Coma Girl: part 3 (Kindle Single) (2 page)

“As soon as I found out about the baby, I contacted Dr. Oscar and asked if anything in the drug posed a danger to the fetus.”

“And?”

“And he said not that he was aware of.”

“Because the drug probably wasn’t tested on anyone who was pregnant,” she said grimly. “And you know the fetus is most vulnerable in the first trimester.”

“If it’s any consolation, I believe the drug is helping. I’ve kept a chart of my verbal command tests with Ms. Kemp, and the times and dates she responded by moving her right fingers.”

A rustle of paper sounded.

“She moved her fingers yesterday morning?” Dr. Tyson asked.

“And this morning,” he said. “I came in before rounds.”

“Did anyone else witness her movement?”

“No.”

“Well, let’s try again now, shall we?”

She sounded falsely cheerful, as if she fully expected me not to respond.

“Ms. Kemp, I’m holding your right hand and I need for you to move your fingers if you can. Can you move your fingers, Marigold? Can you move the fingers on your right hand?”

I’m trying so hard to make Jarvis look good.

“Anything?” he asked.

“No,” she said, as if she hadn’t expected anything different.

“It seems as if she responds better in the morning versus later in the day.”

“And yet, you have no witnesses to confirm she responded at all.”

“No.”

“It’s clear to me, Dr. Jarvis, that you’re projecting what you want to happen onto the patient to justify your unconscionable actions.”

“Can we try one more thing?”

“No.”

“You hold her hand and let me give the command. What could it hurt?”

She sighed. “You have thirty seconds.”

From the shuffling of feet, I assumed they had changed places by my bed.

“Hello, Marigold, it’s Dr. Jarvis. I need for you to squeeze my hand, Marigold. Tell your brain to tell your arm to tell your hand to move your fingers, Marigold. Try really hard, it’s very important. Move your fingers, Marigold.”

I visualized each step he described, picturing the command forming in my brain, then traveling down my arm to my hand and instructing my fingers to move.

“I felt something,” Dr. Tyson said, her voice hushed. “Tell her again.”

“Good job, Marigold,” he said excitedly. “Do it one more time. Move your fingers, Marigold.”

“Yes,” she said. “I definitely felt her fingers move.”

He whooped. “I told you! See, the drug is working.”

“Not so fast,” Dr. Tyson said. “We have no proof that the drug is working. It could be elevated hormones from the pregnancy causing metabolic changes. Don’t think for a minute this excuses you breaking almost every medical protocol this hospital has in place.”

There was another rustle of paper.

“I typed up a memo detailing what I did to exonerate you and the hospital from liability.”

“Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. I’m on the hook for you, Jarvis. We might both lose our license to practice over this.”

“Tell me what to do.”

“You can shut the hell up while I run this ultrasound and pray I find a fetal heartbeat.”

He shut the hell up and I held my mental breath.

“There,” she said, relief shading her voice.

“Is it strong?”

“Yes. And it’s where it should be, so not ectopic.”

So at least my unconscious reproductive system is working properly.

“Now what?” he asked.

“You don’t get to ask that question,” she said, her voice low and lethal. “Give me the memo.”

From the sound of paper tearing, I deduced she had yanked it from his hand.

“Now go home, Dr. Jarvis, and don’t set foot back into this hospital until you hear from me, is that understood?”

“Yes, doctor.”

Dr. Jarvis’s footsteps sounded, then the door opened and closed.

Dr. Tyson uttered a long, frustrated noise. “For someone so quiet, Marigold Kemp, you are causing quite an uproar.”

Suddenly, the classical music resumed in bombastic glory.

Was Dr. Tyson coming around to Dr. Jarvis’s unorthodox treatments?

“THANK YOU FOR COMING today to talk about Marigold,” Dr. Tyson said.

“You don’t have to thank us,” my dad said, sounding cranky. “She’s our daughter.”

“I know,” Dr. Tyson said calmly, “but you would be surprised how difficult it can be to get a patient’s family to engage in a patient’s care in a meaningful way.”

She let that sentence hang in the air for everyone to absorb, although I’m pretty sure it bounced off my Teflon-coated family.

“I don’t understand why we can’t have these meetings in your office,” my mother said. “It’s unnerving to have these conversations over Marigold’s body.”

As if they’re talking over a corpse.

“I like to think that Marigold can hear us,” Dr. Tyson said, “and would want to know what’s going on with her recovery.”

I forget why I ever had bad feelings toward Dr. Tyson.

“In fact, I have good news—yesterday, Marigold responded to a command to move the fingers on her right hand.”

Exclaims of surprise sounded.

“So she’s getting better?”

“Can she hear us?”

“Why didn’t you call us?”

“Some movement is definitely better than none. I don’t know that she can hear all the time, and even if she can, it doesn’t mean she understands what’s being said. Reacting to a command to move fingers is a very basic response… but it’s cause for optimism. And I did call and leave a message on your home phone.”

“Oh,” my mother said, “we haven’t been home that much lately. My business has become so demanding.”

“And I’ve been on the road,” my dad explained.

“And I never check the land-line phone,” Sidney added.

“Well then,” Dr. Tyson said.

Which pretty much said it all, really.

Sidney was the first to recover. “But what great news!” A few digital noises sounded. “And I just posted it to Facebook. Coma Girl’s followers will be thrilled!”

Dr. Tyson cleared her throat. “Now… as for the fetus. I want to begin by telling you the ultrasound revealed a strong fetal heartbeat, and confirmed it’s fourteen weeks along.”

