Chapter 1 #3
Once she felt stable again, she held her breath and looked down. The blankets had slid down to her waist, and she pushed them to the floor—and stared. Not at herself, not the straight, boyish figure and skinny legs. Something was wrong, terribly wrong! This was not her body!
She moved legs that seemed twice as long as her own, shapely legs with small feet and painted toenails to match those fingers.
They moved in unison with her thoughts. Her arms moved at will, and her eyes widened.
Her chest was not the barely-a-B she was used to seeing, but much more than that!
Beneath her hospital gown, voluptuous breasts rose each time she inhaled.
Her hands moved to her head, desperately wanting to feel the kinky curls she had hated all her life.
She pulled a handful of long dark-blond hair in front of her face.
Panic twisted her heart, and dazed confusion rushed through her blood. Or was it her blood? Nothing else was hers! No, it had to be a horrible, distorted nightmare.
The picture filled her mind, this time vividly.
Her twisted body, the blood, oh, the blood.
But there was so much more than that. She remembered floating above her body, feeling detached from it.
The clear, bright light telling her that it wasn’t her time yet.
He’d said something about a new task. She had been given another chance as…
Chris’s gaze fell to the plastic band on her wrist: H.
DiBarto. She was in another woman’s body!
“Hallie! You’re awake.”
The man who had been talking to her earlier rushed to her side, followed by a tall woman in her fifties. Chris looked at them blankly, the reality of her situation crashing in over her.
“Hallie, it’s Jamie, your husband. This is your mother. Are you all right?” Then he shook his head, smiling. “You’re okay. I knew you’d come back.”
Jamie leaned over and hugged her, followed by a crushing hug from the woman who was supposed to be her mother. The woman touched Chris’s face, hair and arms, as if to assure herself she was really seeing her daughter and not an apparition.
Chris tried to talk, but nothing came out. Finally, a sound croaked from her throat. “Why am I in here?” She gestured to all the equipment around her.
Her mother leaned forward and gripped her hand. Chris wasn’t sure whose hand was shaking, but their clutched hands quivered. “You had a brain hemorrhage, sweetheart.”
Chris’s weight pulled her back to a prone position. All the while, she kept staring at Jamie, keeping her focus on one person to keep her mind from exploding into a thousand directions.
His face was finely sculptured, and his eyes were the lightest shade of blue she had ever seen.
He had one of those regal noses seen in advertisements for cologne and blue jeans.
He must have been staring at her with the same disbelief that filled her face.
Then he smiled, and the whole room seemed to light up.
Maybe she was in Heaven after all, and he was an angel.
The illusion of Heaven was disrupted when a nurse pushed her way in after looking through the large glass window.
Everything happened quickly after that. She called the doctor in, ushered Jamie and her mother out of the room, and put her through a battery of embarrassing and lengthy tests.
All the while, the doctor kept asking her questions.
“What’s your name?”
“Hallie…” She stole a glance at her bracelet. “DiBarto.”
“How old are you? Where were you born?”
The questions kept coming, and she didn’t know the answers to most of them. At least the answers that belonged to the body she was in. Her own life was clear and the memories vivid up until the day she’d died. She squeezed her eyes shut. Who am I now?
“Are you all right?” asked one of the nurses.
Chris shook her head. No, she wasn’t all right. She would never be all right again.
* * *
Jamie, his mother, and Hallie’s mother all gathered in the closet-sized room with Dr. Hughes.
The bad-news room. He tried to keep telling himself that Hallie was all right now, but another dark thought kept pressing into his mind, spurred on by the memory of that blank look on Hallie’s face: brain damage.
What would he do if she never recovered mentally?
Dr. Hughes looked at his paperwork, then set it down on the desk with a short sigh.
“I have been a doctor for fifteen years, and all I can tell you about Hallie’s recovery is that it is a miracle.
I have never seen someone in so deep a coma awaken so suddenly.
Her movements are purposeful, hand and eye coordination much better than anyone could ever expect. ”
“She’ll be okay?” Hallie’s mother asked, nervously fingering the frosted hair piled on top of her head.
