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The hospital is mostly sleeping.

It wasn’t hard to get in here. I clipped on an old visitor’s badge that no one looked at too closely to get past the front desk.

Then, in the lobby restroom, I pulled the scrubs I brought over my T-shirt and leggings.

On the sixth floor, I helped myself to a cleaning cart while the cleaning lady was inside a patient’s room and made my way to the room I haven’t set foot in for five years.

Once inside, I gently close the door, then walk over to the bed.

‘Hi,’ I breathe.

She’s changed. But mostly what I notice is all the ways she’s the same.

The slope of her forehead. The sweep of her hair on the pillow. Her hands are crossed over her chest. Someone has done her nails recently in a blush pink. They look great. She always did have lovely hands.

My hand is shaking as I reach out and make contact, stroking my fingers through her hair. I can almost imagine that she’s sleeping.

But Jessica is not coming back.

Ever since her brain haemorrhage, she’s been in a coma.

The doctors were clear from the start.

‘Her coma is so deep that she will have to be on long-term life support via a mechanical ventilation machine,’ Dr Banerjee explained to Beth Ann, Don and me.

It was the morning after Jessica and I had arrived in the screaming ambulance.

She’d been through surgery to relieve the pressure of the blood in her brain, and now dawn was shooting its merciless light into the waiting room that smelled like burnt coffee and hand sanitizer.

‘But after she wakes up, she’ll be able to come off it, won’t she?’ said Beth Ann, her eyes red, her voice thin and grating.

‘I have to be completely transparent with you all right now,’ said Dr Banerjee. ‘The damage to Jessica’s brain is so extensive that even if she did wake up, she would suffer from unresponsive wakefulness syndrome for the rest of her life.’

‘Unresponsive… ?’ said Beth Ann.

‘It’s what people used to call a vegetative state. I’m sorry.’ The doctor’s brown eyes were compassionate. ‘I know this must be incredibly hard to process.’

‘So what are you saying? What’s the plan?’ said Don, his voice rough, aggressive, though I could tell he was just trying to sound matter-of-fact.

‘To be honest, she is unlikely to wake up, ever. If she does, her quality of life will be poor. Even if she wakes up, her brain function won’t come back.

She will always require life support.’ The doctor placed her hand on Beth Ann’s arm.

‘I would recommend that you say your goodbyes, and we remove her from the machines. There’s no hurry, of course.

You can take your time. If there’s any family that would like to come in—’

Beth Ann was already shaking her head. ‘But surely there are… people who just… wake up? Right? She could still be OK, even if it’s a small chance?’

‘If anyone can pull through this and defy statistics, it’s our girl,’ said Don, his face contorted even though I could see the tears winking in his eyes. ‘She’s a fighter.’

‘I have no doubt that she is a very strong person,’ said Dr Banerjee. ‘But with no function in her brain, I’m sorry to say that it’s not a matter of strength any more.’

‘How long can you keep her alive?’ said Beth Ann.

The doctor nodded thoughtfully. ‘Technically, we can keep her body alive indefinitely. I’m not sure if you ever spoke with Jessica about her wishes—’

‘I did,’ I interrupted, stepping forward, my arms crossed over my body, my hands tucked into the sleeves of the sweatshirt a nurse had given me to change into. The bloody eggshell blouse was in a small plastic bag now crammed into my purse.

Beth Ann and Don looked shocked to hear me speak, like they’d forgotten I was there. I couldn’t blame them; I’d been mute, a non-entity, wrapped in my shame and guilt, but now we were talking about Jessica’s future, and I had to speak up.

‘She wouldn’t want to be like this.’

‘Are you her sister?’ said Dr Banerjee.

‘Her—’ I wanted so badly to say ‘fiancée’. ‘Girlfriend.’

Don made a dismissive sound. ‘Her mother and I will be deciding what to do.’

‘But Jessica said—’

‘What are you suggesting, Lily?’ interrupted Beth Ann, her tone elevated. ‘That we kill my daughter?’

‘Well.’ Dr Banerjee’s voice was soft, calm. ‘Removing life support is not considered—’

‘We talked about it,’ I tried again. ‘I remember.’ Tears clouded my vision, but I wiped them away and pressed on, trying to sound mature, reasonable, someone to be taken seriously.

