Life as I Know It

by Melanie Rose

  “I don’t mind,” I said tiredly, not wanting the boy to have to kiss me any more than he seemed to want to do it. “None of this is his fault, either. This is confusing for all of us.”

  The other children ignored the interchange and chatted together while Toby jumped on the bed, jarring my burns until Nurse Sally arrived to change the dressings and suggested to my husband that he take the children home.

  “You look about done in,” she said when they had gone. She removed one of the pillows and I settled down at last to rest. “Try to sleep. You never know, your memory might come back in the morning.”

  I was desperate to speak to the doctor again. I had a million questions to ask, but visions of Dr. Shakir’s fascinated expression when he’d looked at me set off warning bells in my mind, and I pressed my lips together, nodding obediently. I closed my eyes, realizing how tired I really was after the immense shocks of the day. I lay for a while listening to the sounds of the hospital around me: metal carts being wheeled, doors creaking open and closed, the soft steps and hushed tones of the night staff as they exchanged news, and then I was asleep.

  Yet it seemed no time at all before I was being shaken awake. The nurse bending over me was a different girl. Nurse Sally must be off-duty, I realized dozily as I sat up, accepting the drink that was pressed into my hand. Eyes half-closed, I sipped the warm tea gratefully, feeling the heat and sweetness of it seeping into my being. Reaching out to put the empty cup on the hospital cabinet, I felt the empty space with my hand too late, and both cup and saucer fell with a crash to the floor.

  Wriggling into a sitting position, I looked in dismay at the mess. The bedside cabinet wasn’t where it had been when I dropped off to sleep. It was on the opposite side of the bed and it looked somehow different. The silver light of early morning was creeping into the room from a wide window at one end of the ward. A four-bedded ward. I counted the beds with growing disbelief. Had they moved me from my windowless room in the night?

  Alarmed, I found the red buzzer at the head of my hospital bed and buzzed long and hard, my hand shaking with growing confusion.

  A male nurse came running.

  “What’s the problem, Ms. Taylor?”

  My mouth dropped open in astonishment.

  “You called me Ms. Taylor,” I heard myself whisper. “How do you know my name?”

  “The man who brought you in found your name and address on your dog’s collar,” the nurse replied soothingly. “Now don’t get yourself all worked up. He said to tell you he’s taken the dog home with him for the time being. He said you weren’t to worry about Frankie; she’s in good hands.”

  I felt the wetness on my face and knew I was crying, though no sound escaped my lips. The nurse tut-tutted and patted my hand sympathetically.

  “That’s right, Jessica,” he said. “Have a good cry. You’re probably still in shock from the lightning strike. You’re a very lucky young lady, you know.”

  I nodded, leaning my head back on the starched hospital pillows, and gave a deep, shuddering sigh. So it had all been a nightmare. I’d been hit by lightning but the rest of it had been a ghastly, unsettling dream caused by nothing more than the shock of what had happened to me. I was still me, still Jessica Taylor. I peered down at my ringless fingers and wanted to sob for joy.

  Glancing up, I watched as the nurse made his way back down the ward in search of a dustpan and brush. There were no small children hiding in the shadows, no husband trying to convince me I was his wife. As soon as the nurse was out of sight, I turned my face into the pillow and wept with relief.

  I found it disconcerting to realize how my mind had worked on things while I had slept. In the dream I’d pictured myself much more damaged by the chance lightning strike than it appeared I actually was. In reality, there was no drip in my arm, no heart monitors attached to my chest, and no large bandage round my neck and shoulders. It was as if I had prepared myself for the worst, and now I was pleasantly surprised to find myself almost unscathed. A very young Chinese intern came to see me soon after I’d finished the rather spartan hospital breakfast of cornflakes and toast. He introduced himself as Dr. Chin and assured me I’d gotten off very lightly.

  “The burns to your back and shoulder are minimal,” he explained. “We have dressed the wounds lightly to prevent infection, but they are superficial and should heal in a few days without leaving permanent scarring.”

  “No antibiotics required, then?” I asked.

