I hardly knew what to say. She had me pretty scared. “What would you do then?”
“It involves some micro surgery. Some tweaking,” she said. “That’s why we can’t let you go home just yet. We have to watch how everything knits together.”
“Do my parents know about this?” I asked.
“I’ve explained it to them,” she said. “We don’t want any surprises here, and that’s why I want you informed, too. You’re your most important advocate.”
I studied Dr. Fallon with her perfect pale face and red lipstick. She never had a hair out of place, and it seemed like nothing ever ruffled her, but she might have trained her face to conceal her feelings. I somehow doubted my facial P.T. would include such advanced techniques.
“You said a host brain could fight back, but I thought Althea was brain dead when she came here in a coma,” I said.
The doctor regarded me with new attention and tapped a finger on the desk. “Althea didn’t have any consciousness in the traditional sense, but she wasn’t strictly brain dead. She could still breathe. It’s an important distinction.”
“But she hadn’t recovered for months. I don’t get how her brain could have anything left to fight me off now,” I said.
The doctor’s finger went still. “You’re calling Althea ‘she,’” Dr. Fallon said slowly. “Do you see yourself and Althea as two separate entities?”
My heart chugged with alarm, and I tried to recall if she’d tricked me into talking about Althea in the third person. “No,” I lied. “I just want to know how likely it is that my old cells will fight off my new ones, like you said.”
“Small,” she said. “The chances are small.”
“How small? One percent?”
“Maybe five percent,” she said. “I’d give it five to ten percent.”
Ten percent sounded big to me. This was not good. “When will I know I’m out of danger?”
“The more days that pass without symptoms, the better,” she said. “Listen, I’m sorry. I can see I’ve troubled you. Let me remind you that you are a very special case. One of a kind. You’ve already come so much farther than we had any reason to expect.”
“What makes me so special?” I asked.
“It’s a combination of factors. Your youth, your stability after your injury, your brain’s innate elasticity. Your baby matters, too, of course,” she said.
I had momentarily forgotten about the baby. “I don’t see why,” I said. “You have other patients here who aren’t pregnant.”
“True,” she said. “But their brain injuries weren’t as severe as yours, either. Your pregnancy was vital to your case. It’s a key reason why I took you on. We often think of fetuses as helpless little beings, nurtured in their mothers’ wombs, but pregnancy is a complex symbiosis, a give and take,” she said. “The hormones and nutrients that have helped your fetus develop have been circulating in your system, too.”
“Are you suggesting my baby kept me alive?”
“It was certainly a factor in why we’re both sitting here today.” She clicked the end of her pen. “Althea, your parents wouldn’t have brought you here if they didn’t trust me. I wish you could, too.”
I eyed her suspiciously. “You’ve just told me I have a ten percent chance of being attacked by my own brain.”
“Only if you don’t report any early symptoms,” she said. “That’s why we need to keep you here a little longer. Will you tell me if you have any sign of a headache, no matter how small?”
I didn’t trust her, but my only choice was to play along. “Yes,” I said.
A sound at the door made me glance over. Madeline, dressed in bright blue, gave the door a light tap. Her staticky hair was fluffier than usual, as if it had been ruffled by the wind. She reminded me of a dandelion gone to seed.
“I don’t want to intrude,” she said, looking at me curiously.
“You’re not. We’re just finishing up,” Dr. Fallon said, reaching for the mirror once more. “I want you to close your eyes again,” she said to me. “Think of something happy. Someone who makes you laugh.”
Laughing was a gift I’d had far too little of lately. I cast my memory back a couple of years, to Dubbs. We sat in the shadow of our boxcar, drawing in the smooth, cool dirt with sticks. I was teaching her to read by writing words like “poop” and “fart.” She was careful sounding out the letters, concentrating and serious, but the instant she grasped a new word, she’d shriek and collapse laughing. I’d laugh, too. I felt so powerful. So proud.
“Hold that,” the doctor said. She clicked another photo. “Now open your eyes.”
In the mirror, Althea was smiling at me. It wasn’t a big smile, but it was a genuine one, and her eyebrows arched up in delicate surprise.
Madeline sighed from the doorway and shook her head. “There she is,” she said.
“I’ll leave you the mirror,” the doctor said to me. “Remember what I said. Communication is important. Use that new voice of yours.”
“Okay,” I said.
Madeline looked at me uncertainly. “Your voice. I wasn’t sure. Is it better?”
“Yep,” I said. I pondered what to say next. “What’s for lunch?”
She pressed her lips together in a tight, happy grin. Then she nodded and let out a laugh. “I think it’s chicken. Oh, won’t your dad be thrilled?”
Diego might be thrilled, but he still wasn’t my dad. Having a voice gave me new ways I’d have to lie.
9
THEA
THE RETURN OF CYRANO
LATER THAT DAY, a technician rolled in an ultrasound machine to check up on the baby. The baby’s heartbeat came loud over the speaker, chugging insistently like the wash cycle on the McLellens’ washing machine. My own heart lurched in response, and I peered over my shoulder at the screen while the technician tapped measurements into her keyboard with one hand.
Afterward, my midwife, Freyja, sat down with me for a long, cozy talk. While I was in a daze, holding a little black-and-white photo of the baby, she talked about vitamins and diet, Kegel exercises, and the importance of regaining my strength as soon as possible, for the baby’s sake.
“This is real, isn’t it?” I said.
Freyja smiled and pressed her warm hand to mine. “Yes, it is. You’re due in seven weeks, Althea. April twenty-fourth, plus or minus two weeks. That’s in no time. We need to keep you and the baby healthy until then, and after. Dr. Fallon’s concerned about how the childbirth might impact your blood pressure and stress your brain. You’re high risk. It will probably be safest for you if we schedule a C-section when we get closer to the time.”
That sounded scary, too. I ran a hand over my abdomen. Freyja had kind eyes and big, steady hands. With her fresh-scrubbed complexion, funky, super-short blond hair, and blue-rimmed glasses, she seemed a little out of place in the antiseptic Chimera Centre. It turned out she’d been hired to come to the island just for me.