Chapter 5
Chapter five
Greyson
When Paisley’s breathing fell into a steady rhythm punctuated by her cute snuffling sleeping noises, I quietly ducked into the hallway, easing the door shut behind me.
It was nearly midnight, so this part of the hospital was quiet, minus the squeak of rapid footsteps in the never-ending maze of sterile corridors.
I scrubbed a hand over my face. The last thirty hours had taken ten years off my life.
More so than any other event in my almost thirty-two years, and that was with three military deployments overseas, one of which landed me in a German hospital riddled with bullets.
In all my plaguing nightmares from PTSD, Paisley forgetting me and thinking she was still married to that garbage ex of hers was never one of them.
Only it wasn’t a nightmare. A nightmare meant waking up and having her gentle touch rub my back, grounding me, holding me close while the horrors of the past threatened to tear me apart. Hearing whispered words of love and comfort and hushed prayers.
No, this was reality. My wife, my best friend, had forgotten me.
Yesterday, I’d watched her fall from that ladder outside the library.
I’d cradled her limp form in my arms, trying to stop the blood .
. . so much blood. And seeing her unnaturally pale face against the stark whiteness of the sheets made my gut clench.
She needed me, and I couldn’t protect her.
I shuddered and forced the image away. I needed to focus on the positive.
What positive? the dark whispers hissed.
After the initial concerns of brain damage or hemorrhaging, the scans were clear. But she still hadn’t woken up. Till now.
“She’s alive, Lord,” I whispered, my voice husky with the strain of emotion as I braced a fist against the wall, eyes sliding shut. “Thank you for that.” My heart stuttered in my chest. Life without Paisley wasn’t something I wanted to consider. Not after it had taken us so long to get here.
Doctor Thornton said retrograde amnesia was often a side effect after significant head trauma.
Paisley had been lucky she hadn’t broken her neck or anything worse than bruises, a few scrapes, and a dislocated shoulder.
No, not luck, Jesus. You were holding on to her.
I swallowed hard. Please touch her mind.
We’ve overcome so much together. Don’t let her go back. Please.
I replayed our conversation, her confused words rolling over me.
Each one a fresh gut punch. She didn’t remember me, beyond my position as something of a prodigal son of the family.
I wasn’t the black sheep or anything. But Paisley had been right in her assessment about my never being home—only I hadn’t been a hero.
As the middle child in a family of ultra-accomplished siblings (seriously: police detective, fire chief, surgeon, professional hockey player, and sports lawyer), the urge to prove myself was strong.
And being a hero seemed like the way to go.
Until I didn’t climb the ranks as quickly as I hoped, and then Liam’s death .
. . I wasn’t hero material. No matter what they said.
My best friend was dead, and it was all my fault.
Then there was Paisley . . . and I couldn’t save her either.
Clicking heels caught my attention, yanking me from the downward spiral of my thoughts, before a blonde blur barreled into my arms.
“How is she?” Juliet whispered into my shoulder.
I patted her back, a little surprised since my baby sister wasn’t a hugger. Guess nearly losing your best friend changed things. It changed me. “Alive. She woke up for a few minutes, but the doc gave her something for the pain. She’s asleep again.”
Juliet sagged with a relieved sigh. “Thank you, Jesus.”
I hated to burst her bubble, but it had to be done. “Jules . . . there’s something else.”
Those baby blues that could get me to do anything flashed up at me. Perks and curses of Juliet being the only Satterfield sister and the youngest to boot. “What?”
“Paisley . . . ” I rubbed the back of my neck, trying to loosen the tight muscles. “She’s lost her memory. Or at least part of it.”
My sister was no swooning woman, and the calculations swirled in her eyes. “How much?”
“Seven years.”
All colour drained from Juliet’s face, and I gripped her elbow as she swayed slightly. She glanced at the closed door behind me. “Seven years, but that means . . .”
“She doesn’t remember me,” I said quietly. “At least not that we’re married. But she asked for you by name. Said she didn’t remember exactly how she knew you, just that she did.”
Juliet’s shoulders sagged. In relief or pity, I wasn’t sure. Probably both. Time to add the final bombshell. “She thinks she’s still married to Jared.”
Murder filled her eyes. “No,” she spat, stamping her foot.
“There’s no way. After all the work she went through healing, she thinks she’s still married to that monster?
” Angry tears spilled over her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“I know this isn’t about me, and I can’t even imagine what you’re feeling right now.
I’m just so . . . ugh, I’m never this emotional. ”
“Yeah,” was all I could say before pulling her back for a hug, more for her than for me this time.
As the youngest siblings of the Satterfield brood, plus my twin brother, Cal, the three of us had always been close.
I was glad she was here. But she was right; she was never this teary.
In fact, I wasn’t sure I had ever seen my sister cry—not since she was little anyway.
Man, I really wish you were here, Cal. I was older by seven minutes, and as the youngest brothers, we’d always been best friends.
We’d joked about twin telepathy all our lives with a fifty-fifty chance of success.
But I knew he couldn’t make it to the hospital, not yet anyway.
Mama had told him what happened, and he had texted me.
