A Week at the Lake (14 page)

No one can have your daughter if you stay.

Zoe's tears stab at me. I feel their pinpricks.

Stay? As if I have a choice. Come or go. Leave or stay.

You can choose
.

“We're losing her. Get me . . .”

I can't listen to the people working so feverishly on my body. I can't bear to look at Zoe. I don't want to hear Gran's voice anymore. I don't have the strength for any of this.

You can and you do.
Gran's voice resounds in my head.
You must. You have a life waiting for you.

A
life?
If I had the strength, I would laugh. My life doesn't feel like anything worth fighting for. The weariness seeps into me; whatever is tethering me to my body stretches tighter. If it breaks will I float away?

Your life doesn't belong only to you. Your daughter needs you
.

I watch Zoe's tears slide down her cheeks. See Eve's arm slip around her shoulders. My daughter doesn't shrug it off.

Now, darling.
Gran's voice is gentle but insistent
. If you're going to stay you must make it happen now
.

But I don't know how
. Fresh panic assails me as the darkness once again descends.

The last voice I hear is my grandmother's.
Yes, darling. Yes you do.

I
n her dream Emma had apparently turned into a fish, because she was underwater and somehow breathing. She swam easily through the lake's cool depths, skimming over sandy bottoms, and slipping through its undulating plant life. When she tired of this, she began to make her way toward the crystal clear surface that sparkled with diamonds of what her small fish brain recognized as sunlight. Somehow she also knew that when she broke the surface, she'd be in the rock-edged cove near the cottage boathouse. But when she came up and opened her eyes, which were no longer walleyed but centered in her non-fish face, Zoe, Mackenzie, and Serena were peering down at her as if she were not a person or even a fish, but some fascinating specimen pinned down beneath a microscope.

“What?” Her vision was slightly blurred and her throat hurt when she tried to speak, her voice coming out in an almost unrecognizable croak. “Why . . .” She swallowed painfully and tried to focus. “Why are you looking at me like that?” No longer weightless, her body ached. Her eyelids seemed to weigh a couple of tons each. Her head pounded painfully.

“No. Please. Don't close your eyes!” Zoe's panicked voice halted her eyelids' descent, but it took some serious effort to open them back up. She stared up into her daughter's face, which was stretched into a mask of panic that matched her voice. Her hair stood on end. Dark circles rimmed her eyes. Her cheeks were streaked with mascara and the residue of tears. “Why do you”—she swallowed again, forced the words out—“look like that?”

She shifted her focus to include Serena and Mackenzie. “You all look like,”—swallow—“like shit.”

The three of them grinned. As if she'd complimented them. “I must have said that wrong.”

They laughed. Serena and Mackenzie high-fived. Emma studied their faces and what she could see of the room, looking for some clue to where they were and why she was the only one lying down. “We need to check out immediately.” She swallowed again. What the hell had happened to her throat? “This hotel looks worse than you do.”

She was funnier than she'd thought and way funnier than she felt, because they laughed again.

“We're just so relieved,” Mackenzie said, holding a glass of water to her lips.

“Thank God you're back,” Serena added.

Zoe just nodded and swiped at her tears.

“Back?” She wanted to reach out to Zoe but her limbs weighed a hundred times as much as her eyelids, which still wanted to close. There were tubes running out of her. Machines all around her. “Where did I go? Why”—she swallowed again—“am I attached to this stuff?”

“We were kind of hoping you could tell us that,” Mackenzie said.

Although she knew who she was and who they were and they were clearly in a hospital, she had no idea how she'd gotten there.

“You've been in a coma since the accident twelve days ago.”

“Accident?” She tried to remember, tried to concentrate on something besides their faces and voices, but there was nothing there. No memories to reel in. “I was in . . . accident?”

Zoe nodded solemnly. Fresh tears ran down her cheeks.

“You don't remember?” Mackenzie asked.

“No.” The croak was one of fear. How could she not know this? How could she possibly have lost twelve days and have no memory of it at all?

“What's the last thing you do remember?” Serena asked.

She tried to think, to focus. But her thoughts moved as slowly as molasses and were just as murky. Fish dreams from the bottom of Lake George. Gran. The judge's study. Her closet.
Eve.
“Were Eve and Rex here?”

Serena nodded. “The whole Michaels clan showed up. But Eve has been here almost every day.”

This made no sense. But neither did anything else.

She tried to stay tuned-in as they talked. Wanted to understand what had happened. But her eyes were so heavy. Her body so tired. The words blurred to a background hum. Her eyelids began to close.

“Mom?”

She was surprised to hear Zoe, who'd referred to her by her first name since the age of ten, call her
Mom
. But she liked it. “Hmmmm?” Emma managed, trying to hold off the threads of sleep that pulled at her.

“You're only allowed to go to sleep if you promise to wake up again.”

Emma's eyelids were too heavy to open, but she had no intention of going anywhere. “Promise,” she murmured, already half asleep. A moment later she was swimming again. Her fish lips turned up in a smile.

T
he next time Emma opened her eyes, two doctors were leaning over her. One of them was tall and slim with an attractive blend of Caucasian and Asian features, the other white haired and blue eyed with a military bearing. She didn't think she'd ever seen either of them before, but their voices were instantly familiar.

