Only Theo doesn’t come back.

Not that day, not that week, not the next. The doctors take him out of the induced coma, but he doesn’t wake up. They remove the ventilator, and he starts to breathe on his own, but he doesn’t wake up. By the time Thanksgiving arrives, he’s developed bed sores from lying in one position so long, and I’ve developed a hatred for myself so burning, I can’t even look at my reflection in the mirror.

I did this.

I pushed him so hard, his only choice was to run away. I could’ve let him come to it in his own time, or gone along with his treatment plan if it made him feel better to pretend schizophrenia was the root of all his problems. I didn’t have to shove the truth down his throat, but I did.

I punish myself in a variety of imaginative ways, but my favorite is denying myself food.

Which makes all the vomiting I’m doing more than a little strange.

“You’re sick again, honey?”

The head nurse on Theo’s floor at the hospital is a motherly Latina named Ana with big, brown eyes and a tendency to dispense random hugs. She’s gazing at me in concern outside the hallway restroom where I’ve just been puking my guts out.

I lean against the doorframe, wiping the beads of sweat off my brow with the back of my hand. “You heard, huh?”

She makes an apologetic face. “I think the whole floor heard. It sounded like an exorcism was happening in here.”

“Must’ve been that egg salad sandwich I had for breakfast.” I attempt a feeble laugh, avoiding her eyes. “Damn cafeteria food.”

She snorts, propping her hands on her hips. “I think you actually have to eat some food before it can make you sick, chica.”

I mutter churlishly, “I eat.”

“Ai!” She pinches my arm, startling me into looking at her. She shakes her finger in my face. “Don’t you lie to me! I have six kids—I’ve got a black belt in lie detection!”

I’m too tired to argue with her, so I sigh instead. “Okay, fine. I probably picked up a bug from hanging around this place so much. Didn’t I read somewhere that hospitals make people sick more than anything else?”

Her eyes round. “Dios mío. Do you have a fever?”

“No.”

“Body aches?”

“No more than usual.”

“A strange rash? Enlarged lymph glands? Extreme weakness or chills?”

I wrinkle my nose in disgust. “Why, is the plague going around here or something?”

Her eyes go from round to narrow. She pinches her lips and looks me up and down. “Well, I can tell you what—no matter what else might be wrong with you, you’re anemic for sure.” Clucking like a hen, she lightly slaps my cheek. “Look at this, pale as a ghost.”

“Thanks for that vote of support,” I say drily.

She grabs my arm and steers me down the hallway toward the elevators. “I’m sending you down to Tommy in the lab to get some blood drawn.”

“No! I’m okay, Ana, really—”

Glaring at me, she says something in sharp Spanish that shuts me up.

“Fine. But if Tommy doesn’t hit the vein the first time, I’m kicking him in his balls.”

She clucks again, pressing the call button for the elevator. “Such a temper. I heard about your performance in the emergency room in Seaside Hospital, you know.”

I look at the ceiling, shaking my head. “Unbelievable.”

Tommy turns out to be a hipster with sleeves of pinup girls tattooed on his arms, silver rings decorating his thumbs, and a bald head capped by a gray fedora set at a jaunty angle. When he catches me eyeing it, he grins.

“It makes my head look less like an egg. Have a seat.”

I sit, stick my arm into the squishy blue armrest on his small counter, and squirm in my chair when he pulls a lethal-looking needle from a plastic wrapper and jabs the opposite end into an empty vial.

“Make a fist.” He ties a length of urine-colored rubber around my biceps, and taps the little blue bulge on my inner arm. “Nice veins,” he says, impressed.

“Thanks. I’m an ass girl, myself.”

He laughs, displaying a set of dimples. “We all have our weaknesses, I suppose.”

To distract myself from the pointy spike of steel about to be jabbed into my body, I ask, “So, how’d you get into the vein business, Tommy?”

“After my brother overdosed from heroin when I was fifteen, I decided I wanted to be a doctor.”

