Life as I Know It

by Melanie Rose

  “Like being hit over the head?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Exactly. You were a very lucky woman, Lauren. According to your children, the lightning hit you directly on the head, back, and shoulders. Your hair, I hear, stood on end and actually caught fire, and there are burns consistent with this.”

  “The burns aren’t deep, though, considering how hot you said lightning can get?” I probed, twisting the unaccustomed wedding band on my finger as I spoke. “Would you have expected the burns to be worse?”

  Dr. Shakir smiled. “You are an inquisitive woman, Lauren. Yes, I was surprised there wasn’t more burning to your head, but in the case of your shoulder, then no, I wasn’t surprised. Skin is the primary resistor to the flow of current into the body, causing the appearance of surface burns, but preventing deep tissue damage. With lightning the current is present in the body for a very brief time, causing short-circuiting of the body’s electrical systems: cardiac arrest such as in your case, vascular spasm, neurological damage, and autonomic instability.”

  “So there was nothing about my case that was out of the ordinary?”

  He paused and broke eye contact before shaking his head.

  “No.”

  I stared at him, realizing that what he had been holding back all along was the very thing I had been desperate to discover. Had Lauren’s injuries actually killed her? From what he had told me, and from the fascinated way he looked at me, I got the very clear impression that all Dr. Shakir’s medical experience indicated that I should not be here. My living, breathing presence belied his gut instincts, confounding his diagnosis. No wonder he wouldn’t look me in the eye, I thought grimly.

  I remembered suddenly what Dr. Chin had said about possible deafness and the chance of developing cataracts at a later date, and put the question to Dr. Shakir.

  “You are remarkably well informed about your condition,” he said.

  He seemed happier now that we were back in safe medical territory. I watched as his shoulders visibly relaxed. “This is accurate information regarding high-voltage injury, but I have checked you thoroughly, and you appear at present to be in the clear.” He paused. “In fact, when we have had the results of the MRI scan, providing everything is normal you can probably go home.”

  “Today?” I asked him apprehensively.

  He shook his head. “I will come and see you again tomorrow. If your scan results are available then, and you are feeling generally in good health, we may be able to let you out tomorrow. If you are still experiencing memory loss at that time we could arrange an outpatient appointment for you at our psychiatric unit. Meanwhile, I suggest you get some rest. I’m sure it will be very difficult for you to get much peace and quiet once you are home.”

  Grant came to visit me alone that evening. He said the children were exhausted after their day out. He’d put them to bed early and asked a neighbor to come in and keep an eye on them for an hour or two.

  “How is Teddy bearing up?” I asked him, partly to show an interest in his children’s well-being and partly because, despite my denials, I was deeply affected by Teddy’s situation.

  Grant shrugged. “He’s upset, obviously. He doesn’t really understand what’s happening, Lauren. He keeps crying for his mummy.”

  I avoided his gaze, thinking that Teddy seemed to have a better grasp of what was happening than anyone else did.

  “Have they said when you can come home?” he asked.

  “Maybe tomorrow,” I said, trying to keep my mind off the hideous possibility of such a thing.

  Home. Another unknown step into the dark. A place where, unless I woke up as Jessica again soon, I would be expected to play a role I would have to guess at as I went along; to live a life that simply wasn’t mine. I wanted to go home all right, but I wanted to continue with my own life, to be in control of my own destiny. I thought of my mother’s comments about not trying to be Superwoman and fought back tears of frustration. I had always been my own woman—fiercely independent and determined to do things my own way. My life might not have been perfect, but it had been mine. And now I found I wasn’t in control of anything at all. I was being swept along; a mere passenger on a roller-coaster ride that was more terrifying than anything the children could possibly have experienced at Chessington.

  I yawned widely, covering my mouth. Sleep was what I needed now and what I hoped was the key to the door between these two worlds.

  Grant got the message. I thought how tired he looked himself as he kissed me lightly on the forehead before heading for the door.

