half marathon, or 10 K, she was leading a clinic or appearing at a charity event. Most of the boxes in the living room were Molly’s. Her sister didn’t have many things to pack.
Robin was happy to move. Molly was not, but she would go along, just to have Robin be her old self again.
Waiting for her mother’s call, Molly slept with the phone in her hand, far from soundly. She kept jolting awake with the hollow feeling of knowing something was wrong and not remembering what it was. Too soon she’d recall, then lie awake, frightened. Without Robin getting up to ice one body part or another, the house was eerily quiet.
At six a.m., needing companionship, Molly looked for the cat. It had eaten and used the litter. But the creature was nowhere to be found, though Molly searched even harder than she had the night before. She had been wasting time then, wanting Robin to wait for her for a change. How petty that had been. Brain damage was light years worse than a torn-up ankle or knee.
Of course, Robin may have woken up by now. But who to call? Molly couldn’t risk dialing her mother, didn’t want to waken her father, and Chris was no use. The station at the ICU would give only an official status report. Critical condition? She didn’t want to hear that.
So she watered and pruned the philodendron in the loft, picked hopeless leaves off an ill ficus, misted a recovering fern–all the while whispering sweet nothings to the plant until she ran out of sweet nothings to say, at which point she put on jeans and drove to the hospital. Preoccupied, she went straight to intensive care, hoping against hope that Robin’s eyes would be open. When they weren’t, her heart sank. The respirator was soughing, the machines blinking. Little had changed since she’d left the night before.
Kathryn was asleep in a chair by the bed, her head touching Robin’s hand. She stirred at Molly’s approach and, groggy, looked at her watch. Tiredly, she said, ‘I thought you’d be at the nursery by now.’
Molly’s eyes were on her sister. ‘How is she?’
‘The same.’
‘Has she woken up at all?’
‘No, but I’ve been talking to her,’ Kathryn said. ‘I know she hears. She isn’t moving, because she’s still traumatized. But we’re working on that, aren’t we, Robin?’ She stroked Robin’s face with the back of her hand. ‘We just need a little more time.’
Molly remembered what the doctor had said about the lack of response. It wasn’t a good sign. ‘Have they done the MRI?’
‘No. The neurologist won’t be here for another hour.’
Grateful that her mother wasn’t yelling about the wait, Molly gripped the handrail. Wake up, Robin, she urged and searched for movement under Robin’s eyelids. Dreaming would be a good sign.
But her lids remained smooth. Either she was deeply asleep or truly comatose. Come on, Robin, she cried with greater force.
‘Her run was going well until she fell,’ Kathryn remarked and brought Robin’s hand to her chin. ‘You’ll get back there, sweetie.’ She caught a quick breath.
Thinking she had seen something, Molly looked closer.
But Kathryn’s tone was light. ‘Uh-oh, Robin. I almost forgot. You’re supposed to meet with the Concord girls this afternoon. We’ll have to postpone.’ As she glanced up, she tucked her hair behind her ear. ‘Molly, will you make that call? She’s also scheduled to talk with a group of sixth graders on Friday in Hanover. Tell them she’s sick.’
‘Sick’ was a serious understatement, Molly knew. And how not to be sick in this place–with lights blinking, machines beeping, and the rhythmic hiss of the respirator as a steady reminder that the patient couldn’t breathe on her own? Between phones and alarms, it was even worse out in the hall.
Molly had had a break from it, but Kathryn had not. ‘You look exhausted, Mom. You need sleep.’
‘I’ll get it.’
‘When?’ she asked, but Kathryn didn’t answer. ‘How about breakfast?’
‘One of the nurses brought me juice. She said that the most important thing now is to talk.’
‘I can talk,’ Molly offered, desperate to help. ‘Why don’t you take my car and go home and change? Robin and I have lots to discuss. I need to know what to do with the boxes of sneakers in her closet.’
Kathryn shot her a look. ‘Don’t touch them.’
‘Do you know how old some of them are?’
‘Molly…’
Molly ignored the warning. There was normalcy in arguing. ‘We have to be out in a week, Mom. The sneakers can’t stay where they are.’
‘Then pack them up and bring them home with the rest of your things. When you find another place, we’ll move them there. And then, of course, there’s the issue of her car, which is parked on the side of the road somewhere between here and Norwich. I’ll send Chris to get that. I still can’t believe you didn’t drive her there.’
Molly couldn’t either, but that was hindsight. Right now, Robin made absolutely no show of hearing the conversation. And suddenly, for Molly to pretend that any part of this was normal didn’t work. To be talking about old sneakers, when the runner was on life support?
Heart in her throat, she searched Robin’s face. As a child, Molly had often waited for her sister to wake up, eyes glued to her face, hopes rising and falling on each breath. Molly would be grateful for any movement now.
‘If you need help packing,’ Kathryn offered, ‘ask Joaquin. Check his schedule when you get to Snow Hill.’
‘I really want to stay here,’ Molly said.
‘This isn’t about what you want, Molly. It’s about what’ll help most. Someone has to be at Snow Hill.’
‘Chris will be there.’
‘Chris can’t communicate with people. You can.’
Molly felt tears spring up. ‘I’m a plant person, Mom. I communicate with plants. And this is my sister lying here. How can I work?’
‘Robin would want you to work.’
Robin would? Molly fought hysteria. Robin had never worked a forty-hour week in her life. She ran, she coached, she waved, she smiled–all in her own time. She had an office at the nursery and, nominally, was in charge of special events, but her active involvement was minimal. On the day of those events, she was away more often than not. She was an athlete, not a wreath-maker or a bonsai specialist, as she had told Molly more than once.
But to repeat that to Kathryn now would be just as cruel as asking aloud what would happen if Robin never woke up.
Snow Hill had been family-owned since its inception over thirty years before. Spread over forty acres of prime land on New Hampshire’s border with Vermont, it was renowned for trees, shrubs, and garden supplies. But its crown jewel–with solar panels that stored summer heat for winter use, a mechanism for recycling rainwater, and computer-regulated humidity control–was
