A month later Vanessa Hoffman went back into the hospital. Old meds faltered and new medications were tried. She was connected to machines again and monitored twenty-four hours a day. Days became nights and nights became days and the hours ticked by and nurses were on and off duty and doctors came and went and after a few days of that, waking up, alone, in what felt like the middle of the night she asked,  “Don’t I deserve something?”

She wasn’t sure what that something would be, but was sure she didn’t get to pick. She toyed with a curious notion that she was being seduced, it was unpleasant in a fascinating way; she was being seduced with a seductive slide into the afterlife. Another patient, a young man she’d met a year earlier and who was, like her, back in the battle, sat beside her and asked her if she was familiar with the concept of the event horizon.

“You can see it, the event, it’s in the future, but it doesn’t affect you. Or sometimes I think it might be in the past. Something like that.” She made no effort to follow his blathering. Like her he was thin and pale and wondering what had happened to his life.

“I think that’s what it’s going to be like,” he told her. “You know, going into the next life. That’s how I see it.” Nurses ran him off more than once.

Doctors spoke to her parents and this is what her mother heard: “Vanessa is. Vanessa is. Vanessa is.” Her father heard: “It’s possible. We’re thinking. First results look. It might be.”

This went on for four days and after four days Lauren Hoffman heard the doctors say “We think” and “Looks like” and “Vanessa is” and that’s just what she wanted to hear. Vanessa is, not Vanessa was. Her father heard doctors and nurses and aides say “okay” and “excuse me” and “she’s resting” and “she’s resting” and “she’s resting quietly.”

After those four days, when her parents went home, the atmosphere in the Hoffman home was much like Vanessa’s current status: unclear, irresolute, and indefinite. Taylor was away at school, ready to sprint home at a moment’s notice. Ethan was home and when he spoke, words barely escaped his throat. Home was all whispers and the whispering was annoying and irritating and when they stopped whispering and actually spoke they were shocked at the sounds of their voices.

Back at the hospital once more, there were discussions between her parents and doctors and a social worker, about where Vanessa would die. It had come to that. Hospital, hospice, or home.

“Home,” Lauren Hoffman said. She clamped down on that word, said it only once, the most distinct and definitive decision that would ever leave her mouth. Her daughter would die at home; there was no negotiating. Her husband said nothing and the doctor went silent and the social worker nodded and a priest, also in attendance, stayed silent, too.

Vanessa Hoffman would live for eleven more days, several of which she would be awake and if not talkative, at least present and able to smile and move her hands and her fingers and roll her head sideways and push her legs out and pull them back.

On the ninth of those remaining days, Hannah spent the day with her. She spent the day not knowing if Vanessa even knew she was there. When Vanessa’s eyes were open, what was she seeing? Was she seeing anything? Vanessa’s mother would step into the room, sit beside Hannah, or kneel next to her daughter’s bed. Words were whispered between Lauren Hoffman and Hannah Madison. They could lunch together and never share a word. Late in the day, Hannah Madison and Lauren Hoffman were sitting quietly, Vanessa opened her eyes. Her head turned just slightly, her breathing changed. She twisted her shoulders and her lips parted and she attempted to stretch and it became clear Vanessa was actually awake. Was she looking for something? Someone? She blinked, inhaled, and said, “Okay.” She sucked in air through her nose and her head rolled to one side. Her chest heaved. Her jaw went slack and her eyelids fluttered. “Okay,” she said. And then she closed her eyes and those words went down in Hoffman lore as Vanessa’s last words. Had they sounded as if she were answering a question? Lauren Hoffman and Hannah Madison thought so. They would always think so.

About the Author:

Victor Kreuiter’s stories have appeared in EQMM, Halfway Down The Stairs, Bewildering Stories, Tough, Frontier Tales, Del Sol SFF Review, Literally Stories, and other online and print publications.