Jackson
My head fucking hurts. I can feel the slow curve of pain around every fold and crevice of my brain, coiling hot and heavy around where I’ve been told my skull was cut into.
My shitty Styrofoam cup is about halfway to my lips, trembling and threatening to slosh all over me, when a dark-haired woman breezes into the room and rushes to my side. I think I’ve seen her here before, but I can’t place who she is.
The woman’s soft hands tenderly wrap around mine, helping calm the out-of-control shake in my hand and bring the cup to my parched lips.
She holds it steady in place with a gentle smile and sad eyes.
Glassy and red around the edges, like she’s been crying.
Something niggles at me, makes me want to ask why she’s sad.
After I’ve guzzled so much I can feel it sloshing in my empty stomach, she pulls the cup away. “Do you want more? I can—I’ll refill this for you.”
“No, thank you.”
“Okay…” She steps back, reaching for a chair and pulling it closer to the bed. She sinks into it with an exhale and drops her heavy leather purse to the ground beside her as she gives me a once-over. She points to her own head and grins. “Hey, they took the drain out…. That’s great.”
She smooths a hand across her stomach, pulling at the oversized shirt emblazoned with my family’s cattle ranch brand—I recognize it from Austin’s shirt and hat—and I realize she doesn’t work here.
I think…I think this means she might be my wife.
That would explain the sad, defeated expression on her face.
My brain reaches into thin air, feeling around and grasping at nothing while I attempt to remember her name. My nurse, Aaron, reminded me at least a dozen times so I wouldn’t look like a total dick when she showed up. And now here I am.
“You’re my wife,” I state, rather than ask. If I’m right, maybe I’ll look less like a prick when I need to ask her what her name is later on.
She bites her lip and nods. “For over a decade now. We’ve been together for sixteen years.”
I grimace. “Shit. I’m that old?”
The woman has a honey-sweet laugh. I like the way it echoes through the room and envelopes me, even though it twists the knife that’s ever present in my brain.
I grit out, “Sorry, I—”
“Don’t apologize to me. You roasted yourself. Don’t you dare think about making a comment about how old it makes me.” Mid–finger wag, she becomes hazy and distorted by the bright spots in my vision.
I swallow hard, pressing the back of my skull into the pillow and shutting my eyes to focus on calculated deep breaths. The pain’s searing, like the voltage of a cattle prod coursing through my skull, singeing brain cells and bringing me to the verge of tears.
“Jackson? Are you okay?” Her voice is distant, each syllable causing another stab of pain.
I groan, squeezing the blankets tight in my grasp. I grip the pillow behind my head, wanting to cover my ears with it, and find the pressure against my skull only intensifies my pain. The woman says my name again, and my hands shake. She keeps getting louder, and I want to throw up. I want to die.
“Can you shut the fuck up?” My yell is distorted and haggard.
A second, an hour, a fucking lifetime later, the pain subsides, and I notice a hand smoothing over my hair when I return from hell. To my surprise, it’s soothing rather than excruciating.
My breathing slows and I slowly open my eyes to discover it’s her hand.
She’s close enough that my next inhale is filled with the soft scent of coconuts.
Her fingers comb through my hair, and part of me wants to tell her to stop; a nurse washed it yesterday when they changed my bandaging, but I know my hair’s far from clean clean.
Except her touch feels so good, I selfishly let her continue.
Also, she’s gently crying, and I’m guessing that’s because of me. So I’m too nervous to say anything that might make her more upset.
“You good, man?” Aaron asks quietly. He must’ve given me a heavy dose of painkillers direct to my bloodstream via IV.
“What the hell? Told you I didn’t want any more drugs.” I let my eyes fall shut again.
I hate the drugs. They work, that’s for damn sure. But they make my stomach churn, and leave my brain so numb it’s like every thought is a mess of fresh ink on wet paper—words and pictures running together. And they make me tired.
I was in a coma for days. I have a wife whose name I don’t know. The last two things I want to do more of are sleep and forget.
Aaron side-eyes me, but it’s the woman who speaks up first. “Stop trying to be a tough guy. You were literally writhing in pain, and you’re covered in sweat—you needed them.”
“But I hate—”
“Jackson.” She says my name with authority, instantly shutting me up. Then raises an eyebrow, daring me to argue with her. Keeping one hand gently placed on top of my head, she leans to grab my water and holds it in front of my face. “Stop. Have some water and relax.”
I take a reluctant sip of the ice-cold liquid. It does feel nice, given how hot I am all over. “You’re a bully.”
