Chapter 15: Page

The first thing I felt was weight.

My arms were heavy and my legs were heavy, and my eyelids were heavy.

For ten days I had floated.

Now I was lying on my back in a hospital bed, and every part of me belonged to the mattress.

There was a tube in my throat, and it hurt.

A nurse's face leaned over me, upside down, then right side up.

"Mrs. Holloway," she said. "Can you hear me? Squeeze my hand."

I squeezed.

She said something to someone behind her, and the room filled with people.

A doctor shone a light in each eye.

A respiratory therapist put her hand on the tube.

"We're going to take this out," the doctor said. "Cough when I tell you."

I coughed.

It tore at my throat, and then it was out, and I was breathing by myself.

The air tasted of plastic and I had never loved anything so much.

I tried to say Winslow.

Only a rasp came out.

"Don't force it," the nurse said. "Your throat's been closed for ten days."

She put a small pad in my lap and a pen in my fingers.

My hand shook so hard that the first line wandered off the page.

I held the pen with both hands and wrote.

Page.

"Page?" the nurse said. "Do you want a page of something?"

I underlined it twice.

"She may be confused," the doctor said gently. "It's common after a coma."

I was not confused.

I had been dead for eleven days, and I had never been so clear.

I wrote again.

Baby.

The doctor and the nurse looked at each other.

"Your baby is fine," the doctor said. "We found the heartbeat last Saturday. It's strong. You're about ten weeks."

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