“Have her scans come back?”
“Yes, her brain is lighting up like a fireworks show.”
“I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“It’s been almost seven hours. Shouldn’t she be waking up by now?”
“Run more tests. Maybe we’re missing something. Her brain wouldn’t be like this if it was hypoxia.”
“What are you going to tell him?”
“I’m not sure if he’s in the right frame of mind to hear anything. Make sure he eats.”
Knock.
Knock.
“Mr. Lord?”
I was starting to hate hearing my name on her lips. I hated the fact that I now felt time passing instead of myself passing with time. I was aware now and I didn’t want to be, not while she was like this.
Someone placed a tray in front of me and just to enjoy the silence, I grabbed the bowl and drank the soup like water before I put it back down.
I didn’t need them focusing on me. I wasn’t important here, she was. They just needed to worry about her.
DAY EIGHT
“Mr. Lord?” Go away, please. “You both have guests.”
“Malachi?”
Hearing her voice, I turned around and sure enough it was Mrs. Yamauchi. Standing beside her was a tall slender woman with long black hair. She looked like Mr. Yamachi…who wasn’t with either of them. I rose from my chair and bowed to them both without letting go of Esther’s hand. I wasn’t sure what to say or why they were here.
When Kikuko looked to the bed, I saw that she was fighting back tears. “Oshaberi.”
For some reasoning hearing that name, having gone over a week without hearing the chatterbox herself, gutted me deeply and I held in my sob.
Though I was shaking I tried my best to remain calm as Mrs. Yamauchi let go of her daughter and walked over to me. She looked me dead in the eyes before she patted both my shoulders and rubbed them like she was trying to warm me up.
“Don’t worry, if he sees her on the other side he’ll kick her right back to you,” she said with a graceful smile, and it took far too long for her words to sink in. I looked back at their daughter, who hung her head and then back to her as I shook mine.
“Mr. Yamauchi?” I asked her, and here she was trying to comfort me of all people. “No…”
“I’m sure she’s the reason why he went ahead. He wanted to make sure she couldn’t leave you.” As she spoke the tears fell out of her eyes even though she kept the smile on her face.
I completely broke down in front of her and I could feel the tears roll down my cheeks and over my mouth. The pain—this pain, her pain, all of it—battered me at once. “I’m sorry.”
“No. I’m sorry.” She hugged me.
“How? I don’t…We were supposed to have dinner on Thanksgiving?”
“He was old. We are old, Malachi. The day trips, keeping his memories, he fought for a long time, and we knew it was coming, which is why I wanted one last Thanksgiving. He loved you both especially. It happened seven days ago, the day after Thanksgiving. I didn’t want to add to your worries. And I couldn’t… I wasn’t ready to see anyone. But now that I know, I’m glad. We won’t have to worry about Esther. When old people die it’s bittersweet, when young people die it’s a tragedy. And if there is anything Kosuke Yamauchi hated, it was tragedy.”
Wiping my cheeks, I inhaled deeply and, as I looked back at her, I tried to stand tall even though I felt so weak and small. Releasing Esther’s hand, for I knew if she were awake she’d strangle me if I didn’t, I turned to Kikuko and bowed again as I gave my condolences. “Goshusho-sama desu.”
“Remember, Malachi, the secret to a long life is loving to live, knowing suffering for the sake of love isn’t suffering, and finding joy in that. She’ll come back.” She turned from me and moved to Esther. Placing her hand over Esther’s forehead she said, “Oshaberi, I’m still waiting for my book.”
The corner of my mouth turned up at that. “She finished it—”
“I’m not reading it until she wakes up,” she said sternly.
I nodded and moved the chair for her to sit down. When I looked up, I found that her daughter was already gone and in her place a lunch basket sat on the chair by the door.
“Maya’s shy and heartbroken. She’ll come around, I’ll make sure of it. She’s brought you food,” Kikuko said cheerfully lifting a basket. “Let’s eat. Maybe that will get her up.”
