Nurse Marion calls the coma treatment unit the “bottom rung of heaven.” And that’s where God and the empathy therapist are sitting now. She’s telling him something about the “organ clock” and “daily cycles” when God briefly interrupts her to tell me, “You can’t visit Maddie now. Angela wants to see her first.”

“May I have her book then?” I ask.

Dr. Saul digs it out for me.

Marion keeps a record of all those “sitting on the bottom rung.” She has shown me these logbooks, which she produces with the help of their relatives, carers, and doctors. They document the patients’ favorite meals, hobbies, everyday rituals, and favorite words. The nurses start to keep the records in the intensive care unit, then they follow patients throughout their stay.

There is not much in Maddie’s book. Her former dance teacher, Mrs. Parker, knew little about her, due not to any disinterest but to a focus on dancing, her main preoccupation, combined with age-related forgetfulness.

Maddie doesn’t like:

• Mozart

Maddie does like:

• Russian composers

• Anything blue with polka dots

• The odor of an empty stage before the lights go up: this she told Mrs. Parker one day

Also:

• Jane Austen (very probably)

THEY FOUND Pride and Prejudice in Maddie’s rucksack after the accident. I dip into it while I’m waiting for the empathologist to leave, and I don’t really understand what’s going on. I think they all get married at the end, though.

The card in the pocket attached to the inside front cover shows that she borrowed the novel from her local library in Oxford. It’s overdue.

I feel an intense flush come over me. Perhaps I can take it back, and maybe the librarian can tell me something about her? But I have no idea how to get to Oxford. By train? Yes, by train. But then how am I supposed to disappear for a whole day without my mother’s finding out? I hate being only thirteen. You’re nobody at my age.

I put the book in my bag, then start to flick through Maddie’s logbook. Nurse Marion, Liz, and the doctors all note something in it every day, either about the tests they do with her, the world in general, or the weather, as naturally no Brit would feel properly alive without a little meteorological discussion. There’s also the occasional human-interest story, such as “Kate Middleton is allergic to horses” or “Donald Trump wants to be president.” Entries about the noise in the unit, the angle of Maddie’s bed, the rhythm of the ventilator—anything that might someday explain what happened while she was away.