Round Three
OLLIE
“Call Ramone and let him know she’s awake, and that she has no recollection of who she is.
If he hasn’t been out to the crash site yet, tell him to move his ass.
Chances are her purse or phone or whatever went flying into the bushes when Barbara mowed her down.
” I move through the storeroom, just three doors down from Jane’s room, collecting a pre-prepared suture kit.
A tray. Gloves. I glance over my shoulder at Janine waiting by the door.
“If Barbara comes back and starts getting fussy, move her along.”
“You don’t think she did it on purpose, do you?”
“No. But I think she’ll try to insert herself, and when she realizes Jane doesn’t remember a damn thing, she’ll probably cozy up and tell her they were best friends or some shit.
What we’re not gonna do is stand by and allow our patient to be fed false memories.
” Grabbing my things, I turn and head back in her direction.
“Ramone and Billy will wanna swing by and question Jane, so if they say when they’re coming, let me know.
” I stop in front of her and exhale. The dread curling at the base of my stomach persists, even though Jane is awake.
If anything, it’s grown worse. “If Barbara hit her, got out of the car, called the ambulance, and stayed with her from start to finish, that means Jane was on the ground for a few minutes, right? Ten at the most.”
Considering, she shrugs. “Sure. Why?”
“Torn up fingernails. Choppy, messy hair, and I don’t mean messy, like a car hit her.
I mean messy, like she hasn’t seen the inside of a salon in a decade.
She’s underweight and was wearing clothes that were not made for her.
She’s damn lucky she didn’t lose any limbs to frostbite.
And she’s cagey as hell. The confusion and fear are understandable.
But the rest…” I drag my bottom lip between my teeth. “Why does it feel like she’s homeless?”
“Maybe she is.” She opens the door and gestures me out, following on my heels.
“Times are tough. Life is expensive, and most folks are already on the brink of collapse. No indentation on her ring finger tells me she’s single, which means she’s reliant only on herself and has no safety net in place in the event of a job loss or an unexpected bill.
She’s ended up here in Plainview, where everyone knows everyone, but no one knows her.
That says she’s transient. Being hit by Barbara means she was on foot, in freezing weather.
Maybe her car broke down a few miles out, and she was too afraid to sleep in it overnight, so she got out and started walking toward town.
Or maybe she has no car at all. Regardless, she’s having a tough time right now. ”
“And since life was already being so kind, the universe thought putting her on the road in front of Barbara would be a good idea.” Shaking my head, I tilt my chin toward the desk—call Ramone—then I start along the hall and take a sharp turn into Jane’s room.
Passing my intern—because Jane slipping out while my back is turned is a serious concern—I gesture him away.
“I need you to move on to Mason for me, then check on everyone else in the ward and bring me your notes when you’re done.
After that, I need you in the hall—if Ramone comes, let me know. If Barbara turns up, redirect her.”
“Yes, Doctor.” He dips his chin and spins through the door, heading straight for the nurse’s station to collect patient files.
Finally, I bring my gaze around and stop on Jane’s terrified stare.
Her trembling body and nervous, picking fingers as she pulls a loose thread on her gown.
Pasting on a kind smile, I wander in and carefully deposit the tray on her bedside table.
“You doing okay?” I keep my voice gentle.
My expression friendly. Turning and making my way to the sink in the far corner, I pump soap into my palm and scrub, lather, rinse, and repeat.
I clean all the way to my elbows, just to make doubly sure, and when I’m done, I whip paper towels from the dispenser and dry.
Then I grab sanitizer and follow all that with a pair of gloves.
“I hate to sound so simple. But you look terrified. Makes me feel bad.”
“I feel terrified.” She suckles on her bottom lip and stares straight past me to the door. With my back to the entrance, it’s almost as if she makes herself our watchman. “It’s exhausting, because I feel scared, but I don’t know what I’m scared of.”
“Normal, considering what you’ve been through.
” I peel the suture pack open and lay everything out on the sparkling silver tray.
“Our bodies and minds have a way of protecting us. Your memory is struggling right now, but your nervous system knows some pretty big shit went down last night. It’s completely natural that you’re on edge, even if, logically, you’re safe.
” I force myself into her line of sight and meet her wary eyes.
