“Hopefully, only a few days,” Dr. Rooney said. “We’ll have to wait and see what happens when we take her off the sedation.”

“What could happen?” Jack had never experienced such raw fear. “She’ll wake up then, right?”

“I can’t say for certain. The head injury is severe. I wish I could tell you more, but it’s a wait-and-see thing at this point. I’m sorry.”

“I want to be with her.”

“I’ll come and find you when we get her settled after surgery,” the doctor said as he walked away.

“A coma,” Jack said, incredulous.

Jamie squeezed Jack’s shoulder. “Why don’t you call your mother and ask her to come help with the girls?”

“I just can’t believe this. She’s never been sick a day in her life. Remember how she was after having the girls?”

“I remember. She’s superwoman, so there’s nothing to worry about. I’m sure she’ll be asking for you in no time.”

“Yeah,” Jack said. “Definitely.”

The surgeons removed Clare’s spleen, mended her liver, and set her badly broken arm and leg. After a week, her doctors were relieved that she was able to breathe on her own when they took her off the respirator. Encouraged, they also weaned her from the sedation. Jack, the girls, his sister, Clare’s mother, brother, and sister kept up a round-the-clock vigil by her bedside. They sang to her, played her favorite music, cried, begged, and pleaded until they were hoarse, but she didn’t regain consciousness.

At the end of the third week, Dr. Blake, the neurologist, asked to speak with Jack. Worried about what he might hear, Jack asked his sister, Frannie, to come, too.

“I’m afraid there’s nothing more we can do for your wife. The blow to her head was tremendous, and we believe her coma is irreversible.”

Jack and Frannie gasped as the doctor snatched away their last shred of hope.

“So what does that mean?” Jack asked. “What’re you saying?”

“You have choices. Difficult choices.”

“Such as?”

“Since she has no advanced directive, you can make decisions for her as her next of kin.”

“Are you suggesting I end her life?”

“It’s an option you may need to consider at some point down the road.”

“I want to hear the others, because that’s not on the table.”

“Mr. Harrington, she’s forty-three years old. She could live in this condition for decades.”

Jack held up his hand to stop the doctor. “Is she brain dead?”

“Not technically—”

“Then I don’t want to hear another word about ending her life. As long as there’s activity in her brain I want her treated as if she’s going to recover.”

“We don’t believe she will.”

“As long as there’s any chance at all—”

“There’s less than a one percent chance.”