Read Online Before I Wake by Robert J. Wiersema - Free Book Online Page B

choking…
    Choking…
    SIMON
    The silence of the room was broken as Karen arched upright on the bed, screaming, “She’s choking! She’s choking!”
    I leaned in, whispering, “It’s all right. Just let her go—”
    â€œShe’s choking!”
    And from the corner of my eye I could see motion on the heart rate monitor. “Holy…”
    The doctor had seen it too. “She’s got a pulse. Janet, we have a pulse. Let’s get those tubes out.”
    I pulled Karen off the bed as the nurse and the doctor stepped in, turning Sherry onto her back, swiftly removing the tubes from her mouth and nose.
    As her airway cleared, she coughed and sputtered. “Let’s turn her back onto her side,” the doctor said. “In case she vomits.”
    As they turned her, she coughed again, a small pool forming on the pillow under her mouth and nose. The nurse cleared it away.
    The heart rate monitor was still beeping out its rhythm. The doctor hastily pulled on his stethoscope and pressed it between her shoulder blades where her back was exposed. He listened for several seconds, as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He changed position and listened again.
    As he straightened up, the nurse asked, “Doctor, what?” She couldn’t even form the question.
    He waved her silent, glancing at us across the bed, huddled together, shocked and confused, unable to take our eyes from our daughter.
    Using the digital thermometer, he took Sherry’s temperature from her inner ear. He shook his head as he stared at the readout. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered, but everyone in the room could hear him.
    â€œWhat is it?” I asked. “What’s going on?”
    â€œI don’t know.” He was too shaken to be anything but completely honest. “Spontaneous respiration has resumed. And when I listen to her breathing, I don’t hear any fluid inher lungs. It’s like the pneumonia is…gone. I’ll schedule some tests.”
    For a moment, we looked at one another. Then all our eyes turned to rest on the small form on the bed, curled into the fetal position, looking for all the world as if she were only sleeping.
    Â 
    Halfway down the corridor, the stranger watched as nurses ran into the little girl’s room. Seconds later, the elevator doors slid open, disgorging more doctors and nurses, all rushing into the room. Then in twos and threes they came out into the hall. Most of them were half-smiling, half-confused, not sure about what they had just witnessed.
    The stranger knew.
    One nurse, young, pious, the chain of her crucifix visible at the neck of her uniform, was in tears.
    As he drew on his coat, he heard her say, “It’s a miracle.”
    A miracle. Yes.
    The stranger turned away.
    It had begun.

 

    November 1996
    Â 
    KAREN
    Some mornings everything seemed normal.
    I would lie in bed, letting myself wake slowly from dreams I could not remember, the house silent around me, the bed warm. I would pull on comfortable clothes—jogging pants or Simon’s flannel pajama bottoms. I’d splash cool water on my face. In the hallway, I would pause outside the closed door to Sherry’s room, straining to hear any sign of waking within.
    It was only as I walked past the doorway to the living room that reality would reassert itself. Where once Simon and I had sat with friends, laughing and drinking wine, now the furniture was pushed against the walls, the couch and coffee table crammed into the corner, Simon’s chair tucked almost into the closet. The room where we used to sit around the Christmas tree was dominated by a hospital bed and the mixed smells of antiseptic cleanliness and the thick, cloying cut flowers that failed to conceal it.
    Sherry lay motionless on the bed, the covers tight around her.
    Seeing her lying there, on those mornings when I had been fortunate enough to forget, would almost kill