“I’m not joking.” He sounded almost annoyed with me. “She only talks to me.”
I stared at him. “What?”
“It’s our little secret.”
I lowered my voice. “I know this is hard to accept. But Mom can’t talk right now. I really think she can hear you, but she can’t answer. That’s what a coma means.”
He looked at me for a long moment.
Then he said, “So why are you scared to stay in the room with me?”
I had no answer.
“Stay tonight,” he said. “Stay and we’ll see.”
Maybe I should have questioned him more. Instead, I stayed.
At first, nothing happened. Noah went through his usual Saturday routine, telling Emma about school. He’d gotten every spelling word right except “separate,” which he insisted was a stupid word because it had too many vowels. He told her Grandma had burned the pancakes that morning.
