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It's May 2003 in a hospital in a hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.

Gina Russo lies in a bed staring vacantly up at the ceiling.

She can hear the machines next to her, beeping away as they measure her vital signs.

And she knows her sister Stephanie is in the room because she can hear her voice,

but she can't make out the words.

And what she can't understand doesn't make any sense.

When Russo first woke up in the hospital,

Stephanie mentioned that Russo's son Alex had a baseball game and Russo was confused.

There's no baseball in February.

But Stephanie explained that it was May, that Rousseau had been in a coma.

Now, as Stephanie keeps talking, Rousseau tries to focus, but it's like her sister is talking through cotton.

She catches Stephanie, say, Nicholas.

That's the name of Rousseau's other son.

She desperately wants to pay attention, to engage, to hear how her kids are doing. They're only nine and six, but she's been away from them for so long, and

she feels so foggy. Her doctors say it's all because of the pain medication she's on.

So Rousseau takes a breath and tries to concentrate. She reminds herself what she knows. She knows that three

...