“Well, Mrs. Parker…”
“Please,” she interrupted, placing a hand on Dr. Hughes’s sleeve. “Call me Velvet.”
Jamie always cringed at the mention of her mother’s name, Velvet. Her real name was Hedda, but she kept the stage name she used when she had been an exotic dancer years ago.
Dr. Hughes leaned back in the brown vinyl chair. “We’ve run tests, numbers of them. There isn’t a trace of the hemorrhage or any damage. Physically, she’s perfect.”
Jamie pushed out the words, “And mentally?”
Dr. Hughes tilted his head. “That’s what we’re not too sure about.
Both long and short-term memory are impaired.
She seems to know little other than her name, and the nurse saw her peek at her name band for that.
With the kind of recovery she made, it’s going to be hard to predict her progress.
In normal cases it could take up to two years for her memory to return, and even then, some of it may never return. ”
Velvet’s face registered shock. “You mean she might always look at me with that nothing look on her face?”
“I’m not saying that at all. But you may have to fill in the blank spaces for her.”
Jamie leaned forward. “Will she be the same? I mean, her personality and all?”
“Yes, in time she will become basically the same person she was. She will, of course, be different in some ways. This kind of experience changes a person. She’ll probably appreciate life a lot more.”
“Hah!” Velvet’s deep, harsh laugh seemed to ricochet off the walls. “She already did.” When she noticed Jamie’s right eye narrow, her smile died.
Dr. Hughes cleared his throat, perhaps in an attempt to clear the air of tension. “I would like to keep her here for a few days, just for observation. Then she’s free to go home, although she should stay near the hospital for a few weeks.”
A sick feeling churned in Jamie’s stomach. “Do you think she’ll have another stroke?”
“No, not at all. The last CAT scan we did came out completely clear.” He shook his head and looked away for a moment, as if still stunned.
“It might be a good idea, though, to keep her nearby in case of complications. This isn’t an average case, so it’s hard to foresee any problems that might occur. ”
Jamie turned to his mother, squeezing her hand in question, trying to read those beautiful icy blue eyes of hers for an answer. As usual, they revealed nothing, but the slightest nod of her head confirmed it.
“She’ll recuperate at my mother’s home in Los Almeda,” Jamie announced.
Velvet spoke up. “I don’t think that’s appropriate, considering the circumstances. She should—”
“She’s staying with us. You don’t have the time, nor the room, to house her comfortably.” She also didn’t have the wits, but he wasn’t going to get into that. “Besides, she’ll be closer to the hospital. When she’s up to it, she can do whatever she pleases.”
Dr. Hughes stood, holding his clipboard against his chest. “Good. We’ve moved her to a regular room, 425. You can go in to see her now if you’d like.”
* * *
After hours of being treated like a lab specimen, Chris was escorted to her new room.
The end result… No one had a medical explanation for her miraculous recovery, except that it was a miracle, as one doctor had whispered reverently.
Oh, how she wanted to tell someone about her experience, about the love and peace, and the light.
As soon as the nurse tucked her into her crisp, cold sheets and left her alone, Chris shoved out of bed and studied herself again. It still wasn’t her body. Her hands moved up to her face, touching her cheeks, following the lines of her bones. What did she look like now? She had to find out.
After a wary glance toward the door, she climbed out of bed and walked stiffly to the bathroom. She felt the hesitation of meeting someone new. Being afraid is silly. It’s still you, Chris.
For the first time, she was able to do more than snatch a vague reflection off the face of some monitor.
A deep breath served to inject a few ounces of bravery into her, and she stepped up to the mirror and stared.
A stranger stared back. She touched the mirror, just to make sure it wasn’t a window into her neighbor’s bathroom.
A long slender hand moved with her to touch the glass.
Chris moved back, taking in the stranger’s reflection.
Blond hair hung limply around her face, looking flat and oily.
Her nose was petite, her lips shapely, not too large, not too small.
Her eyes were a deep blue, set just a little too far apart.
And her body…Chris shook her head. Pulling the thin cotton gown tight from the back, her curves showed through.
What was she going to do with a body like that?