Round 8
ROUND EIGHT
OLLIE
“Alright. It’s time.” I stride into Jane’s room the next day and toss the black bag onto the foot of her bed. “Get dressed.”
She startles and slams a hand to her heart, her monitors screaming into the otherwise silence.
“Jesus, Ollie!” As her brain catches up, her terror turns to rage, and her O’d lips transform into flat, furious lines.
“What the hell is wrong with you? Why can’t you walk into a room like a normal human being? ”
“Because it’s time to get you out of that bed and back on your feet.” I tear the duffel open and take out Eliza’s sweatpants, palming the price tag before Jane can see it. Then I offer the folded bundle and meet her beautiful, multicolored eyes. “When was the last time you walked?”
“Twenty minutes ago.” She juts her chin forward, dismissive and a little haughty. “All the way to the bathroom.”
“When was the last time you walked out of this room?” I toss the pants onto her blanketed lap and come back to the bag for a shirt. “Got you layers, since it’s snowing out and I know you don’t like the cold. Put ‘em on and move your butt.”
She casts a sullen glance toward the mostly closed blinds. “Think I’ll pass.”
“That wasn’t an option.” I drag her blankets off and risk the way she balls her fists in my peripherals, then I grab the sweatpants and snap them open, carefully feeding her left foot through the leg-hole, then the right, before tugging the fabric to her knees.
“It’ll be good for you, and I wanted to talk to you about something important, anyway. ”
Just like that, she forgets her rage and crumbles into an anxious mess. “W-what thing? What happened?”
“Nothing happened.” I hold her hands and guide her around, stopping only when her feet dangle over the side of her bed and the pants fall to her ankles, then I take advantage of her frozen state and draw her closer to the edge.
Closer. And when she can’t go even an inch further, I support her forearms and bring her down until her feet touch the floor and her cheeks become impossibly white.
“Hold on to me for a second.” I place her hand on my shoulder and lower into a crouch, carefully fisting the waistband and drawing the fabric up.
I touch nothing but the pants. I see nothing but the blue and white stripes of her gown. And fuck, I say nothing about the knock of her knees or her panicked breath hitting my chin as I rise again.
“You’re safe. I promise.” I search her terrified eyes and grab the shirt.
But I can’t put it on her until she removes the gown, and I can’t take the gown without violating her right to…
everything. Privacy. Respect. Autonomy. “Why don’t you take this to the bathroom and swap?
I’ll wait right here for you to come back. ”
“Can’t I just wear this?” Her voice crackles with fear. With nerves. Fuck, her chin trembles the way it does every time something new comes along and knocks her off her perch of precarious stability. “W-what thing do you want to tell me?”
“Nothing happened, so try not to panic so much.” I set the shirt back in the bag and grab Eliza’s four-hundred-dollar coat instead.
Releasing the tight roll and allowing the puffer fabric to expand, I tap her shoulder and wait as she cautiously turns.
“I haven’t talked to the cops today, no one has called about you, and medically, nothing has changed.
” I carefully maneuver the coat and help her slide one arm in, then the other.
“Your CT shows a reduction in the bruising on your brain, and the bleed has rectified itself. But,” I come around to stop in front of her.
“Your memory hasn’t returned. Which really stinks.
” I join the zipper at the bottom of her coat and drag it up.
“Have you remembered anything since last night?”
She shakily swipes a falling tear from her cheek. “No. Nothing.”
I bring the zipper all the way to her chin, cocooning her in the warm material until her pale cheeks claw back a fraction of color, then I select a pair of socks from the bag and help her onto the edge of her bed.
“Do you remember what movie was on last night?” The TV is off right now, but I tilt my head in its direction.
“It was a good one. Bet you saw it when you were a kid.”
She takes a sock and folds at the hips to put it on, but then she hisses, remembering her stitches and the long, vicious gash taking up most of her left side. She’s nursing more injuries than just her brain… but we barely have time to focus on those.
Lowering to one knee, I tug the sock from her grasp and roll it onto her left foot, careful of the deep graze spreading all the way from her ankle to the upper area of her calf muscle.
That’s where she hit the road after bouncing off Barbara’s windshield, colliding with frozen tar, but instead of sliding, her skin gripped on and tore.
“It was the Mighty Ducks movie,” she rasps. But in my peripherals, she shakes her head. “I don’t remember seeing it before. The Breakfast Club was on the night before.” Again, she shakes her head. “Don’t remember seeing that one either.”
“Don’t beat yourself up. I haven’t seen it either.” I slide the second sock on, and, dragging the duffel to the floor, I pull out a pair of too-expensive boots. “These are size sevens. If they’re too tight, we’ll take them off again, and I’ll go find you something else.”
“Where’d you get this stuff?” She reaches over and grabs the sides of the first boot, a process she hasn’t forgotten, despite all the rest. Pulling the suede up, she releases a heady breath and tries on a shaky, hopeful smile. “Fits.”
“Good.” I pull the second out and hold it in place so she can dip her toes in.
“These are my sister’s things. She caught me ransacking her closet and nearly beat me up for it.
I’m not gonna lie—” I relinquish control of the boot and let her pull it up the rest of the way, and while she does that, I straighten out and drop my hands into my coat pockets.
“—She’s small, but she’s pretty terrifying.
She’s got this feral-ness that leaves me lying awake at night sometimes. ”
She rolls her eyes.
“I’m not lying! She’s way younger than me and Raquel, which means we picked on her a lot when we were kids. Now she’s all grown and knows how to flatten a guy. Every night I go to bed, I wonder if this is the night she’ll sneak in and exact revenge for the things we did a decade ago.”
“A decade ago, you were…? How old?”
“Twenty-two ish.”
She presses her lips together. “And she was?”
