Dark Humanity

by Gwynn White

  They did.

  I have a photo of the three of us that Grandma took, beside a retired shuttle. Mom’s holding me on her hip, looking up at Dad. Dad’s smiling at the camera with his arm around her waist. And I have my fist pumped into the air, my face frozen in mid-shout: “To infinity and beyond!” I’d cried.

  We spend our flights mostly in silence. Dad’s thinking pretty hard, I can tell. I’m thinking, too. I’m trying to remember what I know of comas. Precious little, unfortunately. Something about a coma is our body’s response to extreme trauma. Advanced healing can occur while a person is in a coma. But a twenty-year coma? Few people have ever come out of that, and most of those for only hours or days. Even if we can get Vivian to wake up, she might not stay awake. Her muscles will be atrophied. Her memory will be impaired. Nothing about the news of her fate is good.

  But something tells me that Dad is not hoping to walk out of the hospital with her. He is done with hoping and wishing. He wants to see her. He probably wants to touch her. Maybe he wants to kiss her creamy lips one last time.

  I wish he would tell me what he’s thinking, so that I could set my own hopes appropriately. Because even though I’ve been warned, and I’ve seen the evidence of how hope and high expectations can lead to disappointment and misery, I still can’t help myself. I want Dad to be happy. I thought about it all last night, about him and Mom, and him and Vivian. This is a chance for Dad to gain closure for something that’s been an open wound for twenty years. I cannot deny him that chance, not even in my heart. I want him to have the fairytale ending. Silly, I know, but true nonetheless.

  As we descend for our landing in Wichita, I gather enough courage to at least broach the subject.

  “So, Dad, what’s the plan?”

  He looks momentarily startled, as though he’s forgotten I am sitting beside him.

  “Well, Grandma booked us a rental car and a hotel near the hospital. I suppose we should check in there first. Are you hungry?”

  My stomach is growling angrily at me, but I ignore it. “Nope. I vote we go straight to the hospital.”

  Dad just looks at me.

  “You’ve both waited twenty years. I think our stomachs can stand a few more hours.”

  “Thomas, I…” Dad looks at me helplessly, and I know what he wants to say.

  I lace my fingers through his. “She won’t look the same, you know that. She won’t be able to speak to you. Hell, the doctors might not even let us see her. I think we need a story.”

  “A story?”

  “Yeah, like a cover story. Only immediate family will probably be able to see her, and we can claim to be her brother and nephew, but we don’t have any proof of that. You’re going to have to prove you know her. Did you ever see that movie, Overboard, with Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell?”

  Dad finally cracks a smile. “Kurt told the doctors that Goldie had a birthmark on her thigh as proof that he was her husband.”

  I nod. “Yes. Does Vivian have any birthmarks?”

  “No. But she has a tattoo on the back of her neck. A heart.”

  “That should do it,” I say.

  Dad looks over my head and out the window. “She got the tattoo when her mother died. Her father had died of a heart attack, and her mother went into a deep depression. When Viv turned eighteen a few months later, her mother told her to join the Navy and tell them she wanted to be assigned to the Attic. Then she went to bed and burst her own heart.”

  I don’t know what to say to that. I try to imagine loving someone so much that I would want to die without them. It felt like I was going to die when Mom passed, but I didn’t want to die. I wanted to live so she would be proud of me. And if I had a child who counted on me? Wouldn’t that be even more reason to live?

  Vivian has the power to get herself out of a coma, as long as her brain isn’t damaged. Could something emotionally traumatic have made her stay under all these years? I don’t really think we’ll ever have an answer for that.

  But I still hope.

  Wichita is supposedly a big city, but I guess “big city” is relative when you’re surrounded by farmland and open sky.

  I instantly like Kansas, but it makes me feel very small. In Southern California, we are hemmed in by mountains. You see an end point to the sky. Here, the world goes on forever.

