Chapter 13 - Seven Hours in the Deep
Seven hours.
Four hundred and twenty minutes.
Time ceased to behave like a normal physical dimension. Every tick of the second hand on the waiting room wall felt like a drop of water falling onto stone.
Claire arrived on the surgical waiting floor at 1:00 PM, bringing coffee I couldn't drink and food I couldn't swallow. Julian joined her an hour later, dressed in a sharp charcoal suit, carrying a leather briefcase.
“The injunction was granted,” Julian told me quietly, sitting on the opposite vinyl armchair. “The court froze the escrow account and placed a lien on Donna’s condo. The DA has officially issued an arrest warrant for grand larceny in the first degree and falsification of records.”
“And my mother?” I asked, staring at my folded hands.
“She’s named as an unindicted co-conspirator for now,” Julian said, his expression grim. “Her cooperation will determine whether she faces prison time or probation. But financially, she’s ruined. Everything Donna gave her will be clawed back to restitute Mia’s trust.”
“I don’t care about the money,” I murmured. “I just want Mia to wake up.”
At 4:30 PM, the waiting room doors swung open.
Dr. Sterling walked out, his surgical mask hanging loosely around his neck, his scrubs soaked in sweat around the collar. He looked utterly exhausted, but beneath the fatigue, his eyes held a calm, brilliant luminescence.
I jumped to my feet, my knees trembling so violently that Claire had to steady my elbow.
“Dr. Sterling?” I whispered, terrified to hear the answer.
Dr. Sterling reached up, rubbed the bridge of his nose, and then looked directly at me.
“We got the bracket off,” he said.
A gasp caught in my throat.
“The nerve sheath was compressed to less than twenty percent of its normal diameter,” he continued, speaking with the measured precision of a man who had just performed a miracle. “The moment we removed the lower pedicle screw, we observed immediate micro-vascular reperfusion. The tissue turned pink before we even closed the dural flap.”
“What does that mean?” Claire cried, tears springing to her eyes.
“It means the signal pathway is open,” Dr. Sterling smiled, a wide, triumphant grin breaking across his tired face. “The intra-operative evoked potentials showed positive cortical transmission. Her brain was sending signals to her calf muscles on the operating table.”
The floor seemed to drop away. I fell back into the chair, burying my face in my hands, sobbing so hard that my entire body shook. Claire threw her arms around me, laughing and weeping simultaneously, while Julian placed a hand over his heart, exhaling a breath he looked like he had been holding for days.
May you like
“She’s in the post-anesthesia care unit,” Dr. Sterling added softly. “You can see her in twenty minutes, Sarah. Go be with your daughter.”
---