“You’re bleeding right where I stitched you up, which means I need to take a look. Do you mind?”
She swings her attention to my tray, and the instruments laid out in order. Then she gulps.
“I can bring a nurse in. Or ten,” I offer. “If you’re uncomfortable with it just being me and you.”
“No, I—”
“I mean, I can’t actually bring ten nurses in. I don’t think we even have that many on staff. But I could head outside and wave a few folks down. They’d volunteer to supervise if that would help.”
“This is fine.” She carefully maneuvers to her side, plumping her pillow and tucking her hand beneath her cheek. Inhaling a shaky, shuddering breath, she presses her other hand to the side of my arm and shuffles me a full foot to the right.
Glancing over my shoulder, I understand her meaning—she wants to watch the door.
“C-can I ask you a question?” Her voice is raspy and broken. Rough and overworked. She exhales, her soft breath feathering my exposed forearm. “How come I can’t remember who I am, and I don’t remember getting stitches, but I know they hurt?”
“Well—”
“I don’t remember how I got here. I don’t even remember…” She closes her eyes, scrunching them tight. “It’s all dark. But I know how to talk.”
“Those are good questions.” I drag her sheet up to cover her curled legs and provide her a modicum of privacy, because then I pull her gown forward to reveal her ribs, inadvertently uncovering her backside.
Fortunately, the window is behind her, and there’s nothing out there but trees and mountains and one-way glass.
“We don’t quite know what we’re dealing with yet, since you’ve been awake for all of twenty minutes.
But when a traumatic head injury leads to memory loss, we call it retrograde amnesia.
Sometimes that means you can’t remember the incident that led to the trauma.
Or maybe you don’t remember the last few weeks, or last year, or the last ten years.
” Examining her wound, I count sutures—twenty-three perfect little knots in a row.
But twenty-four, twenty-five, and twenty-six have torn the skin and left her lac open.
“In some cases, a patient’s memories slowly return as their brain heals and everything calms down.
In other, rarer cases, it’s possible a patient never gets them back.
Either way, our memories are stored in a specific area of our brain.
You know how to walk and talk, and you can probably point to that television on the wall—” I hook a thumb over my shoulder, toward the tiny, boxy monstrosity bolted in the corner, “—and you could label it a television. You know you’re lying on a bed.
” But I pause and peek up into her eyes. “Right? You know this is a bed?”
Swallowing, she nibbles on her lip and nods.
“Right. You know what a doctor is. What a hospital is. Dog. Cat. Car. Ball. If I give you a pencil and a book, you’ll know how to write words, and even how to spell those words.
If you were fluent in another language before all this, you’ll be able to call upon that again. ” I stop and smile. “Parli Italiano?”
She narrows her eyes. “I don’t speak Italian.”
“I optimistically disagree. You just understood me.”
“You said Italiano,” she sighs. “I inferred.”
“Oh, well…” Bested, I snicker. “Fair. I don’t speak more than those two words either.
Walking, talking, reading… This is procedural memory, and it’s stored in your cerebellum.
There are cases severe enough to wipe a patient’s procedural memory, but that’s far less common.
Your episodic memory, on the other hand—which includes your name, your address, your relationships—hangs around in your hippocampus and temporal lobe.
Your injury has disrupted this section of your brain, and now, it needs time to heal. ”
“Will I get them back?”
“Possibly.” I numb the area surrounding her wound with a quick injection that makes her hiss, then I set the syringe down and carefully pinch the skin back together.
“Often, patients will regain most, if not all, of their memories. It could take a few days. Or a few weeks.” Glancing up, I search her wide, expressive eyes.
“The good news is you’re able to create new memories.
If you’d forgotten who I was in the time it took for me to grab supplies from the storeroom, then that would be much, much worse. ”
Her cheeks fire a warm, fiery pink. “You were only gone for a minute. I’m scared we didn’t test it properly, and I might forget you later.”
I’m kinda scared, too. Which is objectively insane.
Focus, Ollie!
“That type of amnesia is called anterograde, and it means there was significant brain trauma. Though that could be temporary, too, and after allowing yourself time to heal, everything could go back to normal. What are your last memories?” I pick up my suture needle and gently tap her skin to make sure it’s numb.
“Do you have anything stored away in there?”