Love in Limbo

Chapter One

I enter room 202, and silently make my way to the window. I gaze out into the car park and watch as Sarah's shadowy figure makes its way to her car. I wonder what it must be like to walk out of here, to walk, to run, to breathe the fresh air, to have a purpose and a place to be going to. I wonder what it is like to live, and not to merely exist among the living.

The door behind me is pushed open, and it makes a sweeping noise as it does "Cassidy Cassidy Cassidy" my nurse repeats as she enters the room, butt first, with a tray of supplies. I watch her place them down. "What kind of lotion and soap would you like today sweetie. I have grapefruit, for a more fresh feel, or if you're feeling like a pampering I have some chamomile" she asks.

I sit down in the chair in the corner of the room. "Chamomile" I suggest weakly, not really caring of the answer.

"Grapefruit it is" Nurse Gloria replies. "I always liked the smell" she adds "and you sure do look like a girl who loves grapefruit"

"hate it" I reply pointlessly.

She puts on her gloves and takes the wash cloth, setting it aside. She pours some pink liquid into the water in the bowl on the table by the bed. She mixes it with her left hand until bubbles form, and then she smiles proudly. "Ooh girl this is a good one, your Father sure knows how to pick out the best products for you"

"It was my sister Blair" I correct, but she doesn't pause. Her hands lather the cloth. "She's always had the best taste in everything and anything"

I think of Blair with a smile, and then I find myself shrink into the chair. Blair hadn't been to visit me in months. I wondered if she had done what my mother had, had she said goodbye?!

There is a knock at the door and my father appears "Oh hi Glo, how are you" he asks the nurse.

My Father and Gloria are good friends at this point, they talk every day, mostly about me. I am glad that my Father has at least one other person to talk with when it comes to what he's going through.

"I'm good Jack" she replies. "Cassidy seems peaceful today"

My Father looks to the bed in front of him, and then back to Gloria. "She does" he replies reassured. "Everything came back good on her scans this week"

I follow his eyes, and the solemn expression on his face, to the familiar form in the bed, my form. My dark blonde hair is carefully placed neatly down the pillow, either side of my cheeks, and it is longer than when I last touched it, currently down past my shoulders. I do look peaceful. I look laid out dead for god's sake. I knew this was why Blair and Rose didn't visit with me anymore, and I couldn't blame them. Eighteen months staring at your sister's body was too long, especially with not a sign of life to cling to. It was only the scans and machines which showed I was very much still with them.

"I heard" Gloria replies. "All good things Jack you mustn't give up hope" she places her hand on his shoulder and gives a reassuring squeeze.

I reach out and place my arms around his shoulders, holding him tightly from behind. "I love you Daddy" I whisper into his ear.

My Father doesn't flinch, because he cannot feel me or hear me, nobody can, unless you count Sarah Cooper. I was still unsure if my encounter with Sarah was real or imagined.

Then there was a 92 year old lady in room 343, and she had vivid conversations with me every day. She was the only other person who was alive that could see me. Ivy claims to have always seen spirits, which I admit was a terrifying thing to hear, because then I truly had to wonder, was I dead? Ivy says I'm not, and that I am in the in-between waiting. Waiting for what I'll never know, because I have tried to wake myself a million times before and I cannot. I am not waiting for anything. I'm stuck, and nobody knows where to find me or how to get me back. She thinks my time in limbo will be over soon, but she wouldn't tell me which way I would fall, back to my life here, or to the other side. Ivy did attempt to tell my Mother once, that she could see me, well that went down like a lead balloon. My Mother you see is an intense Christian woman who doesn't believe in ghosts. My Mother actually only visited me once here in the facility. I was in our local hospital here in Milford for six months when my family had to move me to a more permanent facility. When it became clear that I was in a long term coma, my mother couldn't cope, she had hoped for so long I would wake up after the accident. She believed that I would have a hallelujah moment, and when I didn't, she broke. I don't have negative feelings towards my mother, despite not seeing her here in a year, but my father and Blair had sat and told me while I slept that she wouldn't be coming back. My Mother now truly believed that I was in heaven with Jesus. I wasn't in this bed anymore, only my body was present, this she truly believed, and I knew it was her way of surviving the pain. She needed something more concrete to throw herself into, she didn't need to be in limbo, she needed me to be dead, a permanent state that she could actually understand and grieve. My Mother wasn't a bad person, she had sat by my bedside for six months holding my hand and kissing my forehead, everything you imagine a mother to do when their child is lying in a hospital bed. The thing was, that over the months my cuts and my broken bones healed, I no longer had black eyes or fractures and I returned to the Cassidy she knew, only I never woke up. My Mother had a break down, and when she finally began to speak again she arranged a memorial for me and invited my entire school year. My friends let balloons go on mass, read poems, and spoke kindly of me in past tense. My sisters Blair and Rose were confused, Rose being the youngest at twelve, she believed my mother, and that I was in heaven. Blair was a year below me, she was seventeen when I had the accident, and she didn't know what to believe, until recently I think she hoped like my father. My Father didn't attend any of the memorials because he didn't believe I was in heaven, he was a man with a scientific brain who followed the guidance of the machines and the scans. I had a traumatic brain injury, but I wasn't brain dead. My tests were all positive, there really wasn't a reason that I couldn't wake up, I just hadn't, yet.