“Hi, Matt. Did we have a meeting today? I must have completely forgotten.” I turned to walk back down the hall, then I realized we couldn’t have a meeting. Our last meeting had been three and a half months ago, in May. We wouldn’t meet again until—I did the math—November.
When I turned back, he still stood in the doorway. “Claire, can we come in?” he asked, his face unreadable.
We? I noticed a tall, gangly man behind him. He wore a navy blue suit and had a mustache and wire-rimmed glasses. I tried to place him and failed.
“Sure, come on in.” My breath caught. Had there been a development? For one split, awful second, I fervently hoped they had come to tell me Greg was dead. The room began to spin. I studied Matt’s face, and suddenly, I knew. “Matt, what’s going on?”
He motioned me into the living room. “Claire, please, sit down, okay?” His hand felt heavy and warm on my back. He was being too nice, too gentle, the way a person acted when he was about to shatter someone’s world.
I sat. Please, just say it.
“Claire, we found Greg.”
The room tilted. The last thing I heard before my world went black was, “He’s alive.”
Chapter 32
When I came to, Matt stood over me, concern creasing his brow.
He helped me up, then brought me a glass of water. He gestured at the tall thin man behind him. “Claire, this is Detective Ron Ferras. He’s from the Toronto police department. Greg is in Toronto, in Canada.” He waited for me to nod. “He’s in a federal care facility. Two years ago, Greg was mugged in downtown Toronto. Whoever mugged him then also pushed him off the curb in front of an oncoming car. The driver of the car called 911. He was taken to St. Michael’s Hospital, where he received treatment for nine months.”
The questions formed faster than I could ask them, as if I had lost the ability to speak. Why was he in Canada? Nothing made sense.
He continued, “When he remained in a persistent vegetative state, he was transferred out of the hospital and into a rehabilitation facility. That’s where he has been until six months ago.”
I had been staring at my hands, numbly. But at that, my head snapped up, and I met Matt’s eyes. I saw sympathy, apology, and something else. Pity?
“What happened six months ago?” I asked.
“He woke up.”
On Saturday, two days later, I sat in the front seat of Matt Reynold’s Suburban. Drew stayed home with the girls; we hadn’t told them anything. Until I knew what we were up against, I wanted to keep them innocent for as long as possible. The last two days had been awful. Drew and I did not speak much, my silence from shock, his from terror. I had nothing in me to reassure him, as I put on a performance every minute of every day for Hannah and Leah.
Three times, I had to ask Matt to pull over while I retched on the side of the interstate. The trip was eight hours long, and I was prone to motion sickness, which seemed to be exacerbated by fear. I called Mom twice to check on Hannah and Leah. She asked very few questions, just if I was all right. I’ll never be all right again. Why was Greg in Canada?
I had a sudden thought. “You said there was an alert on Greg’s passport. Why didn’t it work?”
Matt tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “He may have gone into Canada before we activated the alert. We did pull border control records at the time, but customs doesn’t scan everyone’s passport. Canada is a bit more… lackadaisical in their border control.”
“I just thought… since 9/11… governments were tracking who was going in and out. Seems paranoid, I guess.”
“No, I think it’s a common misconception.”
When we crossed the border into Canada, we were waved through without so much as a glance. Matt raised his eyebrows at me, as if to say, See? I called Drew to tell him we had crossed the border.
As we exited the highway, going into Toronto, Matt explained, “We’re going to a rehab facility. It’s like a nursing home. We’ll speak to Greg’s doctors and his therapists first. He has several of each. Greg spends six to eight hours a day in this facility, but he lives in a community home. It’s a transitional place, like a halfway house for the brain injured.”
“What does ‘brain injured’ mean?” I asked, feeling stupid.
“That’s Greg’s current diagnosis. I’m sure it’s more complicated, but basically, when he was hit by the car, his head was struck with such force that his brain was severely damaged. In many cases of traumatic brain injury, a vegetative state aids with healing. It’s the body’s way of shutting down to the most basic levels, like hibernation. Healing of the brain is the hardest, most arduous and slowest process the body can do.”