‘It was on our first date. We were asking each other weird first-date questions– like, if you had to lose a limb, which would it be– and… what was your preferred way to die. And she said, on the surgical table because then at least it wouldn’t hurt, and then she said, “But I never want to be a vegetable.” I know she said that. I remember.’

‘Stop!’ yelled Beth Ann. ‘My daughter is not an object ! You need to leave, Lily! This is our daughter, and these are our decisions!’

‘Do you happen to have Jessica’s wishes in writing?’ Dr Banerjee said to me gently.

I shook my head. My body was so tight it might have snapped any minute.

‘Go home,’ said Don. ‘Her mother and I need some space.’

Dr Banerjee gave me a concerned look, and I could see that she was about to speak, but I didn’t want her to have to defend me. It would somehow just diminish me even further.

‘It’s fine,’ I said, grabbing my purse from the vinyl couch. ‘I’ll leave.’

God. If I lived through that now, they’d have to prise me away from Jessica’s side with a fucking crowbar.

They’d have to knock me unconscious and drag me out.

But I was only twenty-four. Still so young, and standing there next to Beth Ann and Don, I felt it.

And at the end of the day? They had power of attorney and I did not.

It didn’t matter that I was the one living with Jessica; that I loved her and she loved me; that we owned a business together and made love and knew everything about each other, from our pet peeves to our darkest secrets.

I had no power, and no way of getting it.

Over the next days, I haunted the hospital. I sent Beth Ann and Don articles about Jessica’s condition. I texted them and called them and pleaded my cause– Jessica’s cause. I don’t believe Jessica is in her body any more. Please let her go.

When a knock came at my apartment door two weeks later, I was stunned to be served papers. It was a restraining order. I wasn’t allowed to be within one hundred yards of Jessica.

I called Beth Ann. Now it was my turn to shriek.

‘What the fuck are these papers about? You mean I can’t see her any more?’

‘Why would you want to?’ she shouted back. ‘You want her to be dead!’

Over the years, sometimes I stalked Beth Ann’s Facebook, which, though on private mode, she miraculously hadn’t blocked me from.

She’d occasionally share pictures of a birthday party they threw for Jessica in the hospital.

It was gruesome, the contrast between the pale, unconscious woman I loved with the golden birthday sign above her hospital bed.

The expressionless form she made against the big smiles of her parents and the nurses wearing party hats, holding up cupcakes, a mockery of a celebration.

Every now and then, I’d call Beth Ann. Always the same. Please, let her go. It’s been a year. Two. Three.

What takes more strength ? I asked myself at the Riovan. To hang on? Or to let go?

Maybe I’ve been making the same mistake Beth Ann and Don have been making for all these years. Hanging on. Allowing Jessica’s body to keep working, and somehow, stopping her from attaining peace. Stopping me from attaining peace.

It’s not like I didn’t try to achieve it another way, though. Five years ago, stripped of power and barred from ever seeing Jessica again, I went back to the place where our downward spiral began. The place that had ruined us.

I went back to the Riovan.

*

Jessica and I visited the Riovan in late spring; I went back in early fall and booked two nights, which was all I could afford.

I’d sent my emails to the news outlets asking for help, describing how Jess had spiralled after our ‘dream vacation’ and ended up in emergency treatment.

I didn’t have the heart to type out the whole sordid ending of her life as I knew it– it felt too raw to send in an email blast– but I did say that she ‘attempted suicide’.

Even with that, I’d got nothing back. The Riovan was not going to fall; it was going to continue on as if nothing had happened.

No one cared what had happened to Jessica or to me.

I walked the beaches, trying to remember every little thing about her that I could.

I wished I had ashes to scatter; something physical.

I sat on the jetty and imagined the scene of me proposing to her, over and over, until it almost felt like I had done it, and Jessica had said yes, and we were back here for our honeymoon.

While I was walking on the beach the second day, I overheard one of the nutritionists be an absolute bastard to a guest. ‘You keep eating French fries, you’ll just keep being a fat slob. I thought you were here because you were ready for a change.’

My heart and my gut squeezed so hard, I thought I might explode.

In a cloud of rage, I went back to my room and sobbed for hours into the expensive down comforter and the beautiful sheets.

Nothing was going to change here at the Riovan, but how could I accept that?

How, when the same darkness that destroyed Jessica was still at work in this place?