Dr. Saul turns the brain scan, the EEG, and a very complicated-looking sheet of paper with lots of little boxes and entries around on the table so that Sam and I can see them. I read the words “Innsbruck Scale” and “Edinburgh-2 Scale.” I read Henri’s score of six on the Glasgow Coma Scale, written in marker pen. Alongside this it says, “Medium-deep to deep coma.” If his score were three, he would be brain-dead. Fifteen, and he’d be the man I once knew.

I glance at Sam. His expression is hard and far too grown-up. He’s fiddling with his thumbnail under the table, but otherwise he’s utterly still.

“Following his eight-minute cardiac arrest, Mr. Skinner has slipped into a coma. A coma is not an illness—it’s the brain’s reaction when it needs to protect itself. The patient withdraws into himself, shutting himself off from the world that is causing him pain and anxiety.”

In my mind’s eye, I picture Henri retreating from his life, raising his hands like a shield. Basically, a coma is therefore the logical extension of his general response to life: I’d better get out of here!

I’d rather not entertain that thought, but I’m so angry with him. I’d love to smash something here and now. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to cope with this on my own. I’d like to ring Wilder and beg him to come to the hospital, but Wilder doesn’t even know I’m here. He doesn’t even know that Henri was part of my life—and still is, in a very twisted, surreal way.

Always the same. Always the bloody same. Henri, the man who’s never there and yet always there.

Dr. Saul takes out a piece of paper and starts to draw circles on it. “I’ve already explained this model to Samuel.” He taps on the center point, which stands for Awake. A series of circles rippling outward from that point are marked Numb, Asleep/Dreaming, Unconscious, Coma—and Dead. Dr. Saul makes a first cross in the unconscious zone—“He was here”—then a second cross in the dead zone—“and here”—and then marks a third one in Coma. It’s too close to the edge, too close to Dead, for my liking. It’s right on the border.

“They’re places, not states,” whispers Sam.

I say the first thing to detach itself from the swirling tangle of thoughts in my head. “Will he come back from that place?”

Dr. Saul takes only a second to answer this question. One second. The length of an adult’s heartbeat when that person isn’t scared; the time it takes for light to travel 186,282 miles; the time it takes for it to dawn on you that you don’t want to live without someone. But how heavy a second of fear is!