The next evening, he came again.
And again.
At first Richard told himself he was doing it because his grandmother was down the hallway.
But Evelyn went home nine days later.
Richard kept coming.
After work, he would wash his hands, change out of the dirtiest parts of his uniform if necessary, buy coffee from a vending machine that produced something vaguely related to coffee, and sit beside Simone for thirty or forty minutes.
Sometimes longer.
He sang songs he remembered from childhood.
Soft hymns from the small Baptist church where his mother had once sung in a choir consisting of three women and a man named Gerald who mostly attended because the congregation's potluck dinners were exceptional.
He hummed old Beatles melodies.
He attempted Simon and Garfunkel until he forgot several lyrics and replaced them with a description of what Oliver had done at breakfast.
Eventually, the singing became secondary.
Richard talked.
He talked because Simone never interrupted him.
He told her things he rarely told anyone.
"My divorce wasn't dramatic," he said one evening.
Snow tapped softly against the window.
"No screaming in a driveway. Nobody threw a plate."
He stared at his hands.
"I almost wish there had been a big moment. Something you could point at and say, there, that's where it broke."
He leaned back.
"But it was more like a house settling."
He looked toward Simone.
"Little cracks. Little silences. Eventually we were living next to each other instead of with each other."
The monitor continued its rhythm.
Richard smiled faintly.
"Listen to me. Dumping all this on a woman who can't escape."
Another night, he told her about Olivia.
"She has decided she's going to be an architect."
Richard smiled.
"Last year she was going to be a veterinarian. Before that she was going to own a bakery and only sell cupcakes shaped like animals."
He shook his head.
"She makes plans."
Another evening, it was Oliver.
"He has strong opinions about cereal."
Richard leaned closer confidentially.
"Very strong."
He described standing in the cereal aisle at seven in the morning while Oliver debated two nearly identical boxes for ten minutes because one cartoon tiger looked "more trustworthy."
Richard laughed.
The sound filled the sterile room.
Nurse Lily occasionally stood outside listening.
She never interrupted unless she needed to.
One evening, she checked Simone's vitals after Richard left.
She frowned.
Then checked again.
Over the next several nights, Lily began noticing something.
Simone's heart rate often became slightly more regular when Richard talked.
Her blood pressure sometimes stabilized.
Nothing dramatic.
Nothing that would make a medical journal.
But enough that Lily noticed.
She mentioned it carefully to one of the attending physicians.
He shrugged.
"Familiar auditory stimulation can produce responses."
"He isn't familiar."
"Then maybe she's becoming familiar with him."
Lily thought about that.
On December 22, Richard brought two photographs.
He had printed them at Walgreens.
He placed one against Simone's water pitcher.
"That's Olivia."
Eight years old, dark hair, missing one front tooth, holding a science fair ribbon like she had personally won the Nobel Prize.
Richard placed the second beside it.
"And that's Oliver."
Five years old, wearing dinosaur pajamas and holding a pancake shaped approximately like Massachusetts.
"I made that pancake."
Richard pointed proudly.
"Nobody else agrees it looked like Massachusetts, but your opinion doesn't count because you can't object."
He sat down.
"Oliver told me something yesterday."
Richard smiled.
"He said kindness is the one thing nobody can ever take from you."
He shook his head.
"Then I found out he heard it in a cartoon."
Richard looked toward the photographs.
"Still counts."
Christmas came.
The hospital decorated carefully, as hospitals do, trying to create celebration without interfering with machines, carts, infection protocols, or exhausted people.
Richard worked part of Christmas Day.
That evening, Olivia insisted he take something to "the sleeping lady."
She had made a drawing.
Richard unfolded it inside room 410.
A tall man stood beside a hospital bed.
Yellow stars surrounded the window.
The woman in the bed had extremely long eyelashes and purple socks.
At the bottom Olivia had written carefully:
FOR THE LADY WHO IS SLEEPING.
YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
Richard taped the drawing beside Simone's monitor.