6. Diego
6
DIEGO
M esmerized by her bright green eyes, I stared at the nurse and willed myself to remember her. To understand how I’d ended up under her care. As she watched me carefully, seeming to take inventory and check on the bandages wrapped around my head, I couldn’t shake this hunch that she was trying to avoid making direct eye contact with me.
Because it almost seemed like she was… afraid when I said I didn’t know who I was.
But she might.
“Do you?”
She blinked down at me, worry pinching her face. “Do I…” She swallowed, and I watched the tension in her neck that came with that motion. “Do I know who you are?”
Hopelessness filled me at the awkward tone of her voice. It wasn’t as comforting and soothing, like that angel’s voice I’d attached to her. Angelic and sweet. Calming. Now, she sounded on edge and hesitant.
I nodded the best I could with the aches that stormed through my nerves at the slightest movement I attempted.
“No.” She licked her lips, tucking the tip of her tongue at the corner of them. “I don’t.”
No. Please, no.
It should’ve been such a simple thing, knowing one’s name, being aware of one’s identity. It was a confidence I lacked, though, no matter how long I stared at her and willed her to answer differently.
She gazed at me without panic, though, and I detested the pity that her sorrowful expression hinted at.
No, pity wasn’t what I wanted or needed. I demanded answers. Straining to think back, to recall a single fucking detail, I was met with nothing. Ominous and unending, the blankness of that void I’d fallen into presented no answers, no clues.
“But you are safe here. You’re protected here.”
Her voice pulled me out of the rising frustration and threat of panic this memory loss gave me. I watched her checking my pulse again, her fingertips cool and sure against my flesh.
“Where—”
She cleared her throat, diligent to allay my worries. “Safe. My home. I found you unconscious and brought you here. I couldn’t…” She shook her head, making those long, riotous waves sway further from the braid that unraveled. “I couldn’t leave you for dead. You’re in my living room.” She raised her brows, as if she debated continuing. “Outside Medellin…”
I nodded. “I…” My throat was still so dry and raw.
“Here, Mama,” a small voice said.
I flinched in surprise, turning just enough on the pillow to see a young boy next to her.
“Mama?” I asked, stuck in disbelief that this young woman could be a mother. She looked too fresh and young.
Of all things to focus on. My God… I frowned, watching the boy offer a cup of water to her.
“Yes. This is…” Sofia furrowed her brow, glancing at the boy. Indecision warred on her face, but she turned to me again and sighed. “This is my son, Ramon.”
“And you are a nurse?” I asked.
Under her guidance to lift up a little, I checked her out again. If she wasn’t a nurse, she sure looked like one in those scrubs and with those tools to monitor my vitals like a damn good actress.
Actress? Somehow, that nugget of a thought stimulated me to think. To concentrate. As if it held meaning. Actress? The concept of someone pretending to be someone they weren’t niggled at me, but I couldn’t make a connection or figure out why it could matter.
She let me sip the water, saying, “Yes, I am a nurse. I work at a health clinic near the hospital where I found you lying on the road.”
I coughed on the water a little, overwhelmed not by the liquid but by what she said. “Hospital?”
“You don’t recall being near it? Or in it?”
“No. I don’t recall a thing. I… I know I’m an adult. I’m aware of… life in general. That it’s near Christmas.” I looked between Sofia and Ramon, needing them to confirm that.
Ramon nodded, grinning. “Alboradas?—”
Sofia shook her head and gave him a stern look.
“No. He’s right.” I studied the boy who watched me. “I heard… the fireworks. In the… car?”
Sofia smiled. “Yes. I drove you here when I found you.” Looking at her son, she sighed. “We need to let him figure it out, not be told what is what.”
“I was outside the hospital?” I asked, desperate to know more.
“Yes. I stopped when I saw you, worried why a doctor would be lying in the road.”
Confusion rose in a wave, stupefying me. “Doctor?”
She gestured at the bloody white doctor coat that draped over the coffee table she sat on as she continued to wipe at the blood from a gash on my head. “You were wearing it. And you had an ID badge that says your name should be Diego.” Again, she lifted her brows with an imploring look like she waited for me to recognize it. “Either Diego with a surname starting with an S , or S . Diego.”
Ramon held up the badge and showed me. The small ID image was of me. I knew that. I had no clue who I was, but I recognized the photo of me.
Diego?
I shook my head, at a loss. “I… I don’t remember.”
“You don’t know if your name is Diego?” she asked gently, her sweet tone keeping me from freaking out.
“No. I don’t remember.” Deep down, I truly doubted it was my name. If it was, it would stand out, wouldn’t it? I’d just know .
“Don’t stress yourself,” she insisted, moving on to the flood of pain that took over my shoulder and arm. “Don’t force it. And don’t panic if you can’t remember right now. Amnesia can be tricky.”
Thank God. Thank God she is here to help. I appreciated her seeing me in need of help and stopping to do so, but it soothed me even more that she was a nurse, not just a random person. I watched her check my bandages and took comfort in her medical expertise.
But shouldn’t I have that too, if I’m a doctor? That occupation felt too foreign to believe I could’ve worked as one.
“You have open gashes on your head, as well as your shoulder.” She moved on to checking me, shining a light in my eyes and instructing me to follow her finger and such. “I worry about your concussion,” she said frankly, “but your vitals are steady and stable. I can help you and keep you comfortable. We can focus on maintaining these open wounds and watching for anything to worsen.”