He’d already left last night for today’s away game in the AHL’s Calder Cup playoffs with the Caldwell Chargers and wasn’t due home till the middle of next week.
I suppressed a shudder at the harsh aroma of antiseptic and cleaner filling the hallway. I hated hospitals, especially after my stint in one leading to my medical discharge from the Marines after a failed mission. I’d been lucky to be alive then.
And you think you’re worth more than Liam was?
Those dark thoughts needed to take a jump from a plane without a parachute. Before the accident yesterday, the plaguing nightmares had been better. The bleak, condemning voices less insistent. But this . . . This had every self-reproach using me as a punching bag.
“Can I see her?” Juliet asked, easing away and pulling me from my thoughts.
I nodded and opened the door for her. “It’ll help having a familiar face.” Because she was afraid of me. I’d seen the panic in her dark green eyes, the blankness. I’d spent the last five and a half years getting Paisley comfortable with my touch. Now it was gone.
Juliet squeezed my arm in wordless sympathy, and she slipped into the dimly lit room.
I ran a hand over my jaw, the rough cut of my longer-than-usual beard growth grounding me before I ducked back into my wife’s hospital room.
Juliet and I kept silent vigil. My family, Pastor John, and two of Paisley’s out-of-town best friends, Liz and Stephanie, had been taking turns sitting with me. Watching. Waiting. Praying.
I studied the monitor with Paisley’s vital signs.
The rhythmic hum and beep of the machines were the only noises blanketing us.
The reality of how close I’d come to losing her pummeled through me like a runaway freight train, but the steady peak and valley of her heartbeat assured me she was still very much alive.
Around two o’clock, the nurse poked her head in the door, her neon-pink scrubs a bright spot in an otherwise bleak room. “Just me, honey,” she said softly. Her grey pin curls reminded me of my grandmother.
Juliet groaned from where she was drooling on my shoulder and shifted. “Are you waking her up?”
The nurse smiled. “Yeah and checking her vitals.” She touched Paisley’s uninjured arm. “Paisley. Honey, open those pretty eyes for me.”
Paisley whimpered and swatted at the nurse’s hand. If the situation weren’t so serious, I’d laugh. Paisley hated mornings and didn’t operate well on interrupted sleep. She wasn’t functional until at least half her blood was composed of her favourite Earl Grey tea.
But the nurse was persistent, and Paisley finally obliged.
I leaned forward in my chair. Her rapid blinking worked to focus before a grin split her face. My heart tripped. I loved her smile. And she was happy to see—
“Jules!”
Right, not me. Disappointment swirled low in my gut.
I fell back in my chair and let my sister fuss over Paisley while the nurse took her blood pressure and checked her pupils.
Silently, I berated myself for getting my hopes up.
The doctor had said it would take time for the amnesia to reverse—but how long?
A day, a week, a month, a lifetime? I was a patient man. But the reality hurt just the same.
Satisfied with her findings, the nurse slipped from the room, and the hum of whispers harmonized with the whirl of the machines.
I tipped my head back against the wall and closed my eyes.
For now, Paisley was alive. She was safe.
She was comfortable. My chest squeezed. Don’t let her forget me forever.
Soon, Juliet and Paisley both dozed off, but my body refused to let me shirk my post to rest. Like Paisley could slip away if I wasn’t watching.
I alternated between broken prayers and watching the vitals machine like I’d write an exam off of it.
And then the first blush of dawn touched the sky, warm radiant light filling the eastern-facing room.
Paisley’s emerald eyes were brighter, more lucid in the morning sunshine when a new doctor and nurse bustled into the room.
The doctor rattled off her discharge instructions. Concussion care. Care for her arm, currently in bandages. And then—
“Loss of memory is a relatively common symptom of severe head trauma.” His nasally tone grated my ears. “But don’t push it too hard. The memories may come back in time.”
“May?” Paisley demanded, scandalized. “But they might not?”
“Correct.” He scribbled a prescription and handed it to me. “She can take these as needed.”
“I’m right here,” Paisley groused, and this time the doctor did look at her.
“In the meantime, rest up. You’ll see our resident psychologist before you’re discharged. Then let your husband pamper you and have a great summer.” With that breezy attitude, he made his exit.
Paisley’s eyes swirled with confusion and wariness as she regarded me. But before I could say anything to reassure her, Juliet jumped to the rescue.
“I brought you a change of clothes,” she said, lifting the bag from one of the orange plastic chairs.
Paisley shifted on the hospital bed, wincing. “Unless you brought a potato sack, there’s no way I can get my shoulder through a sleeve hole. No one said resetting dislocations hurt this much.”
Juliet snorted. “It’s sweats and one of Grey’s T-shirts. It’ll be plenty big on you. No arm contortions required.”
I didn’t miss the rigidity in Paisley’s shoulders at the mention of wearing my shirt. Ordinarily she stole them all the time. But now I was a man she didn’t remember, and it was an intimacy she was no longer accustomed to.
I stood and cleared my throat. “I’ll give you some privacy.”
Just before the door closed behind me, I saw her stroking the T-shirt fabric in her lap. She might be wearing my shirt, but when it came to her, I was the one with my heart on my sleeve.