Sometimes she felt tangled in a thick clinging fog that clogged her memory and sapped her strength. It worried her that the stupor of perpetual drowsiness would push her into oblivion. She wasn’t ready for oblivion yet. Some nights she set her alarm clock and put it under her pillow just so that she could hear it and struggle to the surface of sleep. As long as she could hear it ringing, turn it off, and listen to its ticking, she knew she hadn’t passed into timelessness, into eternity. She was rarely alone anymore. Her parents took turns sitting beside her bed. Her mother read, her father arranged a makeshift desk and did paperwork. Their presence brought her comfort. She’d wake and sense that one of them was there. The flutter of papers meant her father. The occasional turning of a book’s page meant her mother. When April was unable to come to the table for meals, they brought their meals into her room. She didn’t eat much—no appetite. At some point, the nurse (whom she recognized by her quick, efficient movements) inserted an IV into April’s arm.
What do You think about For Better, For Worse, Forever?
