13. NINEAH
NINEAH
IWOKE WITH A START.
My eyes closed, my body a lifeless, heavy weight, I strained to listen, but I could only process fragments of spoken word, failing to understand any of them.
Another language.
German, maybe?
Remaining bits of memory surfaced from when I’d woken the first time. I’d been attached to an IV while a young dark haired nurse changed out the bags. There’d been a female neurologist with a heavy accent I couldn’t place and she’d said words, important ones, but I couldn’t remember any of them.
I knew my name because even in this state, it was hard to forget all of the teachers and professors over the years who’d butchered it. So why hadn’t I been able to say it when the neurologist had asked me?
I had a job, I knew that, but it was difficult to place the name of the company.
I was from… from… I couldn’t remember.
Groaning, everything stiff and cumbersome as though I’d been submerged under water with cinder blocks tied to my limbs, I managed to open my eyes.
My vision blurry from underuse and my skull thudding with a dull ache, it was hard to recall the details of how I’d ended up here or what I’d been doing beforehand.
I was also alone. The shouting I’d assumed had woken me must’ve been part of a dream. Or maybe a memory from earlier.
Assessing my body, taking inventory of my injuries, I noted a throb at the base of my skull, but if I had others, I couldn’t feel them. Likely due to drugs. Drugs I’d eventually be weaned from and then shit would really get fun.
I attempted to sit up in bed but I was weak.
Moving an inch at a time, I managed to bring myself to an awkward half-propped, half-laid position against my pillows, but that wasn’t much better.
I tried again and this time, was able to sit all the way up, but it took nearly all of my energy.
Just then I remembered there was a button to call the nurse, but before I could even think about attempting to reach for it, the door to my room opened and a woman in pink hospital scrubs walked in. She startled in surprise.
“Hello,” I rasped.
The nurse said something in a language I didn’t recognize. However, before I could tell her I didn’t understand, she fled the room.
Forcing myself to focus, I tried to remember what I’d been doing last, but thinking felt like trying to make out the shapes and features of a face through a fogged glass window.
How did I even get here?
And where was here?
Testing the strength of my arms, I managed to lift both but not without effort. My limbs moved as though I were swimming through cement. I managed to sit up another inch, but instantaneously, another problem made itself known.
Water.
I scanned the room for one of those plastic hospital pitchers, but there was nothing on the side table next to me. Reaching for the button hanging from the side of my bed, I managed to grab it and pressed it twice.
My mouth so dry my throat felt like it was cracking every time I swallowed, I prayed the nurses on shift weren’t too busy. I’d never needed a drink so badly in my life.
As it turned out, the prayers weren’t necessary.
Just then, two nurses in pink scrubs entered my room along with a woman in a white coat who appeared to be even shorter than I was, which was no small feat.
I strained to read her name tag, but it wasn’t worth the effort it took, so I fell back against the bed.
One of them, the dark haired one I was pretty sure I had seen the first time I’d woken up, raised the incline on my bed so I could sit upright while the other, the one who’d just run out of the room only a minute ago, began typing on the computer.
The neurologist, who was now holding a tablet, addressed me. “It’s good to see you. I was hoping you’d wake again. You gave my nurses quite the startle this morning.”
It must’ve taken me too long to untangle her heavily accented English because she set the tablet down and unwound her stethoscope. Holding the end to my back, she listened, then did the same for my chest as I finally found my voice. “I did?”
She smiled. “You would not answer any of our questions. You just kept mumbling for us to call Shere and a phone number, over and over.”
“Zajre,” I automatically corrected. “My best friend. Did you reach her?”
“Unfortunately, that number was out of service. We tried twice more, then decided to wait again until you were awake in case we had misheard you. I am afraid we do not have many bilingual staff and our interpreter is still on his way from Plungé. My mother is from the UK, so I speak English. I am Dr. Kazlauskas, by the way, but you can call me Dr. Kaz or just Aleksandra if that is more comfortable for you.”
Plungé? Where the hell is that?
She wrapped the stethoscope back over her neck before pressing her gloved fingers against the sides of mine. “You are speaking more clearly than before. Can you tell me your name?”
My name? She didn’t know my name?
I cleared my throat and regretted the action instantly. “Nineah. Nineah Lin.”
“Pretty name for a pretty woman.” She smiled in what I interpreted as a comforting expression, but the thinly veiled anxiety underneath her tone had the opposite effect. “What brings you to Europe, Nineah? Your accent. It is American, no?”