  “Good night, sweetheart,” he whispered as he closed the door behind him. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

  “Good night, Grant.” I sank back against the pillows, realizing with a pang of guilt as I watched his retreating back that I was fervently hoping it might be the last I ever saw of him.

  chapter four

  When I awoke snuggled in the double duvet in my own bed, the feeling of relief was immense. I still wasn’t convinced that my experience as Lauren was simply a normal dream—there were too many abnormalities, too many questions left unanswered—but I was awake now, I was Jessica again; my body felt physically rested and my mind relaxed as if I had merely been deeply asleep and dreaming. Yawning, I luxuriated in the knowledge that I was home and safe in my own world.

  I sat up and hugged Frankie tightly. “You will never believe where I’ve been,” I told her as I slid out of bed and padded barefoot to the high window. I flung open the curtains to another glorious autumn day. “What would you say if I told you I was somewhere else all night while you were lying here keeping my feet warm for me?”

  Frankie tilted her head to one side and gave a short bark.

  I ran myself a hot bath, and while it was running I gave Frankie her breakfast of dry mix, put the kettle on for my morning tea, and went to the front door in my pajamas to look for the mail.

  Nothing but circulars. It should have been sad, really, that few people ever wrote to me. The only mail I received on a regular basis usually came in brown envelopes, with the exception of occasional airmail letters from my brother, Simon, but I supposed that was because I was what some people might call a bit of a loner. I smiled to myself as I sifted through the junk mail. I preferred my own character description of self-sufficient, work-oriented, and perhaps a little wary of commitment. But either way, today I didn’t care. All that mattered was that I was here, back in my own body where I should be, flaws and all.

  As I lay in the bath looking down at my youthful body, I smiled at the lack of stretch marks and bruises, the dark body hair in all the right places. I wondered if blondes had to shave their legs. I hoped I would never have to find out.

  The thought sobered me, robbing me of the joy I’d been experiencing since I’d woken up. Grabbing the soap, I worked it to a rich lather and began to wash vigorously. I might be home now, but the nightmare clung, refusing to simply rinse away with the soapsuds. At some point this body would need to sleep, and while it was resting, the nightmare might return. I had only dreamed the dream twice, but the fact that the second dream had seemed to continue on so smoothly from the first was dreadfully worrying. Suppose I found myself struggling with that other life again?

  Lying back in the warm water, my mind dwelled on the possibilities. Dream or not, while I was being Lauren, her life had seemed as real to me as my own.

  And what if I had to experience going home to that family? The thought brought a rush of terror. Yesterday, when I’d been dozing, I’d been aware of Lauren having her drip disconnected. Did that mean that every time I slept, I ran the risk of returning to continue the dream? If that were the case then I’d be constantly on the go, flitting from dream to reality without respite.

  Watching a tiny bubble drift up to the ceiling, I was filled with the dreadful certainty that the real Lauren was dead. After listening to Dr. Shakir’s account of her injuries I was sure he felt Lauren should be dead or irreparably brain-damaged, despite his outward claim th
at her quick recovery was nothing unusual.

  The thought that the children’s mother had probably died not only shook me to the core, it brought a lump to my throat. She had been a stranger to me, of course, and possibly a figment of my imagination, but in my dream I had been there in her body and I felt an overwhelming grief for this woman I had never known. My heart went out to her husband and children. They had lost the wife and mother they loved, and didn’t even know they should be mourning her loss.

  My lips trembled and I pressed them firmly together. There was nothing I could do for her now, I told myself. The best I could do while I was there was to try to keep her body from further harm, and I found myself wondering what another chapter of the dream might hold for me. Meanwhile, I rather guiltily thanked my lucky stars it had been Lauren who had died and not me.