  He shook his head, peering at a chart that had been hanging at the foot of the bed. “We only admitted you to the ward because you had not regained consciousness, but your two-hourly observations through the night have proved satisfactory.”

  “Did my heart stop at any time?” I asked anxiously.

  The intern shook his head of sleek black hair. “No, no, nothing like that. You are a very strong woman.” He paused before adding, “You sleep very deeply, Ms. Taylor. You have been asleep since yesterday. How do you feel now?”

  I thought about this for a moment or two, then grinned at him. “I feel fine. Can I go home then?”

  “We will wait for the consultant’s ward round,” he said, nodding. “But I am sure everything will be okay.”

  He started to leave, then turned back to me and smiled. “Do you know that once, the Chinese believed lightning to be a very unlucky omen? It was thought that lightning was a sign of God’s disapproval. I do not think you are unlucky, though, Ms. Taylor. In fact, I think you had a very lucky escape.”

  You are not kidding, I thought, watching him scurry off down the ward. I lay back gingerly against the pillows, careful not to snag the light gauze dressing on my left shoulder. In my mind’s eye I pictured Grant and the four children. They had seemed so real at the time, and I wondered from where I had conjured up their names and images. It occurred to me as my mind drifted into a light doze that it was strange how I could remember the dream so clearly. I gave an involuntary shudder. It also occurred to me that I had indeed had a very lucky escape.

  The ward round consisted of four white-coated doctors hovering around a fifth in ascending order of rank, clustering together at the foot of each bed in turn. It was immediately apparent which was the most senior doctor, and, from the obsequious half bows of Dr. Chin, who stood on the farthest outer ring of the gravitational field of the consultant, I ascertained that my doctor was probably the most lowly figure among them. The realization gave me fresh cause to breathe a sigh of relief. A less experienced doctor must mean that my injuries were minor and little cause for concern.

  My mind went back to the dream and Lauren’s injuries. She had been far more badly injured than I had been. Of course she wasn’t real, just a figment of my imagination, but I wondered why, if I’d invented her, I had also envisaged her as having been struck more severely by the lightning—badly enough, it seemed, for her heart to have stopped beating altogether.

  With half my mind still preoccupied by Lauren and the dream, I watched as the consultant, a bald-headed man with a smart pinstripe suit visible inside the flapping white lab coat, looked down his beaklike nose at me as if appraising a joint of meat for his Sunday roast. I tried to dismiss the picture of the buzzard that leapt into my mind as I pulled the bedclothes protectively around my chest.

  The buzzard spoke in a rather bored voice that belied the interest in his eyes. “So, what have we here?”

  Dr. Chin sprang into action, gripping his notes and reading jerkily, “This is Ms. Taylor. Twenty-eight years of age. She was admitted yesterday with minor burns to the left back and shoulder after being hit by lightning.”

  “Ah, the lightning girl, eh? Saved by her coat. Jolly lucky escape, Ms. Taylor, if I may say so.” The consultant smirked and turned his attention back to the anxious intern. “Any related problems?”

  “Ms. Taylor was unconscious on arrival. Two-hourly obs showed everything reading normal. On regaining consciousness, she seemed disoriented, but has since recovered all her faculties.”

/>   “So, ready to go home then, Ms. Taylor?”

  I nodded.

  “Good, good. I think we can discharge her today.”

  Losing interest quickly, he moved to a bed on the opposite side of the room. I watched as he stared distastefully down at the next unfortunate patient. “And what have we here?” he intoned unemotionally from the other side of the room.

  A commotion at the entrance to the ward diverted my attention from the huddle of doctors. The male nurse who had been so kind to me earlier was talking earnestly with a visitor, whose face was barely visible behind a large bunch of flowers.

  “You’ll have to wait until the ward round is finished,” the nurse was saying in hushed tones. “You can wait in the visitors’ room. Who is it you’ve come to see?”

  The man lowered the flowers a fraction, and my whole body tensed with a mixture of excitement and apprehension as I recognized the stranger from the previous day. My first instinct was to slide down under the covers and pull the sheet over my head, but my body seemed to be stuck rigidly in position. He glanced into the room, his eyes searching, coming to rest on my face.

