“Blink once for yes,” I hear. “Twice for no. Don’t try to talk.” It is so bright, I have to close my eyes.
“Do you know where you are right now?”
There is something in my throat, some kind of tube. I can hear a whir and click of machines. This is a hospital. I blink once.
“Okay, Diana, cough for me.”
The moment I try, that tube slips up and out, ridge by ridge, and my throat is raw and so so so dry—
I cough and cough and remember not being able to breathe. My eyes
focus on writing on the plate-glass window of my room. The letters are in reverse, for whoever’s on the outside coming in, and I have to puzzle them out in the right direction.
COVID +
Someone is holding my hand, squeezing tight. It takes all my strength to turn my face.
He is dressed like he’s an astronaut, gowned and gloved, with a thick white mask covering his nose and mouth. Behind the plastic shield he wears, tears stream down his face. “You’re going to be okay,” Finn says, crying.
He is not supposed to be here.
He tells me that he begged a nurse to let him in, because even though I am in his hospital I am not his patient, and right now no visitors are allowed in the ICU. He says I gave everyone a hell of a scare. I’ve been on the ventilator for five days. He tells me that yesterday, when they dialed down
the ventilator for a spontaneous breathing trial, my numbers on the gas looked good enough to extubate me.
None of this information fits into my brain.
Another nurse sticks her head into the room and taps her wrist—time’s up. Finn strokes my forehead. “I have to go now before someone gets in
trouble,” he says.
“Wait.” My voice is a croak. I have so many questions but the most important one blooms. “Gabriel.”
Finn’s brows draw together. “Who?”
“In the water, with me,” I force out. “Did he … make it?” I pull air into my battered lungs; it feels like breathing broken glass.
“A lot of Covid patients experience delirium when they’re taken off the vent,” Finn says gently.
A lot of what?
“It’s normal to be confused when you’ve been sedated for so long,” he explains.
I’m not confused. I remember all of it—the current that swept me out to sea, the salt burning my throat, the moment I let go of Gabriel.
I clutch at the white sleeve of Finn’s doctor’s coat, and even that small motion is exhausting. “How did I get here?”
His eyes cloud. “Ambulance,” he murmurs. “When you passed out brushing your teeth I thought I—”
“No,” I interrupt. “How did I get back from the Galápagos?” Finn blinks. “Diana,” he says, “you never went.”
