Then he pulled a box from his work bag.
"Don't get excited."
He held up a strand of battery-powered lights.
"Four dollars from the drugstore."
He arranged them along the window ledge.
They glowed softly against the dark glass.
Richard switched off the brightest lamp.
The room changed.
For the first time, it did not feel entirely clinical.
Richard sat beside Simone.
"Merry Christmas."
He was quiet.
Then he said, "Olivia picked the lights."
A pause.
"Oliver wanted flashing multicolor ones. I vetoed him because I don't think your nervous system needs a nightclub."
Richard smiled.
Then his expression softened.
"You are not alone."
He looked at Simone's face.
"I know that sounds like something people put on greeting cards."
He folded his hands.
"But I mean it."
Richard stayed almost an hour that night.
When Lily entered at ten, he was reading from a newspaper.
She waited until he finished an article.
"Richard."
"Yeah?"
"Her numbers are better when you're here."
He looked toward Simone.
"What do you mean?"
"I'm not saying you're curing anybody."
Lily smiled.
"But her heart rate changes. Her blood pressure settles."
Richard stared at Simone.
"Does anyone know I come here?"
"Me."
Lily paused.
"And maybe her."
Richard smiled awkwardly.
"I doubt that."
Lily did not answer.
Somewhere beyond Richard's understanding, Simone Sinclair was not experiencing the world as emptiness.
There were fragments.
Sound without shape.
Light without direction.
Sometimes silence.
Sometimes voices belonging to physicians, nurses, assistants, people reading numbers, discussing scans, using words that floated past her without meaning.
And then there was Richard.
She did not know his face.
She did not know where she was.
But his voice became a landmark.
At first she caught only pieces.
Olivia.
Oliver.
Permission slip.
Cereal.
Mrs. Patton.
Grandmother.
Divorce.
Then whole stretches seemed to reach her.
Whether she was dreaming them or hearing them, Simone could not tell.
But the voice was warm.
Unhurried.
Most importantly, it wanted nothing.
Simone had spent twenty years surrounded by voices that wanted something.
Investors wanted returns.
Executives wanted approval.
Board members wanted confidence.
Politicians wanted donations.
Administrators wanted budgets.
Reporters wanted quotes.
Employees wanted decisions.
Her daughter had once wanted time.
That had been the request Simone failed most consistently.
Now, trapped somewhere between unconsciousness and awareness, Simone listened to a hospital janitor discuss grocery shopping as if it were the most important subject in the world.
And strangely, in the darkness, it became important.
January 11, 2025.
Twenty-eight days after Richard first entered room 410.
He found a book in the hospital donation library.
A thin collection of poetry.
The cover was worn.
Inside, someone had written Margaret, 1987 in faded blue ink.
Richard sat beside Simone and began reading.
Slowly.
He was halfway through a Robert Frost poem when something moved.
At first Richard assumed it was imagination.
Then he stopped.
Simone's right index finger curled.
Barely.