Chapter 2 - The Things She Told a Sleeping Man
Lena spent Saturday telling herself Grant Mercer had simply been waiting for an elevator.
By Sunday, she almost believed it.
Then Grant appeared beside her cleaning cart at 12:40 a.m.
"You're Lena, correct?"
She straightened.
"Yes."
"I'm Grant Mercer. Chief operating officer at Vale Meridian."
He extended a hand.
Lena looked at it before taking it.
His handshake was firm and brief.
"I understand you've been assigned to Mr. Vale's room."
"Among others."
"How long?"
"A week or so."
"Do you spend much time there?"
Lena shrugged. "However long it takes to clean."
Grant smiled.
"Of course."
He walked away.
That should have been the end of it.
It wasn't.
For the remainder of her shift, Lena felt watched.
Not obviously.
Nobody followed her.
Nobody confronted her.
But when she entered the staff elevator, one of Adrian's security men was inside. When she came out of the supply room, another suited man was speaking quietly into his phone.
Maybe they were simply doing their jobs.
Maybe Lena's imagination was doing overtime because her body was operating on four hours of sleep.
At 2:10 a.m., she entered Adrian's room.
"Your executive guy interviewed me."
Silence.
"Grant."
She sprayed disinfectant onto a cloth.
"I don't like him."
No response.
"That's unfair. I don't actually know him."
Lena wiped the cabinet.
"But if I wake up one day and become a billionaire, remind me not to hire anybody who smiles without using their eyes."
Her gaze went automatically to Adrian's right hand.
No movement.
She almost laughed at herself.
"Yeah. I know. You're not reminding anybody of anything right now."
She changed the sheets carefully around him while a nurse assisted.
After the nurse left, Lena continued talking.
"Rosie put cereal in my work shoes yesterday."
If Adrian could hear her, she imagined that deserved an explanation.
"Rosie's my daughter. She's six. She decided my shoes looked hungry."
Lena smiled despite herself.
"So I got ready for work, shoved my foot into a sneaker, and crushed half a bowl of Cinnamon Squares."
The monitor beeped.
"She apologized. Then asked if I thought the other shoe wanted milk."
Lena laughed softly.
It was the kind of laugh that came too rarely now.
For months, life had felt like one long calculation.
Rent.
Electricity.
Groceries.
Childcare.
Gas.
Which bill could wait?
Which could not?
That evening, their heater had stopped again.
The landlord promised somebody would come Monday.
Chicago did not care about promises.
Their apartment had dropped to fifty-eight degrees.
Lena had put two sweaters on Rosie and turned on the oven for twenty minutes while she packed for work, even though she knew it wasn't safe to use it for heating.
"I might have to sell a kidney," she told Adrian. "Do billionaires buy kidneys?"
A pause.
"Kidding. Mostly."
She cleaned the windowsill.
Then the humor faded.
"Her dad would've known how to fix it."
She had never spoken about Daniel to anyone at work.
Something about Adrian's silence made the words easier.
"Rosie's father disappeared before she learned to walk."
Lena looked down at the cloth in her hands.
"Not dramatically."
She swallowed.
"No tragic accident. No noble sacrifice. He just decided fatherhood was harder than leaving."
The room seemed unusually quiet.
"People think leaving has to make noise," Lena murmured. "It doesn't. Sometimes somebody just stops answering their phone. Then you spend six months realizing silence was the goodbye."
She gave a tired little laugh.
"I don't know why I'm telling you that."
The monitor changed.
Adrian's pulse rose from sixty-eight to seventy-six.
Lena looked up.
It settled again.
She stepped toward him.
"Adrian?"
Nothing.
She leaned closer.
"Can you hear me?"
His eyelids did not move.
She waited.
Then shook her head.
"You know what? This is why I'm not a doctor."
The following night, Dr. Samuel Reeves found her outside Adrian's room.
He was a neurologist in his early fifties with kind eyes and a permanent coffee stain near the cuff of his white coat.
"You talk to him."
Lena's face warmed.
"Sorry."
