The Unwanted Wife and Her Secret Twins (Mia and Kyle) novel Chapter 500

Mia's POV

"Daddy, wake up."

Alexander's voice was small. Not the usual Alexander voice.

He was standing on his tiptoes, his chin resting on the edge of the hospital bed, his fingers curled around the metal railing. The bed was too high for him. He'd dragged a chair over earlier, but he preferred standing. Said it made him feel closer.

"Mama says if you leave us like this again, she'll never forgive you."

The ventilator hissed. A soft, rhythmic sound. In. Out. In. Out.

I didn't correct him. I hadn't said those exact words. But I hadn't not said them either.

The monitors beeped. Steady. Green lines moving across black screens in patterns. Heart rate: 62. Oxygen: 97. Blood pressure: 118/76. Numbers that meant alive. Numbers that didn't mean awake.

Kyle's face was slack. That was the word the nurse had used. Slack.

"I learned a new word today," Alexander continued. He was tracing patterns on the blanket with his finger. Circles. Squares. A lopsided star. "Ethan taught me. It's called 'coma.' It means sleeping but your brain forgot how to wake up."

His finger stopped moving.

"But that's okay. Because brains can remember. Ethan said so. He said brains are like computers and sometimes computers need to restart. So maybe your brain is just restarting. Like when Mama's laptop gets slow and she has to turn it off and turn it on again."

The IV drip caught the fluorescent light. A clear bag hanging from a metal pole, connected to Kyle's arm by a thin tube. I watched a drop form at the top of the chamber. Watched it fall. Watched another one form.

"I'm going to tell you about my day now," Alexander said. "Because Mama said you can still hear us. Even if you can't answer. She said our voices go into your ears and your brain keeps them safe until you wake up. Like a voicemail. Do you know what a voicemail is? It's when someone calls and you don't answer so they leave a message and you listen to it later. So this is like a voicemail. From me. Alexander. Your son. In case you forgot."

He took a breath.

"Today I had a granola bar for breakfast. The chocolate chip kind. Not the raisin kind because raisins are disgusting. Ethan says raisins are just old grapes and I said that's exactly why they're disgusting. Old things are gross. Except you. You're old but you're not gross."

Madison was on the small sofa by the window. She'd been there for an hour, not moving, Eleanor the elephant tucked under her arm. Her eyes were open but she wasn't looking at anything. Just sitting. Just being in the room.

The window showed Baltimore. Gray sky. Gray buildings. A parking structure across the street with cars arranged in neat rows. Someone had left a red sedan on the fourth level, driver's side door not fully closed. I'd noticed it yesterday. It was still there.

The door opened.

Ethan came in carrying a book. He'd found the hospital library on the second day—a small room on the third floor with outdated magazines and medical textbooks and a shelf of paperback novels with cracked spines. He'd been working his way through a book about the human brain. It had a diagram of a neuron on the cover.

He didn't say anything. Just walked to the chair in the corner, the one with the blue vinyl cushion that squeaked when you sat down. It squeaked. He opened his book. Started reading.

"Ethan's here now," Alexander reported to Kyle. "He's reading his brain book. He's been reading it for two days. I think he's trying to figure out how to fix you. But don't worry. He's really smart. He'll figure it out."

The clock on the wall said 3:47.

I'd stopped counting hours. Started counting days instead. Three days since the surgery. Three days since Dr. Chen had come out and said the words "successful infusion" and I'd let myself breathe for the first time in nine hours. Three days since, twelve hours later, Kyle's temperature had spiked to 104 and his words had started slurring and then stopping altogether.

ICANS, they called it. Immune effector cell-associated neurotoxicity syndrome. The nurse had written it down for me on a piece of paper because I couldn't remember all the words. I still had the paper. It was in my pocket, folded into a small square, the edges soft from being touched too many times.

"Mama."

I looked up.

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