Infinite(94)

At first, all I saw was a halo of light, but inside it, I recognized a face that made everything better. Karly stood over me. Slowly, as if not believing what she was seeing, she put her hands against her cheeks, her fingers trembling. Her lips moved but made no sound. As I stared up at her, her face dissolved into uncontrollable tears. She sobbed, and then she fell to her knees and threw her arms around me and held me tighter than anyone had ever held me in my life.

“Dylan.”



Three weeks, Karly told me.

She waited until my disorientation had mostly gone away, which took several hours. By then, I was aware of being in a hospital room.

Three weeks, she told me.

Three weeks I’d been in a coma.

It was what they called a medically induced coma, in which they kept me sedated in order to give my brain and lungs a chance to heal from my lack of oxygen under the water. Nobody had known whether I would ever wake up.

“You got pneumonia in the early days,” she told me, sitting with me by the bed and not letting go of my hand. “You could hardly breathe. They thought you were going to die. God, I was so scared.”

“My chest hurts,” I said, in a raspy voice.

“Try not to talk. Your lungs still need to heal. Let me talk.”

“Okay.”

“The doctors weren’t sure about—about whether you’d come out of this with your brain functions intact. They said I needed to prepare myself for bad outcomes. But Alicia said the scans showed your brain activity was strong the entire time. In fact, she said the activity was hyperintense, like your mind was going through some kind of frenzied experience. She was sure you’d come out of it okay. She said Roscoe was looking out for you somewhere.”

I smiled without saying anything. Part of it was gratitude, for surviving, for Karly being there for me, for coming through the experience of nearly drowning with my awareness and motor skills intact. Part of it was also the thought of Roscoe watching over me.

I’d seen him again, and that was a gift. Everything I’d been through was a gift.

The nurses called it a miracle. They didn’t throw that word around lightly. I’d been without oxygen for nearly four minutes, which was dangerously close to the point at which brain damage would be irreversible. The day nurse had already been in after I awakened, asking me questions, testing my cognition. What’s your name? What year is it? What city are you in? Apparently, I passed the test.

However, she was puzzled by the one question I asked her.

“Where is Nighthawks?”

I asked it several times, and finally, she called in Karly for help. My wife gave me a strange look, but she answered the question. “It’s in the Art Institute, where it always is. Thanks to Edgar, of course. He’s been by to visit you several times. Every time he was here, he told you the story again.”

That was what I needed to hear. All was right with my world. With that, I was able to sleep.

I recovered for another full day before Karly said, “Do you remember what happened at the river?”

I shook my head. What I remembered I didn’t trust.

“Do you want me to tell you about it? We don’t have to do this now. We can wait until you’re stronger.”

“Please,” I murmured.

“Okay. Well, we were driving home from our weekend away. The river had overflowed the highway, and we—we drove right into it.”

“I’m sorry.”

Karly put a hand on my cheek and stared at me with a deep regret in her eyes. “Don’t use that word. That’s my word. Dylan, there’s so much I need to say to you, but let me get through this first.”

“Go on.”

“The car submerged. We were both trapped. I’ve never been so terrified. A tree came through the car window and nearly took our heads off. You were able to get out, but as you pulled me with you, the river ripped the car away. We were separated.”

She described the experience in a monotone, as if it had happened to someone else. I think that was the only way she could talk about it.

“I was alone. You were gone. I was running out of air in this little pocket near the windshield. I tried opening the car door, but it was blocked. I realized I was going to die. I was trying to make peace with it. And yet—I don’t know—I knew you would never leave me. I knew you’d come back and find me and save me. I just knew it. I don’t know how much time passed. Probably only a few seconds, but it felt like forever. Then you were thumping on the windshield to let me know you were there. Somehow you dislodged the car and got the door open, and I was able to get out. I swam to the surface and made it to the riverbank. I thought you were right behind me. But then I realized you weren’t coming up. You were still under the water. Thank God someone was there. A man from a nearby farm had seen the accident, and he’d already called 911. I could hear the sirens. I screamed to him that you were still down there, that you must be trapped. He went in after you. He found you by the car, with the seat belt wound around your ankle. He had a knife and was able to cut you free, but by the time he got you out, you weren’t breathing. The ambulance was there, but I could see in the faces of the paramedics that they didn’t think you were going to make it.”

I brought her hand to my lips and kissed it. “The farmer who cut me loose. What did he look like?”