She raises his hand to kiss it, and I peer at the EEG monitor. Three spikes in quick succession.

She casts a desperate but hopeful glance in my direction. “I’m sorry, Sam. You must think I’m incredibly stupid, but I’m going to have to ask you to give me a simultaneous translation.”

Her smile is gentle and lopsided, and I’d love to be able to comfort her by saying, Of course I will!

“How can you sense he’s there?” she asks.

“I don’t think about it.”

“And what do you feel?”

I study my father’s face and once again I can feel the echo of the sea’s swell. “Love, burning, and thirst,” I say softly.

She lets go of my hand and reaches into the box behind her before carefully dabbing my father’s lips and palate with a damp swab. As she does it, I try to open myself up even further, turning up my inner amplifier far into the red. It’s almost unbearable because I pick up not only my father’s presence but every other sound, and that’s far more than a normal person can hear.

There are so many intense emotions in every bed in the ward. One person has gotten lost in a very dangerous place, another is hounded by mortal dread, and yet another patient is running a fever. I sense fatigue and tension, as if there were taut strings and elastic bands crisscrossing the room. Concern, aches, and fear.

“Sam?” Eddie asks, on her guard, with crackling, quivering anxiety. “It’s fine. Forget it. Stop now, you don’t have to do it.” She lays her hands on my shoulders.

Dizzy from holding my breath for so long, I breathe in sharply. I need to tell her, though. “It’s as if there’s a different quality of light falling on him, darker, brighter, or colored, and it tells me how he’s feeling. If he could speak, I’d be able to tell by the tone of his voice if he were hiding something. I can see from his body if he’s there. It’s . . .”—I try to think of a simile—“. . . like a needle coming down on a record; you know something’s there even before the music has begun. Or when there’s someone in a pitch-black room: there’s a tension in the air.”

I can tell from Eddie’s face that she isn’t sure whether to believe me. I can sense that she’s wondering if I haven’t just made all of this up to console myself and not lose hope.

“He wants to live,” I say.

“But is this enough to live?” she says bluntly, pointing wearily to his helpless, near-defunct body.