Chapter Two
River
Wednesday morning, Professor Sloan is halfway through renal blood flow when my phone vibrates inside my backpack. I ignore it because I’m not supposed to have it out, and the last time I checked a message during class, Sloan stopped talking and asked whether the text was going to be on the exam. The second vibration comes thirty seconds later. Then a third. Nobody who knows me calls three times unless something is wrong. I pull the phone out beneath the desk.
LORA HERNANDEZ.
My chair scrapes backward before I decide to stand.
Sloan stops mid-sentence. “Mr. Maddox?”
“I’m sorry. Hospital.”
That’s all I give him. Judging by the way his expression changes, it’s enough. I step into the hallway and answer before the classroom door finishes closing.
“What happened?”
“Chevelle opened her eyes this morning,” Lora says. “Spontaneous eye opening. No tracking, no localization, and no command-following. I need you to hear the entire sentence before you start building the rest of it.”
My back hits the wall. I saw Chevelle yesterday. Less than twenty-four hours ago, I sat beside her for the first time and read thirty minutes of a terrible fantasy novel while her face stayed still. Now her eyes have opened, and my body reacts harder than one thirty-minute visit should justify.
“Did she look at anyone?”
“No.”
“Did she respond to a voice?”
“No response we could reproduce.”
“Are her eyes still open?”
“They opened for less than a minute and closed again. She has opened them briefly twice since then. The team is documenting it.”
I look through the narrow window in the classroom door. My backpack is beneath the desk, and Sloan is drawing another diagram across the board. “Can I come after class?”
“No. Your next approved companionship visit is tomorrow at five.”
“Lora.”
“Thursday at five, River. I’m calling because the team wants tomorrow’s visit to use the same book, pace, and volume you used yesterday. Consistent stimulation gives them cleaner observations. I’m not calling to invite you onto the unit today.”
The distinction shouldn’t need saying. Apparently my reputation has arrived before me.
“What if she opens them again?”
“Then trained staff observe and document it. You’re a volunteer, not the only person capable of speaking in a room.”
“I know.”
“That phrase continues to worry me.”
I rub the heel of my hand against my chest. “Tomorrow at five.”
“Yes.”
“Same book.”
“Yes.”
“Same pace.”
“Yes.”
“I’m repeating the plan, not arguing.”
“You’ve used that voice while arguing since I met you.”
She hangs up before I can defend myself. I go back into class because there’s nothing useful I can do at the hospital today. That fact doesn’t make sitting still easier. Sloan points at the empty seat beside my backpack. I return to it, open my notebook, and discover I missed enough of the lecture that my notes now read kidney, arrows, and something that might be aldosterone if the letters ever finish becoming English.
The quiz begins twenty minutes later. I know the material. I also know Chevelle’s eyes opened this morning without tracking. Those two facts fight until both become useless, and I fail badly enough that the teaching assistant looks embarrassed while collecting the paper.
Dr. Patel catches me outside the lab and makes me reschedule the adviser appointment I missed last week. He has a folder under one arm and the expression of a man who has watched too many pre-med students confuse exhaustion with ambition. “You’re trying to fit school, work, volunteer hours, and sleep into the same three-day week,” he says.
“I’m handling it.”
“That phrase has buried more grade-point averages than alcohol.”
I almost tell him to mind his business, but my business is standing in a campus hallway looking like it hasn’t slept in weeks. I agree to bring him a real schedule Friday instead of insisting I can keep stuffing obligations into whatever space is left. My shift at Grand Valley Community Bank starts at one. I eat a stale gas-station sandwich in the parking lot because apparently self-punishment can come with mayonnaise.
Annett is behind the teller line when I walk in. She points toward the break room.
“No.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were going to tell me I look bad.”
“I was going to ask whether you fell asleep standing up.”
My stomach drops so hard I almost miss a step.
Her face changes. “Shit. River, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
“You didn’t do anything.”
“Still.”
I clock in and spend the next four hours solving problems that come with procedures. Verify identity. Document the request. Follow the steps. Don’t improvise with somebody else’s money. It would be useful if the rest of my life came with the same instructions.
At five thirty, I clock out instead of driving to St. Mary’s. My approved visit is tomorrow. Chevelle has an entire medical team today, exactly like Lora said. I repeat both facts while getting into my car because knowing the boundary and liking it are separate problems.
Jack and Fynn are already in a booth at the bar near Jack’s rental when I arrive. Fynn has fries, Jack has a beer, and the glass in front of my seat contains water because apparently they’ve started managing me as a group project. “You’re late,” Jack says.
“I went to work.”
“You considered going to the hospital first.”
“I considered many things. Most of them are illegal.”
Fynn pushes the fries toward me. “Eat before the violent thoughts become actionable.”
I take one and sit.
Jack waits until I swallow. “What did Lora say?”
