“Will it hurt her?” Dad strokes Mom’s hand lovingly.

“Maybe,” I hedge, trying to shove away the bad memories of him standing next to her while she lay helpless in her hospital bed. “It could.”

“Sorry, I asked that already.”

“You can ask as many times as you like,” I offer. “It won’t change my answer.”

I’ve relayed the plan. Despite the slight risk of a freakout, we can’t leave her free. The convulsions could cause her to involuntarily harm herself or us. We need to tie her to a bed, but she won’t fuss. She’s been ridiculously pliable. With any luck, she’ll wake up swinging, ready to fight the world.

“Will it help her?”

“I’m not certain of that, either.”

A great salesperson, I am not. Attempting electroconvulsive therapy is unpredictable at best. There are no guaranteed results. For all we know, it could make things grimmer. The potential for disappointment is high, but there’s also a chance that inducing a seizure with electrical pulses may jump start her brain and get it working properly again. While hoping for the latter, I’m not giving him or myself any delusions of grandeur just to get the wheels rolling on this buzz bus.

“We don’t have to do this, but if we are, it has to be now. We only have a narrow window of opportunity before they figure out we’ve defected.”

There it is! He scowls. It’s predictably disapproving. “Why are we sneaking around?”

That’s a fair question, and he deserves an honest answer. “They’ll try to stop it from happening.”

“For good reason?”

“They err on the side of caution. Caution isn’t the answer for Mom.”

“I want her back,” he whispers.

I roused my mother from her eighteen-year coma, accepting the memory loss. I even expected it to a degree. Someone doesn’t just wake up after that long without any side effects. I sort of underestimated the extent of the memory loss…and normal brain capacity. I’m ready to get to know her. Not for what she was, for what she is. I don’t expect to get any time back. What I want is new time. Not a half-baked cake.

The secret to happiness isn’t wishing for endless sunshine. That isn’t plausible in Ceobhránach Cove. In CC, you have to find the blanket possibilities in the perpetual clouds. Happiness means suffering through the rain, so when those tiny rays of light breach the ominous cover, you can see the rainbow they bring with them. I’m not a pessimist. I’m a realist.

Since her return, Amber Tierney is no less an empty shell than she was lying in that hospital bed. Worse, she’s growing more catatonic every passing day and hasn’t spoken in a week. Before that, the words were nonsensical, and her slurred speech made it difficult to even make them out.

What’s keeping her motor running? My blood. Problem is, I can’t give her any more blood than I am, and we’ve tried supplementing donor blood to no avail. She isn’t starving to death, just half with us and half somewhere else. Unfortunately, the half somewhere else isn’t in my head. No Superego. No Supermom. I could tolerate her condition if I still had something of her. As it stands, I’ve completely lost her.

“Best get on with it,” Dad concedes.

Brody’s nervous, so he’s pacing back and forth, more nervous than Dad and I. It’s a reasonable reaction. He’s the electrical conductor being utilized in our therapy session. He’s walked past me twenty-seven times. Yes, I counted. Why? Because each time he passes by me, he pokes my arm. The poke itself isn’t impressive. What’s impressive is the jolt of electricity he shoots through me as he does it. He’s practicing release with me as the receptacle. I don’t mind. It’s the least I can do to account for the unfair responsibility I’ve placed on him. I also kind of like him touching me, generally. Poorly timed crush? Seems so. Sue me. I’m still human. I’m allowed temporary idiocy.

Like all the other occasions I’ve needed Brody’s support, he’s immediately taken his place beside me, content to let me lead. His support means the world to me. Honestly, I didn’t force him into this. Zero coercion. He’s shown no signs of pressure in his emotional response. If anything, he seems eager to use his new ability in a controlled way. I just hope my emergency shut-off switch doesn’t fail in the event we need to abruptly stop the treatment.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

My father helps me strap my mother to the bed using duct tape. Yes, duct tape. Not ideal. I feel a tad guilty for how rough getting it off her will be, but we couldn’t find any rope. Small mercies, she doesn’t seem to mind. She just lies there, staring at whatever picture show is playing on the steel roof trussing, courtesy of her imagination.

I pull out the mouthguard we pilfered from Tally’s room. Apparently, Barry grinds his teeth when he sleeps. If I was sleeping in Tally’s bed, I’d probably be grinding my teeth, too. Awake or asleep. All the grinding. Anyway, we need the mouthguard to ensure Mom doesn’t crack her teeth or bite her tongue during the electro-shock therapy.

