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The girl who’d just complimented her said, “No, it’s fine. I don’t mind.”
Cathy beamed. She couldn’t believe they were so open to helping her. Something was different about this version of home. “Thank you, guys.”
During the ride, Cathy found out that it was January thirty-first. She had been away for about three weeks—the same amount of time that had passed in the Viking Age. But whether Brad was still on life support or not, they didn’t know. What if his parents had switched it off?
When they arrived, Cathy hurried directly to Brad’s room, her heart pounding in her ears.
She opened the door, and the acrid scents of illness and antiseptic hit her in the face. The machines still beeped, and Brad’s parents stood by his bed, as well as Dr. Gentzelman. Linda had a Kleenex in her hand, pressed against her mouth, tears streaking her face. Eric’s arm was around her shoulders, his face a tight, sad mask. They both looked at Brad, who lay in the exact same position she had left him.
His beard had grown, and he was a little paler, a little thinner than she remembered.
He looked so much like Andor. The thought hit her so hard she had to grasp the doorframe.
Dr. Gentzelman checked the clipboard in her hands. “All right, the court decision looks fine, Mrs. and Mr. Larsen. Whenever you are ready, we’ll let him go—”
Cathy felt dizzy. “Let him go?” she croaked.
Their heads turned to her. Linda’s eyes widened and Eric frowned. “It is done, Cathy,” Linda said through tears, her voice breaking. “It’s time.”
Cathy walked towards Brad on stiff legs. She sat on the edge of the bed without taking her eyes off him. “You got the court approval?”
“Yes.”
She shook her head. “I—”
She wanted to say she wouldn’t allow them. That he might still wake up. That they still could fight for his life.
That she needed him. That she couldn’t live without him. Without his positivity, the light that he always brought to the room. That she missed his voice, which was always charged with energy. That life with him was fuller. Bigger. Brighter.
Except—
This was no longer true.
She saw it in his pale skin, in his eyes, which didn’t move under his eyelashes. She heard it in the beeping of the machine.
He was not coming back.
The realization came crashing over her like a wave in a storm, blinding her, deafening her with an overwhelming force. Her chest tightened, her lungs shrunk to the size of a fist, as though she was sinking, drowning under the surf.
She swallowed several times, panic gripping her, then finally she inhaled with a whelp. They looked at her, worried.
“Can I have a moment with him, please?” Cathy asked, her voice hoarse.
“You aren’t going to fight us?” Eric said.
Cathy’s eyes blurred from tears, and she only managed to shake her head.
“Thank you,” Linda said and squeezed her shoulder.
Cathy caught Linda’s hand and squeezed back.
When they were alone, Cathy took Brad’s hand in hers. It was so warm, as though he might respond to her touch. And she wanted nothing more.
But he wouldn’t respond. She knew that now.
The man who had really loved her for who she was. The man who had showed her what happiness was. The man she had thought she’d spend the rest of her life with.
“You and I,” Cathy said, “we always know what to say to each other. But for the last year, I’ve been the one doing the talking. If I’d listened, I would have heard you. Your silence said everything.”