  We get into our car surrounded by ninety-degree sticky heat, and before we’ve even left the airport behind, the skies open up and pound us with rain. It comes down in thick gray sheets and pools in the potholes on the road. I open my window and stick my hand out. The rain hammers down so hard that it stings my hand. I suck in a deep breath, amazed. The air smells unlike anything I’ve ever smelled—sweet and wet and hot and grassy. I pull that smell inside of me. It is the smell of hope.

  Following the GPS on his phone, Dad drives smoothly through the rain, and in thirty minutes, we’re staring up at the hospital. It is brick-sided and ivy-covered, rather than white and sterile like the hospitals back home. I wonder if they realize that the ivy is not good for the building. Aesthetics seem to have taken a backseat to function. Not good for a hospital.

  The rain abruptly stops, as though it knows we’re about to step outside. We follow the sidewalk from the parking structure to the lobby of the hospital. A guard stands duty at a small podium, a stack of bright orange nametags in front of him. I can see Dad debate where to go. He decides to avoid the guard, and makes his way to the check-in desk to our left.

  He smiles wide and leans casually on the desk. A pretty girl in pink and white stripes is tapping away on a keyboard. She looks bored. As soon as she sees Dad, though, her face lights up.

  “Hey,” Dad says in a husky voice. I’ve never heard him talk like that.

  “Hello,” she says. “Can I help you?”

  “Oh, I’m sure you can,” he says, flashing his teeth. “I’ve…I’m sorry. Give me a sec.”

  Immediately, Dad’s smile falters. He struggles to paste it back on, turning away from the girl for a moment. He turns back, blinking furiously, and takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry. This is difficult for me.”

  The girl reaches up and pats Dad’s arm. “It’s fine. I understand. Is someone you love here?”

  Dad takes another deep breath. “I believe so. You see, my sister…we lost her about twenty years ago. A missing person’s case, she just vanished. We’ve been looking…all this time. My private investigator, he thinks…he believes…he may have found her. Here. In a coma this whole time.”

  The girl gasps and squeezes Dad’s arm tight. “Oh my!” she says. “What’s her name?” She straightens up at her computer, prepared to type.

  “Vivian Westlake. But I believe she’s a Jane Doe here, if it’s really her.”

  The girl types something. “No Westlake,” she says, “but we do have two Jane Does. One is, well…the other is in our long-term care facility.”

  “My God,” Dad says. He takes my hand and squeezes it. “It’s her, I know it’s her. I have to know. May we see her?”

  The girl hesitates. Dad furrows his brow and pleads with her with his eyes.

  “Do you have ID?”

  Dad takes his wallet out of the back pocket of his jeans and shows her his license. She copies the information on a sheet of paper.

  “How old is…is this your son?”

  “Yes. He’s seven years old. But he’s all I have in the world besides Vivian. Please. I need him with me.”

  The girl bites her lip and stands up. “Hey, Manny, could you watch the desk for a few?”

  The guard nods to her.

  “Thanks.” She walks out from behind the desk and over to the podium. She writes “Michael, Room 3” on one of the nametags.

  “And what’s your name?” she asks me.

  “Thomas,” I say. She makes out a nametag for me and hands them over. We smooth the neon orange labels on our chests.

  “Just follow me and we’ll try to get you in,” she says, turning away to walk down the corridor.
>
  Dad touches her arm gently and she turns back. “Thank you,” he says, and he means it. “Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

  The girl smiles and bats her eyelashes. “Maybe after, you know, I get off at five.”

  Dad smiles back. “Let me see how this goes. I may be a poor date.”

  “I doubt that,” she says, and she spins away and leads us down into the heart of the hospital.

  St. Joseph’s long-term care facility, as the girl called it, is eerily silent. A nurse sits at a u-shaped desk, surrounded by monitors. The air hums through the vents. Nobody whispers. Nobody laughs.

  The girl motions us to wait beside the wall while she has a conversation with the nurse.

  The nurse glances at us briefly, and then steals a longer glance as the girl explains our story.

  “Is he from here?” the nurse asks. “Because our Jane Doe isn’t.”

  The girl shakes her head. “His license is from California.”

  I can sense the nurse debating, when Dad pulls out his wallet again and walks over to the desk.