Nodding, I walked over and picked up the basket and was shocked at how heavy it was. When I brought over to her, she unpacked it and displayed everything in front of Esther. Then she paused, waiting to see if it would actually wake her up. For the second time in over a week I felt like smiling. She reminded me of Esther…
She’s right here.
I looked at her again.
“Have the doctors said anything?” she asked gently as she handed me a pair of chopsticks.
“They don’t know why she’s like this.” I had a feeling her body was ill. Since she’d fallen through the ice, I hadn’t gotten a single memory again and my headache was gone. It was just like those moments when she’d died before me. How nothing hurt anymore, how there was just numbness, and then darkness, and then I’d recall that moment from a new life, in a new place, with a new name.
“Don’t lose hope,” she whispered as she placed her hand over mine.
“Thank you for—”
“I hope you aren’t about to thank me for coming.” She frowned at me and I didn’t say anything in response. “Do you know she sent gifts and cards to everyone last Christmas? Her grandfather had died a little over a month before and she still took the time to show everyone she cared. She called on birthdays, she remembers everyone’s names. She’s family to a lot of people. You can tell that just by looking around the room.”
I hadn’t done that before. I hadn’t looked around the hospital room we’d been staying in until she’d said so. It was only then that I noticed the numerous flowers, cards, bears and balloons that were occupying the space around us.
“You don’t thank family for support. That’s what they do,” she reminded me.
She was right. Esther and I considered each other family, but the truth was we’d met so many people—well, I’d met so many people through her—they had become a part of our lives. Throughout all our lives people seemed to almost always get in the way of us. They made it harder for us. Which was one of the reasons I tried to not get involved, to not bother myself with others, and Esther, even now, even knowing the fate that hung over our heads, still dove right in to help someone else. I wanted to be angry, but I kept hearing her begging for forgiveness in the back of my mind. She shouldn’t have. Maybe she was a little mad at herself for doing it too, but that was her nature. That was who she was and it was why I’ve always loved her.
“Then thank you for the food,” I whispered to Kikuko before stuffing my mouth full of rice, not really chewing but hoping at least for one moment that I could stuff the pain back down.
“Careful!” She poured me water and I coughed and wept and ate anyway.
25. SLEEPING BEAUTY AND THE MANY BEASTS
MALACHI
DAY SEVENTEEN
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
“She’s crashing!” One of the nurses yelled.
“Again?” Dr. Neecey rushed into the room, the same thing she’d done more than five times over the course of the last two, almost three, weeks. I watched paralyzed in horror as Esther shook on top of the bed, her machines telling me, telling us all that she was dying once again. And just like the five other times, she went limp for a few seconds before her heart restarted on its own.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Dr. Neecey gasped. She, like all the others in the room, was emotionally drained and I said nothing to any of them. Taking the washcloth and the warm bowl of water I brought it closer to her and gently wiped her forehead. Quietly, th
ey all left again one by one.
“Beloved…” Placing my hand over her cheek, I bent over, my face hovering over hers. I had so much to say and yet the only words that crossed my lips were, “Come back, please.”
I was at a loss. Less so than the doctors who had done scans and checked every inch of her, yet she still wasn’t waking up. I was sure now, more than ever, there was nothing they could do and I couldn’t tell them that she was lost in the memories of our past lives. I knew it, I wasn’t sure how I knew it, but something told me she was caught in her own memories. Living and dying over and over again and again. I didn’t know how to bring her back. How to wake up her up. I knew she couldn’t stay here. There was only so much before the doctors would start treating her like a guinea pig.
Maybe she needed to relive all nine hundred and ninety-nine lives before this one? But why? This had never happened before and why just her? What kind of torture was this?
“How long have you been torturing my baby?”
I turned around at the voice, one I wasn’t expecting nor needed to ever hear again. And yet she spoke again, “Esther, sweetheart? It’s mommy.”
