Coma Girl: part 1
COMA GIRL
(Part 1)
by
Stephanie Bond
You can learn a lot when people think you aren’t listening...
For as long as I can remember, I’ve had insomnia. I’ve always been a night owl and a morning person, surviving on five, maybe six, hours of sleep cobbled together in restless bouts. In hindsight, I realize all my life I sort of resented having to sleep. I suppose I was afraid on some subconscious level I’d miss something important or exciting or unrepeatable. Which makes my current predicament all the more ironic.
I am in a deep vegetative state… better known as a coma.
Other people refer to my situation as “sad,” “heartbreaking”... even “tragic.” I find all the attention rather strange considering before I landed in Bed 3 in the long-term care ward of Brady Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, I was the girl no one paid much attention to. I was the middle child—middling pretty, middling smart, a middling achiever with a middling personality in a middling job at a middling company. My name is Marigold Kemp, but these days I’m more commonly referred to as Coma Girl. Apparently, I have a bit of a following. I’ve trended on social media. I have my own hashtag.
Since it appears I’m going to be here for a while, I thought I might as well start telling my story; there have been a few twists and turns as to how I got here, and doubtless more to come. The list of pluses of being in a coma is pretty darn short, but if I had to name the best thing, it’s that you can learn a lot when people think you aren’t listening. I am the ultimate eavesdropper, and friend, if I ever wake up, I’m going to write a tell-all.
Meanwhile, I’ll tell you.
TODAY I CAME BACK from wherever I’ve been since the accident that put me here. Well, not back entirely, but just below the surface of wakefulness, close enough to process the audio inputs around me, yet not close enough to respond. But I’m starting to string together those gluey inputs, starting to make sense of things. From repeated muffled announcements over a public address system, I know I’m in Brady Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. I recall Brady has a renowned trauma center, a fact that both terrifies and comforts me. And from the conversations between nurses and orderlies, I gather I’ve just been moved to this room. The fact that my situation is new to them is helpful to me because it’s new to me, too.
“I see we have a fresh one,” a male voice said.
“Right,” another guy said. A rustle of paper sounded. “Chart says her name is Marigold Kemp.”
“Ha! A marigold in the vegetable patch—that’s funny.”
The ‘vegetable patch,’ I realized, was the term given to the long-term care ward. And apparently, there were four of us veggies in the room.
“What happened to her?”
“TBI.”
“Huh?”
“Traumatic brain injury.”
“That explains the head bandage.”
Ack—a bandage? I needed my thin, brown shoulder-length hair to frame my face just to be passably attractive. I was pretty sure a bandaged head was not a good look for me.
“Head-on collision Memorial Day weekend. You know Keith Young?”
“The Falcons new hotshot receiver? Yeah, man.”
“He was driving the other car.”
“No shit? Is he okay?”
Of course they would be more concerned about a Falcons recruit than little old meaningless me.
“Physically, yeah, but they say he was driving drunk. He’s screwed, big-time.”
“Were there any witnesses?”
“Yeah, another girl in the car… a sister, I think.”
Sidney? Oh, my God, was she—?
“But she walked away with only a few scratches.”
Thank you, Mother Mary.
“Which means she can testify against Young.”
“Yep.”
“Damn, there goes any hopes of being in the playoffs.” Their voices faded, then I heard a door open and close.
I’ve never heard of Keith Young, but then I’m not a football fanatic. How can someone grow up in the Southeastern Conference with an older brother playing college football and not be a fan? Let me clarify—I know the rules of the game and I cheered on my brother Alex as he pounded and got pounded for the University of Georgia Bulldogs, but I guess I just never saw the point. Ironic, huh, that my mother always fretted
he
would end up in the hospital with a head injury? Even more so now that Alex is in Afghanistan. He’d once joked with my parents that the traffic in Atlanta is more harrowing than a battlefield, and I guess he was right.
I backtracked and assimilated the information I’d overheard. My sister and I had been in a car accident caused by an inebriated professional athlete, and apparently I’d sustained the brunt of the impact. I had no memory of the event and, in fact, couldn’t remember my last memory. There were wispy bits in the corners of my brain, but they remained elusive. According to the timeline I’d cobbled together, I’d lost the entire month of June. How was that possible? Where did it go? And how insignificant is my life that I could be absent from it for a month and the world had pretty much kept bumping along?
And I hate to start sounding like a whiney little vegetable, but where is my family? Because it’s pretty obvious to me now that I can hear and understand what’s going on around me, I’ll be waking up any minute now.
