A Five-Minute Life

“How you holding up?” Alonzo said. “One more day to get through. Lord, I’m too old for this kind of stress.”

Rita gave me a hug. “It’s going to work, and it’s going to last,” she said. “I can feel it.”

I didn’t let myself hope the way she did, out loud. If I let my hope out into the world, it might get beat up and come back mangled and bleeding. I kept it to myself, safe.

Anna pursed her lips. “Let’s remain professional, please,” she said, then smoothed her uniform that didn’t need smoothing. “Though, honestly, I’m quite excited myself.”

“Yeah, you look it,” Alonzo said, giving me a wink. “Bursting with excitement.”

“Oh, hush.” Anna turned to me. “When are Ms. Delia and her husband expected to arrive?”

“In a few days,” I said. “I wanted time alone with Thea after the procedure, no matter what happens.”

“Good call,” Rita said. “When Thea opens her eyes tomorrow morning, the first person she should see is you.”

My chest tightened. “Goddammit, Rita.”

“I know,” she said, “but I’m just so happy. For both of you.”

“Whatever happens,” Alonzo said, “we’re here for you. And her.”

“Jesus, you too?” I said with a laugh choked with tears.

Alonzo blinked hard, laughing, before he slapped me on the back. “Christ, that’s enough out of us. Go to your girl.”

Thea stood at her easel, earbuds in, her jeans and bright yellow top smattered with paint despite the smock covering them. Hips swaying side to side, she hummed as she recreated a view of New York City from a high window; the lights strewn across the darkened cityscape like stars.

The view from our hotel room at the ArtHouse.

I moved close so Thea could see me from her peripheral vision.

“Jimmy…” She had enough time to smile and pull the earbuds from her ears before the absence seizure hit. I stood still until it passed, then she threw her arms around me.

“You’re here,” she said into my neck. “How long has it been?”

“Eighteen months,” I said.

The script was altered slightly. Her prison had undergone slight improvements. As before, Thea remembered there’d been an accident, but now her parents’ death was connected to the event. She knew they were gone and never slipped and asked when they were coming. She knew her sister lived far away and visited sometimes. She remembered Rita. She stopped saying she was an Egyptologist or etymologist. And she wasn’t freaked out or confused about the tattoo on her arm. Rita had told me it somehow kept Thea grounded from being overwhelmed with sudden grief. That looking at it brought her relief. I kept mine hidden from Thea after that, so she wouldn’t be confused and lose that peace.

The best gift of all was that I didn’t need to wear a nametag or re-introduce myself. She remembered me. She remembered she loved me.

But How long has it been? stayed, and answering sixteen… seventeen… eighteen months, hurt like hell.

“Are the doctors working on my case?” she asked.

“They are,” I said, and it was the truth. “In fact, they’re going to try again.”

She frowned. “Again?”

Eighteen months and I still made dumb mistakes. The word again had no meaning to Thea.

“They’re going to perform a procedure on you,” I said. “And give you some medicine to make you better.”

I hated speaking to her like she was a child, but once, when a reset hit, I told her she wasn’t coming awake for the first time, but she’d been awake and aware all her life. It spun her into a loop of panic and hysterics. Her amnesia was like staring into a hall of mirrors, her reflection multiplying itself by infinity with no way out, and I’d stupidly tried to tell her the door was right in front of her.

I never tried to explain it again.

But Dr. Milton’s procedure was the door out, and I never stopped telling Thea about it. Again and again, every day—every five minutes—for the last two weeks. Since Milton called Dr. Chen with the news.