B0079G5GMK EBOK (16 page)

Clarissa concentrated her eyes on the man she saw through the window. Adam
was sitting
in the back of the room with a guitar on his lap, looking heartbreakingly sad. She had never seen him this vulnerable. Usually he managed to hide his true feelings under his hard shield, and seeing him like this, without any
shields, swept her off her feet
. Clarissa took a deep breath and put her hand on the doorknob. If she opened the door now, it would change everything. Was she ready for that? She blew the air away from her lungs and lifted her chin. The answer was yes. She was ready.
             

Not wanting to disturb Adam, she carefully turned the knob and the door opened silently. She slipped inside and faced Adam's night black eyes that looked at her questioningly. Clarissa answered his look, but said nothing. She gave him a quick smile and went to sit a
gainst the sidewall of the room
. Adam smiled and continued his playing. Clarissa closed her eyes and opened her senses to the music. Slowly she began to understand. She knew the language now and the song, sung in old Gaelic, suddenly meant something to her. Her eyes opened and she held her breath.

Adam was singing about them. A silent, heartbreakingl
y beautiful song about his
feelings for her. What she really meant
to him. He
didn't move his eyes from Clarissa for a second and s
he felt like a helpless bug struggling
against a big hunting spider. She wanted to run away. She hadn't been prepared for anything this big. She hadn't known what Adam would do to her and how his lyrics would affect her. She realized that she loved him. She loved this cocky man that she had secretly already chosen for herself. It didn't matter what he had done in the past or how rudely he had treated her. This moment was the only one that mattered. He showed his feeli
ngs openly with his eyes, begging
her to accept his love. Clarissa swallowed and tried to get up. Her legs didn't cooperate and she had to take some help from the wall before she could really get up. She gasped and staggered her way out and the last thing she heard was Adam's silent sigh as he whispered her name.

Sofia

Fifteen days had passed since Marie was rushed to the hospital. I brushed my hair with my fingers and looked at Tiamhaidh. He looked awful. His untidy bristle had grown into a real beard and his eyes looked like a panda's.
The dark circles
made him look like a drug-addict and his clothes were all wrinkled. He had stayed next to Marie and as far as I could remember, I couldn't think of one moment when he had moved from the room or the last time he had eaten. I glanced at his dazzling blue eyes and froze. His eyes were noticeably paler than before and it seemed like he was somewhere else rather than in this hospital room with us. If we couldn't manage to save Marie soon, we would also lose him, and that couldn't happen. I knew I didn't look much better but I felt considerably well compared to Tiamhaidh. That wasn't good enough though and I knew we had to pull ourselves together or we would be no good for Marie. To my surprise, Clarissa had offered to sit next to Marie a few times and I had had a chance to take a shower, but as far as I knew Tiamhaidh had taken his shower in the sink of the men's toilet. David
was keeping
both our home and our family together and out of the three of us, he was the one who looked the cleanest.

The door opened and Marie's doctor, Joan Milton, peeked in. When she saw me and David, she opened the door completely and came in. She silently checked all of the machines around Marie and sighed.

“We have to decide soon what we're going to do with Marie,” Milton said seriously.

“What do you mean?” I asked carefully.

She looked at us and cleared her throat. “I think it's time to release Marie from the respirator or to move her from the ICU and accept that she's not going to get better and that she will be like this for now.”

“What do you mean by she will be like this for now? We have to do everything we can to help her,” I said anxiously.

Milton touched my hand
gently and smiled sadly. “Sofia, we have done everything already. There is no remedy for Marie anymore.”

Milton glanced at David as if to ask help from him, but he
was sitting
on the chair, stiff as wood, and didn't even notice her look.

“There must be a way,” I whispered.

Milton shook her head sadly. The room
was
filled with depressing silence and Milton turned as if to leave.

“What happens if you take her off of that respirator?” Tiamhaidh asked so quietly that we could barely hear him.

Milton was quiet as she looked at Tiamhaidh's begging eyes, trying to avoid the answer. “I don't know. None of us does. She might die in a minute or recover. I'm so sorry. I wish I could give you the answer you want to hear, but I honestly don't know,” Milton sighed.

“Release her from that damn machine,” David thundered. 

Milton stopped and looked helplessly at me and Tiamhaidh. None of us could say a word. I was confused. What on earth was David doing? Didn't he realize that it could kill Marie instantly? Tiamhaidh looked like he could jump on David's throat, but he couldn't do that. David was Marie's father and he had all the rights to decide on Marie's behalf. I was curious and even though I was shocked that he would order a thing like that, I wanted to see what was coming.

“Release her,” David ordered strictly. “It's what Marie would want, I'm sure of that. She wouldn't want to live the rest of her life like this. Tied to some hospital machines and unable to live a life she was meant to live.”

David's last words were so quiet we could barely hear them. I nodded at the doctor carefully and whispered, “Release her, please.”

Milton called two nurses and they started to carefully release the tubes from Marie's body and head. Tiamhaidh got up and threateningly reached towards the nearest nurse, but I was quicker and went to stand between him and the nurse. Tiam's eyes were full of stabbing pain and he squeezed my s
houlders so hard that I felt his fingers pressing
my flesh to the bones. I didn't move an inch. I lifted my hands and framed his face with them. Then I started to fondle his skin softly.

“Mo caraid, this is the only way,” I said quietly. “Brathair, creid mi,” I also added and felt his grip loosen from my skin.

I pressed him hard into my arms and kept
whispering soft Gaelic words in
his ear. He answered absently with a few words, but kept staring at Marie. I was happy though. He was here with me and not at the throats of the nurses.