Her heels clicked on the ground as she came over to stand at Esther’s bedside. She reached down to touch her but I grabbed her wrist.
“Do not touch her,” I said through my teeth.
“How dare you! Let go!” She screamed at me as she tried to pull her arm away causing all the bangles on her wrist to jingle. Doing as she asked I released her. Putting the washcloth and bin back down on the side table I got up.
“I’m going to say it once: Get out, Diana!”
“You must be mistaken, Mr. Lord,” a bald white man with a gray-white mustache dressed in a three-piece suit said as he walked up beside Diana who smirked and crossed her hands under her fur jacket, as he went continued talking. “I’m not sure what kind of hick hospital this is, but only family should be allowed inside. Are you family, Mr. Lord? Because Diana here is Esther’s mother.”
“Really? When did she decide to be that? It couldn’t have been when she abandoned her daughter as an infant in the dead of winter? Or when she tried to kill her as a toddler or rob her as an adult!”
“YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT ME!”
“LIKE YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT HER!” I couldn’t help but holler at her.
“Neither of that is important!” The cretin beside her squeezed her arm. “Right now, Esther needs to be near family—”
“I AM HER FAMILY.”
“Legally you are not. Unless you both are married and we don’t know it—”
“Excuse me!” Dr. Neecey angrily marched back into the room. “Whatever is going on here should not be happening in front of my patient. Everyone out, now!”
She even looked to me. Biting the inside of my cheek I walked out the room after them and followed them into the hall. Dr. Neecey closed the door behind her as she came out and looked directly at Diana. “And who are you?”
“Diana Noëlle. Esther’s mother, you called me…”
“Seventeen days ago.” Dr. Neecey cut in.
“And yesterday,” the snake of a man beside her added. “You requested her family history. Ms. Noëlle wasn’t aware that her daughter’s case was so serious.”
“Yes,” I added eyeing him carefully. “So serious she brought her lawyer?”
Who knew snakes could smile, but he did as he nodded. “I’m an old friend and yes, a lawyer, here in my friend’s time of need—”
“Bullshit.” I shook my head, looking down at the woman who was now calling herself Esther’s mother. “This has to do with money, right? You came to see if she was dying, not because you cared, not because you have ever cared, but because of her money!”
“My daughter is fighting for her life! And you didn’t even have the wisdom to send her to a better hospital,” she snapped at me and I never wanted to smack a woman so hard in my life.
“Ms. Noëlle, I assure we are a very capable hospital—”
“I want my daughter back in New York where she won’t just be in a capable hospital but the BEST hospital!” She shrieked with tears in her eyes.
I clapped for her, it was the best I could do with my hands. “You’re really working for that Oscar, Diana!”
“Mr. Lord!” Dr. Neecey took a deep breath to calm herself down before she placed her hand on my shoulder. “I understand you are tired, you’ve been at her side every moment since saving her life, but please hold back.”
I glanced at her and she gave me a look, begging me to calm down.
“And we thank you, Mr. Lord,” the snake said with the same level of fake sincerity as Diana. “But as Esther’s family, Diana has the right to make the best medical decision for her daughter. Doctor, has Esther improved at all?”
“Her condition is sensitive,” she forced herself to say.
“A condition you reportedly have no idea how to treat.”
“Are you asking as a friend of the family or as a lawyer, Mr.…?”
“Cain Pembroke,” he replied. “And I’m asking as a friend for now. As Mrs. Noëlle asked, she’d like her daughter transferred to NYU—”
“If you think for one moment…” The rage that rose in my body barely allowed me to speak. My hands balled into fists as I glared at them both. “…that I’ll allow you to make decisions on her behalf, to allow you to take her anywhere, you’ve never met a man who’s willing to give up any and everything before.” Looking directly at the scum of a human in front me I said, “I pray you are a better lawyer than you are a family friend, because I will fight you until she wakes up and exposes you both.”
