Jackson #2
“No.” I slide them onto the bedside cart.
Her jaw tenses and she gives me the same intimidating look she did earlier with the water. She’s so goddamn bossy.
I’d get up and get the hell out of here, if I could.
I’m stuck with a woman who seems apt to pry my eyelids open and force me to look at these cards, if I try too hard to fight her on it.
My mom never took shit from anyone, but I’m a little surprised I married a woman who literally wears the pants in the relationship.
The first card must be from the toddler, because it’s nothing but scribbles and haphazardly placed stickers.
I flip it over, then open it. Granted, I haven’t spent any time trying to read or watch television or anything like that since I woke up, but I thought my biggest problems with my brain injury were the memory loss and migraines.
Staring at this mess of color, I’m more than a little worried about the state of everything else.
Kate scoots forward in her chair and traces the drawing with a fingertip. “He made you a superhero. You have laser eyes, and giant muscles, and I think this is a cape. You’re his superhero.”
I quickly set it down and reach for the second.
The sooner we get this over with, the better.
“Odessa wants a horse?” It turns out, I can read. I’m still a little concerned about my ability to comprehend pictures though, because the horse looks more like a giraffe with a drinking problem.
“You were supposed to be taking her to the auction that day…. You’d promised her a horse for her birthday.”
I scratch at the bandage wrapped around my head and shut the card, then toss it on top of the second. I’m done with this. I want to go back to spending my free time counting the ceiling tiles and watching my own monitors as if they’re televisions. It’s easier on my heart.
Kate doesn’t care about what’s easier on my heart.
She talks my ear off for an indefinite amount of time, telling me intimate details of our kids.
Their likes and dislikes, Odessa’s penchant for harassing the barn cats in an attempt to make them love her, Rhett’s ability to create incredibly intricate towers out of wooden blocks.
She explains that my brothers are both married.
There are a ton of kids on the ranch. We have a woman named Beryl, whose job title is hazy to me, but she’s apparently like a grandmother to our kids—and this is a good thing, I’m told, because Kate’s parents live far away.
She bullies me into drinking sips of water every time the mood strikes, and when food delivery comes in with a particularly heinous-looking plate of lunch, she demands I give each food group a fighting chance.
She watches me with an intimidating look as I follow the occupational therapist’s direction.
When I try to argue with nurses that I don’t need or want anything to help with the pain swirling around my head, she shuts me up and insists I don’t know what’s good for me.
She’s soft, and tenacious, and unrelenting when it comes to her care for me.
By mid-afternoon, my head tips on the pillow so I’m facing her. Everything feels sluggish and I have a hard time keeping my eyes open.
During a particularly lengthy and confusing explanation of all the friends and family who live on the ranch—her fourth or fifth attempt at helping me understand—my blinks become increasingly long.
Yawns frequent. On one of the rare occasions my eyes are fully open, I take a minute to look her over.
To really study the woman I’m married to. Memorize her and pray I don’t forget.
She’s pulled her legs up so she’s sitting cross-legged in the upholstered chair, dressed in my tattered, baggy jeans and T-shirt. And suddenly a question is niggling at me. “Can I ask—Never mind. I can’t—Ignore me.”
“You can ask whatever you want…it’s kind of my job to fill in the blanks until you remember everything.”
“It’s not a question I should be asking. It’s too…invasive.”
“We’re husband and wife. You don’t know it now, but just last week you knew literally everything about me. There isn’t a question on Earth that would be too invasive.”
I clear my throat, buying time. “Since you mentioned my clothes earlier…and them being the only thing that fit when…um, are you pregnant?”
Regret seeps from my pores immediately when the light in her eyes all but disappears in a single blink. It’s as if she saw a ghost, and words fly out of my mouth in a stammering, incoherent attempt at backpedaling.
Kate puts her hand up to stop me, eyes shut tight. “No…No, I’m not pregnant.”
“Shit, see…that’s why I didn’t want to ask.”
“It’s fine. I told you that you could.” She pushes her chair back, and the grating squeal of metal dragged across the floor makes me wince. “You look tired, and I want to get back to the ranch before dark….”
I am tired. And for the first time since I woke up, I’m not as scared to go back to sleep. My brain’s whirring with stories she’s told me, and an image of the smile she has whenever she talks about her kids, and I know I’ll be thinking of both while I sleep.
She reluctantly stands, pressing a palm to her abdomen, and rocks on her heels. Purse in hand, she turns to the door, and I wait for her to saunter out.
At the last second, she spins to face me, and I can’t explain the sigh of relief that deflates my lungs. I’m counting down the seconds to when my room’s silent so I can sleep without her incessant chatter. And yet, I’d love for her to stay.
Kate steps in toward the edge of my bed, then lingers there with her index finger twirling the same loose blanket thread I was messing with earlier.
“Thought you were going,” I say.
Movement wary, she bends in close enough the softness of her lips connects with my forehead. And in a low, lulling voice, she says, “I’d never leave you without saying goodbye.”