For the next few days everything in my life went on hold, Lara,my  tennis career and my family. All that mattered was Alice’s recovery, if she was to have one, and how I would initiate her awakening. I tried doing what the doctor suggested and had started by just giving her encouraging and sometimes heart felt pleads to squeeze my hand or open her eyes, just give me any sign that she was still in there somewhere. Lara was as dutiful as ever, taking in fresh clothing and food when she had her lunch break, understanding why I never slept at hers anymore as I was either at the hospital when possible or in my own apartment trying to catch what little sleep I could. She never questioned my commitment to Alice instead of her and I’m not sure if any person would have had they known the history between Alice and myself. I was allowed to stay past visiting hours most days after running into a nurse I had gone to school with twenty or so years ago, she had taken pity on me and turned a blind eye at my vigilance until someone else noticed and decided it was time for me to leave. Shane and Bette came in every day and Jenny and Tina every second day. Life had to keep going for them; they had lives outside this god-awful building that could not just stop when one person had. I didn’t see Lenore again for a long time, I think she was just plain terrified of what she would see, however I never understood her for doing that. How could you abandon her in her time of need? I then remembered what I had done to Alice not a few months previously.

I changed tactics now and again opting to read the celebrity gossip that Alice had once loved to make fun of and pride herself in knowing before everyone else. I described to her new relationships that were going on in our community and who I thought was a ‘cheating dog’, which couples were destined to fail, who was coming out of the closet finally, yet none of it mattered as she never stirred and with her continuing stillness my soul was disparaged and the grief was beginning to consume me so intensely I thought I may as well be the one lying there unmoving. The time that passed took with it my hope and faith in a higher being that could let this happen to such an amazing person. My hope and faith in science was doing no better either.