Bette sat by the hospital bedside. If t weren’t for Kirsten she would be sitting in *****…or maybe she was already there. So much had happened this day that Bette like
she had been awake for ages, for an era. The smoothness of the hospital made her sick, the whitness, the smell, the noises, the distance……the memories. This was the same
hospital Tina went to for cancer treatment. She only just controlled herself. But she wasn’t here for anyone she knew, anyone she loved, or anyone she had any important link to. she
was here because of a boy. A skinny boy. A child Bette hit with her vehicle. And now he lay in a coma…..the doctor called it a  ‘persistant vegetative state’. Bette had the option of
leaving and never coming back, the police told her witnesses said the boy flung himself in front of Bette’s car…she would have hit him even if she was looking at the road ahead of her.
The police also said he had a suicide note on his shirt…the only other information they would give her was that no one will be coming to visit, no one will be coming to the hospital
who is related to him at all. Not even friends. They said no more not even when Bette begged them to. But she came back, after going home and facing a pit of ***** she came back
to the white cleaniness of the hospital. Bette decided she would stay by the boys side, read to him, just sit there…think…..look at him. The nurses and doctors let her, normally they
would not but seeing bette’s face they made an exception. This boy had no on but a stranger whom he’ll never know. Bette wrung her hands, her head bursting….thinking about
what happened, what happened at home when she came home from the hospital, what she’ll do now…..and the boy….would he ever wake up? Bette saw the name on a medical sheet
a nurse was holding…….Arthur Hoyt. Artie……thirteen years old. Probably a street kid, who knows. All Bette knew at the moment was that her daughter was lost to her….emotionally
lost to her…perhaps in every sense, that she had just put a kid in a coma…whether he jumped or not…it was her fault, that Tina was not going to help….that she relied on her lover like
we rely on our senses..to interpret, to survive.