He discloses that bit of personal information so nonchalantly, I’m stunned. “Oh. God, I’m so sorry.”

He slides the needle home expertly. I hardly feel a pinch. “Yeah. It sucked. I was the one who found him, slumped over the toilet with his arm still tied off. Shit like that really changes your perspective on things.”

I say faintly, “It sure does.”

He fills up one vial, exchanges it for another, casual and competent, talking as he works. “I enrolled in the premed program at Portland State but dropped out after a year. College wasn’t really my thing. I’m crap at taking tests. But I still wanted to do something in the medical field. I knew a guy who worked here, said the pay was decent, and they had on-the-job training, so I got my certification and that was that.”

He’s filled all four of his little vials by now and removes the heinous needle. I get a cotton ball topped by a purple Band-Aid to cover the tiny hole in my arm, then we’re done.

“Well, I can honestly say you’re the best phlebotomist I’ve ever known, Tommy. Good job.”

“Thanks.” He looks at me for a moment. “You doin’ okay?”

I’m taken aback by the question and run a hand over my hair in embarrassment. “I look that bad, huh?”

“I see a lotta people come through those doors. You get a feel for ’em.”

My laugh is uncomfortable. “Oh yeah? And what’s my vibe telling you? Woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown?”

The corners of his lips lift into a small, mysterious smile. “Woman on the verge of something. You take care now. Happy Thanksgiving.”

He leaves me sitting in the chair, wondering what the hell that was all about.

I decide people who draw blood for a living are weird.

* * *

When I get back to Theo’s room, I pull up short, shocked to see Coop and Suzanne setting up a makeshift Thanksgiving dinner table on the empty bed next to Theo’s.

“You guys,” I whisper, my voice cracking. “What’re you doing here?”

“Are you kidding?” says Suzanne, hustling over to give me a hug and a kiss. She pulls away and beams at me, holding me by the shoulders. “Where else are you supposed to be on Thanksgiving other than with family?”

“But, Coop…” I look at him, taking up most of the space in the room with his blond bulk and his grin. “Your kids.”

“They’re with their mother today. I’m gettin’ ’em for Christmas. Which works out great, seein’ as how I can’t stand my mother-in-law.”

“Ex mother-in-law,” says Suzanne over her shoulder.

Coop grins at her. “Right. Ex.”

When Suzanne looks back at me, her cheeks are red, which tells me everything I need to know about what these two have been up to since I’ve been staying in Portland.

“That nice nurse lady Ana said she wasn’t supposed to let us in here with all this food, but most of those stuffy-ass doctors are gone for the holiday, so she snuck us in. And…”

Her signature skyscraper heels clicking on the floor, she trots over to a paper bag on the desk under the TV and pulls out a dish wrapped in aluminum foil. She holds it up like a trophy. “I made key lime pie!”

When my lower lip starts to quiver and my eyes fill with tears, she looks horrified.

“Oh, shit, don’t tell me you’re on a diet! Is that why you look like a stray cat?”

“I love you, Suzanne,” I say, and burst into tears.

“Sweetie, it’s okay.” She must have handed the pie to Coop, because her arms come around me in a gentle hug. Then she pats my hair as I fall apart, sobbing into her boobs. She murmurs into my ear, “I love you too. Even if you are ruining my new silk blouse with your snot.” She sighs. “Why are the prettiest girls the ugliest criers?”

By the time I manage to get myself together and Suzanne and I break apart, Coop has finished putting out the food. Everything is there: turkey breast, stuffing, corn, sweet potatoes. They’ve even brought cranberry sauce. It makes me want to burst into tears all over again, but I’ve got something more important to focus on now.

The smell of the food is turning my stomach.

“You’re lookin’ a little green over there,” says Coop, glancing at me sideways as he pulls paper plates from a bag.

“I’m just tired. This looks amazing, you guys. Thank you so much.”

