The light was barely visible, but it was there. A thin green line pulsed across the monitor beside the bed, steady but fragile, like someone tapping on a distant wall. The room smelled faintly of antiseptic and warm electronics. Machines hummed softly, performing the quiet labor of keeping someone between here and somewhere else. Clara leaned forward in the chair she had been sitting in for weeks. “Did you see that?” she whispered. The nurse glanced at the monitor. The spike had been small, almost nothing, but it was different from the long, flat rhythm they had grown used to. “Probably a reflex,” the nurse said gently. But Clara shook her head. He had been like this since the accident; silent, unmoving, drifting in a place doctors could measure but not enter. Still, she talked to him every day. She told him about the weather, about the dog missing him, about the half-finished novel still sitting on his desk. And sometimes she swore the machines answered. Another faint pulse crossed the screen. Not strong. Not dramatic. But there. She reached for his hand. It was warm. “Come back,” she said quietly. Across the room, the monitor blinked again, the smallest sign of a mind stirring somewhere far away in the dark. She remembered something he had said the night before the accident, while they were lying awake talking about impossible things. . “I have a feeling that tonight I will dream about the future,” he said while closing his eyes.