  He looked different than how I’d remembered him, his short hair framing a square, masculine face. Behind the flowers he was wearing beige cargo pants with an open-necked polo shirt hanging loose at a slim boyish waist. Thank goodness I wasn’t connected to a heart monitor like in the dream, I thought, as I felt the blood pounding through my veins. It would have beeped off the scale!

  He waved at me over the flowers, then followed the nurse out into the corridor, presumably to wait until the buzzard had finished his round. As soon as he was out of sight, I bolted upright and ran my fingers through my hair, trying to tease out some of the tangles. Quickly, I rummaged through the bedside cabinet, but this time there was no handy brush, mine or otherwise. I couldn’t believe it. Here I was without so much as a hairbrush or lipstick, when the most handsome man I had set eyes on for years was visiting.

  By the time the consultant and his followers had left the ward, I was utterly apprehensive. What was I supposed to say to this man whose name I didn’t even know? We’d met so briefly, so intensely in the violence of the storm. What must he think of me, a muddy, soaked-to-the-skin girl who was stupid enough to be struck by a bolt of lightning five minutes after we’d met?

  My cheeks flushed again at the thought, and I buried my face in my hands with a groan of embarrassment.

  “Hi there.”

  I dropped my hands and looked up. He was standing smiling at me, as if he knew exactly what I’d been thinking. With calm, measured movements, he handed the flowers to me, pulled up a red vinyl hospital chair, and sat down next to the bed.

  “How are you feeling today?”

  “Better, thanks,” I croaked. “I’ve just been told I can go home later.” Clearing my throat, I tried to gain control of my vocal cords. “I owe you a big thank-you. The nurse told me you brought me in yesterday.”

  “I couldn’t very well leave you lying unconscious in the rain,” he said with a smile.

  The twinkle in his deep blue eyes was disconcerting. I tried to stop my lips from forming into an indignant pout and forced myself to remember my manners.

  “The nurse also said you were minding Frankie for me. I can’t thank you enough.”

  “It’s the least I could do,” he said, his smile widening broadly.

  “You’re laughing at me,” I accused him in a teasing voice. “I realize I probably don’t look much of a picture lying here in a hospital gown, with no makeup, but you could have the decency to at least pretend I’m not a complete mess.”

  “Are we having our first argument?” he asked with a grin.

  I stared at him, momentarily speechless, then burst out laughing. I remembered then how we’d laughed at each other the first moment we’d met.

  “I suppose you haven’t seen me looking anything other than a mess,” I managed to say when the laughter had died down.

  “You’re really not all that bad,” he said quietly. “With or without makeup, soaked to the skin and smoldering in a puddle, or looking palely interesting in a hospital gown.”

  I gazed up at him, wondering if he was joking, this knight in shining armor who had appeared in my life like a bolt from the blue. Despite the twinkle in his eyes I had the feeling he was being serious. I wanted to say that he was the most gorgeous guy I’d ever seen, but I thought better of it, smiled instead, and asked him his name.

  “I’m Daniel Brennan,” he said formally, holding out his hand. “‘Dan’ to my friends.”

  “Hello Dan,” I replied. “I believe you already found out my name from Frankie’s tag.”

  “Yeah, you had no handbag, nothing in your pockets. Then I realized your dog had a name tag on her collar with your details on the back.”

  “A regular Sherlock Holmes,” I laughed. “Is Frankie okay?”

  “She went frantic when the lightning struck,” Dan said. “I thought she was going to bury you with mud before I could get to you.”

  “Poor Frankie.”

  “It wasn’t too great for any of us,” he said, his expression finally serious. “At first, I thought you were dead. Your breathing was so shallow I could hardly detect it, and the dogs were going wild. The rain just got worse and worse while I was trying to find a pulse, and you seemed to be getting so cold. In the end I just picked you up, threw you onto the backseat of my car wrapped in the dog blanket, chucked the dogs in the back, and drove like hell to the nearest hospital.”

