“What’d you say, Dad? What’d you say?”

He caught movement out of the corner of his eye and saw a heavyset young woman in a white coat enter with a clipboard in her hand. She had a squat body, café au lait skin, short dark hair; a stethoscope was draped around her neck.

“Are you a relative?” she said.

“I’m his son. Are you his nurse?”

She smiled briefly—very briefly. “No, I’m his doctor.” She put out her hand. “Dr. Huerta. I was the neurologist on call when your father was brought to the ED last night.”

Jack shook her hand. “Jack. Just call me Jack.” He pointed to his father. “He just spoke!”

“Really? What did he say?”

“Sounded like ‘brashee.’”

“Does that mean anything to you?”

“No.”

And then he thought, Maybe he heard my voice and was trying to say, Black sheep.

“He’s been vocalizing gibberish. It’s not unusual in his state.”

He studied Dr. Huerta for a few seconds. She didn’t look old enough to be in med school, let alone a specialist.

“What is his state? How’s he doing?”

“Not as well as we’d like. His coma score is seven.”

“Out of ten?”

She shook her head. “We use the Glasgow Coma Score here. The lowest, or worst score, is three. That’s deep coma. The best is fifteen. We go by eyes, verbalization, and movement. Your father scores a one on his eyes—they remain closed at all times—and a two on vocalization, which means he makes meaningless sounds like you just heard now and then.”

“That’s a total of three,” Jack said.

This wasn’t sounding too good.

“But his motor response is a four, meaning he withdraws from painful stimuli.”

“What kind of painful stimuli? I won’t be finding cigarette burns on his soles, will I?”

Dr. Huerta’s eyes widened. “Good heavens, no! What on earth do you think—?”

“Sorry, sorry.” Jeez, lady. Chill. “Just kidding.”

“I should hope so,” she said with an annoyed look. “We use a special pin to test motor responses. Your father’s score of four brings his total to seven. Not great, but it could be worse.” She checked her clip board. “His reflexes, however, are intact, his vitals are good, so are his labs. His brain MRI showed no stroke or subdural hemorrhage, and his LP was negative for blood.”

“LP?”

“Lumbar puncture. Spinal tap.”

“No blood. That’s good, right?”

She nodded. “No signs of intracranial bleeding. His heart’s been acting up, though.”

“Whoa,” Jack said, jolted by the remark. “His heart? He’s always had a good heart.”

“Well, he went into atrial fibrillation last night—that’s a chaotically irregular heartbeat—and again this morning. I called for a cardiology consult and Dr. Reston saw him. Both times your father converted back to normal rhythm spontaneously, but it does indicate some level of heart disease.”