“THE TRUTH IS, she might never wake up.”
My mother burst into tears, and my father made a sound like a wounded animal. My sister Sidney murmured soothing words to my parents while I sent hateful vibes toward Dr. Sigrid Tyson, who seemed to be the acting authority in the room.
“All along the hope has been Marigold would improve to the point that we didn’t have to move her into this long-term care ward. The longer it takes for her to come out of the coma, the better the chance she won’t.”
I willed myself to open my eyes then and there, just to say, “Boo!” and freak her out.
But I didn’t… I couldn’t. And it scared the hell out of me because ever since my parents and Sidney had come into the room, I’d been trying to move, whimper, blink—something to let them know I’m in here and I’m aware of what’s happening around me. And hearing I might never wake up, well, that’s just impossible.
This cannot be my life.
I mean, no one has to tell me my life isn’t all that. Especially compared to my remarkable older brother who passed on a career in Silicon Valley to become a decorated soldier. Or compared to my bombshell younger sister who’s in law school and could seriously be president of the world someday. They are both splendid specimens of their gender and the Kemp name, and I… am not. I’ve always pictured my starchy mother looking at the three of us and wondering what happened to her middle fetus. And my sweet, practical dad saying, “Two out of three isn’t bad, Carrie.”
In hindsight, I assumed the only role in my family I could. There simply wasn’t room on the Kemp stage for three stars, so I became the stagehand and audience for my siblings. In between, I graduated from a tiny state college with a generic degree and landed a job managing a carpet warehouse. I don’t mind the work—it pays for my half of the rent in an apartment in an artsy (i.e., “shady”) part of town—but wrangling Berber isn’t the kind of career my mom can brag about.
Plus I don’t have a boyfriend and from what I can remember, no prospects, unless you count booty pings on Blendr and Tinder. But to be honest, I don’t get a lot of those because I post an actual picture of myself, fully clothed.
I don’t have any exciting hobbies, I’m not a big partier, and I have no useful talents.
Still… it’s my life and as little as it is, I want to get back to it sooner rather than later. My boss Mr. Palmer won’t hold my crappy job forever.
“There’s no change in her condition whatsoever?” Sidney asked.
“We’re going to run another series of tests to check for brainwave activity,” the doctor said.
I cheered. Surely the tests would reveal I was still here, listening and… well, just listening.
“Is there anything we can do?” my father asked, dear man.
“Talk to her,” the doctor said, her voice growing more distant. Her footsteps indicated she was leaving.
“What are we supposed to say?” my mother asked, her voice elevated.
“Just talk to her the way all of you normally talk to her.”
The door opened and closed. In the ensuing silence, I pictured my parents and sister looking pensive and coming to the collective realization they normally didn’t talk to me.
A ding sounded over the P.A., then a voice announced visiting hours were over.
“We should leave,” my mother said.
And they did.
“SO WE’RE TAKING TURNS,” Sidney said. “Now that you’re out of intensive care and people can visit, Mom and Dad and I came up with a schedule so everyone won’t be tripping over each other.”
Everyone? My social circle would fit in a refrigerator.
The sound of a chair scraping the floor brought her voice closer. “It’s nice to have some privacy, just the two of us.” Then she made a thoughtful noise. “Well, the two of us and your three roommates, but I’m pretty sure they can’t hear me.” She sighed. “Can you hear me, Sis?”
I focus all my efforts on making my mouth move, on saying I’m so relieved she wasn’t hurt in the accident. But since Sidney doesn’t react, I assume I’m still inert.
A clinking noise sounded—something against metal.
“I brought you my favorite rosary beads. I’m hanging them on your bed.”
I knew the one she meant—the beads were blue glass with a little yellow flower painted on each one, the Madonna and crucifix were silver. Sidney always had it with her. In addition to everything else, my sister had always been a better Catholic than me. But I was touched by the gesture. Just knowing something familiar and beloved was nearby was comforting.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” she said, her voice breaking. “Are you going to wake up?”
The door squeaked open.
“May I help you?” Sidney asked, and I could tell from the tone of her voice she was addressing a man.
Did I mention Sidney is gorgeous?
“Pardon the intrusion,” the man said. “I’m Detective Jack Terry from the Atlanta Police Department. Are you Sidney Kemp?”
“Yes. What’s this about?”
“The accident you were in with your sister,” he said in a tone that asked what else would it be about?
“I gave a statement the day after the accident.”
“I have the notes here. I was hoping to clarify a few details.”