Fourteen
Bright lights glide overhead in perfect rows. White ceiling tiles blur together, and masked faces move in and out of view. Cold metal skims across my skin and someone removes my shirt. Nurses call out numbers and medical terms I can’t follow. A doctor leans over me.
“How are you doing, my friend?” His tone is serene despite the concern in his eyes.
Trooper.
I need to know.
I try to speak but only croak. The doctor mistakes the sound for fear. He rests his reassuring hand on my shoulder.
“We’ve got you.” The words wrap around me like a blanket, but if they’ve got me…
…then who has him?
The lights move. Doors swing open above my head. The room I’m in grows cold and a mask settles over my nose and mouth.
“Take a deep breath for me.”
I obey.
“And another.”
The edges of the room soften and blur. Voices stretch farther apart until they sound as though they’re coming from the end of a long tunnel. The lights fade one by one, disappearing into darkness, and awareness asks nothing more of me as I slip into nothingness.
A steady beeping marks the passing seconds somewhere beside my bed.
Light filters through partially closed blinds.
My mouth is dry and my lips are cracked.
Every inch of me aches, and the relentless banging inside my head which was present when I went to sleep, returns.
I force my eyes open and try to focus. I follow the sound of slow, even breathing, and it leads me to the chair beside the bed.
The source of the sound is Dave, and he’s asleep in a chair.
His head rests against the wall, and his arms are folded tightly across his chest. A dark shadow shades his jaw.
Deep circles stain beneath his eyes. His T-shirt is wrinkled, indicating that he has been with me for however long I’ve been here.
I look down to find his hand resting lightly against the edge of bed.
Yellow daisies rests on the windowsill, the blossoms standing proud and tall. A scent hinting of decay greets me. How long have I been here?
My thoughts are inconsistent. I try to focus on where I am and why because my memory drifts, but the scent brings back a memory of Dad’s instructions while deadheading Mom’s flowers.
“Pinch off the old blooms,” he’d say and I’d follow behind him as we would get close enough for him to reason out the lesson.
“Plant quits wasting strength on what’s dying so the energy can go into growing something new. ”
I unconsciously roll my eyes. It hurts, so I close them. Behind my lids memory shifts again.
Did the tomatoes ever ripen, or did the weeds finally win? And where’s Trooper.
The random question sucker punches me and memory rushes back hard and fast enough to steal the air from my lungs. I have to get up, but I can’t.
I go into a full-blown panic. My body has never refused me. If I want to run, I run. If I want to climb, I climb. If I need to shoulder eighty pounds of gear and march, I march.
“Easy. Easy.” Dave’s voice soothes me as he squeezes my hand. You’re fine, Charity.
My inner dialogue attempts to rationalize as part of me snaps to attention. When I’m clearer headed, I’ll assess the situation. Adapt to what’s going on. Complete the mission. That’s my training. Feelings later.
I carefully pull in the deepest breath my aching ribs will allow and quietly give myself an order.
Rest.
Looking around the room this time, everything feels a little clearer.
My gaze drifts to a calendar hanging beside the door, though the numbers remain too blurry to read.
A nurse steps inside with a chart tucked beneath her arm.
I don’t recognize her, but then, I suppose I wouldn’t.
She moves quietly from my arm, to tube, then to machine, checking numbers on it without realizing I’m watching her. Dave isn’t here.
“What day is it?” I croak.
“It’s Tuesday morning.” She smiles.
I look at the flowers on the windowsill and note a slight wilt in them from when I last took them in. Three days? I came home on Saturday so…”
“Have I been here three days?” I ask.
“Yes.”
I look around for a clock and calendar, but my vision is fuzzy and I can’t quite read. Time has passed, and more of it than I thought.
She finishes checking the monitor, smiles, and quietly slips out as Dave slips in. He’s wearing the same shirt.
“You stayed?” I whisper, my hoarse voice scrapes its way past my lips. A smile softens his tired features.
“Yeah.” One word. No explanation. As though another option wasn’t a consideration.
He holds a cup and dips into it with a spoon, then presses ice to my lips. The cold wetness feels good and I part my lips. It tastes so good my eyes roll back. It soothes the raw feeling enough that I’m confident talking will soon be possible.
“Easy.” He chuckles, and the low rumble wraps around me. “A little at a time.”
I peer up at him and nod.
The doctor arrives a few minutes later with two younger physicians trailing behind him.
He asks me my name. The date. Who the President is.
Where I am. I answer everything except the date.
He doesn’t seem surprised. He shines a light into my eyes, asks me to squeeze his fingers, then pulls a chair beside my bed.
“We’re pleased with your progress,” he says. “The swelling has continued to improve.”
Swelling? Progress?
“What happened to my dog.” I croak.
The doctor looks over at Dave with a question in his eyes and then looks back at me. He pauses. “You suffered a traumatic brain injury. We had to remove a portion of your skull temporarily to relieve the pressure. The surgery went well.”
I absorb each word one at a time, filing them away without emotion. Facts, not feelings are what I need.
“We’re optimistic.” He continues and hope hangs in the air long enough for my stomach to tighten. “But we honestly don’t know whether you’ll regain the use of your legs.”
Everything inside me stills. I look down at the blanket covering them and try to wiggle my toes. Nothing moves.
I swallow hard as the doctor continues. It all sounds like blah, blah, blah as he talks about rehabilitation, physical therapy, specialists, and patience.
Everything begins to run together. My mind has already retreated somewhere quieter, somewhere it can sort through one impossible truth before accepting another.
Eventually, the doctor leaves. Dave adjusts my blanket, moves the daisies from the sunny spot to a shadier one, and brushes a loose strand of hair away from my forehead.
“You don’t have to talk,” he says.
The permission allows me to retreat into myself to process someone of this instead of trying to hold a conversation. I close my eyes; grateful he isn’t asking me to.
Silence stretches until Dave excuses himself to get a cup of coffee, leaving me alone with the rhythmic sound of beeping machines and soft footsteps drifting through the hallway.
The nurse comes in again and I watch as she moves about the room, checking the machine monitors and making notes. She pauses, and moves around something parked against the wall, and then I see it. Wheels.