t be so bad, but when they leave it on just for background noise, like she’s a nervous puppy, it’s infuriating.
“Dr. Pine himself approved it,” Shannon says. “Even Rick and Mom say it’s worth a try. Not just a movie, though, T. — you get a field trip.” She takes Tara’s limp hand. Her touch is warm and wonderful. So few people are willing to let their touches linger.
My thumb can move, Tara thinks. Do it again, damn it, do it now, you stupid thumb, while someone has the chance to notice.
But her thumb lies motionless against Shannon’s palm.
“They’re going to put you in an ambulance and take you to a lab about an hour away, at a university hospital where there’s a coma research program, and then they’ll hook you up to even more of these...” She lifts one of the many wires that lead from Tara’s body to the monitors beside the bed. “And then they’re going to show you a movie and wait to see if the computers can tell whether you respond to it. Whether you can track it, whether you feel anything watching it.” Shannon’s voice wavers, and she bites her lower lip and looks away.
Tara realizes just how important this test must be. If she doesn’t pass this one, if she can’t somehow let these computers know that she is in here... big decisions are going to be made soon.
This may be her last chance to have a voice in them.
“I did win one battle,” Shannon says, turning back to her with a sniff and that forced smile. “They usually use some crappy black-and-white film. I told them that my sister hates black-and-white. They didn’t like the idea of changing, but I can be persuasive.”
An understatement for the ages. She could still sell tickets for the Titanic, Rick had once said of Shannon.
“So I got to pick the film,” she continues, squeezing Tara’s hand. “And I’ll give you one guess what I picked.”
Something scary, Tara thinks. Shannon loves Tara’s fear of horror movies, the way even the cheesy ones can make her jump, how she covers her eyes and watches them through her fingers.
“That’s right,” Shannon says, “your test will be a familiar one. You get to watch Jaws.”
Well, now. Tara has long proclaimed Jaws to be the most re-watchable movie in history. She hasn’t anticipated that being put to a coma test, though.
“You’ll respond,” Shannon whispers. “I know you will. When Quint starts talking about the Indianapolis sinking or when Chief Brody realizes his own son is on the sailboat by the shark, you’ll respond. Just to the dumb music, you’ll respond.” She’s imploring now, a hint of desperation to her words that scares Tara. This test is going to be very important.
“The people at the lab were encouraging,” Shannon says, seemingly more to reassure herself than anything else. “They’ve had good results.” She pauses. “Maybe I won’t mention where I got the idea.”
27
As Abby drove Hank’s Tahoe along the turnpike, she remembered that she’d already spent some time considering life as a fugitive, thanks to Luke. One of his first leads in anything that wasn’t a purely over-the-top action film where spiders fought robots was in a movie about a husband-and-wife team on the run, a Hitchcock knockoff that bombed at the box office. While he was reading the script and rehearsing, though, he enjoyed pondering the scenario.
“It’s so much harder now than it would have been fifty years ago,” he’d said, stretched out on the chaise longue on their cramped balcony during one of the rare hours that sunlight fell on it. “Think about it — you could pay cash for hotel rooms and rental cars and plane tickets, there were pay phones everywhere and no surveillance cameras, and you could hot-wire a car with a screwdriver.”
Abby interrupted and asked him to explain that process, to tell her just how he’d go about hot-wiring a car with a screwdriver in the good old days. Luke smiled. “That was the golden age of hot-wiring! Simple! But the newer cars are tougher.”