Surrogate for My Brother-in-law - Chapter 66: Chapter 66

For the first time in years, I looked at my mother's face in person, not in a blurry photograph on a phone screen.
She looked terrible. Her face was gaunt, her cheeks were sunken. Her skin was pale.
I could see signs of long term neglect all over her body. Her hands curled in towards her palms, her weight had dropped dangerously, and it was clear her muscles had been left to atrophy.
I checked her chart. Her condition was listed as stable. She was comatose, and according to the prognosis written in some doctor’s careless scrawl, was never expected to wake up.
They didn’t know my mother, and they didn’t know me. She would never just give up on life. She was a fighter.
She just needed a little push. And I hadn’t come so far, gone through so much, just to give up on her at the end.
I took one of her hands in mine. Her skin was cool and dry. Her bones felt brittle.
I wasn’t sure what to do. I knew how to heal most major injuries. But her injuries had had years to heal.
The doctors had theorized that her coma was caused by a combination of shock and head trauma. I remembered the way the Rogues shook her. The way they threw her against the wall.
They told me it was a miracle she survived. My father said I shouldn’t expect any more miracles. But my father was wrong. They were all wrong.
Her injuries had healed, but she hadn’t woken up. There was no wound for me to close. There were no bones for me to knit together. So what could I do?
I can help, my wolf spoke.
It wasn't unusual for my wolf to offer to guide me in a healing. She stepped in any time I was uncertain or lost. For the first time though, I sensed reluctance.
I tried to ask my wolf why she was hesitating. Didn't she want to help my mother as much as I did?
Dangerous, the wolf answered.
How was it dangerous?
The wolf didn't answer in words. Sometimes she didn't. The longest conversation we'd ever had was the one in the mirror, the first time we spoke.
Since then, most of her communication happened in short phrases, feelings, and images. Her messages had a distinct feel to them. I could always tell my wolf's messages from my own imagination.
I felt uncertainty from the wolf. This wasn't the kind of healing she knew. It wasn't instinctive. She could help, but she couldn't guide me. She could only lend me her strength.
That was fine. I'd been reading everything I could find about healing comas for ages. I was sure I could do it if I just had the strength to try.
Dangerous, the wolf repeated.
Healing something like this was risky. A healer had to put everything into the effort, every bit of their strength. And it was possible to become tangled with the patient. If that happened, and the patient died, then the healer might die, too.
I was still going to try. The wolf couldn't stop me. She could help me, or not, but she could not stop me. I wouldn't let her.
The wolf gave in. She was a healer as much as I was. She couldn't resist the chance to help.
I knew I'd have her strength. And I knew I'd be doing this on my own. And I was terrified because I knew there was only one chance to get it right.
If I faltered, I lost my mother forever. If I failed, she would die. I might die, too, but that didn't worry me as much as failing her did.
I squeezed my mother's hand once, gently. It felt like holding a bird. The bones were so fragile they seemed almost hollow in my grip.
I rested one hand on the side of her face, and the other over her heart. I felt her pulse flutter in time to the beeping of the monitors. I took a deep breath to steady my resolve.
I matched my breathing to my mother's. My heartbeat slowed to the same beat as hers. I had to match my body to hers, to show her body how to come out of the coma.
If it worked, she would wake and I could begin the work of healing her muscles, strengthen her bones, and rebuild the body that years of neglect had destroyed. If it didn't work, I would slip away into the darkness, possibly forever.
I knew the risks. I accepted them. So none of that mattered. Fear was a distraction neither of us could afford.
I closed my eyes and dove into the healing. I floated, lost in darkness and fog. My mother was in there somewhere, I knew it. I just had to find her.
I called out along the healing connection, but there was no answer. I wasn't deep enough. She'd gone too far inside herself.
I drew on my wolf's strength to go deeper and further. I felt the connection to my own body thin and strain. I didn't care. I was going to do it no matter what.
The darkness swallowed me whole and left me cold and shaking. And still alone; I couldn't find my mother anywhere.
I dove deeper, until the only thing connecting me to my body was my wolf's quickly fading strength.
I called out into the darkness, desperate. I called my mother's name. I called out my own name. Finally I just cried, a desperate wail.
Just as I was about to give up, just at the moment I was sure I would never see my mother's eyes open, I heard a sound. Someone nearby was humming. I knew that song. It was the first sound I ever heard.
I echoed the song, and dove through the darkness and the fog until I reached it.
I felt the warmth of my mother's hug, heard her delighted laughter, and for a moment the darkness didn't exist anymore. We were together, finally.
But I had a job to do. Finding her wasn't enough. I had to bring her back.
I used the song. I hummed a bit, and backed closer to the waking world. I taunted and laughed, like I used to do as a child, playing tag with my only friend. She laughed and followed.
Some unknowable time later, my eyes opened. They felt gritty and dry. My wolf scolded me. If she had her own body she'd have pinned me down and licked my face like a misbehaving pup.
I looked over to the bed, and saw my mother's eyes drift slowly open. She smiled. It was weak, barely a twitch of her lips, but she smiled.
I dove into her arms as she fought to lift them. I knew I had to be careful; she was still so terribly fragile. But I needed to hold her, to know that it was real.
“Tessa,” she rasped. “My Tess.”
“I finally found you,” I said. “I'm sorry it took so long. I looked everywhere, I swear I never stopped looking!”
“I know,” she whispered, holding me as tightly as she could manage. “Love you.”
The door flew open behind me. I twisted, trying to position myself between my mother and anything that might come through the door.
“Tessa, I am so sorry to cut your reunion short,” Ethan said, “but we have got to get out of here. Arthur's coming and he's bringing a lot of back up.”