I tensed. I’d recognized that the voices I’d been hearing weren’t native English, but for some reason I’d had yet to make the connection as to why. Ice slid up my spine. “I-I don’t know. I mean yes, I am American. I don’t know where I am or what I’m doing here.”
She shook her head. “That is okay. Let us not worry about that right now. Can you tell me your birthday?”
“February fourteenth, ninety four.”
“Valentine’s Day. How sweet,” she murmured, checking my vision and reaction time with her penlight. “Do you remember anything you were doing last, before you arrived here at the hospital?”
Searching my mental catalogue, I tried to recover something, anything that might have been helpful, but my last known memory was of me working.
Because I was always working. And when I wasn’t working, I was sitting on the floor of my living room in Hello Kitty pajama shorts eating Fruit Loops from the box and screaming at liquor infused girl fights on my television screen.
My life wasn’t interesting, it was embarrassing. And even if it wasn’t, what I considered exciting was certainly not on par with cross-country trips to random cities in random European countries where I was the only melanated person for miles.
“I was at work,” I said finally. “In fact, I should be at work right now.” I tried to sit up, but Dr. Kaz gently pressed a hand to my shoulder until I laid back down.
“Nineah, you seem very coherent, but until I take a look at the results of your CT, I am going to have to ask that you please remain here for now.”
It wasn’t lost on me that she had yet to tell me how I’d ended up here, or where the hell here was, for that matter.
She threw a look at the dark-haired nurse and I watched her exit the room, the other nurse on her six.
Once the door closed behind them, I turned back to Dr. Kaz who was entering something into her tablet, and asked what I should’ve when she’d first walked into the room. “Where am I?”
“You are at the University of Klaipedos hospital in Palanga, Lithuania.”
Record scratch.
I frowned. “I’m sorry, did you say Lithuania? As in, the country?”
Dr. Kaz frowned. “Miss Lin, what is the last thing you remember? Can you tell me what you might have been doing the previous day?”
I tried again to recall anything from the last week, the last few days, but everything was still a blur. “I… I don’t remember.”
She nodded. “The Coast Guard found you just a kilometer off the shore of the Baltic. From there you were brought into the hospital by our first responders. You were very lucky. Initial X-rays have indicated no fractures or internal organ damage. However, you have sustained multiple contusions to your right side. This kind of impact trauma is something we normally only see in victims of vehicular accidents. However, due to your loss of consciousness and the concussion, we would like to keep you for a few more days as a precaution. The police would also like to speak with you at some point, but I do not want you to worry about that now.”
“How long have I been here?” I asked, trying not to panic as I processed what she was saying.
“You were brought in two nights ago.”
Two nights.
LOC in and out for forty eight hours, plus whatever minor injuries I’d sustained. I needed a cellphone and quickly. Before Zajre went scorched fucking earth, or worse—reached out to my boss before I did.
I sat up straighter. “I really need to call home.”
To Dr. Kaz’s credit, if I wasn’t used to spotting hesitation, I’d have missed hers but she likely didn’t get many Black women washing up on shore, and I could only imagine what kind of gossip about me was spreading through the halls of her hospital. “Nineah. May I ask if you are safe?”
Safe?
Was she serious?
What part of me in a hospital bed across the goddamn world indicated that I was safe?
“So, not to be that patient, but what the fuck is going on?”
“Someone is already here for you,” she said, dropping the pretense.
“A man who says he is your husband and power of attorney arrived yesterday with your identification and corresponding documents. Now, I have stalled him while I verify his information, but legally, I cannot ask him to leave unless you explicitly state that I must do so.”
A buzzing noise between my ears made my own voice suddenly sound far away. “I’m sorry, did you say my husband?”
I finally understood the terse expression on the faces of those nurses.
Dr. Kaz’s cagey demeanor. It was clear she believed whoever was standing in the hospital lobby could be responsible for my injuries and subsequent abandonment in the middle of the sea, but domestic violence was the least of my fucking worries right now.
I'm married?!
Dr. Kaz nodded. “He gave his name. Just a moment.” Picking up her tablet, she tapped on the screen. “Mr. Abraham Lawton.”
Oh.
Oh God.
The monitor tracking my heart rate beeped rapidly as my vision tunneled. Dr. Kaz said something I didn’t hear, then like the most familiar friend I had at present, the darkness swirled back in.