Chapter Twelve

For a minute nothing happened. Dr. Crimm waited, her eyes locked onto Shima's face. "Shima, take a deep breath. Let your thoughts drift back to a place in time when your heart was full. As you float there alone, in that space between here and somewhere far beyond, whose arms would you like around you?"

Colors on the screen above her head began to form and then melt away again as the world they were in started taking shape. And just like that the scab was torn and Shima's wound began to bleed.

Shima's gentle voice, which we had barely heard until now, said over and over, "Mom, Mom, God I miss my mom."

On the screen the colors bleeding into the floor began to rise up again. They stretched and pulled a pattern from their endless puddles. Thin trees curled up from the ground and rose to the uppermost tip of the screen, brown trunks and bright green leaves. Moss, moist and rich in color, grew at their bases and rose along the crooked roots as they dipped and dived, creating caverns along the knitted forest floor. The room was so silent that Shima's sharp intake of breath echoed, as if her mouth were pressed up against a microphone in an empty auditorium. Damien covered his ears with a wince. In her seat, Shima's head quickly turned, spinning the image on the screen and allowing the trees to blur together in a deluge of green and brown.

Suddenly the trees fell from the screen and in their place rose beautifully textured walls. Shima must have recognized them because she smiled from her chair. "Home," she announced. "I'm home." Then she cried out, her pain loud and piercing. So much pain it stole her breath, its invisible fingers reaching inside her to scrape out any life—leaving her hollow. Her chest heaved and jolted as she tried to pull in a breath against the tightening of her own grief. She shook her head, as if trying to escape the feeling she'd failed to flee from just days ago. Her hands reached out desperately at nothing, trying to hang on to the room she was now in. She turned her head and we could see the whole picture. She'd been standing but she sank to her knees, her hands holding her stomach as if the pain she'd been feeling focused itself there and it now stabbed at her abdomen. It was almost unbearable to watch.

"Mom?" she whispered. She gripped the old carpet, worn down by years of family walking across it. The tan threads frayed beneath long, thin fingers. Frozen in place, she stared at the light brown age spots. These weren't the hands we could clearly see gripping her abdomen in front of us. These were the hands of an older woman. She leaned back, bringing the hands up closer to her face to examine every detail. She was crying again, whimpers and sobs mixed into a symphony of sadness so deep it felt bottomless. Clasping them together, she brought them as close as she could to her heart. My own hand lifted up to my heart along with her.

"Don't make me leave," Shima pleaded. "She's here. I can feel her."

On the screen, the purple flowery fabric resting over her knees caught her attention. She lifted the top of her dress and breathed in the scent of the material. Her eyes lifted to the mirrored closet in the room as if she'd see herself there wearing the dress, but instead she saw the image of an older woman reflected back at her, a woman who was not her, but who looked very much like her. This must be Shima's mother.

Suddenly she cried out in pain. She rolled up her body as she gripped her stomach and waited for it to pass before she could pull in another breath. Had something hurt this badly for her mother? What could be such an unreasonable tormentor? In the hallucination, Shima, in her mother's body, tried to stand, but was weak and disoriented. As her fingers dug into her core, gripping at the pain she must have been feeling, a desperation to make it stop became apparent.

Footsteps fell just outside the wooden door. "Dad." She braced herself at the foot of the bed and waited for him to enter. As soon as he saw her his face twisted in pain, a look of agony painting his features as he took in the sight of this woman, brittle with discomfort. He moved to her quickly but slowed down to gently lift her into his arms. He held her, rocking just slightly and pressing kisses to her forehead.

It was clear when the pain once again roared to life. She shook, too weak to fight through the feeling without letting out a voiceless scream. Shima's father stood above her now as he put her down carefully on the bed. The grief deep inside of him was reflected in the dark brown eyes Shima herself had inherited. He pulled the covers up around his wife's body and tucked her into bed lovingly. You could see the indecision in her expression, the need to escape but also the longing to remain with him.

"Jesus," Ken said under his breath. "It's too much." He rested his head against his fist and closed his eyes. I'd never felt someone else's pain the way I could feel Shima's. We weren't the ones who had taken the medication, but we were right there with her in this nightmare. It was like awakening from those dreams where everything felt so real you were convinced it really happened. We were all there with her in that room as she lay inside her mother's body, slowly dying.

On the screen the walls seemed to buzz with a changing energy and we heard someone approaching just outside the bedroom. "I can tell her you're not well," Shima's father whispered.

"No, let her in. I don't want her to know how I suffer." Shima's mother's voice was weak and breathy, pain clearly stealing from her the tone she'd been born with. Her father shook his head at first, but after a moment of looking into her eyes, it was apparent he wouldn't deny her anything. He moved to the door and opened it, allowing a happier Shima from a different time to bounce through.

"Hi, Mom! How are you feeling today?" the dream-Shima asked. The energy was different now. It was clear she never knew what happened behind that closed door. Her mother had suffered for both of them, hiding her pain so Shima didn't have to bear it.

"I'm good." Shima's mother's hand moved out to pat the bed beside her. Seeing the scene from her point of view was remarkable. My heart was full of the love that flowed between mother and daughter in this tender moment as they interacted on-screen. I remembered then that only Shima's father left the hospital room the night we picked her up. I swiped at my tears and hid my face behind my knees as I came to terms with the realization that I already knew how this story was going to end. Then something amazing happened. I opened my eyes and looked at the screen because I knew she needed me. I couldn't help myself, but maybe I could be there for her.

