Part 4 — I Spoke to an Unconscious Man for Eighty-Nine Days, but When He Opened His Eyes, His Wife Suddenly Lost Color

After Dominic’s last words, every sound in the room died out at once.

Only the rain could be heard.

Thomas brought the phone to his ear.

“The federal investigators already know,” he said. “But they cannot get us out of here yet. The security system is shut down.”

Clara looked toward the door.

“Mercer would not do that.”

Dominic smiled bitterly.

“That is exactly why you chose him.”

Clara looked at him.

“You are still convincing everyone that you are innocent.”

“No, Clara. I am only doing what you could never do. I am accepting the consequences.”

Footsteps sounded in the corridor.

Mercer stood on the other side of the door. He whispered something to the guards. Then he shook the door by its handle.

“Doctor Mercer,” Thomas said loudly, “you do not have permission to enter the room.”

“This is my hospital.”

“Not anymore.”

Thomas raised the phone. The seal of a federal agency could be seen on the screen.

“Your bank accounts have been frozen. One more step and this conversation will also be transmitted directly to them.”

Mercer fell silent.

Clara stared at him.

“You told me everything was finished.”

Mercer’s voice cracked for the first time.

“You said he would not wake up.”

Dominic lowered his eyes.

There was no blood left in Clara’s face.

“You should not have said that,” she told him quietly.

“What?”

“That you acted on my instructions.”

Mercer immediately stepped back, but two federal agents appeared in the doorway. Behind them stood security officers.

“Clara Vale?” one of them asked.

Clara did not answer.

“Doctor Mercer?”

Mercer raised his hands.

I stood by the wall and watched everything. It was strange. All night I had thought that Dominic was the most vulnerable person in the room. Now I was seeing power crumble in the hands of people whom I had always considered winners.

They put handcuffs on Clara.

“Dominic,” she said, “you are not clean either. You know how many people died on your orders.”

Dominic looked at her for a long time.

“I know. That is why I intend to tell the story.”

It was the first answer Clara could not oppose.

The next morning the entire room heard his voice.

Thomas turned on the recorder again, this time a recording of a meeting between Mercer and Clara. It contained all their words: the amount of money, the doctor’s name, the time of the shooting, the order to transfer me to the department.

Clara listened to her own voice.

“If Dominic survives, he will blame everything on me.”

In the recording her second voice answered:

“Then we will silence Maya too. No one will believe a girl from an orphanage.”

Coldness poured through my body.

Clara raised her head.

“I did not say that.”

Thomas answered calmly:

“That is your voice.”

For the first time Clara understood that the enemy in the room was not the people, but her own words.

Mercer called a lawyer.

“Tell me you will get me out of this case.”

“I am no longer your lawyer,” the man answered from the phone. “You are no longer my client.”

Mercer smashed the phone against the wall.

Clara looked toward me.

“Maya, I can explain.”

“Everything has already been explained.”

“You do not know what Dominic did to your family.”

“Maybe I do not know. But now this truth must be spoken in court, not beside my bed, at three in the morning.”

Dominic closed his eyes.

For the first time his face no longer looked frightening. It was only tired.

Three days passed before he could breathe independently. During that time I barely left his room. Federal agents took duty in the corridor. Clara and Mercer were transferred into custody. The hospital board of directors dismissed Mercer from his position and froze his property until the investigation was completed.

Dominic did not express joy.

One evening he told me:

“I have lost many things.”

“Money?”

“People’s trust.”

“You can still regain it.”

“From everyone?”

“No. From some people you should no longer ask for it.”

He looked at me for a long time.

“You stayed with me when I could do nothing.”

“I spoke to you because, whether you heard or not, you were still a person.”

“And now do you understand who I am?”

“Now I see better who you may become.”

A week later his room was empty. Only a white sheet remained on the bed. My copper bookmark lay on the windowsill. On the night Dominic was taken away, it had fallen from my pocket, and he told me to leave it with him.

I entered the room alone.

Near the bed stood the silence I had fought for eighty-nine nights.

But this time the silence was no longer empty.

Two months later I left Boston.

I found a new job in Portland, at a small clinic where green forests could be seen on the walls instead of the sea. In the morning I went by bus, and in the evening I helped the six-year-old child of a neighboring woman with drawing.

Once the child drew a small lighthouse for me.

“This is you,” he told me.

“Why?”

“Because you show everyone the way.”

I stuck the picture on the refrigerator.

The first snow came at the end of November. White flakes swirled by the clinic windows, and every day at the same time I drank tea and addressed the patients by name. I no longer forced anyone to answer. I simply did not leave them alone.

Dominic called me three times from the rehabilitation center.

The first time he thanked me.

The second time he asked whether I would return to Boston.

The third time he sent me a letter.

“Maya, I sold the company. I confessed everything for the trial. I gave my share to the foundation that helps young people who have come out of orphanages. If you ever wish, there will always be a place for you.”

I held the letter in my hand for a long time.

Then I wrote a reply.

“Dominic, I am glad that you have begun telling the truth. But I did not save you in order to return to your life. Then I simply asked you to stay. Now both of us must learn how to live without each other.”

I received no answer.

Several weeks later I opened the drawer of my desk. My old copper bookmark lay inside. The small lighthouse had worn slightly, while the tiny crack on the lower side still touched my finger.

Snow was falling outside the window.

I opened a book, placed the bookmark between the pages, and went to a new patient.

This time there was no one in the room who said his name incorrectly.

I opened the door.

“Hello,” I said quietly. “I am Maya. I am here.”

The small lighthouse shone warmly in my palm.

And this time I did not ask anyone to stay.