We each fill a plate with food, then drag chairs around Theo’s bed and eat in silence interrupted only by the steady beeping of Theo’s heart monitor.

After a while, Coop says quietly, “He’s thin.”

“You would be too if all your meals were liquid.”

Coop glances at the lump under the blankets where the feeding tube is inserted into Theo’s abdomen. His eyes register pain, and he quickly looks back at his plate. “Anything new?”

I pick at the stuffing on my plate with my fork, moving it around so I look busy. They went to all this trouble. I don’t want to insult them by not eating. Or, worse, eating and throwing everything right back up. “Nothing. His vitals are all stable.”

“What about the EEG?”

I whisper, “No change. His brain waves look like the surface of a lake.”

Suzanne says casually, “My grandma Rhoda was in a coma for two years before she came out of it. Just woke up one day and demanded chocolate pudding. She didn’t have any brain waves either. Didn’t mean a thing in the end. If God wants you to wake up, you’re waking up. If she doesn’t, you don’t.”

Sounding exhausted, Coop says, “Why does God always get blamed for everything? Maybe God’s just letting life do what it will, and watches us to see how we handle it.”

“God as watchmaker as opposed to chess player,” I say. “That’s what my dad thought.”

Suzanne says, “I have no idea what that means, but I do know that everything happens for a reason. Even the bad things. It’s all part of a bigger plan we can’t understand. God is the greatest force of love in the universe.”

I mutter, “I think God’s a kid who likes to sprinkle salt on snails.”

The conversation moves to other topics. Coop updates me on the progress Hillrise is making on the Buttercup, which is impressive. If the weather cooperates, they’re on schedule to have all the work done in late January. Just in time for me to open the B&B for Valentine’s Day.

The fucking irony.

I try my best to make a dent in the pile of food on my plate, but only manage to get a few bites down. They stay for another hour, then we pack up the leftovers and throw out the trash. When Suzanne goes to the restroom, Coop unexpectedly pulls me into a hug.

In a low voice, he says, “What’re you gonna do?”

I know what he means without having to ask. “Wait,” I say, my voice breaking. “No matter how long it takes.”

He pulls away and gazes at me with so much pain in his eyes, it’s awful. “And what if this is as good as it gets?” He gestures to Theo lying unmoving and unresponsive on the bed. “What, then?”

“I’m not giving up hope,” I say with quiet vehemence. “Not now, not ever. If I have to grow old in this fucking hospital room, that’s what I’ll do. If he wakes up and has the IQ of a cup of coffee and needs to be dressed and bathed and hand-fed for the rest of his life, that’s what I’ll do. I love him, Coop. No matter what. I’ll love this man and take care of him until the day I die.”

My throat closes, so my next words are strangled. “And even then, I’ll keep loving him. I’ll love him till the end of time.”

Coop hugs me hard, his breath hitching, then walks out abruptly so I don’t see him cry.

Suzanne comes back from the bathroom and we say our goodbyes, then I’m so tired, I settle into the chair beside Theo’s bed and close my eyes, intending to nap for only a few minutes. But when I open my eyes again, it’s dark outside and Ana is standing over me, whispering my name.

“Megan. Mija, wake up.”

I blink up at her and scrub a hand over my face. My back is stiff and my left leg has fallen asleep. The pins and needles are painful. “What time is it?”

“Just after midnight.”

“Is everything okay?”

When she hesitates, my heart takes off like a rocket. I jump to my feet and knock her out of my way in my hurry to grab Theo’s hand. I search his face in panic for any signs of distress, but he seems to be in the exact same condition he was in when I fell asleep.

“Honey, he’s fine,” she says, touching my shoulder. “It’s, ah…it’s you, actually.”

I turn and stare at her. “Me? What do you mean?”

She glances at Theo. Then, her usually expressive brown eyes revealing nothing, she jerks her chin toward the door. “Let’s go talk over there.”

