Chương 5
Emily’s mouth opened.
Nothing came.
Daniel looked frightened.
Not confused.
Frightened.
That was worse.
She stepped back so he would not feel crowded.
“My name is Emily.”
He stared at her.
“We’re at St. Anne’s Medical Center. You were in an accident.”
His eyes moved around the room.
“What…”
“Don’t try too hard.”
“My…”
“You’re safe.”
He swallowed again.
“My head.”
“I know.”
She pressed the nurse-call button.
Priya entered less than a minute later.
Daniel looked at her.
“Water.”
Priya smiled.
“That I can work with after I check a few things.”
Emily stood near the wall while Priya examined him.
Daniel followed some commands.
Not all.
He squeezed Priya’s fingers with his right hand. Moved both feet. Opened his eyes on request. Could state his first name after a long pause.
He did not know where he lived.
He thought the year was two years earlier.
He did not know Rachel when she entered fifteen minutes later.
He did know their mother.
That nearly broke Rachel.
Carol woke to Daniel saying, “Mom?”
She crossed the room with both hands over her mouth.
“Oh, sweetheart.”
Daniel looked at her with immediate recognition.
Emily saw the relief on his face.
She hated herself for being jealous of it.
The jealousy was small and ugly and completely real.
Carol touched his cheek.
Daniel closed his eyes.
“Mom.”
“I’m here.”
Emily moved farther back.
Rachel noticed.
She came beside her.
“He’ll remember.”
Emily did not answer.
Rachel touched her arm.
“Em.”
“Don’t.”
Rachel withdrew her hand.
“I’m sorry.”
“No. I’m sorry.”
They stood there while Carol told Daniel he was in the hospital and that he had been in an accident.
Daniel listened.
Then his gaze returned to Emily.
He studied her as if trying to place someone seen once at a party.
“You’re…”
“Emily.”
He looked at the ring on her right index finger.
Something shifted in his expression.
“Wrong hand.”
The room went silent.
Emily stared at him.
Daniel’s eyes narrowed with effort.
“Wrong…”
He closed them.
His face tightened in pain.
Dr. Shah, summoned from another floor, arrived before anyone could push further.
By three in the morning, the neurologist had explained post-traumatic amnesia twice.
The second time was mostly for Emily.
Memory after brain injury, he told them, could return unevenly. Old memories might remain while recent ones vanished. New memories might not form reliably for a while. Familiar people could feel unfamiliar. Recognition could fluctuate.
“Does he remember me or not?”
Dr. Shah crossed his arms.
“He may remember pieces.”
“He knew the phrase.”
“That suggests something.”
“What?”
“That some memory associated with it may be accessible.”
“Of me?”
“Possibly.”
“Of today?”
“Possibly.”
“Of the wedding?”
“Emily.”
She stopped.
Dr. Shah’s expression was tired but not impatient.
“I know you want me to turn this into a clean answer.”
“Yes.”
“I can’t.”
She looked toward Daniel.
He was asleep again.
Carol remained beside him.
Rachel had gone for coffee.
Emily lowered her voice.
“He asked who I was.”
“Yes.”
“Then he said something he said to me in the chapel.”
“Yes.”
“So how does he not know me?”
“The brain isn’t a filing cabinet.”
“I know that.”
“I know you know.”
“No, you don’t. Everyone keeps telling me I understand things because I can repeat the words back. I understand what amnesia means. I understand what swelling means. I understand what uncertain means. None of that tells me whether the man who was supposed to marry me knows who I am.”
Dr. Shah let the silence sit.
Then he said, “No. It doesn’t.”
Emily looked down.
Her fingernails had left marks in her palms again.
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to apologize to me.”
“I keep yelling at people who are helping him.”
“You haven’t yelled yet.”
She almost smiled.
He continued, “And you are allowed to be angry.”
She looked at him.
“Please don’t say that.”
He nodded immediately.
“Fair.”
At four thirty, Emily went downstairs.
She told Rachel she needed coffee.
Really, she needed to stand somewhere Daniel did not exist.
The cafeteria was closed except for vending machines. She bought something labeled vanilla latte from a machine near the lobby and regretted it after one sip.
She sat by a dark window.
Outside, the parking lot shone under tall white lights.
A man in green scrubs stood beside an SUV eating crackers from a packet. Two women in business clothes walked toward the elevators carrying balloons that said GET WELL SOON. A janitor pushed a wide mop across the floor without looking at anyone.
Emily had not checked her phone for hours.
There were 117 unread messages.
She opened none of them.
Instead she found Daniel’s last text before the accident.
11:08 a.m.
Florist messed up. Fixing it. Do not murder anyone until I get back.
At 11:09 she had replied:
No promises.
At 11:14:
Also bring coffee.
At 11:16 Daniel sent:
You don’t deserve me.
At 11:17 she wrote:
Correct.
There had been no answer.
The crash happened at 11:23.
Emily read the exchange until the words stopped looking like language.
Then she locked the phone.
“Vanilla?”
She looked up.
Rachel stood beside her.
Emily held out the paper cup.
“Take it.”
“No.”
“You didn’t even taste it.”
“I know what hospital vanilla tastes like.”
Rachel sat across from her.
For several minutes neither spoke.
Rachel had Daniel’s eyes.
Emily had noticed that the first time they met and had disliked her for it before Rachel even said hello.
That was five years ago, at Daniel’s apartment in Baltimore, when Rachel arrived unannounced with a dog she was temporarily fostering and immediately asked Emily whether she was “the Emily who hates camping.”
Emily had said, “I don’t hate camping. I hate sleeping outside on purpose.”
Rachel decided she liked her.
Their relationship had become the kind built partly on making fun of Daniel.
Tonight neither had much appetite for that.
Rachel folded the corner of a napkin.
May you like
“He remembered Mom.”
Emily stared at the vending machine.
