Chapter 9 - Decompression
The recovery was not simple.
The human mind does not spend fourteen months in subterranean sensory deprivation without paying a terrible price. In the pediatric ward at UVA Hospital, Noah couldn't tolerate overhead lighting for more than ten minutes. The medical staff kept the blinds drawn, using soft, warm-spectrum lamps to allow his eyes to adjust.
He was terrified of open doorways. If a bedroom door was left open, he would curl into a tight ball in the corner of his hospital bed, his eyes darting frantically toward the hallway, expecting the “monsters” Meredith had warned him about to come through the opening.
“She told me that the sky fell down,” he explained to the child psychologist on our third day in the hospital, his voice small and steady. “She said there was a war, and all the buildings were gone. She said if I opened the door, the bad air would come in and make my lungs bleed.”
Caroline sat beside him, holding his hand, tears streaming silently down her face, but she didn't interrupt. She simply squeezed his fingers every time he paused, grounding him in the present.
The first breakthrough came through Lily.
On the fourth afternoon, while the room was quiet, Lily climbed onto the foot of Noah’s bed holding a plastic cup of water and a small container of red berries from the cafeteria.
“Noah,” she said, poking his knee through the blanket. “Remember the strawberries at Grandma’s house?”
Noah looked at the berries. He reached out with a pale finger, touching the bumpy, seeded skin of the fruit.
“Aunt Mere only gave me dried ones,” he whispered. “In plastic bags.”
“These are real,” Lily said. “They grow in the dirt. I picked one from Grandma’s garden last week. The garden is still there, Noah. The apple trees are still there. Your treehouse is still there.”
Noah picked up a strawberry. He smelled it. A strange, fleeting expression passed over his face—a sudden, sharp recollection of summer afternoons, grass stains, and the sound of bees in the clover.
He took a bite.
A single tear tracked down his pale cheek, cutting a clean path through the hospital dust. He looked at me, then at Caroline, his small mouth working around the fruit.
“Can we go see the apple trees?” he asked.
May you like
“Whenever you’re ready, buddy,” I told him, resting my hand over his and Caroline’s. “Whenever you want.”
***
