Chapter 2

"Nora! Can you hear me?"

The voice sounded like it was underwater. Nora tried to respond, but it felt as if someone had shoved a fiery poker down her gullet.

"Oh my God, oh my God! Nora! Can you hear me?"

She recognized her sister's voice and turned her head slightly. It took a great effort to open her eyes, and when she did, Lacey was looming over her. She was wearing a dark suit with a white shirt buttoned to the very top. Her shoulder-length blonde hair looked uncombed, and there were shadows under her eyes. Nora knew instinctively she was the cause, and sadness began to throb at her temples. She felt alone in her grief, even though it was evident there were others nearby.

"It's going to take a minute for the medicine to kick in. Her throat will be raw," said a male voice.

"Blink if you can hear me," Lacey loudly commanded.

Nora blinked. Everything about her hurt. She tried to lift her head to see where she was, but it was excruciatingly painful. Something was beeping nearby, each sound a stabbing pain in her brain. Beep. Beep. Beep.

"Hey, kiddo."

She felt a big hand on her arm. Gus! Good ol' Cousin Gus. What was he doing here? Where was here?

"Are you okay?" All six foot three of him tried to smile, but it was a lopsided attempt, like he couldn't decide whether to commit to it fully. A thought whispered through Nora's head that it was hard for Gus to smile, and her sorrow ratcheted up.

"Do you remember what happened?" Lacey asked. "Blink once for yes, twice for no."

"Lacey, for God's sake, give her a minute."

Thatvoice was unmistakably her mother's. Nora couldn't see her, but she felt the touch of cold fingers on her forehead. Did she have a fever? Was she sick? Was that what happened? She had a jagged recollection of some new virus going around.

"Nora." Her father's face was suddenly looming over her, his brow wrinkled with concern. She had to be on the cusp of dying, because her father never took time off from work. His salt-and-pepper hair was neatly combed, his face clean-shaven, his suit impeccable. Was this her real death? How was she to know? Death was so disorganized!

"I've got it all under control," her father said. But he looked slightly annoyed, and Nora could only surmise that she wasn't dying properly.

Lacey nudged Dad out of the way. "How do you feel?"

Confused. Detached from herself, like an astronaut untethered and weightless in space. Different in ways she couldn't make sense of. She didn't feel like she was in the right body. Her thoughts were racing in an endless loop, cleaving to straggling bits of euphoria while a new well of sadness slowly filled her chest.

What had happened to her? Was she dying or not, and who did she see about that? "Where am I?" Her bed suddenly lurched into motion, her head and torso rising. She squeezed her eyes shut and hoped she wouldn't vomit. When the bed stopped moving, she drew a shaky breath, forced a swallow against the burn in her throat, and slowly opened her eyes.

Her family was gathered around the bed. Dad, arms folded. Mom, a compact in her hand as if she was doing a little touch-up while she waited for Nora to wake up. Lacey. Gus.

It felt like there was something or someone in that room with them. Not a person, exactly, but a presence. Grandpa?Tears immediately filled her eyes. She'd lost him once, had found his lifeless body on his kitchen floor. But she'd found him again, in the garden, his old self radiating love, filling her with indescribable joy. She couldn't bear to lose him again.

"Nora, honey, you're in Austin, in a hospital," her mother said carefully. Her hair looked redder since the last time Nora had seen her. When was that? She was too thin, her cheekbones so sharp that Nora had once told Lacey they ought to come with a warning. "We had you transported from the coast."

The coast. The Texas coast?"What happened?"

"A miracle, Nora. A miracle happened." Lacey's voice was full of relief. "If that couple hadn't been there—"

"Lacey." Her father's tone was curt. He put a hand on Lacey's shoulder. "Let her recover before you give her all the gory details."

Gory? Maybe a car wreck? No wonder it felt like something was terribly wrong with her body.

"You had a bad accident, honey." Her mother leaned over to stroke her brow and tuck some of her hair behind her ear. "It was a terrible surfing accident. They say you were underwater for a long time."

A surfing accident? That would not have been Nora's first guess. Flotsam of memories floated back to her. Lots of very cold water. Goose bumps on her skin. A glimpse of a gray sky being swallowed by water. Raw, icy fear.

"You never should have been on that beach," her father said.

His disapproving tone put her squarely back in her childhood.

"The beach was closed. The hotel staff never should have taken you out there." He was pacing at the foot of her bed now, impatiently or angrily. It was hard to know with him.

"You've been through hell," Gus said. "Do you want to talk about it? Because I—"

"Thank you, Gus," her father said crisply. "Can we all take a breath here? Nora is fine. She's come out of it. You heard the doctor—she's young and healthy and should recover, so let's stop acting like she's about to kick the bucket."

Ah, so she wasn't on her way out but on her way back in, complete with a gaping hole in her memory about what had happened to her. Her brain felt full of debris, which was a bit overwhelming and explained why panic was chainsawing its way through her jumble of emotions. She needed to tell them that she'd been with Grandpa, but she couldn't gather the words. At least she thought she had been with him, but... Wait. Was it possible she'd dreamed everything? No! It had been so real. She could still taste the tomato. How high was her fever? Didn't people hallucinate with high fevers?

The door swung open, and a smiling nurse walked in. "Welcome back, Nora," she said, as if Nora had just hopped off a train that had pulled into the depot. "Dr.Umaru will be right back." She pressed two fingers to Nora's wrist.

"How long?" Nora asked hoarsely. "How long have I—"

"You've been on a ventilator," Lacey said. "Do you know the odds of getting off a ventilator?"

