“I was on a vent for five days,” I wail. “Five fucking days. How could I get this bad this fast?”
Maggie crouches down in front of me. “First, it’s not as bad. Not compared to some others I’ve seen—people who’ve been on a vent or ECMO for months; people who have suffered through amputations. It may feel ridiculous to you to sit in a chair and tap your toes, but that’s how you’re eventually going to walk out of here. I promise you, these are small things, with exponential benefits.” She meets my gaze fiercely. “You can be pissed at your body, or you can celebrate it. Yes, it sucks that you got Covid. Yes, it sucks that you were on a vent. But a lot of people who did the same aren’t going home, and you are. You can look at this situation and feel bitter, or you can choose not to be negative. Most adults don’t have many firsts left to them—but you get to experience yours all over again.” She takes a deep breath. “Give me two weeks, and your body will belong to you again.”
I narrow my eyes. I look down at my lap and grit my teeth. Then I grab the sides of the chair, squeeze, and start to push myself up.
“Atta girl,” Maggie says.
It is after a session of occupational therapy—which involves me taking off and putting on clothes, and during which I decide that socks are the work of the devil—that I see the news story: a funeral director in Queens, talking about how backed up they are for cremations; how you can pick up the ashes of your loved one with contactless delivery.
It makes me think, again, that being sore from all this therapy is not the worst that could happen, but rather the best. The majority of people in the Covid ICU ward will only come out of it in a body bag.
Instead of ringing for help, I cantilever my body upright so that I can reach for my phone, which sits on the table hovering across my bed. After I’ve hauled my body weight around, the phone feels light as a feather—an improvement since yesterday.
I do not want to make this call, but I know I have to.
I dial the main switchboard of The Greens. “Hello,” I say, when I am connected to the business office. “I’m Diana O’Toole. My mother, Hannah, was one of your residents. I’ve been sick in the hospital, but I wanted you to know that once I’m discharged I can pick up her things. If you need to put someone else in the room, you can store—”
“Ms. O’Toole,” the director of the facility says. “Are you saying you want to move your mother from our facility?”
“I … ?what?”
“I can assure you she’s being well taken care of. I know that there have been a lot of care facilities in the news recently because of Covid, but we have had zero cases here and we’re maintaining a level of vigilance—”
My heart starts galloping in my chest. “Zero cases,” I repeat.
“Yes.”
“My mother is alive.”
The director hesitates. “Ms. O’Toole,” she says gently, “why would you think otherwise?”
The phone drops out of my hand, and I bury my face in my hands and burst into tears.
What else didn’t actually happen?
If my mother is alive, if I was never in the Galápagos, are there other things I believed as fact that aren’t necessarily true?
Like … ?do I still have a job?
I find myself logging in to my email, something I’ve avoided, because my eyes still have trouble focusing on a tiny screen and the number of unread messages is so high it makes me feel like I’m about to break out in hives.
But before I can even begin to do a specific search for work emails, a text pings from Finn, with a Zoom link and an emoji heart. It’s been two long, endless days that I haven’t seen him or talked to him, because he’s been at work, so I immediately log on. It is the first time I’ve seen him without a mask, and there are bruises along the bridge of his nose. His hair is wet; he is freshly showered. His face lights up when I join the call.
“Why didn’t you tell me my mother was alive?” I blurt out.
He blinks, confused. “Why wouldn’t she be?”
“Because when I was … ?sedated I thought she died.”
His breath gusts out. “Oh my God, Diana.”
“I saw her on a FaceTime call, fighting to breathe,” I tell him. “And then she …” I can’t say it. I feel like I’ll jinx this unexpected resurrection. “I asked you about her, when I first woke up. You said you’d take care of everything. So I assumed that meant you knew what had happened. That you’d been talking to the memory care place and the funeral home and everything.”
“Well,” he says tentatively, “silver lining, right?”
“When I thought she’d died, I didn’t feel anything. I thought I was a monster.”
“Maybe you didn’t feel anything because on some unconscious level you knew it wasn’t real—”
“It felt real,” I snap, and I swipe at my eyes. “I want to visit her.”
“Okay. We will.”
“I think I need to go by myself,” I say.
“Then that gives you even more incentive to get better,” Finn replies, gentling his voice. “How’s rehab?”