“Twelve. She’s always had a bad attitude, though, so don’t let the age difference fool you. She had it coming.”
“Mmhm.” She lowers gingerly to her feet, trying the boots out and staring down at the image she presents: maroon coat, gray pants, brown shoes. “This is… a look.”
“And the fact you say so gives us insight into who you are.” I leave the bag and the Dora dental kit behind. “You know you look a bit silly, which implies a sharp sense of fashion. And I notice the way you speak to me sometimes.”
“How do I speak to you?”
“Like you’re fancy and you know it, and I’m the pauper boy approaching your throne, begging for a scrap of your attention.” I offer my arm, wiggling it to goad her closer. “Grab on, or I’m putting you in a wheelchair.” I flash a wide smile. “Your choice.”
She exhales an exasperated sigh and loops her arm in mine. “Now tell me the thing.”
Smug, I lead her out of her room and into the long, wide hall I’ve walked a million times in my years here at a shitty, understaffed, under-funded hospital in the ass crack of nowhere.
We barely have enough doctors to keep the place functional, and when Doctor Dawes—my eighty-seven-year-old general surgeon counterpart—retires, we’ll have to find someone else, or close our doors permanently.
I mean, who wouldn’t want to work in a place that boasts absolutely no work/life balance, no retirement plan—since we work ‘em till they’re ninety—and you get to memorize the lumps, bumps, and blemishes of every single resident before the end of your first year on staff.
Including Barbara…
Shudder.
I lead Jane past a line of rooms exactly like hers, though four out of five are vacant, then into another hall as we make our way toward something I know will please her.
Maybe.
Hopefully.
“The thing, Ollie? I don’t like anticipation.”
“Right! Okay. So, your lack of a rap sheet tells us you’ve been a good girl all your life, right? No fingerprints in the system. No wanted posters. Not even a candy bar has gone missing while you were around. This has, evidently, made things much more difficult for Billy and Ramone.”
“Are you suggesting I should apologize for my law-abiding ways?”
Chuckling, I drop my gaze and study our feet.
“No. But I’m suggesting we need a new plan.
We’re more than a week in now, still have no clue who you are, and that dirty glass wall in your mind?
The one shielding your memories? It’s still there.
So…” I bring my focus up again and stop on her eyes…
kaleidoscopes. That’s what they are. A thousand small shards of colored glass all blended into one small space.
“I thought we could invite the media in. Let them see you, let them interview you. They can put you on the news and, if we’re lucky, maybe someone will recognize you. ”
Her brows wrinkle and fold, tugging on the healing wounds along the left side of her face. “Oh… okay.”
“Good idea? Bad idea?” I lick my lips, nervous about her response. “What do you think?”
“I-I don’t know.” She leans heavier against my side and exhales a long breath. Not because she wants to be nearer. But because she’s tired, she’s injured, and she’s trying hard not to limp. “What do you think?”
“I think…” It’s not okay to tell you you’re the reason I come to the hospital every single day with a smile.
And I sure as hell can’t tell you I’m not ready to face a world where you’re not the first patient I check on at the start of every shift.
But keeping her here, locked in her isolation and memory loss, is cruel.
“I think you deserve to know who you are. To know your name, because Jane and ma’am isn’t it.
I think you deserve to learn about the twenty-something-years that came before all this.
The relationships you’ve cultivated, the friends you’ve left behind, and the Ficus dying in your living room because you haven’t been home to water it. ”
She lets out a watery laugh and rests her cheek on the ball of my shoulder. “It’ll be okay. As long as I didn’t leave it in direct sunlight, a week away won’t hurt it. Especially since we’re in winter.”
Stunned, I screech to a stop and whip her around, my eyes wide. Bright. Damn near comical. “You know how to take care of a Ficus?”
“What?”
“You just said the thing about direct light!” I squeeze her shoulders and give her a gentle, barely-there shake. “You remembered something that isn’t walking and talking and pulling on a pair of boots.”
“Oh… well…” Slowly, her lips curl into a goofy grin. “I guess I did.”
“That’s something!” I take her hand and drag her toward a hall lined with glass.
It’s like an atrium, a walk through nature, but without the icy winds or the risk of being rained on.
It’s a sunroom, but a hallway, and it leads from one wing of the hospital to another.
Most impressive of all is the fact that nature tries to swallow us up, massive trees lining both sides and, on really quiet mornings, a deer or two—or three—walking amongst the brush.
“Oh my gosh.” She releases my hand and walks to the glass, wrapping her palms around the old brass rail stretching the entire length of the hall. “This has been here all along, and you’re only just showing me now?”
“You didn’t want to get out of bed.” I meander forward and meet her at the glass, my elbow brushing her arm as I drop my hands into my pockets.
“So maybe you have a thing for plants in your home. Or maybe you work at a nursery and literally made horticulture your career.” I scan the world laid out ahead of us.
“Do you know what that is?” I tip my chin toward a tree in the distance.
“What comes to mind when you look at that?”
“Er…” She nibbles on her plump bottom lip. “A tree? I don’t know the proper name, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
And just like that, my hopes are dashed.
“I really thought we were on to something.” Turning my back to the snowy scene outside—not a single deer in sight—I rest against the handrail and search her eyes.
“I think we should invite the media in and give them a chance to help you. Put your face on the news and see what happens. If some creep turns up and tries to claim you, I’ll show him the door again.
But if a really special, kind, loving family arrives, then we’ll know we did the right thing. ”
Frowning, she tucks her hair behind her ear and lowers her gaze. “Will you stay with me while they’re here?”
“Of course.” I pull her around and lay my arm across her shoulders, drawing her back until she touches the glass and her too-thin body curls against my side.
“I’ll stay with you until the end, I promise.
And when people come for you, I’ll be standing in front of you the whole time.
No one will see you until I say they can. ”