She did not.

"A week," her mother said. "The longest week of my life. Oh, Nora, you had us so frightened. I am soglad you're with us."

The door opened and a Black man wearing a lab coat, thick glasses, and a stethoscope sailed into the room. "There you are!" he said cheerily.

A jolt of recognition tore through her. "You were there," Nora managed. "In the garden."

"What's that?" He leaned over and studied her face. "I'm Dr.Umaru. I'm going to check a few things if that's okay." He put his stethoscope to her chest. "Those lungs are sounding a lot better. Can you wiggle your toes for me?"

She tried, but her feet were wooden. Any feeling of weightlessness had evaporated—she was like an immovable heavy bag of sand sinking into the mattress.

"Is she going to be brain damaged?" her mother asked anxiously. "Can you tell?"

"Let's give your daughter some time to fully wake up," Dr.Umaru said. He smiled at Nora and patted her arm. "You're going to have a lot of questions, I'm sure, Ms.November, but for now, just know that you were underwater for several minutes and were clinically dead when you were rescued. Your heart had stopped. But you're a fighter, Ms.November, and with the efforts of the first responders who got your heart going again, here you are. You're pretty banged up and you're going to require some physical rehabilitation, which is normal in these circumstances. Our social worker will be by later today to help—"

"We've got it taken care of, thanks," her father said dismissively.

Dr.Umaru glanced impatiently at her dad but turned a smile to Nora. "First things first, however. Let's get your strength back and make sure you don't develop pneumonia. If you keep progressing, we'll have you out of here before long. Follow this pen with your eyes, please," he said and held up an ink pen. As he moved it back and forth, he shone a light in her eyes. "All right. You get some rest, and we'll talk a little later. Good to have you back." He wished everyone a good day and went out of the room.

When the door swung shut behind him, her family started talking at once. They were laughing, making remarks Nora didn't quite get. But she understood they were relieved she was alive, and she wanted to laugh too. Only she feared her laugh would lean more to the hysterical, what with the panic slipping under the covers with her. Something had happened to her that went well beyond this hospital room. She'd drowned? It was clear that drowning had broken her physically, but it was more than that. Much bigger than that. She couldn't explain this painful resurrection she was having, other than oddly, it was a good painful resurrection. Panic notwithstanding.

She felt something wet on her cheeks, sliding into her hair. Tears. For Grandpa, for Roxie. For all the things she'd left undone. For herself. Tears of happiness. Of elation at being alive. Tears of sorrow. She would have wiped them away, but she didn't have the energy to lift her arm.

"Are you okay?" Lacey wiped away the tears for her.

"I miss Grandpa so much."

Lacey gave her a funny look. "I miss him too."

"Lace... I died," she whispered. "I died, and Grandpa was there, and so was Roxie."

"Roxie? Our dog? Where?"

"Good Lord." Her mother sounded tense. "Nora, that was a dream. It's the drugs they give you. When my sister had cancer, they gave her so many drugs that half the time she thought she was in Houston getting ready to play golf. You remember that, don't you, Gus?"

Gus's face darkened. His mother had died of that cancer.

"Roxie's been gone for years. I don't know why you'd dream about her," her mother continued, sounding exasperated and alarmed at the same time. "But that's all it was, honey, just a dumb dream."

Dumb? "No, it was amazing, Mom. I don't know how to even describe it. Grandpa was there. We talked." Nora's heart constricted painfully. There'd been so much more she'd needed to say to him. "He wants me to grow a garden."

"This is beginning to sound a little Wizard of Oz-y," Lacey said. "You didn't happen to see a tin man and a lion, did you?" She chuckled at her joke.

Didn't they understand what she was saying? "The doctor was there too. The one who was just here."

"Oh my God, it is brain damage," her mother whispered loudly to her dad.

"Don't be ridiculous," her father said. "Hallucinations are a common side effect of heavy sedation."

"I think it's kind of cool," Gus said.

Nora felt an odd sensation, like she was being cleaved in two—the weight of her family and who she'd been before she died was separating from the extraordinary moments she'd spent with Grandpa. Everything about her felt out of place. She belonged in that garden. Not here.

"I'm going to step out and call Cynthia and let her know you're okay," her mother said with a thin smile.

"Mom!" Lacey said, but her mother was walking out the door, already on the phone to her best friend, Nora's father hanging over her shoulder, probably asking how long he had to stay.

Exhaustion began to weigh Nora down. Her regrets and vague anxieties of things left undone continued to flit through her fluffy clouds of exuberance.

Inexplicably, one memory popped into her head, front and center. Of a man she'd met months ago in a corner store. They'd been caught up in an attempted robbery. She couldn't remember his name, but she could still see his face so clearly, and the scarf he wore around his neck. She remembered how she'd made him laugh. The connection had been instant, a preternatural tether between them. Like he was the first beam of sunshine to break a cloudy sky, pulling her attention to warmth and light.

What happened to him?She'd meant to call him, had written his phone number on the back of her hand at the time, but she never did. Why hadn't she? Why hadn't she done anything she'd meant to do?

Her head was throbbing now, making it hard to see. The beeping seemed louder. "My head," she moaned. "That beeping is killing me."

"I'll call the nurse," Lacey said.

"Is there anything I can get you?" Gus asked, looking worried.

"A tomato." It wasn't a joke—she wanted to taste that tomato again. She wanted to go back to the safety of the garden.

But first things first, the doctor had said. What was first?

"Grow your garden."

The words floated back to her on a whisper, instantly soothing.

Also, maybe she should get a dog.