  I lay back in the warm water for a moment or two, pondering why I had survived and Lauren obviously hadn’t, when the whole situation suddenly seemed absurd. I sat up abruptly, slopping water over the edges of the tub onto the green bathroom carpet. What was I doing, allowing this incredible situation to take over my thoughts? I asked myself angrily. Why was I accepting this living nightmare as if it were a normal, everyday occurrence? I knew that what was frightening me most was the possibility that it wasn’t a dream at all. Not in the normal sense, anyway. And if it wasn’t a dream, then what?

  Sitting in the rapidly cooling water, I gazed into space, wondering. What other explanation could there be, other than the shadowy fear that when I was awake I was Jessica, and when Lauren was awake I was her…

  I groaned loudly, putting my hands over my ears as if I could shut out the clamoring of my own thoughts, thoughts that sounded as if they had come straight from watching the sci-fi channel. I had to believe that the dream was over now, or I’d be afraid to sleep ever again.

  Frankie had heard the groan and was whining at the bathroom door.

  “It’s okay, Frankie,” I called through the door. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

  Still sitting up, I shampooed my dark brown hair, thanking God for the lack of burns to my scalp as I massaged it to a lather. The lightning hadn’t hit my head at all.

  Perhaps, I thought, as I ran Saturday’s events through my mind for the umpteenth time, my lucky escape hadn’t been solely due to the protection afforded by my thick sheepskin coat. It might well have been partly due to the way I’d been hunched forward against the downpour, ready to dive into the passenger seat of Dan’s car, so that the force had missed my head.

  Ducking under the water to wash the shampoo away and then wriggling upright, I stepped out of the bath, squeezed the excess water out of my hair, and wrapped myself in my bathrobe. I glanced at the clock. Damn! I’d been so caught up in what was happening to me, I was going to be late for work if I didn’t hurry. I dressed quickly, shoved a piece of toast into my mouth, and ran up the steps with Frankie at my heels. We walked for ten minutes while Frankie sniffed at lampposts and did her business, which I picked up in my scooper. We headed home at a brisk trot.

  “See you at lunchtime,” I called as I closed the door to my flat behind me and, biting a chunk out of a juicy red apple, headed out onto the pavement for the quick walk to work.

  The legal firm I worked for, Chisleworth & Partners, was housed in a drab-looking building on a side street. I took the steps two at a time, and arrived at my desk about half a minute before my boss, Stephen Armitage.

  Stephen was a good-looking man in his early forties and had been my boss for the last ten years, ever since I’d left secretarial school at the age of eighteen. He’d overseen most of my training to become a legal secretary and had encouraged me to work toward gaining extra qualifications in the legal field, taking me under his wing as his assistant and protégé. Stephen had been kind and attentive and we spent much of our working hours together, sometimes working late into the night when the office was quiet and we were gathering documents and files for court.

  As I shrugged out of my coat in the narrow confines of the outer office, I was reminded of how our working proximity had led one night to a gentle coming together, and while I had never been totally sure of my feelings for him, a relationship with him had seemed easy and inevitable. It had seemed sensible after a while to move into a flat he owned, though I retained my independence by paying him rent and splitting our everyday expenses. Although we had both known I wasn’t ready or willing to settle down properly, we had remained lovers for nearly six years.

  Walking back to my desk, I flicked on my computer, unable to keep my mind from dwelling on past actions and decisions I had made. I knew my experience as Lauren was making me question my life here as Jessica, and it suddenly became clear that my doubts about Stephen had probably been obvious to him all along. That doubt was possibly the reason that he’d kept his own flat close to the office, and had influenced our joint decision to see each other socially several times a week rather than living permanently together. I realized now that I had thought of him as more of a friend with whom I was having a relationship than as a partner, and cringed when I remembered I had even introduced him to my parents as such.

  I stared blankly at the computer screen as it flickered into life before me, recalling how we’d muddled along in that unsatisfactory fashion until rumors reached me that he was seeing a female barrister on a regular basis. I knew it wasn’t so much the lies or the fact that he was cheating on me that prompted me to move out and put a down payment on a flat of my own, but rather the fact that the news hadn’t bothered me anywhere near as much as I knew it ought to have if I’d really cared for him.