Aaron chuckles under his breath on his way out the door. “Kate might be the most stubborn woman I’ve ever met. She had some nurses scared to come in here with the way she’d stare them down and hammer them with questions.”
Kate.
My wife’s name is Kate.
I focus on the forgotten tear moistening her rosy cheek. She’s pretty—the nurses who told me so were right. Dark hair, hazel eyes freckled with greens and golds, and a sharp Cupid’s bow hung on plump, pink lips.
“I’m sorry for yelling at you.” I’m embarrassed to admit I’ve lost my cool on a couple nurses. I don’t mean to. And I don’t really know myself, but given how awful my stomach feels each time, I’m guessing it’s out of character.
Kate may be stubborn, but she’s equally soft. She tuts at me, slowing her caressing touch so she can focus on forcing me to drink more water.
“You know what’s funny? I talked your ear off so much while you were unconscious, and I secretly hoped I’d annoy you enough that you’d wake up and tell me to shut up.
” She holds the water still, letting me take small sips as she keeps talking.
“I did some reading about brain injuries while you were in your coma. Outbursts like that are pretty common.”
“Do they stop?”
“Sometimes. Some people just get better at managing their anger…redirecting that energy in a healthy way.”
She continues talking about all the research she’s done in the form of reading forums, and watching YouTube videos. I’m sure it’s incredibly helpful stuff, but the words blend together into alphabet soup, and I can’t manage to scoop them all up into anything coherent.
But I don’t mind watching her talk—she has a natural smile, a tiny cleft in her chin pops in and out at random, and her hands move a lot when she speaks. So I take in the rest of her for the first time.
“Are you wearing my clothes?” The question is barely audible. Her hand threading lightly through my hair has my eyelids feeling heavy.
She glances down at her outfit. “Oh…yeah. I steal them a lot, but especially when…” The muscles in her neck work down a heavy swallow, and she blinks up to the ceiling.
“Especially when what?”
“Especially…” Her tongue darts out to wet her lips and her nose crinkles. “Um…especially whenever I’ve been pregnant. Your shirts were the only thing that fit when I was pregnant with Odessa. That’s…she’s our daughter. She’ll be eight soon.”
My heart twists. “Daughter.”
Just like wife, the word feels entirely foreign on my tongue.
Kate pulls her hand from my head and digs into her giant purse until she produces a phone. “Let me show you pictures.”
“Oh, I…” I start to protest, though I don’t know why. Maybe because the simple knowledge of a child I didn’t know about has me feeling cast out to sea. Seeing a photo of a girl I’ve known for eight years, but don’t know, might just drown me.
Kate, stubborn as she is, won’t hear it.
She thrusts the phone at me, and I blink to focus on the screen. A little girl, all freckles and sun-kissed skin, wild hair blowing in the wind, my family’s ranch in the background. She looks a lot like Kate, but also a lot like…
“She looks kind of like my mom,” I muse, shoving the phone back to Kate as I fight for my next breath.
“Yeah…Lucy would’ve loved her. You…you know about that, right?”
I nod solemnly, vaguely recalling my dad breaking the news about losing Mom.
Maybe it’s the medications I’ve been taking or the brain fog.
Maybe I somehow knew deep in my bones that she was gone before he’d even told me.
But I didn’t cry. It didn’t cut in the same way finding out I have my own wife and daughter I don’t remember does.
“You knew Mom?”
She smiles to herself. “Yeah…yeah, I did. I was her care aide for a while. Your dad hired me to help take care of her when she was sick, and that’s how I met you.”
“We must’ve been babies.”
“We were. So there. We aren’t as old as you thought.” She quietly scrolls on her phone for a couple seconds, then thrusts the phone back at me. “This is Rhett. He’s basically your mini-me.”
There’s a man—me? I think?—grinning at a toddler covered in ice cream. It’s smeared across the kid’s face, and down the front of his denim overalls, and a long vanilla stream is running the length of my forearm.
“We have a son?”
“We do. He’s so much like you—quiet, patient, and, like, crazy smart.” Her face lights up. “Speaking of which, the kids made you cards last night.”
She carefully lifts two folded pieces of brightly colored construction paper from her bag, and I trade her phone for the cards. They’re simple paper, covered in crayons and stickers, but they weigh more than anything I’ve ever held before. I hesitate to open them.
“Kate.” Fuck, even her name feels strange in my mouth. I think on it for a second, then repeat it with a softer tone. The way I imagine her husband speaks to her. “Kate, I can’t look at these. I can’t do this.”
“You need to look at them, Jackson. We need you to remember your family. We need you to come back.”