Hver gang var det værre.
Daniels hånd hverken drev eller bevægede sig. Den handlede med vilje. Hans øjne blafrede ikke, sådan som lægerne nogle gange sagde, at komapatienters øjne ville gøre under dybe neurale reaktioner. De åbnede sig skarpt, fokuserede og fulgte døråbningen som en mand, der tjekkede, om han blev overvåget.
“Hvorfor fortalte du mig det ikke noget før?” spurgte jeg, selvom min stemme knap nok virkede.
Lily twisted the hem of her sleeve. “I tried yesterday, but you were talking to Dr. Patel, and then Grandma came, and I got scared.”
Daniel’s mother, Sharon.
That name landed badly in my stomach.
Sharon had become almost aggressively involved since the accident. She questioned every expense, every treatment plan, every insurance decision. She insisted Daniel “would want family managing things” and grew cold whenever I reminded her that I was his wife and legal next of kin. Twice in the last month she had pushed me to sign disability-related paperwork she said the attorneys “needed quickly.” I had refused both times because something about the timing felt wrong.
Now every uneasy instinct I’d had over the past few months began lining up into something much uglier.
I opened my recent email threads while the wipers beat back the rain. There were messages from the hospital social worker, our insurance case manager, Daniel’s employer, and Sharon. So many from Sharon. Questions about the house. About Daniel’s life insurance. About whether I planned to “hold on indefinitely” if his condition remained unchanged.
Then I remembered something else.
Three weeks earlier, Daniel’s business partner, Mark Fulton, had stopped returning my calls. Before the crash he and Daniel had been nearly inseparable, running a construction consulting firm together. Afterward, Mark visited once, cried at the bedside, and then vanished. When I asked Sharon whether she’d spoken to him, she said only, “There are things you don’t understand about Daniel’s work.”
At the time I thought she meant money stress.
Now I wasn’t so sure.
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