  “I’m so sorry. It must have been awful for you.”

  “Do you know what I was thinking as I drove you here? Not what trouble I’d be in if I turned up with the dead body of an unknown female in my car, but how terrible it would be never to hear you laugh again.”

  I looked at him askance, and was struggling to think of a suitable reply when he scraped back the chair and sprang to his feet.

  “Hey, I’ll get you a vase or something for these, shall I?” He grabbed the flowers from my lap and took off down the ward with such speed I thought he was in danger of slipping on the shiny linoleum flooring.

  I lay back as a tremor ran through my body that had nothing to do with the lightning strike.

  He was gone awhile, and I was beginning to think he had left the hospital when he reappeared with the flowers, still minus a vase.

  “I’ve been talking to the nurse,” he said, resting the flowers on top of the cabinet. “He said you can go home as soon as you’re ready. He’ll be along in a moment to sort you out.” He gestured to the flowers. “We may as well take these home with us.”

  The word us sent another tremor down my spine, and I glanced up at him questioningly.

  He grinned with his piercing Brad Pitt eyes. “I’m assuming you’ll need a lift, as your car is presumably somewhere in a parking lot near the Downs?”

  Struggling to keep the excitement out of my voice, I nodded. “That would be very kind of you.”

  “It won’t be the first time you’ve been in my car, after all,” he joked. “Only last time you were unconscious and dripping rainwater all over the upholstery.”

  The nurse arrived with a bundle of clothing and asked if I wanted Dan on the inside or the outside of the curtain while I changed. I smiled inwardly at the assumption that Dan was my boyfriend. Dan held up his hands as the curtain was pulled around the bed and stepped smartly out into the ward.

  The nurse produced a pair of scissors from his short tunic pocket and snipped off my plastic ID bracelet. “The gauze dressing can come off in a few days,” he said. “If you have any trouble see your GP, but your burns are minor. You were lucky to be wearing such a thick jacket.” He straightened up. “There you are. Free to go. And next time stay indoors during thunderstorms!”

  Slipping out of bed, I pulled off the thin hospital gown and laid it on the bed. It felt strange being upright; I was still a little shaky. Sinking down on the bed again I struggled into my underclothes, careful to posit
ion my bra strap well away from the sore spot on my shoulder, then pulled the jeans up and fastened them. Someone must have dried them for me overnight because although they were encrusted with mud they were bone dry. It was when I unfolded the sweater that I realized what the nurse had meant about how lucky I’d been. On the back of the left shoulder was a blackened scorch mark about the size of an orange.

  Gingerly, I smoothed out the old-fashioned sheepskin coat I used for dog walking. My mother had been about to donate it to a rummage sale years ago but had given it to me when I’d exclaimed how useful it would be for walking Frankie on the Downs in all kinds of weather. I felt the hairs stand up on the back of my neck when I looked at the area around the shoulder where the lightning had struck. It had actually run into a singed mess closely resembling melted plastic.

  Tracing the burned area with my finger, I shuddered, realizing how close I must have come to being as badly injured as the Lauren of my dream. Was this ancient coat all that had stood between me and possible death?

  A measured Indian accent popped from the recesses of my brain. “In some cases this spark can generate a temperature of thirty thousand degrees centigrade, Lauren—about six times hotter than the surface of the sun.”

  Oh no, I thought with a sickening jolt. Where had that come from?

  I felt queasy suddenly, and was wondering if the hospital would give me a bowl to take with me in Dan’s car, when he stuck his head around the curtain.

  “You all right?”

  Rubbing my face with my hands, I smiled wanly up at him. “I feel a bit sick actually. Is the nurse still around?” “I’ll go look.”

  He came back quickly with the nurse in tow, who was all kindness and sympathy.

  “Do you want to wait here awhile? See if it passes?” The nurse felt my forehead with his hand. “It is possible the lightning has upset your ears, given you a sort of motion sickness. It has been known to cause deafness. Maybe I should fetch the doctor to check that out. Is your hearing okay? Your vision and everything all right?”