The first thing that Jenna felt when she woke up was her grandfather's hand tenderly holding hers. She had dreamed of walking with him in his vineyard every day for the last year and waking up to find him holding her hand was like stepping out of a dream.
The next thing that she felt as she opened her eyes was that his hands were wet.
She looked down, finding the top of his messy hair as he rested his forehead against his hands tenderly holding her hand.
He was crying and making both of their hands damp from his tears.
Jenna found that she couldn't speak. She didn't know why but the only thing that she had full control over was her eyes.
She cried too simply from seeing her grandfather crying in front of her. Large tears broke free from the corners of her frosty green eyes and rolled down her cheeks, creating tiny rivers that slowly began to wet the white hospital sheets tucked under her chin.
She heard a commotion to the side of the room and swept her gaze over to find her mother and father slowly entering to stand beside the bed where Jenna was laying. They both had their eyes locked on her grandfather and Jenna could only read sorrow and heartbreak in their eyes.
They looked so much older than the last time that she had seen them.
A memory faintly stirred inside her head, something about her listening to the radio with her mother while they both worked on their own projects.
Something about muddy hands and planting grapes...
Her mother slowly reached out her hand to rest it on her father's shoulder.
"Dad. We need to talk." was all she said before her face seemed to break like a shattered teacup. Her mother quickly turned and pressed her face and self against her father's chest, unable to get the rest of the words that she wanted to say out.
The room felt so full of pain and suffering that Jenna couldn't help but begin to cry again.
Why couldn't she move her body?
She wanted so desperately to sit up and hug her mother.
As her eyes filled with tears, she could barely make out her grandfather's head as it slowly rose so that he could look at his daughter and his son-in-law.
"I was told that you were coming." Her grandfather said softly.
"But I was also told that Jenna would be getting better." He said before Jenna's father spoke.
"You need to stop hurting your daughter and yourself by bringing up that delusional story. Enough is enough!" Her father said as he stroked my mother's back with his hands.
"But... I was promised..."
"You were lied to by some stranger in the park Lorenzo, just look at your granddaughter... oh my God!"
The room hushed as her father's eyes finally fell upon the crying Jenna for the first time. He could see her eyes rapidly and desperately looking between the three parent figures in the room.
He could see the tears and the little patch of wetness on her sheet.
Grandfather's red-rimmed eyes turned to gaze at his granddaughter as well. He began to breathe irregularly as he tried to contain the emotions inside his heart and chest, failing at this, he tried to reach out to grasp at his daughter's hip to get her attention.
Both grandfather and father physically turned Jenna's mother until her eyes too fell on her daughter's tear-streaked face.
A sob was torn from her throat as she rushed to her daughter's side to scoop up her other hand as she watched her daughter follow her with her eyes.
"I missed you so much, my little angel!" She cried as she kissed Jenna's hand over and over again.
"It's a miracle." Jenna's father uttered as he closed his eyes and tilted his head up to the ceiling.
Saying a quiet thanks.
---
The next few days flew by for Jenna as she watched her world change around her. Her parents, for some reason, were talked into taking her home from the hospital even though she was still unable to do anything with her body besides observing the world through her pretty green eyes.
Instead of returning to her small rebuilt home that her father and mother had purchased when she was a baby, they all moved to a large ranch just outside of Boise.
Yes, all of them including her grandfather.
This event greatly cheered Jenna up as she observed her mother and father's face as they explored their new living arrangements together with a beaming grandfather.
It was like watching her parents become children at Christmas again.
The ranch estate was large and sat atop a hilly region with a view overlooking the capital of Idaho. For as far as Jenna could see through her large bedroom windows, she had an amazing view of the cityscape and the mountains in the distance.
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It was lovely.
"I just wish I could be a part of this family again." Jenna wished to herself as she watched the family and world move around her.
It wasn't until the next night that her wish finally came true.
---
The next morning brought with it an unexpected visitor.
"Hello, Dr. George. What an unexpected surprise." Jenna heard her father say after the doorbell had been rung a couple of times. Jenna had been up for several hours already, having lain in bed listening to the world slowly stirring around her.
She had listened to the soft flutter of birds as they woke up and began to forage for food outside the window. Grandfather Lorenzo liked to scatter seeds on the outside windowsill and in the flowerpots so that it would attract birds for Jenna to admire. There was always one little bird that seemed to pause and look inside, through the glass, at the prone girl in the bed. It was almost as though it was letting her know that it saw her.
"Yes, I must apologize for the lack of courtesy for me to call ahead. I only learned of the issue last night when one of your daughter's machines reported that it was low on fluids and materials."
"Low on fluids and materials?" Jenna's father asked as he noticed the rolling metal suitcase behind the doctor. The suitcase looked like it was made from titanium and had a high-tech-looking handprint on the top, obviously the only way to get the case open.
"Indeed, it was a slight oversight on my part. You see, you have the only machine of its kind yet in existence. I helped to design it and it is still in its preliminary stages of being perfected. Its purpose is to help your daughter's body to clear out the scar tissue and, hopefully, allow her body the chance at reconnecting the severed and damaged pathways.
