Daughters of the Teardrop Sea

Chapter 11: The Gorgon Weeps

Chapter Eleven

The Gorgon Weeps

Laura was awake and her eyes were open. She could see the doorway of her room. She could see a bottle of ginger ale on the extension table beside her bed. She was happy. She felt a sense of life she had not known before. A sense that God had been good to her. The flowers on the dresser at the corner of the room had colour. She thought colour was a wonderful thing, more wonderful than it had ever seemed before. Yellow was for sorrows past. Pale blue signified life regained. Deep crimson called to mind the struggles of the future. Black meant death, something that she no longer felt any fear of.

Inside her womb Diana grew. Laura was aware of her, and when she slept she still dreamed with her tiny fish. They had many adventures, most of which Laura mostly forgot when she awoke. Some she remembered. Making shapes on a beach. Turning circles into oblongs. Turing rectangles into squares. Close and open, close and open, always the game was close and open.

She remembered one adventure. She and Diana were in a house that was covered with moss. It came alive and spoke to them. It said hurtful things at first, then helpful things. It surrounded Diana. She shivered and it slacked off.

It had been three days since she had come out of coma, a coma that had lasted for five weeks. There were gifts everywhere; flowers, stuffed animals, cards, baskets of fruit. Laura was happy to be awake. She was happy to know that Larry and Gene would soon be there to visit. She was expectant about the arrival of her little one. She didn't worry about things even though things were not perfect. The accident had not just sent her into coma. Dark riders mostly come in three's.

She was partially paralysed along the left side of her body from the top of her head to the soles of her feet. There was some speculation that she would never walk again. Her speech functions were ruined by the blow to the right side of her head that caused brain damage. One side of her face was slack, because of the paralysis, and her left eye socket hung a little low and was red. Her left cheek sagged and her mouth on that side was lower than on the other. When she tried to talk the connection between her will to form words and her ability to mouth them seemed to be severed. Instead of words coming through her lips she made rough sounds. Although they approximated speech they didn't duplicate it. She had started, just the day before, to communicate by writing words on a small portable blackboard. She was just able, at this time, to write three letters at a time. It was a start.

The neurologists report suggested that the speech functions might be resumed in several months to some extent, though the prognosis was that Laura would never be able to regain complete speech. She would always have an impediment. The paralysis was permanent, though not complete. Laura had feeling on the left side, but her movement would remain restricted. Perhaps in a year or two she would be able to walk short distances with the help of a cane. Until then she would be confined to a wheelchair. Her sexual life could be resumed after several months and could be relatively normal. She could not, however, risk any further pregnancies and it was projected that before very long she would undergo minor surgery to have her tubes tied. The neurologist hoped that in time she could resume her practice within a limited context. Almost certainly she could be involved in most kinds of research, even if clinical psychiatry seemed difficult or unlikely.