Janine could do little but pray for her and put her name in the church bulletin’s prayer list, but her prayers felt like an occupation. She prayed when the feeding tube was removed, and when it was reinserted under Governor Bush’s orders. She prayed when Terri left the hospice for the rehabilitation center, and prayed when she was returned to the hospice again. She prayed for Terri’s parents, held at arm’s length by the courts, and prayed for Jesse Jackson to please go back to Chicago and mind his own business. She prayed when the tube was removed again, prayed when Terri was given something called a swallow test, and for the efficacy of a therapy called VitalStim, which was supposed to help Terri swallow on her own. She prayed on her knees, after making each of the beds in the morning, prayed in the car on the way to the supermarket, prayed in the produce aisle, while pondering the phrase “persistent vegetative state,” which did not seem to touch the miracle and mystery of a human life lived without communication or the expression of need.

Then the president came back from a round of golf or a bike ride to sign emergency papers (Janine did not trust grown men who rode bicycles or vacationed at odd times of year) and the Florida memo surfaced, describing Terri’s case as a “great political issue” for firing up the “base”—people, she assumed, like herself, dumb fools who went to church and voted as they were told. Terri became an issue, not a person, and Janine could hardly pray at all. She fell into her own vegetative state, a state of spiritual entropy, and as she moved through the routines of her day, she imagined that her brain would show the same blank expanse of inactivity as Terri’s own CT scans. Food was dull as ash on her tongue, her body a sluggish piece of meat, her daughters’ voices, asking for this or that, as grating and needy as animals’ cries. Chrissy wanted to know what was wrong, Beth heedlessly answered calls from some boy, Rick patted her good-bye each morning with sympathy that did not communicate understanding.

Janine did not start praying again until the final standoff, which began on a cool rainy day in March and lasted for thirteen days. She prayed for the police officers who had to stand guard against intervention, prayed for the nurses forced to deny Terri the comfort of a sip of water or an ice cube held against her lips, prayed for an understanding of God, who let such a thing happen. She prayed for forgiveness for the days when she had withheld her prayers, and she prayed in gratitude for the ability to pray again.