Brody carefully positions himself by her head, rolling his shoulders. He takes a deep breath, and it’s like he’s breathing for both of us. Cool. Shared air. Needed that. My teeth are chattering. Maybe we should’ve stolen me a mouthguard. I should clarify my fear here. I’m not scared of him hurting her. My fear? Absolute truth time. I’m scared it won’t work.

I.

Have.

No.

Hope.

There. I said it. Go ahead and stone me. I can’t even pretend I’ve been riding the hope train in ignorant bliss. Come on, there’s no actual bliss on that train. When it comes right down to it, doubt is so much easier to digest than hope. Hope would’ve had me wishful thinking she’d come back the first time with all her faculties intact, including her memories. It would’ve had her waking up and giving me a fairytale family with none of the extra effort required to facilitate that. If I’d well and truly hoped, this exercise in futility wouldn’t boil down to what we have available here, which isn’t much. We hailed technology in its infinite wisdom. We asked the mighty search engine, and the search engine answered our call by way of a five-minute help video on electro-shock therapy.

“Ready?” Brody positions his fingers unilaterally on Mom’s temples, commandeering my thought train before I derail this little misadventure.

We’re really doing it. We’re purposely inducing a series of seizures to thwart Mom’s catatonia. My father stands beside me, holding my hand. He doesn’t even jerk away when my temperature rises to meet the seriousness of the situation.

“Ready,” I affirm.

Dad squeezes my hand.

I feel the strength of Brody’s focus, then the relief from the electrical build up when he begins pulsing the excess electricity into my mother. Her body jumps on the bed with each dose as if he’s puppeteering her every movement. He does three pulse reps of five, each pulse lasting only a second. On the tenth pulse, he maintains the stream for a total of five seconds. He completes the cycle five times. Mom’s still convulsing on the bed after he’s done, without any additional prompting from him. Thirty seconds later, she stops moving, so I push Brody aside to get a closer look.

She isn’t blinking. Her amber eyes are staring straight ahead. She isn’t breathing, though that isn’t necessarily an indication of anything. Solathairs don’t need to breathe. She makes no sound. She looks even less alive than she did in the hospital. She’s gone.

“Cut her loose.” My tinder heart sinks deep into my chest.

Brody works to free her from the binding, not bothering to remove the duct tape from her wrists, simply detaching the connection to the bed posts. No more ties to this world. No more plugs to pull.

“Is she...” Dad stops before asking the question. He doesn’t want the answer. Neither of us does.

After all we did, all we endured, our final roll was snake eyes. Every last option has been expended.

My father drops to his knees and pounds his fists against the cold, steel floor. It won’t give an inch. After a few moments, he stops his useless battery, falling forward. He rests his face in his hands, finally shedding the tears he didn’t have the freedom to before. Fresh tears, yes, but never over her death. Crying would’ve meant he gave up. That there was no hope. Dad was riding that hope train hard for both of us. Now it’s crashed. There’s no more hope. I’ve invoked the finality too long in the coming.

“Look!” Brody hollers, breaking me free from utter desolation.

I see the beginning of everything I’ve ever wanted. It comes in the way of her rapid blinking, the subtle movement of her lips, and the clenching of her fingers and toes. I run to the bed, uncaring whether she recognizes me, how comfortable she feels, or how confused she might be. Those things don’t matter to me. She’s alive, and she’s different. Her feelings are vibrant, not the charcoal gray of indifference previously residing there. She’s happy. My mother is happy. And she’s relieved. And she’s hugging me back. My mother is hugging me back like she knows me.

When she opens her mouth to speak, I can’t believe the words coming so readily from her lips, in the voice I’ve heard a million times in my mind. “My darling daughter. Look what you’ve done.”

Guess what time it is? It’s super cry time, Folks. Tears of joy and frustration and anger and relief and, most of all, happiness. My tears flow forth in unstoppable waves. My father joins us, as does Brody.

Brody did this. Unsolicited, I kiss him. On his lips. With my lips. It’s the most miraculous and all-consuming two minutes of my life. This right here. My family. This is where my joy lives.

Then Mom says something else, and all the bliss is instantly obliterated, replaced by fear of losing all I’ve just gotten back. The smell confirmation doesn’t surprise me. Fear? It smells like a house fire. “They’re here,” she whispers.