Santiago is watching me when I do, and I know he knows. But he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he pulls me in for a hug, which is weird because he’s not a hugger. He barely lets anyone touch him, but here he is, hugging me, smashing my face into his belly, and I’m going to lose it again if he doesn’t let me go soon. He’s going to squeeze the tears out, and no one needs that right now.

“Give me room to breathe already. Geez.” I pull away, quickly wipe the back of my hand across my face and turn to grab my backpack and the candy Michael sent my way. I’m about to slip out the door, but Santiago grabs my arm and bends a little so he’s at eye level with me.

“Your sister is strong. And she’s stubborn. She’s going to wake up. Understand?”

Biting my quivering lip, I nod, but I can’t really hold back the tears anymore. He pulls me into his arms again, and by the time he lets me go, his shirt is soaked where my face was, and I just keep my head down as I walk out with Marco.

35

Santiago

Time passes. Seconds, minutes, hours. Somehow, we fall into a familiar routine. We rotate visits, and Ivy is never alone. I go home to shower and perform the duties that are expected of me, and then I come back here to this lifeless, sterile room where my wife is trapped in a perpetual sleep.

The days blur together, inevitably turning into months. Three months, to be exact. Her external injuries have healed, but the invisible wounds have not. There are still no answers to her condition, but with every passing day, the bleakness of the situation can't be evaded.

We've tried everything. Hypnotherapists. Experimental sleep medications. Natural doctors. Doctors from the largest academic medical clinics in the nation. Even a few specialists from Europe and the UK. Psychologists. Integrative specialists. Neuropsychiatrists.

I've spoken to physicians around the world and consulted with neuroscientists. I've even had conversations with other patients who woke from comas of unknown origin. Cases where patients who had recently experienced trauma could not be roused after minor surgeries. But one thing differentiates those cases from Ivy’s. Hers is what they call persistent.

It's been too long, and they are pushing me to move her to a long-term facility after the baby is born. They are already speaking as if it's inevitable that she won't be awake when that day comes. But she has to. She has to.

For the first time in over two decades, I fell to my knees and prayed this morning. To whatever God or deity actually exists. Whatever metaphysical force that seems to be controlling the puppet strings from a place I can't touch.