Turning away from the both of them, I grabbed on to the handle of her door when he spoke out again.
“We can get a court order, Mr. Lord.”
“Then do it, Mr. Pembroke.”
I hadn’t said it. Instead, the words had come from Maya Yamauchi who was coming towards me with her mother’s daily lunch basket. “But do know that I am a better lawyer than family friend, and I’ll contest it. I’ll make it bigger than the Terri Schiavo case.”
I didn’t want to hear anymore. She wasn’t a case. This wasn’t a case. It was just Esther. I just wanted her.
“You need to let them move her.” Maya came in a few seconds after me and placed the basket on the bedside table. Then she took out her phone and started taking pictures as she spoke. “Let them move her to a bigger hospital where she’ll have all the care she needs. That way they can’t say you aren’t providing the best care for her. From there on we can argue that her mother does not have the right to make a legal—”
“If they move her she’ll die,” I whispered as I headed to her bedside and picked up the washcloth, however, the water was cold. Turning on the kettle, I waited for the water to heat up.
“What?” Maya slowly lowered the camera. “What do you mean she’ll die?”
“I mean somehow, someway, that woman will kill her. It doesn’t matter if I take Esther to the best doctors in the world, that woman, that lawyer, they will pretend they care and the first chance they get they’ll kill her. It is not a joke, it is not a hyperbole, it is a fact. I do not trust them! Esther and I… Esther and I are holding by a thread, Maya!” My chest ached but I ignored it as I took the kettle and poured it into the bin. “I said I was willing to give up any and everything before, I meant it. I’m not getting wrapped up in their scheme. I’m not going to give them any room to make any choice for her.”
“I don’t understand—”
“They want her money, Maya! So I’ll give them money!” It was all they cared about. It was why they were really here.
“Bribery is only going to—”
“I don’t care!” I snapped looking down at Esther as she slept. I hated what I’d have to do but there wasn’t any other way. “Her grandfather, Alfred, he left me much more than I deserved in his will. Tell her mother I’ll give up all of it as long as she leaves Esther in peace.”
“Malachi!”
/> “I’m fighting for her! Not money! But her life! What is money? I don’t need it. I need them gone! Can you do that? If you want to help me can you do that!?!”
She looked between us, speechless. Even though Maya, who was still mourning the loss of her father, was usually quiet, she became exceptionally animated as she looked at me.
“Okay. I’ll get in contact with Esther’s lawyer. I’m sure, they must have something in place, especially considering—”
“Just do it. Do anything,” I said as I sat back down beside Esther and picked up where I’d left off with wiping down her skin. I didn’t care about the how, I just wanted it handled. When she left, the door closed gently behind her and I exhaled and looked down at Esther. “I need you here, now. I need you.”
I watched her for a minute. Listening to her heartbeat and feeling mine beat in rhythm with it. The longer I watched her, the greater my fear grew. The more I worried I wouldn’t be able to protect her. How could I protect her in limbo like this? How long could she stay like this before more doctors came? Before her mother ran out of money and came back again.
My fear grew to the point where I was acting before I realized it. Closing the blinds that looked out into the hall, I pushed the couch and the chair I’d been using in front of the door. I used anything that wasn’t bolted down or being used to monitor her for my barricade.
“No!”
“Ms. Noëlle…” Maya tried to speak calmly, however, her voice was still loud enough that I could hear from behind the door. “Let’s speak somewhere privately—”
“I do not need private!” Her shrieking began.
“Ms. Noëlle, I have every specialist on your daughter’s case,” Dr. Neecey said. “No one has seen this before and no one has a treatment plan. Moving Esther now is dangerous—”
“THAT IS MY DAUGHTER!”
“We understand—”
“THEN MOVE!” she yelled, and they must have because the next thing I heard was the doorknob jiggling. “What the…”
BANG!
BANG!
“Open the door!”