Oh my God. There’s something terribly wrong with me. It’s cancer. It’s a rare, infectious disease. It’s the Zika virus. It’s Ebola. It’s the fucking plague!

When I continue to stare at her with my mouth open, terror tightening my stomach to a fist, Ana gently takes my arm and steers me toward the door. She stops in the doorway and keeps her voice barely above a whisper.

Which must be why I can’t understand what she says.

“You’re pregnant.”

I blink, then squint at her. “Excuse me? What did you say?”

“I said you’re pregnant, honey. Congratulations.”

I wait for the punch line. When one isn’t forthcoming and Ana simply stares at me with a small, soft smile, I realize she’s not joking.

“Ana, that’s not possible. I can’t get pregnant.”

She lifts her shoulders. “According to your blood test, you can.”

That hipster idiot, Tommy. He switched my test results with someone else’s! Some poor pregnant woman is going to be told her morning sickness is only anemia!

I say flatly, “No, Ana, I can’t. I’m telling you—it’s impossible. It would be a miracle.”

Her entire face lights up with a smile. “Well, God is in the miracle business, honey, so maybe you should thank him.”

There’s a noise in my head like a thousand wolves howling at a full moon. I can hardly hear myself think over it. Incredulous, I whisper, “I’m…I’m pregnant? How?”

She lifts her brows, an expression of humor on her face. “Oh, did you miss that day at school? See, there’s this thing called a sperm—”

I grab her arms and shout into her face, “I’M PREGNANT? WITH A BABY?”

Dissolving into laughter, she says, “No, with a piñata. Of course with a baby!”

A loud, frantic beeping emits from one of the machines hooked up to Theo.

We both freeze, then Ana reacts first. She hustles over to his bed, peers at a black box with some green flashing numbers, then turns around and runs past me, shouting for a doctor.

“Ana!” I scream after her, panicked. “What’s happening!”

She’s headed for the nurses’ station down the hall, yelling over her shoulder as she goes. “His heartbeat is skyrocketing!” She disappears around a corner.

I whirl around and run to Theo’s bedside, so frantic, I catch my foot on the leg of a chair and almost fall. I grab his hand and collapse onto the bed, panting, terrified at all the flashing I see on the machines. It’s not only the heartbeat monitor that’s going mad—several other devices screech with alarms.

This is it. He’s dying.

I start to sob uncontrollably. “Don’t you dare leave me, Theo! Don’t you dare! I love you! I need you! I’ll never forgive you if you leave me alone!”

Pressure on my hand, so faint I almost can’t feel it, cuts off my hysterical screams as if someone pulled a plug. I freeze, looking down at Theo’s hand clasped in mine…his hand that’s weakly squeezing.

Time slows to a crawl. Every beat of my heart is a boom of thunder in my ears. I look up at his face and watch in utter astonishment and joy as the second miracle of the night occurs.

Theo slowly opens his eyes and looks at me.

His gaze is hazy at first but gains focus after several moments. Then we stare at each other for an endless span of silence as I wait without breathing to see if he recognizes me.

Is he even in there at all?

Squeezing his hand hard, I lean over his chest and plead, “Theo? Theo, can you hear me? Can you speak?” When he doesn’t respond, tears begin to flow down my cheeks again. I feel my face crumbling, and the last of my hope unravels at the blankness I see in his dark, dark eyes.

Sobbing, I beg, “Please, if you can hear me, please say something!”

Finally, after what feels like forever, the corners of his lips curve to a ghost of a smile.

In a weak, scratchy voice, the words halting and almost unintelligible, he whispers, “It wasn’t enough.”

“What? What do you mean?” I can barely speak, I’m crying so hard. My entire body is racked with sobs. When his lips move but no words come out, I lean closer, putting my ear near his mouth and begging him to say it again.

On the faintest of exhalations, he does.

“One lifetime wasn’t enough to love you.”

I fall to my knees as a team of doctors and nurses bursts into the room.