I look at him. “How do you know Lora called?”
“You texted me that Chevelle opened her eyes and then ignored every question I asked.”
I check my phone and find the message I sent while walking from class to Dr. Patel’s office.
River: Chevelle opened her eyes. No tracking. I'll see her again on Thursday.
Three complete sentences. Apparently panic hasn’t destroyed grammar yet. “She opened them for less than a minute,” I say. “Then briefly twice more. And like I said, there wasn't any tracking, localization, or command-following.”
Fynn nods slowly. “And you haven’t seen her since yesterday.”
“No.”
“So everything you know about today came from Lora.”
“Yes.”
Jack lifts his beer. “Good. Keep saying it exactly that way.”
“I’m not claiming anything else happened.”
“Not out loud.”
I lean back. “I know eye opening isn’t the same as awareness.”
“You know the sentence,” Jack says. “Your face still looks like somebody called to tell you she sat up and asked for breakfast.”
“That’s not what my face looks like.”
Fynn studies me. “It’s close.”
I take another fry so I don’t answer with something that gets us removed from the bar.
Jack lowers his voice. “Tomorrow you go at the scheduled time. You read the same book, report what you personally see, and leave when the visit ends.”
“You and Lora should start a support group.”
“IF she were twenty years younger, I'd be doing a lot more than that. And, we already have one. It’s called People Exhausted by River.”
“Membership is growing,” Fynn says. The conversation moves to Jack’s latest argument with his landlord and a coworker of Fynn’s who keeps reheating fish in the break-room microwave. I participate...barely, because every few minutes, my attention returns to the fact that Chevelle’s eyes opened today and I wasn’t there.
And I don't know why it's bothering me so much. It's not like it's a loss. Hell, it’s not even unusual. It's not like a patient's recovery revolves around my schedule, nor is her body or recovery performing for me.
Still, the thought remains to unsettle me.
I drink one beer over two hours, eat most of Fynn’s fries, and go home before Jack can confiscate my keys out of principle. I study until midnight, sleep in my bed instead of at the kitchen table, and make it through Thursday’s classes without checking my phone beneath the desk.
I sign in at Volunteer Services at four fifty-two and then meet Lora outside Chevelle’s room, listening as she repeats the plan for today once more.
"Keep your voice low voice, read from the same book and keep the same pace as the other day. Dont touch her or ask extra questions if her eyes open, and that make sure that you tell the staff what you observe instead of deciding that it automatically means something."
“I remember.”
“You also remembered yesterday and still asked if you could come early.”
“I accepted your no for the answer that it was.”
“After asking twice.”
“Hey, no one ever said that growth was easy.”
"Especially for you," she replies while opening the door.
Chevelle lies with her head angled slightly toward the window and her eyes closed. I notice that the paperback's still setting on the rolling table where I left it Tuesday, as I sit in the same chair as before.
“Hey, Chevelle. It’s River. The villain is still laughing darkly, so I’m starting to think he needs cough medicine.”
Her face doesn’t change.
I open to the marked page and read at the pace I used during the first visit. Near the end of the thirty minutes, her eyelids lift. Not all the way, but enough for a thin line of gray-blue to show. Her gaze points beyond me toward the ceiling and stays there.
I keep reading, listening as Lora steps into the room without speaking. She checks the monitor, then moves into Chevelle’s line of sight without touching her.
“Chevelle, it’s Lora. Can you look toward my voice?”
Chevelle’s eyes remain open for several seconds but don’t ever move toward Lora or me. After a few moments they close, and I finish the sentence before stopping.
“That was eye opening,” Lora says quietly. “We didn’t see tracking.”
“I saw the same thing.”
The words taste like restraint, but they’re accurate. Yesterday, Lora told me her eyes had opened. And today, I saw it for myself for the first time. Nothing else happens because unfortunately, just because I want something to happen doesn't automatically make it so. Lora documents the time and duration, and I close the book as the thirty-minute timer sounds and watch as she adjusts the blanket. I look at the full name printed on the board beside the bed, and think about how calling her Chevelle sounds too formal, like I’m reading her name from a clipboard instead of talking to the woman in front of me. Lora steps into the hall to answer another nurse. “Chevy,” I say quietly, trying it once. “I don’t know if calling you that is even okay, but it just feels right.”
I know that it's not my place to even give her a nickname, and I've never even tried to come up with nicknames for Angelica and Brody, their families already having informal names that they use. But the name Chevy settles into place in my head, and I don’t take it back.
When Lora returns, I report only what I personally observed. Chevelle’s eyelids opened near the end of the reading. Her gaze remained fixed beyond me. She didn’t track Lora or me. Her eyes closed after several seconds.
Lora writes every part down as I return the paperback to the rolling table. I say goodnight to Chevelle, and then make my way out of her room, a part of me already looking forward to my next visit.