"Why?"
"I thought maybe we're supposed to keep it quiet."
Dr. Reeves smiled.
"We encourage familiar voices."
"I'm not familiar."
"You may be by now."
Lena looked through the glass.
"Does he hear anything?"
"We don't know."
"His heart rate changes sometimes."
Dr. Reeves's expression sharpened.
"When?"
"When I talk about certain things."
"What things?"
Lena suddenly felt ridiculous.
"My daughter. Sometimes when I say his name."
Dr. Reeves made a note.
"That's useful."
"You think it means something?"
"It means I'll pay attention."
That night, he ran additional responsiveness tests.
Nothing conclusive appeared.
But when Lena returned at 1:30, Dr. Reeves was still there.
"Keep talking," he said quietly.
So she did.
Over the next several nights, Lena told Adrian about Rosie losing her first tooth.
About how Rosie wanted to be either a veterinarian or an astronaut depending on whether she'd recently seen a dog.
About Lena's mother dying when Lena was twenty-four.
About Daniel leaving.
About the heater finally being repaired and breaking again twenty-four hours later.
And Adrian's heart rate sometimes changed.
Never dramatically.
Never enough to prove anything.
But enough that Dr. Reeves began showing up more often during Lena's shift.
Meanwhile, the conversations around Adrian changed.
Grant spoke with lawyers.
Claire argued with administrators.
A broad-shouldered man named Marcus Bell, who appeared to be Adrian's head of security, rarely left the floor.
Lena learned Marcus had known Adrian since college.
Unlike Grant, he always said hello.
He also always waited for Lena to leave before discussing business.
That difference mattered.
On Thursday, Lena entered Adrian's room just as Grant was finishing a phone call.
"No," he said, his back turned. "The transfer happens after the incapacity ruling. Not before. I'm not stupid."
Lena stopped.
Grant turned.
His expression changed instantly.
"How long have you been standing there?"
"Two seconds."
"What did you hear?"
"That you're not stupid."
For the first time, Grant's smile disappeared.
"Funny."
"Didn't mean it as a joke."
He stepped closer.
"Miss Ortiz, Mr. Vale is surrounded by confidential business matters. Some discretion would be appreciated."
"I clean rooms."
"Exactly."
The word landed differently than he intended.
Or perhaps exactly as he intended.
Lena held his gaze.
"I don't discuss patients."
Grant smiled again.
"Good."
He left.
Lena closed the door behind him.
Then she looked at Adrian.
"Your employee is officially creepy."
His heart rate rose.
Seventy-two.
Seventy-seven.
Eighty.
Lena stopped breathing.
"Adrian?"
Eighty-four.
She walked to the bed.
"If you can hear me, do something."
Nothing.
"Move your hand."
Nothing.
"Blink."
Nothing.
The pulse dropped slowly.
Lena felt foolish.
She turned toward her cart.
Behind her came the smallest sound imaginable.
A scrape.
She spun around.
Adrian's left hand lay on the sheet exactly where it had been.
Except his thumb was no longer tucked against his palm.
It rested nearly an inch away.
Lena stared.
She called Dr. Reeves.
By the time he arrived, Adrian was motionless again.
They tested him.
Called his name.
Applied pressure to his fingernail.
Nothing.
But Dr. Reeves no longer dismissed Lena's observations.
"There's a condition called covert consciousness," he told her outside the room. "Some patients show evidence of awareness that isn't apparent through ordinary bedside examination."
"So he's trapped?"
"We don't know that."
"But it's possible?"
Dr. Reeves hesitated.
"It's possible."
Lena looked through the window.
For the first time, she did not see an unconscious man.
She saw someone behind a locked door.
That night, before leaving, she leaned close enough that Adrian would hear if hearing was the one thing left to him.
"If you're in there," she whispered, "don't give up."
His face remained still.
Lena stepped away.
She was almost at the door when the monitor changed again.
Not much.
Just enough.
And from the bed, Adrian Vale's thumb moved once.
Deliberately.
May you like
Toward the sound of her voice.
---