Finally Milton and the nurses left. I made Tiamhaidh sit on the chair and pulled my own chair so close that my leg touched his. It was gloomily quiet. The silent hum of the respirator and the endless
beeping from the EEG-machine were
gone and the only sound we heard was the quiet sound of an oxygen saturation meter that told us she was still alive. David touched my hand and squeezed it. I hung on to him like he was a life belt. Now, all we could do was wait.

We all stared at the saturation meter
’
s stable trace and the numbers that blinked on the upper right corner, and knew Marie's pulse was exceptionally low, only 32 counts a minute. Luckily the meter also told us that her blood oxidize values were 95, which was totally normal. I wanted to make the sound of the meter louder but David stopped me. I would've wanted at least one proper sound that would've told my child's heart was beating. This sound that I heard was way too quiet. Marie looked so small and thin. Her dark curls were lifeless and her face was like wax. She looked like some tiny porcelain doll that would break at the slightest touch.

Tiamhaidh took Marie's hand in his. Her hand looked so small in Tiam's hand. The bones of her narrow fingers shimmered through her skin and her wrist had shrunk substantially. David swallowed his tears, apologized and left the room. I knew exactly how he felt. I wanted to join him and leave the room, too. Christmas was two weeks away and I didn't know if I could go home without Marie. If Marie didn't start to recover within the next twenty-four hours, we could throw our hopes out of the window and prepare ourselves to say goodbye to her. I sniffed and buried myself into Tiamhaidh's arms. He knew exactly what I was thinking, but refused to share my thoughts. I couldn't live in a world without Marie. I just couldn't. Tiamhaidh gnashed his teeth and tried to stay strong. His arms were so tight and I could feel his pain so strongly that finally I couldn't take it anymore and had to go out of the room to cry. I f
ound David in the hallway and ra
n into
his arms. We grasped each other
like drowning people, and cried.

Tiamhaidh closed his eyes and let his head bend down. He could feel Sofia's tears as if they were his and he could feel her pain like someone had stabbed him in his stomach. He knew that Sofia had to go away. If she had stayed, she would've broken down in front of him and then he would've, too. The only way for him to stay strong was to try not to think about what might happen to Marie. He gasped and shut Sofia out of his mind. For a moment he didn't think anything and then he concentrated his thoughts on Marie's mind again. He knew what he would find and tried to prepare himself for it. Marie's mind would be pure white, like before, or at this moment it might even be more gray than white. Her mind would blur slowly, until it turned completely black and she would be gone.

Tiamhaidh's mind was screaming with rage. This could not happen. Marie couldn't just die and leave him alone. This couldn't be real. She was supposed to share her life with him for decades and their story just couldn't end like this. He pressed his head lightly on her belly and sucked the lukewarm heat from her. Rage and sadness bristled in his mind like some strange mess and he knew he had to calm down if he was going to share Marie's mind. Her last moments with him couldn't be full of his anger. He concentrated on easing his mind and had to use all of his willpower to succeed. When he felt he was calm enough, he focused all his thoughts on Marie.

Marie's mind was still full of white and Tiamhaidh sighed with relief. Even though she wasn't tied up to machines, she was still the same and hadn't gotten worse. He controlled his breathing so it was as slow as Marie's and finally allowed himself to fall into a peaceful sleep. In his dream he wandered in Marie's mind and noticed, to his surprise, that the white color in her mind had started to change. Not grey but lighter, and in that world, different grades of white were
whirling around slowly like snow
flakes in a soft wind. There was definitely something going on and at times he imagined he saw light flashes of something colorful among the white. Tiamhaidh was nearly awake now, but the tiredness of the past weeks forced his eyes to close again. His neck was stiff and his limbs were numb. He moved his hand so that Marie's hand lay on his arm.
It didn't help. His pose
still
felt
too uncomfortable and finally he moved Marie's body a bit, not much, but just so that he could lie next to her. Marie didn't move.

Tiamhaidh pressed his face against
Marie's soft neck and grunted satisfactorily. At least he had this moment when he could hold her in his arms. The clock ticked quietly on the wall and the hum of the air-conditioner seemed comforting. The view from the window was almost identical to Marie's mind. Behind the window the wind was spinning some soft snowflakes that at times were puffed recklessly as the wind caught them and blew harder. Tiamhaidh lay still, trying to be as close to Marie as possible. Time seemed to stop.

Suddenly he was totally awake. He slid away from Marie faster than should've been possible. He was quite sure he had seen Marie's hand moving. He stared at Marie, who
was lying in the bed unmoving
. Impossible. His mind must have played some tricks on him. He touched her hand and a silent sigh escaped from Marie's lips. The sound was so quiet that it would've been impossible for a human ear to hear it, but Tiamhaidh was not a human but a shape shifter and he heard it clearly. He grabbed h
er hand and this time he saw Marie's hand move and lightly grab
the bla
ck leather straps on his
wrist. He was too afraid to move. Could this really happen? Could he have Marie back? The light came back to his eyes and his eyes started to change slowly back to a dashing blue.

I rushed
into Marie's room and almost ra
n into David, who tried to push himself through the doorway at the same time. Tiamhaidh
was standing
next to Marie's bed, looking goofy.

“Something happened,” I said.

“What happened?” David wondered.

Tiamhaidh said nothi
ng, but just smiled
foolish
ly
.

“I felt that something happened in your mind, but I couldn't look closer. You blocked me out,” I accused him.

“You could've forced your way in there,” David accused me now.