  “I have a picture,” he says. He pulls a faded snapshot from beneath a pile of business and credit cards. He hands it to the nurse.

  The nurse stares at it, dumbfounded.

  “It’s her,” she says, jumping to her feet. “It’s absolutely her.”

  Dad shoots me a smile, but it’s sad at the edges. I know he was half hoping Dr. Sykes was wrong. It would be so much easier if he were wrong.

  We follow the nurse and the candy striper to room number three. The door is closed.

  The nurse puts her hand on the lever, and Dad tenses. “Wait.” We all look at him. “Just a moment.”

  Dad takes my hand and leads me twenty feet away. He crouches down in front of me, still clutching tightly to my hand.

  “It’s okay, Dad. I don’t have to go in if you don’t want me to.”

  He shakes his head. “No, I’d like you with me. That’s not it. I just…I don’t know how I’ll react. I think…I want to prepare you.”

  I nod solemnly.

  “I mean, just remember that I loved Mom. I, I’ll never be the same without her. I loved her as a man. Viv, I loved her as a boy, a naïve, wild, careless boy. Both strong, both totally different, okay?”

  I have no idea what he’s talking about, but I nod anyway.

  “Okay,” he says, a kind of self-pep talk. He stands back up and steels himself.

  We’re ready.

  I prepare myself for every horror imaginable.

  A fully grown woman whittled away to forty pounds.

  Shriveled skin like a wrinkled old peach.

  Drooling.

  There is none of that.

  “It smells like lavender in here,” I say.

  The candy striper leans into my ear. “They use Febreze.”

  The three of us hang by the door and let Dad pass us. He walks straight to the bed, hands grasping the side rails tight, and stares at the person in the bed.

  He inhales sharply. I think we all do.

  Sleeping Beauty has been in Kansas this whole time.

  Vivian is lovely. I don’t know how to judge a person’s age too well, but she looks young. Her skin is clear and smooth, with freckles across her nose. Her golden hair is long and brushed and carefully arranged on the side of her pillow. She breathes slowly but strongly, the sheet on her chest rising and falling gently. I can see the outline of her legs beneath the sheet, and they don’t look one bit shriveled.

  “She looks the same,” Dad whispers.

  We all watch, mesmerized, as Dad reaches out a hand and brushes Vivian’s cheek. It might be my imagination, but I swear her cheek turns pink while I watch.

  Dad lowers the side rail on the bed and kneels beside it. He takes her hand in his, stroking her fingers, and whispers in her ear. “Hey, Beautiful.”

  Vivian’s heart monitor beeps loudly, and we all jump. The nurse rushes over to it and pushes a button.

  “Talk to her,” she says. “Talk to her again.”

  Dad clears his throat. “It’s me,” he says. “Mikey. God, I’ve…you look beautiful. Gorgeous. Like the day we met. I kissed you and you yelled at me. Remember? But I know you kissed me back. You know you kissed me back. Don’t deny it.”

  The monitor beeps again, a series of three. The candy striper actually takes my hand and holds it to her chest.

  “You remember, Viv, the nursery rhymes? This little piggy went to market, and this little piggy stayed home.” Beep. “You had the cutest little bear-claw feet. At night, you couldn’t keep them still. I’d try to cuddle you,” BEEP, BEEP, “and you’d rub those cute little toes up against mine. You said you couldn’t get close enough, that you wanted to get closer to me.”

  BEEP, BEEP, BEEP.

  “Squeeze my hand, Viv, I’m right here. I’m holding you, I’ve got your hand. Squeeze my hand, baby. Please. Let me know you’re here. Let me know you hear me.”

  The candy striper has a death grip on my hand.

  Dad cries out. “She did it! I swear, she did it.”

  “Call for Dr. Trent. Call him now. Hurry!” the nurse yells to the girl. The girl practically throws my arm at me and rushes out of the room.

  “Keep talking,” she says to Dad. “Keep it up. Don’t stop.”

  Dad’s shoulders begin to shake. I walk over to him and put my hands on his shoulders. Like the trooper he is, he speaks through his sobs.