Moving on to feeling my abdomen for tenderness and checking my pulse points at my feet, she seemed knowledgeable and confident to help me.
“And with time, perhaps more of your memory will return.”
It wasn’t a promising statement. It could’ve sounded like nothing more than a half-assed platitude, but she declared it so simply, so matter-of-fact, I knew Sofia was a woman who wouldn’t lie.
And that was enough to appease me for now. With nothing else to cling to with certainty, at a loss for what had happened to me and what could happen next, I sipped the water she offered and closed my eyes when another headache returned.
I woke to her checking on me again, her cool fingers so soothing and increasingly familiar as she laid them on my skin.
Over the next few days, she was all I could familiarize myself with, and I did so with a hunger to understand anything in this confusing chaos of nothingness.
She bathed me with a wet cloth and kept a close eye on my wounds, changing the bandages. She helped me sip water and began giving me small portions of food. Eggs, mashed corn, and creamy milkshakes. Ramon assisted too. When he was near, which wasn’t often because he went to school, he approached me and gave me water and food. Standing wasn’t easy. Dizziness threatened to topple me to the floor, and it was with Sofia’s help as she walked me to the bathroom that I could relieve myself.
After her explanation that she had to go to work and take Ramon to school, I relaxed with the fact I could have ample time and freedom to rest.
“Rest is best,” she repeated often. “Your body has faced a lot of turmoil, and rest is critical for all stages of recovery and healing, especially with a head wound.”
I did just that. I followed the nurse’s orders. Even if I wanted to be active, I was sleepy often.
In the moments when I woke and stared at the walls of her living room, I realized she was extending a lot of trust to me.
Letting a stranger in her home with no man present to protect her? It made no sense that she would be this generous and na?ve to let me be here unattended. Then again, in my state, I wasn’t in any condition to do anything bad. I had no desire to. Sofia was my angel.
Ramon didn’t hurt either. He offered me juvenile magazines that he acquired at school. Most of them were about science facts, but it was something he could provide. “I know my mama says to let you think of things as they come to you and not force anything, but…” He set the small stack of papers on the coffee table. “I figure these are okay. They’re old but if you get bored, it’s something to look at.”
“Thank you, Ramon.”
He nodded and darted off.
As I became the lump on their couch, I fell into the routine. A week passed of her tending to my wounds, feeding me, and letting me rest. All so I could regain my strength. I noticed that she never said to regain my memories, and I respected how she didn’t emphasize that I needed to.
Each time I asked her to tell me how she found me, it was the same thing.
“I was just lying there?” I asked.
She yawned, covering her mouth as she walked me back to the couch from the bathroom. All day and night, she’d been gone at work. Ramon had been at school and then a neighbor’s house. Boredom had settled in, and with that idleness—since I’d read through all of Ramon’s children’s magazines six times over now—I concentrated on what had happened to me.
“Yes. I left the clinic where I work to pick up medications at the hospital. After I got the medications, I drove a different way out of the parking lot because Alboradas partiers were on the street where I normally go. When I passed through some alleys, I saw you lying there.”
“No one else was around?” I asked again. We’d been through this several times now, and with each questioning round, she was patient.
“No. I saw no one. I worried about approaching you in case someone was out there, and I hurried to drop off the medications, assuming someone from the hospital would see you. I couldn’t leave without checking. I drove back and saw you were still there, so I hurried to get you in the car so I could care for you here.”
And I’d never forget it. I literally owed her my life for her stopping me from bleeding out. If I had woken up in that alley, weak and dizzy and clueless, I likely wouldn’t have gotten far.
I trusted her, but the more that she told me this explanation of how she’d found me, I couldn’t help but think it was too practiced. Sure, the more often she gave me the same answers, the more she would recite it. But it sounded too rehearsed. As if she was careful not to deviate from a different word in her reply.
One thing stood out to me as I lowered back to the couch, groaning at the pain from bruises up my back and shoulder.
“Sofia?”
She helped me get comfortable, adjusting the pillows and offering me a chance to recline. “Hmm?”
I didn’t want to put her on the spot like this, but I was stubborn to get an answer. “Why didn’t you take me into the hospital when you found me?”
Stepping back while holding out the sheet for me to take it, she lowered her gaze. Robbed of seeing her brilliant green gaze, I waited for her to look up.
“Why didn’t you alert someone in command in the hospital?”
If I were a doctor, someone would’ve known me there. The trouble with that was how little faith I had that I was a doctor.
Still, she hesitated to answer me.
“Sofia? I can’t understand why you didn’t contact the authorities or?—”
She scoffed, looking away and smirking. “The authorities?”
She was nervous, and I had to know why. A headache crept closer, and already, just being awake more than usual today had me tired out tonight. But I had to know. Taking a risk, I reached out and snagged her hand gently.
When she didn’t flinch or startle, I relaxed. The last thing I wanted to do was scare her. It seemed that we’d mutually acclimated to each other’s touch, though, from her tending to my injuries.
“Sofia?”
“Because I wasn’t sure who to trust,” she replied quietly, looking me straight in the eye before slipping away toward her room.
Trust? How could she not know who to trust? The police should be a simple source of help in an emergency. The hospital staff should’ve been an immediate answer for a medical situation.
I trusted her. But for the first time as I tried to understand why she’d be nervous about what I asked, I worried it might be a mistake to be this gullible when nothing else made sense at all.