“calling down a deep dark hole”

“calling down a deep dark hole” names the uncertainty at the heart of Page Clarke’s vigil beside her comatose daughter, Allyson Clarke. The image turns a mother’s unanswered speech into a call whose echo offers no proof that anyone is listening. Its force comes from that gap between hope and knowledge—and from the later moment when Allyson responds.

Meaning and First Use

Page uses the phrase while describing nearly seven weeks of speaking to Allyson without hearing a response. She compares the experience to calling into a deep, dark place: at first there is only the echo, and the voice calling out can hear only itself. Then, after Allyson has moved her face and begun to stir, Page feels that someone may be calling back. The image captures a change in her hope, not a certainty about Allyson’s awareness.

That distinction matters in the scene. The nurses have witnessed movement, and the motion and sound have registered on Allyson’s brain-wave recording, but Dr. Hammerman cautions that a gesture and a moan do not establish normal brain function. Allyson stirs a little each day for the rest of the week, yet does not open her eyes, speak, or otherwise show that she understands what is being said. Page’s conviction that Allyson hears her sits beside the medical uncertainty rather than resolving it.

The Image of the Call

The metaphor gives the silence a shape and a direction. Page is not simply waiting: she has been calling down for weeks, and now imagines a voice reaching up toward her. The echo is both a small return and no reliable answer; it makes the hope emotionally vivid while leaving its truth unsettled. In this way, the phrase conveys the strain of sustaining contact when the person being addressed cannot visibly confirm that contact exists.

Page shares the image with Trygve Thorensen, who hopes she is right but fears that greater hope could expose her to greater disappointment. That response echoes the caution of the medical staff and Brad Clarke, who is pleased by the reported movement but also warns that it may mean nothing. The phrase therefore belongs not only to Page’s private faith but to a family’s broader effort to live with signs that might be meaningful or might not.

Later Answer and Significance

When Page sits with Allyson again, she speaks softly, takes her hand, and asks whether Allyson can hear her. Allyson weakly squeezes Page’s hand; after a pause and another, stronger squeeze, her eyelids flutter and she opens her eyes for the first time in almost four months. She looks at Page and says “Mama.” This response gives the earlier image a powerful retrospective echo: the call that seemed to vanish into silence has finally met a recognizable answer.

The later awakening does not make the first movements conclusive in retrospect. Instead, the contrast between the two scenes preserves what Page could not know during the vigil. The expression holds both realities at once: for weeks, she has only her own voice and an uncertain echo; at last, Allyson’s touch, gaze, and word establish a moment of connection. The image’s significance lies in that passage from hope without confirmation to contact she can see and feel.