“And is the baby okay?” my dad asked.

“It’s impossible to say for sure, but for this stage, everything seems normal.”

“Thank God,” he said.

“So you’ve decided Marigold will carry the baby to full term?”

“Of course we have,” my dad said.

“We haven’t decided,” my mom said at the same time.

Oh, no. More dissention.

My dad sputtered. “What are you saying?”

“Marigold is my first priority,” my mother said. “I want to know more about what this pregnancy will do to her.”

It’s hard to be angry at her for feeling that way. Actually, it’s kind of touching.

“That matters to me, too,” he said, his voice rising.

“Why don’t we hear what the doctor has to say,” Sidney suggested.

“It’s a valid point,” Dr. Tyson conceded. “The fetus will take whatever it needs. Our challenge will be to keep Marigold nourished to the point that there will be enough stores for them both to draw on.”

“But the baby will tax her body,” my mother said.

“Yes, the baby will consume resources.”

My mother made a thoughtful noise. “Won’t that impede her own healing?”

“It might,” Dr. Tyson agreed. “We were already facing an uncertain situation, and this development complicates things further. I can only assure you that we’ll have the best team possible looking after Marigold and the baby, if the decision is made to continue with the pregnancy.”

“We want the pregnancy to continue,” my dad said.

“No,” my mother said, her voice sounding robotic. “We will discuss this and get back to you, Dr. Tyson. If Marigold is showing signs of improving, I don’t want this to be a setback.”

“There is one other thing to consider,” Dr. Tyson said. “Mr. and Mrs. Kemp, I’m sure you recall the information you passed to me about the experimental drug the physician at Walter Reed has had some good results with.”

“Yes,” my mother said. “The military research doctor our son reached out to.”

“Right.”

“You said the drug wasn’t right for Marigold’s situation,” my father said.

“There was a… reconsideration. And the window to administer the drug was narrow, so I made a decision to give it to Marigold.”

Ah, she was covering for Dr. Jarvis.

“Without consulting us?” my mother demanded.

“I, um, left a message on your home phone to please call me as soon as possible,” Dr. Tyson said.

Ooh, good one, Dr. Tyson, to turn their disinterest back on them, even if it was a fabrication.

“When I didn’t hear back,” she continued in a rush, “I had to made a unilateral decision I thought was in the best interest of my patient. And since you were the ones to bring Dr. Oscar and his experiment to our attention, I assumed you would approve.”

“When was this?” my father asked.

“Two weeks ago.”

“And this is the first we’ve heard of it?” Sidney asked, sounding litigious.

“There was some miscommunication between me and Dr. Jarvis. I only just became aware that you weren’t informed. My sincere apologies.”

“So the drug is the reason Marigold moved her fingers?” my father asked.

“We believe so,” Dr. Tyson said.

“I knew it would work,” my mother said. “My son Alex is brilliant.”

“
Our
son,” my dad corrected.

Oh, good grief.

“Yes, well,” Dr. Tyson said, “what I’m trying to say is the drug was administered before we knew about the fetus.”

“Will it cause problems for the baby?” Sidney asked.

“We don’t know. The drug hasn’t been tested on a pregnant comatose patient.”

“But it’s a drug for neural stimulation,” my dad said. “So for all you know, it could be
good
for the baby.”

“That’s possible,” Dr. Tyson admitted. “But typically a fetus develops best in an unadulterated environment.”

“What’s the window for terminating the pregnancy?” my mother asked.

“Twenty weeks, so there’s still time. You need to prepare yourselves for a range of outcomes regarding both Marigold and the fetus. If you like, I can recommend a therapist who will help you reach a decision that’s best for your family.”

“That won’t be necessary,” my mother said briskly. “We’ve never needed a therapist to help us make family decisions before, and we’re not going to start now.”

Right, I thought. Why ruin a winning streak?

“We’ll get back to you,” my mother said, “as soon as we decide the best course of action. Meanwhile, I want your personal assurance that this information will be kept completely confidential.”

“Don’t worry,” Dr. Tyson said evenly, “I don’t have a Facebook account.”

WHEN THE THIRD SET of church bells rang, I realized Detective Jack Terry had forsaken me today.

I hope it’s for something fun, like tickets to a Braves game or fishing, versus something gruesome, like a murder. Or maybe he’d decided to spend the day with a woman who walked and talked. He seemed to have a surplus of ambulatory females to choose from.

Okay, so it’s just us. I guess now’s as good a time as any to tell you about the father of my fetus. I’m chagrined to tell you, it’s none other than the engaged Duncan who’s destined for a five-tier-pink-grapefruit-cake wedding in two short months.

Here’s the way things went down:

When Duncan returned from his tour in the Peace Corps, we got together for old times’ sake and tossed back a few too many brews—he because he was happy to see American beer again, me because I was happy to see him again. We picked up right where we left off, it was a great evening and neither one of us mentioned his fiancée. He was too drunk to drive, so he crashed at my apartment, and sometime during the night, had migrated from the sagging couch in the living room to my bed. Shame on me, I knew he was in love with Trina, but I reasoned she would have him for the rest of their lives, so having him for one little night didn’t seem so wrong. After all, I’d seen him first.

But if you’re thinking the encounter was a drunken grabfest, you’d be wrong. Duncan’s lovemaking was sweet, but surprisingly intense and purposeful. It was such an emotional experience for me, I convinced myself he felt the same way about me and the engagement would be unwound. We fell asleep with our hands intertwined… and I woke up alone. While I was wiping the sleep from my eyes, I’d gotten a text from Duncan.