Last night, the machine notified my offices that it was in need of supplies."
"Interesting," Jenna's father said as he paused for a second in thought. He wasn't trying to be rude; it was just blowing him away at how fast technology was advancing in the medical field. Machines that sent out messages to have the head doctor of Neurology stop by your house for a fill-up.
The moment passed which left Jenna's father coming back from his deep thoughts to find that the Dr was still standing patiently outside.
"Oh! Sorry, where are my manners! Please! Come in and do what you need to do. Jenna is right in the next main room through there." He said as he pulled the door open wide and stepped back to let Dr. George inside.
"Do you need my help with anything? Are you thirsty? Would you like me to get you anything?" Jenna's father asked, embarrassed and wishing that his wife was home to help him greet their guest.
"Oh, no, don't bother. I will only need a minute with the machine. I also just need to check up on your daughter while I am here to see how she is handling things. Sure, I can do it from my desk, via the connection we have to the machine here, but I rather prefer to be able to see my patients. It lets them know that they matter and that I am doing everything in my power to help them." He said, sounding for all the world like a true father himself.
"Ok." Jenna's father responded before Dr. George entered her view beside her bed.
"Good morning, Jenna. How is my most lovely patient doing today?" The kindly voice of the Dr swept over Jenna as her eyes tracked him walking around the foot of her bed.
"I wish I could reply," Jenna thought as for the thousandth time she tried to will her brain to connect with her throat. "I just want to talk, someone to talk to, I am a girl trapped in a mirror. Everyone looks at me and gets a sad look on their face, trying to talk to me with a one-sided conversation."
"I know Jenna, and I am hoping that we can fix that." Dr. George said with a soft voice that didn't carry beyond the doorway of the room.
"Wait? You can hear me?" Jenna thought, her eyebrows raising ever so slightly. Had her parents been in the room, they would have jumped with joy at seeing their daughter's ever-still features move.
"Surprised? Yes, I know the vague gist of what you are saying in your mind. But that must be a secret between the two of us because if some people knew that thoughts could be read... it would be a very bad thing for this world," The doctor said, his eyes losing a little of their glimmer of happiness with the last word that he said.
"So, really? You can hear me?" She thought again, hoping that what he said wasn't a joke or a trick.
"Yes, Jenna. I can hear you."
The EEG monitors to the left of Jenna's bed became a mass of zig-zagging lines as Jenna's mind was filled with a cacophony of pleas and screams that she finally had a moment to try to tell the Dr everything that she was thinking at once.
"Ha ha, easy, easy Jenna. Take it slow and speak your thoughts one at a time while I work, ok?" The kindly old man said as he bent down and unsealed his suitcase before retrieving three similar-sized rods and setting them on the bed next to Jenna's covered leg.
Of the three toilet roll sized rods that he laid on the bed, one stood out the most to Jenna. Where the rod of white on the left contrasted with the glass tube of clear liquid in the center, the far tube was black as the darkest night.
"What is that?" Jenna asked in her brain as her eyes tried to focus on the dark material yet failing as no light seemed to reflect off of its surface at all. In fact, it seemed to absorb the light around it, causing shadows on all sides of the sheet as though every side ate the light.
"This?" George asked as he lifted up the far rod made from obsidian cr. "This is nothing to be afraid of Jenna. It is something that will help you to get better, we think. Or at least help the process that is helping you get better."
"Can I touch it?" Jenna asked as she observed the old doctor's fingers holding the dark object with ease.
"Sure. It has no reaction to human skin," he replied before gently reaching down and lifting Jenna's left hand to touch the bar of darkness. It felt oddly normal, like a rod that you just couldn't see very well.
"The same goes for this one as well," George said as he set the bar of obsidian cr down and let Jenna's hand feel the bar of gold cr. "This one, however, is special from what I have learned. It can help the "process" in some ways. Hmm... never mind, I don't want to go too into detail about that," he said as he took the two bars and slid them into the side of the machine by her bed.
Jenna hadn't been aware of it having an opening but simply mentally shrugged because she honestly hadn't been in the position to give it a thorough inspection anyways. There could have been one on the top for all she knew.
"And that one?" She thought as she looked down at the final object on her bed. Where the other two had been solid, this one was a vial with liquid inside.
"This? This is a painkiller and a cell booster. Look, I won't talk down to you. I know that you are smart and that you can handle the truth. Your body healed as best it could, given that the doctors did everything within their limited power to try to help you. The end results, however, left you in this state," he said as he gently moved her limp hand before setting it gently back along her side.
"Will I get better?"
With that question, the old doctor simply smiled a mysterious smile before installing the vial into the machine.
"Oh no, I am afraid our connection is cutting out. It looks like I can't hear you anymore. You will have to try to ask me that the next time that you see me." He said with a smile at his joke. He moved to the foot of her bed and tenderly touched the tip of one of her covered toes.
"Yes, Jenna, you will get better. But now it is time for you to sleep. There is still much work to be done."
"Sleep? I don't want to sleep. I want to talk to you. What work needs..." Was all her mind could form into sentences before she drifted blissfully off to sleep.
"Take good care of her Maya," The doctor whispered before he left the room.