Chapter 1 #4
“What are you doing out of bed?” A concerned male voice rocked her out of her thoughts, and she whirled around.
The man was definitely not a nurse, dressed in a red shirt and black jeans.
He walked right into the bathroom with her and hugged her fiercely before pulling her back to bed.
“Leave it to you, Hallie, to come back from the brink of death and be worried about how you look. Don’t you know you’re beautiful, no matter what? Come back and lie down, dear.”
Chris had been about to object to this stranger’s forwardness when his familiarity indicated he was someone else she was supposed to know.
Oh, boy. She followed him to her bed and let him tuck her back under the sheets.
His hair hung in strands around his face, and beneath thick glasses, she saw worry and strain grow into love.
He knelt on one knee beside her bed and took her hand in his, planting a long wet kiss on it.
“I would have been here sooner, but that damn husb—” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. I’m here now, you’re here.” He squeezed her hand, and his brown eyes grew shiny with tears. “I thought I’d lost you. My heart would have shriveled up like a pea without you.”
“To match your brain?” Jamie’s flat voice asked from the doorway.
The man stood, still gripping Chris’s hand. She wanted to pull free but was too mesmerized by the fire in Jamie’s eyes to move.
Jamie stepped forward, power in his strides. “Who let you in here, Mick?”
“You can’t restrict her visitors anymore, James. Besides, she needs me.” Mick tilted his head up, as if daring Jamie to challenge him.
Jamie’s gaze flicked to her, then back to Mick. His slight smile was a bit crooked. “How can she need you if she doesn’t know who you are?”
Mick’s panicked expression heightened when he looked at her. He leaned closer and stared into her eyes. “You know me, darling, don’t you?”
Fatigue was beginning to shroud her, and she wanted nothing more than to close her eyes and not answer any more questions.
But she couldn’t ignore the earnest face hovering in front of hers.
“You…you’re Mick, Hall—” She’d started to say Hallie’s lover, as if talking about someone else’s life.
It was, in a sense. Jamie’s expression bit into her, though, his obvious disappointment in her remembrance of Mick.
Actually, she’d only deduced his identity.
Mick grinned triumphantly. “When she’s released, I’m taking her home with me.”
Jamie’s voice returned to the flatness it had earlier, and his eyes narrowed. “As long as I’m her husband, she’s my responsibility. At least until she gets better.”
Mick’s face reddened. “Hallie’s a grown woman. She can do what she wants.” He turned to her and asked, “Do you want me to take care of you?”
“She can stay with me, too,” Hallie’s mother added from her place behind Jamie. “Who do you want to stay with, darling?”
Chris looked at the faces around her as they waited for her response.
Mick appeared as though his life hung on the balance of her answer.
Honestly, he gave her the creeps. Velvet didn’t inspire much confidence in her caretaking skills.
Jamie looked resolute, despite offering a choice.
She looked at each face, not sure where they fit into Hallie’s life.
Her gaze drew back to Jamie. “I want to stay with you.”
Mick dropped her hand and took a step back. Velvet crossed her arms over her large chest and pursed her lips. But Jamie looked the most surprised of all. She left them all and slipped into a haven of darkness.
* * *
Sometime later, Jamie’s voice pulled Chris from sleep again, much like the day she had come out of her coma. This time another male voice spoke with him, in soft, hushed tones. It sounded like Dr. Hughes’s voice. “Have you given any thought to our earlier conversation?”
“You mean what to do with her if she’s…brain-damaged?”
Chris strained to hear their whispers coming from the far side of the room. She kept perfectly still, holding her breath.
“Right now, all we know for sure is that she’s lost a good deal of her memory.
Her friends and family can deal with that.
But if she experiences lapses in logic and reality, or starts having seizures, it may be too much to handle.
Remember, thinking about it won’t make it happen. It’s better to be prepared.”
“I know that.” After a pause, Jamie said, “What about the Sharp Rehabilitation Center in Sacramento? You said that was the best in the area.”
“Absolutely. They’ll work with her, take care of her as long as she needs it. She’d make friends there. And maybe some of their advanced methods would help her to eventually become independent again.”
“But we don’t know that she has any damage, right?”
“There seems to be no indication yet. But keep an eye out for unusual behavior in the next few weeks. If she…”
Dr. Hughes’s voice drifted out into the hallway and was swallowed in hall noise as the door opened, then closed.
Her eyes snapped open. The Sharp Rehabilitation Center?
A mental hospital? What would they think if she told them that her real name was Chris Copestakes from Colorado, that she had died, and God had given her a second chance in Hallie’s body?
Would that be considered a lapse in logic?
They would surely think she was brain damaged.
Or just plain crazy. Then off to the Sharp Rehabilitation Center they would send her, just like her Uncle Tom.
She had vivid memories of Tom, playing tag with her and her sisters in the yard, helping in the kitchen during the holidays. He hadn’t acted crazy, but her mom had confided that he was manic depressive. He had an episode that put him in a mental hospital.
Her mother visited him every Saturday afternoon. She told Chris that if she didn’t go, he would cry out for his sister at the top of his lungs, pounding on the walls until the orderlies restrained him. Chris went with her mother one time, for support. And curiosity.
The sprawling one-story building had smelled like a hospital, sterile with the faint odor of decay and urine.
What struck Chris the hardest was the absence of hope in everyone’s eyes.
Nurses and doctors looked as much like zombies as the patients did, bringing the gown-clad man who had once been a baseball player into the visitor’s room with mechanical efficiency.
The sight of him had horrified her: not the Tom she remembered but a shell of the man, vacant eyes, fits of irritability over nothing. She had stared at his fingers, covered with spots of red flesh where he continually picked at the cuticles. He had chewed his nails to the bloody quick.
It was the medication, her mother had said, trying in vain to get it changed to something better.
Chris shut the memory away, as she had done so many times during her life. She would not go to a mental hospital.
We hope you enjoyed this sneak peek of Until I Die Again by Tina Wainscott.