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A person usually bounced back faster from a head injury if their period of coma lasted a shorter time. The longer the coma, the worse tended to be their chances of ever coming back the same as they were before the accident. Bruce stayed in a coma for two months. Jonah had been unconscious for five days.

Five days, and counting.

His sister, Zara, had flown out from California, and she and Jen were taking turns sitting with him and talking to him, because sometimes it could just be like shaking a person awake when it was time to get up in the morning. That simple. You’d say the patient’s name, and he’d open his eyes.

So far it hadn’t happened.

Zara was great, though. A female version of Jonah, “only lazier” she said.

Not all that lazy. She did jazz dance stretches on the hospital floor, and could talk a marathon, too. When she and Jen weren’t taking turns beside Jonah, they sat there both at the same time and covered twenty conversation topics in an hour.

It was an incredible exercise in bonding, and it was horrible, horrible, horrible, at the same time. Exhausting, stressful, boring, dotted with moments of false hope, swept over by curtains of black despair.

Jen doubted she could keep it up for much longer...and she knew she wouldn’t have to. At some point soon, when Jonah’s condition had stabilized, even if he hadn’t woken up, they’d fly him home.

“What do you want from me, Jonah?” she asked him the evening on the fifth day.

Zara would be there soon, to kick her out of the hospital room and back to the motel to get some early sleep. “Are you waiting for something? Your doctor says your scan is looking good, so can you let us know you’re still in there, please? I believe you are. I know you are. So can you come back? If it would help, you can wake up and ask me to marry you again, and this time I’ll say yes. I promise. I promise. With all my heart.”

She looked at his face and waited, but there was nothing.

Time passed.

Zara arrived. “Sorry I’m late.” She looked so like her brother that it hurt. The same coloring, the same smile.

”You’re not. It’s fine. Sit.”

“And you go.”

“Not just yet. I want to say something, Zara.” She swallowed nervously. “Your brother asked me to marry him, did he tell you that?”

”Yes, and you turned him down.”

“Oh, lord, he even told you that! But now, you know, if I could turn back the clock...” The tears came, and she couldn’t speak. She felt Zara’s hand rubbing her arm and knew that she didn’t have any words, either.

They both calmed down after a few minutes, but there didn’t seem any point in trying to finish the conversation. Zara understood. And words couldn’t help. Exhausted, Jen let Jonah’s sister push her gently toward the door. “Food and bed, Jen, okay?”

“Okay.”

“The clock.” Male voice. Creaky. From the bed.

Jonah?

They both turned to him, skin prickling all over.

“I’m calling the nurse,” Zara said.

“Say again about the clock.” Gravelly, rusty, but still a command.

“Jonah?” His name could hardly squeeze past the rock in Jen’s throat.

“If you could turn it back.” He slid his arm jerkily across the cotton blanket, reaching for her, wanting her closer. She sat down on the bed, while Zara sprinted to the nurses’ station. “Tell me if you could turn it back.”

“I’d - I’d say yes. In a heartbeat.”

“You’d marry me?”

“Yes. Because knowing these past five days that I’d said no to you has just made it so much harder. Oh, Jonah...”

He closed his eyes. Apart from his mouth muscles, his face hadn’t moved. Had he truly understood? Jen couldn’t even breathe.

And then with eyes still closed, Jonah grinned and gave a slow, careful, experimental stretch. His toes moved. His thigh muscles tightened beneath the blanket. One hand rolled itself into a fist, then softened to stroke her arm.

“I’d marry you, Jonah.” She leaned in close, dizzy with happiness and hope. “I love you. I love you! I believe in what we have, and you’re right. Faith is the only foundation for any of it. I’ll marry you. Tomorrow, if you want.”

“In that case,” he said, and his voice already sounded stronger, “how soon, do you think, before they’ll let me the heck out of here?”

He opened his eyes again, looked at Jen’s mouth with a kiss written all over his face and her heart rose like an eight-year-old’s at the best party in the history of the world.

At any second, with or without balloons, she would start lifting off the ground and floating away...

The End



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