Forgotten Promises

Chapter 3

   Bailey wiped the steam from her bathroom mirror and looked at her reflection. Her eyes were sad and her cheeks a bit hollow from the weight she had lost, not having any appetite since Clark's accident. She squared her shoulders back and smiled, trying to see how well she could fake one. It would fool anyone who didn't know her well, but it would never fool her mom, who had moved into the spare room to watch Gray while Bailey stayed at the hospital with Clark.

   She stepped inside into the small hospital bathroom, her eyes looking over to her husband. Three weeks had passed since Clark had slipped into a coma and Bailey hadn't left his side, only to go home at night and return the next morning.

   The first Saturday, four days after the accident, she had brought Gray to see Clark. Hoping his son's presence would help, but it didn't and it scared Gray when his father wouldn't wake up and acknowledge him. So she asked her mother to keep him away from the hospital.

   Bailey felt awful not being there for Gray everyday like she had been in the past, but she needed to stay for Clark.

   The doctors had taken out his breathing tube because he was breathing on his own, but he remained unchanged otherwise.

   Bailey dealt with insurance companies while she stayed at the hospital with Clark. The truck he had been driving, originally her truck, had been totaled and the money they received from the insurance payment immediately went to pay the hospital bills.

   She sat down at the seat beside his bed, whispering to no one in particular, "What will I do if he doesn't wake up?" She believed that he would always come back to her, but after three weeks with no signs of improvement, Bailey could feel her hope fading. Fading faster with each passing day.

~~~  

   "Bailey, dear, please be reasonable. The doctors have told you there's no improvement. If he was going to wake up, wouldn't he have done it already?" 

   She turned to face her mother, "Perhaps he's not awake yet because his mind is healing itself. We need to give him time."

   Christine scoffed, "Perhaps? Bailey, you don't know anything for sure in this situation. Please, dear, stay here. Your son needs his mother and you need to stay out of the hospital, it can't be good for your health."

   Bailey scowled coldly at her mother, "I know how to take care of myself, Mother." She turned and left the house, heading back to her husband's side after her first couple of days away from him.

   Bailey's mind knew her mother had a point that no one could be sure when Clark would wake up, or if he'd be the same man she knew before the coma. But her heart wouldn't let her give up hope.

   She felt a tear make its way down her cheek and she wiped it away quickly, sniffling softly, "No, I have to stay hopeful." She sat up straighter in her chair, still holding Clark's hand and rested her head on the back of the chair. Her eyes closing of their own accord and rather than fighting sleep, she let herself relax and sleep took her away to dreamland where she dreamed of happy times with her family.

~

   Darkness.   Floating.    Whispers.

    He felt like he was floating in the emptiness though weighed down by it at the same and every once in a while there was a vague feeling of pressure on his hand, the skin over his heart, and his cheek. The faintest whisper of a familiar voice was his only companion in the endless inky void. 

   He felt as if he could scream and violently thrash around in frustration over his unending purgatory, but he couldn't. He couldn't move or make a sound, as though he was disconnected from his own body.