Chapter Three

It had been three weeks since I signed the papers in Judge Everly’s office.

Ziya still hadn’t woken up.

The doctors called it an observational coma. That was the term. I repeated it every time someone asked—even though no one really asked anymore. They were too polite. Too in awe of Ziya, the hometown celebrity.

The news showed stories. Her company. Her speeches. She made the cover of magazines. She’d sold her company the year before, when Sam had been three. Left California, bought the house in the Columbia Neighborhood and moved home. Said Bellingham was where she wanted to raise Sam.

Her house sat quiet in the Columbia neighborhood, the blinds closed, mail gathering like a question no one wanted to answer.

I hadn’t been back since that first morning. Sam hadn’t asked to go home since the first few days. She asked once, curled up in the passenger seat on the way to the grocery store, her voice too small for a three-year-old.

“When are we going home?”

I reached for her hand, squeezed it gently. “This is home for now, sweetheart.”

She didn’t bring it up again.

The sewing room hadn’t been touched in five years. Not since Hugh.

It still smelled like old thread and cedar blocks, and the windows had streaks I kept telling myself I’d clean someday. I’d boxed up most of the fabric ages ago, but the table was still cluttered with his mugs, old receipts, scraps of paper with ideas he never got around to. One said, “don’t forget Friday—lemon bars,” in his handwriting. I kept that one.

It took a full afternoon to clear the space. Another day to vacuum. We found a bookshelf at a garage sale. I painted it lilac. Sam covered it in stickers—sparkly ones, and puffy ones that left their outlines when you peeled them up. She picked a comforter with owls and a lamp shaped like a frog. She named it Wiggles.

It was her room. We called it that. But she still slept in mine.

I didn’t mind. At night she curled against me like a kitten, one hand clutching the hem of my pajama top, like she’d done it a hundred times. Maybe she had. Maybe I had too. It felt familiar in a way I didn’t understand or question. Her little body curled beside me was warm and solid, and the rhythm of her breathing reminded me to stay present.

She never cried at bedtime. She just held my hand until she drifted off. Some mornings I’d wake up with her foot in my ribs, and Bun Bun under my pillow.

I didn’t mind. I’d forgotten what it felt like to matter that much.

I didn’t leave the house that week. Not once.

Not to get groceries. Not to check the mail. I told myself it was because Sam needed routine, but the truth was simpler: I didn’t want to be seen.

I’d been working at Dr. Jensen’s office for six years. Answering phones. Filing charts. Pretending I understood spinal decompression therapy well enough to explain it to strangers.

After Hugh died, I took some time off. A few weeks, maybe more. It’s a blur. I remembered Ziya bringing soup. I remembered crying in the bathroom because I couldn’t find my other shoe. I didn’t remember much else.

But they kept my spot. Told me to come back when I was ready. So I did.

Not because I was better. Just because it was there and I needed someplace to be.

And now I was quitting. I needed the money, but Sam needed me more.

They were kind about it. Said there would always be a place for me. That the patients asked about me. That the front desk didn’t feel the same without my banana muffins and post-it note reminders.

On my last day, they gave me a card with a grocery store gift card tucked inside. Someone brought a lemon bundt cake. I smiled, said thank you, promised to visit.

I wrapped the leftovers in foil and tucked them in the freezer when I got home.

I haven’t touched it.

Hugh’s life insurance would carry us for a while. Ziya’s lawyer said Sam would be provided for. But I didn’t want to touch that money unless I had to.

That was Sam’s future. College, if she wanted it. Therapy, if she needed it. Safety.

I could figure out the rest.

The house was paid off.

If I reused foil and watered down juice, we’d be fine. I washed Ziplocs. I stretched casseroles until they didn’t resemble food anymore.

Sam never complained.

Bianca left five voicemails. I didn’t listen to them.

It wasn’t personal. I just couldn’t handle the way her voice made it real. She’d ask the right questions. “Are you okay?” “Are you eating?” “Do you need help?”

And the answer would be yes, and I couldn’t say yes. Because yes meant I was failing.

And I couldn’t fail. Not again.

The house felt tighter now. Not just small. Compressed. Like I was folding myself in half every day just to keep it all running.

Some nights, after Sam fell asleep, I’d stand in the hallway and look at the guest room. I’d think about getting in the car and driving back to Ziya’s. Just to check the mail. To make sure the porch light hadn’t burned out.

I never did.

I thought about the hospital. About Ziya’s still body. Her still breath. About the look in her eyes that day in her kitchen. The last thing she said to me was a joke about glitter being a controlled substance.

She didn’t reach for me. Not with her voice, not with her thoughts. She never tried to speak in that other way, the way she did with Meg.

Not since I’d told her about the promise.

Because she respected me.

Because she knew I’d had to step away from all of it.

And I had. For Hugh. For faith. For the kind of life where we danced barefoot in the kitchen on Sunday mornings while the coffee brewed.

But some nights—just some—I wondered if I should try.

Not a healing. Not that. Just a flicker. A thread. Enough to sense if something in her body had torn. A clot. A bleed. A blockage. Something I could feel—if I let myself reach for it.

That kind of sensing wasn’t dangerous. But it was still magic. Still stepping toward a door I’d promised never to open again.

I hadn’t touched that part of myself in years. Not since Hugh. Not since the promise.

I didn’t even say the words out loud. I started writing them down. Not spells. Not prayers. Just fragments. Things I remembered from before. From the days when I thought I might go to med school. Before Hugh. Before movie night and grief.

Check pupil response.

Assess cranial nerve function.

Listen for arrhythmia.

Monitor respiratory sync.

Palpate for clot or pressure.

Scan for energy anomalies.

Confirm grounding before withdrawal.

It wasn’t magic exactly. Just a way of paying attention. A blueprint of a language I used to speak.

I folded the notes into a list with the rest of my week, between call the electric company and find a pediatrician.

Then I put the list in the drawer and told myself it didn’t mean anything.