“When this is all over,” he says, “I want you to tell me everything that was said about me behind my back.”
The room goes silent, and Dr. Carlisle appears vaguely annoyed. In that expression, Tara sees the results of the test — she passed, and Dr. Carlisle wanted to make the announcement.
She passed. Tara is positive. They know that—
“She’s alert,” Dr. Carlisle says, the annoyed expression gone and a radiant smile in its place. “Not just alert — fully and completely aware, cognitively and emotionally. Her results are extraordinary. Not unprecedented, but close. Every lobe reacted as it should have; her visual, auditory, and processing responses to the movie were perfect.” She turns to Shannon and says, “And she certainly had an emotional response to the girl at the beginning of the movie. You weren’t wrong about that.”
Chrissie, Tara thinks. Why can’t anyone ever remember her name?
That’s when Mom falls on her knees beside the bed and presses Tara’s hand to her face, her tears soaking Tara’s palm, and then Shannon is there, saying how she always knew it, but her quavering voice gives her away, and Rick is the only one who holds back, but Tara can’t blame him for that, and she’s grateful that he’s actually pausing to thank the doctors and is touched by the emotion in his voice.
“She’s hearing us?” Mom says, staring at Tara with wonder. “You’re sure? Right now, she’s hearing me?”
“Every word,” Dr. Carlisle promises, pulling a chair up beside the bed. Dr. Pine stays on his feet, smiling but pacing. Like any shark, he must keep moving or he will die.
“And she’s always heard us?” Shannon asks, and Tara wants to laugh at the poorly suppressed guilt in her voice. Shannon is probably conducting an inventory of everything she let slip in moments when she thought she was alone. No matter what confidence they all professed, none of them were sure that Tara could hear a word. Now they are getting an awareness of that ghost in the room.
“I can’t tell you when she came back or whether she’s been alert the entire time; all I can tell you is that she is now,” Dr. Carlisle says.
“What does that mean for her prognosis?” Shannon asks. Mom looks wounded by the question, as if it’s in some way undermining the joy of what they’ve just been told, but it is also the question Tara would ask if she had a voice.
“Entirely unknown,” Dr. Pine says. “But it only helps. One of the greatest challenges in rehabilitating the brain is the constant testing and guessing it requires from the medical team, from the family, everyone. Based on Dr. Carlisle’s results, Tara is going to be able to help us enormously there. She may not have her voice, but she should be able to communicate. If we know what she’s experiencing, feeling, and requiring, that is a tremendous advantage in treating her successfully.” His eyes are locked on Tara with excitement.
I’m an opportunity to him, she realizes. Something he’s been waiting for for maybe his whole career. It’s an odd sensation but not a bad one — he wants to see if he can bring her all the way back. That’s a goal Tara can get behind.
“There may be even more reason for celebration,” Dr. Carlisle says. “When reviewing the video of Tara’s face during the test, Dr. Pine noticed what seems to be some oculomotor progress.”
“Oculomotor?” Mom echoes tentatively.
“She can blink?” Rick asks.
“Not quite... or at least not quite yet,” Dr. Pine says. “But the progress she’s demonstrating since our initial tests may be more useful than even Tara knows.”
He’s studying Tara’s eyes while moving his hand in the air like a conductor. The longer he does it, the more delighted he seems.
“Vertical eye motion,” he says. He sits and perches with perfect posture on a stool beside her bed; he looks like a bird of prey. “She’s regained that. Consistent with locked-in syndrome.”
“Locked-in syndrome?” Rick asks, and he looks at Tara with something between concern and horror. The name seems self-explanatory, and terrifying. They’re all learning now what Tara has been living with for days.
“Charming name, isn’t it?” Dr. Pine says. “But it’s clear, at least. Tara is with us, but Tara is trapped.”
Mom murmurs something inaudible and puts her head in her hands.
“Not all bad, though,” Dr. Pine continues. “Locked-in syndrome prevents outbound communication, yes, but it also, perhaps, provides some protection. And now that we know she’s in there, we can work to bridge the void.” He studies her with a slight incline of his head, then smiles. “Excellent.”
Tara tracked the motion with her eyes, and he saw it. The rush of euphoria this realization brings is almost overwhelming, and if she could cry, she would. He sees me. He sees me!
“Locked-in syndrome is caused by an insult to the ventral pons,” he says. “But with vertical eye motion, she’s not as trapped as she was before. She should be able to communicate.”
An insult to the ventral pons, Tara thinks. That’s the term for having your brain knocked around your skull and leaving you unable to move or speak — an insult? The word seems woefully insufficient.
“Essentially, her condition has caused paralysis with preservation of consciousness and retention of vertical eye movement. She has some voluntary eyelid motion, but her response to the blink requests, as you saw, showed a lack of control.” He leans forward and lifts a pencil with his thumb and index finger. “But there’s progress. I think Tara is in control of her vertical eye motion now. Aren’t you, Tara? Show them.”
He lifts the pencil slowly, then lowers it. Mom gasps; Rick puts a hand on her shoulder that seems designed to steady himself as much as her, and Shannon stares at Tara, enthralled.
“Oh, honey,” Mom says. “Oh, baby.” She’s squeezing Tara’s hand and blinking away tears. Dr. Pine tolerates the interruption. Behind them, Dr. Carlisle paces and smiles.
Competitive, Tara thinks. She found me in here first. He wants me now. That is just fine with her. The more the merrier when it comes to people invested in her return, but she wonders if they’ll remember who suggested she watch Jaws.
Mom releases her hand, rises, gets her iPad, then rushes back, holding it with the camera lens trained on Tara. She’s shaking so badly it seems unlikely she’ll be able to keep it in her hands, let alone in focus. Tara wants to laugh. For years, she and Shannon made fun of Mom’s insistence on capturing every family moment on film, but even now?
Dr. Pine says, “Tara, let’s try for yes and no. When you want to indicate a yes response, look up once. When you want to say no, do it twice.” He pauses and wets his lips, and for the first time Tara sees that behind the clinical demeanor, he’s nervous. “Okay,” he says. “Tara, do you understand what I just said?”
She looks up. Once.
“Tara, does two plus two equal ten?”
She looks up twice.
Dr. Pine lets out a long breath. “We’re batting a thousand,” he says. “Tara, is Shannon your sister?”
Up once.
“Am I your father?”
Up twice.
Mom is crying now, tears streaming down her face, over those purple rings below her eyes that have darkened with each day in here; her iPad shakes in her hands like a highway sign in hurricane winds.
Shannon pushes in beside Dr. Pine, kneels, and looks at Tara with a trembling smile. “Tara,” she says, “did you ever quit?”