  “You, you thought I should grow my hair out, that, that, it would be…sexy if it were long.” Beep. “Feel it.” He bends down, takes Vivian’s hand, and rubs it over his hair. “Not long, but no more buzz cut.” BEEP, BEEP, BEEP. “We…we have a daughter, Vivian. A daughter. You have a daughter! Our child. Wake up, for chrissake. Wake up!”

  And Vivian’s eyes open.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Dad is so startled that he drops her hand, but he quickly picks it up again.

  “Vivian?” he says.

  Vivian doesn’t move, doesn’t blink. Dad continues to speak to her.

  The doctor comes in and checks Vivian’s vitals.

  “It’s amazing,” he says. “This patient has been unresponsive since she arrived six years ago.” He looks at Dad. “Her response, though, is not necessarily indicative of anything. Do you realize that?”

  Dad climbs to his feet and pulls a chair up beside the bed. He sits down heavily.

  “Yes, I understand.”

  “She probably will not wake up. Her increased heart rate, even the eyes opening, could just be reflexive or an autonomic nervous system response to new stimuli.”

  “I want to move her,” Dad says.

  The doctor wrinkles his brow. “She’s being cared for at the state’s expense. If you claim her, you may be responsible for the cost of her care, past and present.”

  “I understand,” Dad says again.

  “Do you…the resources required are considerable.”

  Dad stands up and walks to the window. Since this area is underground, the window looks out at a concrete courtyard rather than the hospital grounds. But at least there’s a view of something beyond the room.

  The doctor discreetly leans over the bed and closes Vivian’s eyes for her.

  “Vivian’s military,” Dad says. “The military has been paying for her care, and will continue to do so. She will be well looked after.”

  “You’re not Vivian’s brother,” the doctor says.

  Dad turns back from the window and looks at him. “Who do I have to speak with to transfer her?”

  “Me. Where are you planning on taking her?”

  “You’re military?” Dad says, surprised. I am surprised, too. The doctor is relatively young, with long dark hair pulled into a ponytail. Hardly soldier-like.

  The doctor nods once and holds out his hand. “Sean Trent, out of Fort Leavenworth.”

  Dad shakes his hand. “Michael Van Zandt, SEAL teams, and Naval Medical Center, San Diego.”

  Dr. Trent gapes
. “The Michael Van Zandt?”

  I watch Dad fight not to smile. “I’m the only one I know of.”

  “I’ve been trying to get assigned there for several years. I can’t believe this.”

  “You want to go to the Attic?” Dad asks. “How long have you been here?”

  “Six years,” he says.

  “So you’ve been taking care of Vivian the whole time she’s been here.”

  Dr. Trent nods. “I knew she was a Dweller as soon as I looked at her and checked her age. It’s not in her records, though.”

  “It never is,” Dad says. “How do you know about the Attic?”

  “People talk,” he says with a shrug. “And I knew a guy who knew Dr. Sykes. My specialty is neurology. As soon as I heard about it, I wanted in, but it’s not something you can really make noise about.”

  “I appreciate you keeping it quiet,” Dad says. “The Dwellers are not specimens, they’re people.”

  “That’s how I treat all my patients.”

  Dad turns to the bed and looks thoughtfully at Vivian. “If you can get to San Diego by the weekend, you’re in.”

  Dr. Trent raises his eyebrows. “Just like that? I don’t think I can make it happen that fast. The paperwork…they’ll never let me go. I’ve got three more years in the Army.”

  “I’ll make it happen,” Dad says, his eyes still on Vivian. “I’ll deal with the bullshit. You find an apartment and move.”

  Dad walks back to Dr. Trent and holds out his hand again and they shake on it.

  “I don’t believe in God, but for me, this meeting is a miracle,” the doctor says.

  Dad laughs. “Trust me, God wouldn’t be able to pull this off. Only the director of the Attic could do it.”

  Dr. Trent claps Dad on the shoulder. “Then I’m lucky I met you, Director Van Zandt.”