Her father watched from the end of the bed as Shima recounted her day. I wondered if she remembered this conversation. Together, Shima and her mother lay back against the pillows and Shima reached for her mother's hand, turning onto her side so she could look into her eyes. I wished I had some words that would comfort her, something I could say while she hovered there between the worlds. She was still with us physically in her chair, but I could see her lost in the memory, too. I had nothing to offer her and it felt helpless. I hadn't known her long before this experience, but I knew her now. When you see someone's trauma from ground zero, it creates an instant bond. It's one that I never would have known about if it weren't for R2L.

"It would have never been long enough—it never is." Aideen's soft voice sang out.

The torturous pain stabbed again, but Shima's mother managed to hide it, gripping the sheets between her fingers with her free hand. From her mom's perspective Shima watched her former self, smiling back at her. She'd seen her mother's decline the way her mother had wanted her to. She had painted a picture of peace so that Shima would not hurt as deeply. What she had done to protect her in the end had clearly wounded her severely. With a kiss to her cheek, happy Shima left the room.

Her mother's body looked rigid as she shifted to make herself comfortable. She met Shima's father's eyes as he stared down at her, pleading for something without using words. He looked conflicted, as if he wanted her to stay but needed her to go. I hadn't realized I was sobbing until Ken reached out and lightly touched my back. I flinched from the contact, but in that moment I needed the comfort more than I needed to protect myself. I'd lost my grandmother to cancer months ago, after watching her die a very painful death. There was a time when I came to terms with her impending passing and I'd prayed she would die so the suffering could be over. I knew that look on Shima's father's face because I'd worn that same expression.

Shima's father clearly couldn't watch her suffer anymore. "Please." His voice cracked as he whispered his request, "please don't hold on for us any longer. There will be nothing left of my heart if it has to break more for you every day."

On the screen Shima's mother patted the bed beside her again, and rolled to her side as her husband pulled her body into him so she was resting on his chest. She fit perfectly in his arms as if they were created just for her. It wasn't a romantic image of love; it was the real one. A man who loved his wife and daughter so much, he did what he had to in order to protect them. I felt an incredible feeling of warmth as the room grew brighter and brighter. Shima's body relaxed in the chair as in the dream world her father held her. We heard her mother's voice plead, "Promise me you won't get lost when I'm gone."

He tightened his grip around her. "I'll try," he answered hoarsely. "For you, I'll try." The world on the screen shifted as if it was being viewed from up in the air. Quick flashes of Shima's dark bedroom with muffled voices in the background raced across the screen, along with images of a church. Her father praying quietly beside her, too softly to capture the sound. Then a phone call overheard, her father crying in the kitchen as she headed off to sleep.

The image on the screen warped again, and this time Shima's father held his wife in the forest we first saw, stroking her hair softly as he kissed her head. His voice whispered softly in Japanese.

"He's praying for God to take her," Shima said.

Then she was alone again. The colors began to swirl around, washing up the walls and back down again, taking pieces of the structure with them. Gorgeous waves of bright rainbows vivid with colors I'd never even seen before washed away her parents and swept her in their current toward the small bathroom in her house. She dug her heels in, determined not to go. Her feet slipped out from beneath her as she frantically tried to gain control of her movement through the narrow hallway on the screen.

Her hand gripped the doorframe, her nails digging into the wood as she struggled to avoid being pulled inside what must have been her own little hell. Her nails lifted slightly as the forceful current of melted memories swirled around her and pulled her under. She was deposited onto the tile floor, her arm draped over the side of the bathtub.

Once again, she was inside her own body. The razor in her hand shook as she pressed the edge into her skin. Already her other wrist was dripping, the blood landing with the faintest splash as it pooled in the saturated fabric of her robe. The room was spinning slightly and fading in and out on the screen, making me believe she was growing light-headed. I could feel the sadness again, like a demon in my chest trying to climb its way out of my ribs. The salty tears she was crying slipped down her cheeks and onto her open wound as she completed the cut and let the razor fall into the tub.

She closed her eyes and waited. Her body began to shake, but I'm not sure if it was from the temperature or the shock of what she'd just done. The room around her grew quiet. The silence of the forest was at her back again. We could hear the sound of her heart beating like a somber soundtrack to the movie we were watching on the screen. Her chest hiccupped with sadness. "He's going to leave me, too." I thought of the man coming out of her room that night at the hospital, drunk and smelling of alcohol. He was drinking himself to death. The grief that had been heavy on her family felt present with her in the bathroom. It clouded our minds as we watched and it sat squarely on our hearts.

The darkness gave way to a brilliant light. We watched as memories of her father played like an old family recording, from his hands holding hers as she took her first steps all the way to the day he'd scooped her up from the floor and rushed her to the waiting ambulance. There were soccer games and family dinners, happy memories and some tainted with sadness. It was a stark reminder that she wouldn't leave this world without leaving behind someone who loved her deeply.

She was shaking, her dark blood was pooling in the bathtub beneath her limp wrists. The world on our screen was fading at the edges. Long tree branches grew in from the corners with faded party ribbons hanging from the trunks. It was terrifying to watch her dying. Marco looked away and Damien and Ken stared, bewildered, as the life slipped from our new friend. When her eyes opened again she saw her father above her, pulling her into his arms. As he took each hurried step the walls on either side of them smeared like wet paint and she watched them blend together as the drug released its hold on her mind.

Dr. Crimm placed a pill on Aideen's palm. "It's time."