I told Mom and Mel about the visit, omitting my intention to see the girl in coma. They approved it, thinking that seeing the person who now owned Mike's cornea was a sign of me moving on, forgetting about the pain of losing Mike.
It was a Monday when the meeting was held. I almost forgot what the scheduled meeting was about; the girl in coma preoccupied my mind. Has she woken up? It was impossible because the hospital should have called me. I laughed at myself silently for such a ridiculous thought. I got dressed and caught myself in the mirror. I scrutinized my face in the mirror. A dull face. Not stunning but not annoying. Every features of my face seem to be in the middle between two extremes, medium-size eyes, nose neither too straight nor too round, lips neither too thick nor too thin, pale cheeks. I brushed my hair; my curly long hair were in a mess. I compared my face to Mike's in the photo sitting on the night table. I couldn't help looking at his best features, his big brown eyes, which always have a playful sparkle that drew people close to him. And his short browish black hair, shinning like a halo around his head under the sun.
I glanced at the wall-clock and realized that it was an hour ahead of the meeting time. I could steal 15 minutes to look at the girl before the meeting. I applied some lipstick to make myself look cheerful, to look like I'm moving on without my husband. A brave single mother.
The same surge of coldness I had on the day Mike died intruded as soon as I reached the entrance of the hospital. It was October now, but the coldness I felt was quite impossible for the breezy weather of October. I felt like I was standing out in the snow naked in late December.
I walked through the corridor and stopped before the ward where the girl lied. She was there. She did not change. The same vulnerable soft look with all the tubes attached to her. And suddenly I felt that I was brought all the way back to the day the accident happened. The pain, which was buried deep in my heart like Mike's coffin being covered up by the white roses in his funeral, seemed to have emerged itself to the surface. And Mel's questions come swirling in my head again, perhaps she's not Mike's girlfriend, perhaps Mike's not having an affair. I felt like suffocating.
Suddenly, I heard a male voice from behind. It said "Hi", a strange hi in the tone of hesitation, conveyed in a low yet mellow male voice, hanging in the air.
I turned and caught a pair of eyes. For a second or two, a little voice shouted "Mike" in my head. That pair of big eyes, that sparkling brown eyes. I hesitated and looked again. No, they were not Mike's, they were not playful, but sincere and warm, like a glowing flame, and then another minute, they turned dreamy, a touch of doubtfulness gleaming in the eyes.
I looked down again and tried to put myself together, I said,"Hi"
"Are you...Mrs. Lee?" The guy standing in front of me asked, looking a little uneasy, he looked strangely familiar. No, he does not look like Mike, nor any famous face, perhaps he looks like a high school acquaintance.
"Yes I am" I answered and turned to look at the girl briefly.
I couldn't believe my eyes.
I turned and stared at the guy's face again, I felt like I was hit by a strike of lightening. He looks so alike with the girl in coma. The same soft look, the round face, the straight nose, the thin curled lips, the smooth skin, yet the vulnerability was replaced by dreaminess, the gentle yet worried eyes looking at me as if he's the one who care about me the most at this moment.
"I'm the cornea recipient," he turned half away to ease himself from my shocked stare and tried to soften his mellow voice more to make the atmosphere less tense, "I'm Deyn".
I looked down, trying to ease the tension and shock in me. I told myself to breathe. I felt his eyes traced my actions. I looked up again and tried to squeeze a smile out, "nice to meet you, Dean. Call me Ashley."
"Nice to meet you too Ashley," he smiled at me too, looking relieved that I've responded, his eyes became two curled lines when he smiled, "by the way, I'm D-E-Y-N Deyn, it's pronouced in the same way as D-E-A-N, but people usually mix them up. Not until I received their Christmas cards did I know that they've got my name spelt wrongly for the whole time"
He tried his very best to make the converstion light-hearted for me, the things he said just now seemed quite pointless or irrelevant but I couldn't help smiling. It felt strange, to have such an emotion roller coaster ride in just a few minutes, from shock to doubt, and now I relaxed a little, but the confusion and astonishment lingered in my heart.
"Right, D-E-Y-N Deyn." I tried to collect myself again.
"Actually you can call me De, everyone calls me that, they started off calling me Deyn but then they all omitted the "yn" sound at the end." He gave a little laughter after saying this and I couldn't help smiling, again. It was funny how he revealed so many information about himself, or to be specific, his name, to a person he has just met.
"So...it's not meeting time yet," he looked at his waist-watch, "I didn't know you're here."
"Then how did you know I'm me, I mean, how did you know that I'm...Mrs. Lee?"
"Because you were looking at her," he glanced at the girl in coma behind the glass, the uneasy look went back onto his face, "my intuition told me that you're Mrs. Lee."
I looked at him, question marks in my mind.
"Oh what was I talking about?" he stepped back a little, frowning to his words said just now, "I mean, I know that you're Mrs. Lee because you're looking at Rosie and she's in the car with Mr. Lee during the accident."
I stared at Deyn, half-digesting what he has said, but my mind couldn't process any of the words: Rosie, car, Mr. Lee, accidents...They became a broken string of pearls, fragments that I couldn't make sense of.
Looking at my puzzled face, Deyn hesitated a little, he took a breathe, eyeing at the girl in coma and said,
"I'm Rosie's twin brother."