  It seemed that Stephen had felt much the same way, and somehow we’d made the difficult transition from lovers to friends, because I loved my job, even if I had to admit I had never really loved him.

  Glancing at the clock on the wall, I knew how fortunate I was that the working day began late at Chisleworth & Partners. Stephen never put in an appearance until after ten o’clock, and as long as I was in the office slightly before him he didn’t seem to mind what time I arrived.

  This morning he squeezed my shoulder affectionately as he passed my desk, which was unfortunate since the high-voltage burn was still pretty tender. I winced with pain, and he was instantly contrite, asking what on earth was the matter. I told him about the lightning strike and he was suitably horrified.

  Not as horrified as he would have been if he’d known I’d spent my sleeping hours since Saturday in the body of another woman, I thought to myself, as he asked me solicitously if I was well enough to be working. The nightmare seemed unreal, even laughable now, in the familiar surroundings of the shabby office, with the coffee machine gurgling away in the corner and the computer blinking up at me.

  I assured him I was fine, and he vanished into his office with the undisguised relief of a man who had thought I might have wanted him to do something about it.

  There were two other girls working with me: Clara, who was secretary to Rory Chisleworth himself, and Delores, who answered the telephone, made coffee for clients, and spent the rest of the day bitching about her boyfriend to anyone who would listen. As soon as the office door closed behind Stephen’s smart but rather dated blue pinstripe suit, I got up and grabbed the newspaper from Clara’s desk, my eyes flicking straight to the date. Monday, October 20. And there was the article about the royal family. How could I possibly have dreamed that?

  “Help yourself,” Clara smiled, with a touch of friendly sarcasm, handing me a cup of coffee before I’d even had time to assimilate all that the date meant.

  I sat down at my desk and sipped the hot drink thoughtfully. Monday again, and with the same news. I’d already lived through Monday as Lauren. So what kind of a dream had this sort of continuity? The thoughts that had plagued me earlier returned, reducing my legs to jelly. I’d certainly never heard of anyone picking up a dream from where they’d left off the previous night and living it as if it were an alternate life.

  There was that o
ther possibility, I told myself uneasily. It was even more frightening than the dream theory. It might explain why when I was here I was Jessica, and when I was asleep I became Lauren. I knew I couldn’t keep blocking out the awful dawning suspicion forever. Sooner or later I would have to face the inconceivable… Could it be that somehow my life force—my soul—had been split by the simultaneous lightning strike, so that it now inhabited both bodies alternately?

  The outlandish idea caused me to suck in a quick breath, which in turn caused a coughing fit as the coffee slid down the wrong way. Clara, who I believe had been talking to me, came and held out a tissue, which I took gratefully. I wiped my eyes and then gave my nose a good blow, which seemed to calm everything down.

  “Are you sure you’re okay to be working?” she asked, perching on the corner of my desk. “You look very pale.”

  “I’m fine, honestly,” I assured her.

  She’d heard me telling Stephen about the lightning strike and wanted to know the details. I told her about meeting Dan and how he’d given me a lift back to my car the next day. She grinned at me and looked as if she was about to interrogate me further when Delores appeared from reception.

  “Mr. Chisleworth’s ten-thirty is here,” she announced. Clara returned to her desk with a knowing glance at me, and there was no more opportunity for small talk as the working day began.

  Today, unfortunately, Stephen was preparing a case for court. That meant I would be working closely with him, getting the files together, and would probably not leave the office until after six o’clock, except for my hour-long lunch break when I walked the ten minutes home again to see Frankie.

  As it happened, Stephen wanted to work right through lunch, but he knew I walked Frankie in my break and begrudgingly allowed me half an hour to hurry home. I let Frankie out and sat on the wall that surrounded my little courtyard, eating the egg and cress sandwich I’d bought from the sandwich girl at the office before I left.