I look at her, see through the brightness to the face I know as well as my own.

When someone hip-bumps you or tells you that it's not all about you or when our music plays. Listen and you'll hear me in all of it. I'm in your memories.

I know she's right. Maybe I've known it all along. She is gone. I lost her a long time ago, but I didn't know how to let go. How do you release your other half? But I have to ... for both of our sakes. I see that now. Still, I can't say the word.

"Ah, Katie..." I say, feeling the hot sting of tears.

See? she says. You're saying goodbye.

She moves toward me, and I feel a heat shimmering off her, and then, like a touch of flame, I feel a brush of skin against mine and goose bumps break out across my flesh, the hair on the back of my neck stands up. Slip out the back, Jack, she says. Make a new plan, Stan.

The music. Always the music.

"I love you," I say quietly, and finally it is enough. Love is what lasts. I understand that now. "Goodbye."

At that, just the single heartfelt word, I am plunged back into the darkness.

I can see myself, I think, from a distance. I am in pain. A headache blinds me, it hurts so much.

Move. It is an old word, one I used to know, and it comes to me now. There is a black velvet curtain in front of me. I am backstage, maybe. Somewhere out there are lights ...

I have to get to my feet ... walk ... but I am tired. So tired.

Still, I try. I get up. Each step sends pain ringing up my spine, but I don't let it stop me. There is a light out there, onstage. Like a lighthouse beam, it flashes bright, shows me the way, and then disappears again. I keep walking, trudging forward, thinking, Please, but my mind is so muddy I don't know to whom I am praying. And then suddenly there is a hill above me, growing fast, reaching upward, climbing out from the blackness in front of me.

I can't make it.

From far away, I hear: "Wake up, Tully, please-"

And pieces of a song, something about about sweet dreams that I almost recognize.

I try to take another step, but my lungs ache from the exertion and I hurt all over. My legs give out and I pitch to my knees, landing hard enough to rattle bones and break my resolve.

"I can't do it, Katie."

I almost ask her why, almost scream the question in frustration. But I know why.

Faith.

It is something I have never had.

"Come back, Tully."

I follow the line of my goddaughter's voice. In this black world, it shimmers like gossamer, just beyond my reach. I reach for it, follow it. Then I take a deep, painful breath and try to stand.

September 4, 2010

11:21 A.M.

"Are you ready?" Dr. Bevan asked. "Does anyone want to say anything first?"

Marah couldn't even nod. She didn't want this. It was better to keep her godmother plugged in, breathing, than to take her off the machines. What if she died?

Tully's mom moved closer to the bed. Her cracked, colorless lips moved silently, forming words that Marah couldn't hear. They were all here, gathered around the hospital bed: Dad, Grandma and Grandpa, the twins, and Tully's mom. Dad had spoken to Marah and the boys this morning on the ferry, explained to them what this all meant. They had raised Tully's body temperature and taken her off the heavy meds. Now they were going to unplug her from the ventilator. Hopefully she would wake up and breathe on her own.

Dr. Bevan put Tully's chart in a sleeve at the end of the bed. A nurse came in and removed the breathing tube from Tully's mouth. Time seemed to screech to a halt.

Tully took a rattling, phlegmy breath and released it. Beneath the white cotton blanket, her chest rose and fell, rose and fell.

"Tallulah," Dr. Bevan said, leaning over Tully. He pried open her eyelids and shone a beam of light in her eyes. Her pupils reacted. "Can you hear me?"

"Don't call her that," Dorothy said in a cracked voice. Then, more softly, as if she thought she shouldn't have spoken, "She hates that name."

Grandma reached out and held Dorothy's hand.

Marah pulled away from her dad and inched toward the side of the bed. Tully was breathing on her own, but she still looked pretty much dead, all bruised and black and blue and bandaged and bald. "Come on, Tully," she said. "Come back to us."

Nothing happened.

How long did Marah stand there, gripping the bedrails, waiting for her godmother to wake up? It felt like hours had passed when she finally heard Dr. Bevan say:

"Well. Time will tell, I guess. Brain injuries are tricky. We'll monitor her closely over the next few hours. Hopefully she'll wake up."

"Hopefully?" Grandma said. They'd all learned to be wary of that word from doctors.

"That's all there is now," Dr. Bevan said. "Hope. But her brain activity is normal and her pupils are reactive. And she's breathing on her own. Those are very good signs."

"So we wait," Dad said.

Dr. Bevan nodded. "We wait."

The next time Marah glanced at the clock, she saw that the thin black hands were still moving, still gobbling minutes and moving on.

She heard the adults whispering behind her, talking among themselves. She spun to face them. "What? What?"

Dad came forward. He reached out and held her hand, and she knew it was bad.

"Do you think she's going to die?" Marah asked.

He sighed, and it sounded so sad that she almost started to cry. "I don't know."

His hand was a lifeline suddenly. How had she forgotten that, how her dad could hold her steady? He'd always been able to, even back in the old days when Marah had fought with her mom constantly.

"She's going to wake up," Marah said, trying to believe it. Her mom used to say, Don't stop believing until you have to, and certainly don't stop then. Of course, she'd died anyway. "Do we just wait?"