“Ms. Michaels,” the younger, taller one said. “I'm Dr. Brennan. Head of Neurocritical Intensive Care here at Mount Sinai. We're very glad to have you back.” His eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled.

“And I'm Dr. Markham, your neurosurgeon,” the other doctor said crisply. His blue eyes were sharp, his attention laser focused as if he were trying to see inside her head.

“Dr. Markham has been in charge,” Brennan said. “He removed the blood clot that threatened earlier on and supervised the team fighting your recent infection.”

“Blood clot?” Her throat was still sore, her voice rusty. “Infection?” The hits just kept on coming. She was stunned that so much could have happened to her without her knowledge. Next thing they'd tell her she'd been speaking in some long-dead language she'd never heard of, or exhibiting some other talent she shouldn't possess. “But I don't remember how I got here. I don't know what . . .” Her voice trailed off. She didn't even know what she didn't know. And wasn't sure she wanted to. Having such a huge hole in her memory made her feel dizzy and nauseated with anxiety.

“We know it's disconcerting to discover things you have no memory of,” Dr. Markham said. “But it's quite common in your situation. The vast majority of coma patients who regain consciousness have large gaps that typically begin slightly before the traumatic brain injury occurred.”

Her
brain
had been traumatically injured. “Why am I so tired if I've just been lying here?” she asked, unable to ask what she really wanted to know.

“You came in here pretty beat up,” Dr. Brennan said. “Your brain and your body suffered severe trauma. Then the fever and infection took even more out of you. You've been through a lot even if you weren't consciously aware of it.”

“And my brain? Is it . . . is it all right?”

Dr. Markham considered her carefully. “Things are looking very positive. But you're going to need plenty of time and rest to heal properly. And you're probably going to need . . .”

She sensed they weren't finished speaking, but her eyes were once again heavy. Before they'd finished talking, she'd
fallen asleep. Once again her dreams were of the lake. Only this time she was on top of it, not underneath it.

W
hen she awoke again, she was in a small but well-appointed private room and most of the tubes and machines had been removed. Rex and Eve sat nearby.

“Hello, kitten,” Rex said quietly. His smile was lopsided. It was the “I know I've let you down but you know I love you” smile that used to melt her heart.

Eve said nothing, but studied her intently. Emma recognized that look, too, and wasn't at all sure she had the strength to counter whatever was coming when Eve rose and moved closer to the bed. “I, we, would like to help during the rehab phase. I wanted to take you to California, but it seems you're not yet cleared to fly and of course you'll need follow-up.”

Emma's body tensed even as she blinked sleepily. Eve didn't wait for Emma to respond. “I've found the perfect place here in Manhattan. There's a long waiting list but I've managed to convince them to make room for you.” She smiled triumphantly. “In fact, Zoe can stay with us and be close enough to visit you regularly.”

No!
The word resounded in Emma's head, but she must not have spoken it aloud because Eve continued. “I think it will work marvelously. We'll have an opportunity to spend time with Zoe and we can make sure you get the best possible treatment.” She sounded so pleased, so certain. “It looks as if you'll be allowed to leave the hospital before week's end.”

“Why?” It was all she could manage. It was the one thing she wanted to know.

“Why, what, darling?” Eve asked smoothly. “What more compelling reason could there be for mending our fences than almost losing you this way?” She stepped closer. “We're all adults now and should be able to let go of old hurts and . . . misunderstandings.” Her tone had turned reasonable, almost
matter-of-fact, which meant Emma needed to pay close attention to what came next. “Besides, what sort of person would I be if I didn't look after my own flesh and blood who came this close”—she held up two fingers with barely an inch between them—“to dying?” She looked to Rex for support, but her father looked slightly embarrassed. “You're in no condition to take care of yourself, let alone your daughter.”

Emma studied her mother's face as she digested this. Appearances had always been more important than reality to Eve. And a far greater motivator.

There was a soft knock on the open door and Serena entered, greeting Eve and Rex as she crossed toward the bed. Her stilted tone told Emma that she'd heard at least part of Eve's plan.

“Hi, Em.” Serena took her hand and looked Emma in the eye. “You okay?”

Emma nodded, pathetically glad that Serena was here and that she didn't let go of her hand.

“I was just telling Emma that we've secured a bed for her at Edgemere, which is a five-star facility,” Eve said as if it were a fait accompli. “And that Zoe can stay with us.”

There was a weighty silence as Serena plumbed Emma's eyes for a reaction. The hand that held hers tightened slightly. “Is that what you want, Em?”

Emma looked directly into her friend's eyes. She shook her head slightly, trying not to appear too desperate. “No.” She said this loudly enough for Eve and Rex to hear.

“Well, that's a relief,” Serena said. “Because even though you ‘checked out for a while,' I was pretty sure you hadn't completely taken leave of your senses.” She gave Emma's hand another squeeze and shot her a conspiratorial wink, ignoring Eve's perfectly executed exclamation of shocked indignation. “Mackenzie and Zoe will be up in a few minutes. We've been working on the arrangements. It looks like we might be able to check you out of here as early as tomorrow.”

“Oh, no,” Eve said. “That is not acceptable. I insist on . . .”

“You have no right to insist on anything,” Serena said in an even tone. “Emma's back.” She squeezed Emma's hand again. Emma returned the pressure. “And even if she weren't, I'd never let you take her. I have written permission from Emma to make those decisions for her.”