Splintered Memory

by Natascha Holloway

  Charlie went to see lots of flats and houses, but she couldn’t find anywhere that she thought was right for them. Matt smiled at her refusal to be downcast about this, and he told her that they’d find somewhere eventually. She laughed in response to this, and when he looked at her she said; “we’ll find somewhere?” He smiled back at her guiltily, knowing that he hadn’t been helping.

  Matt was happy where they were if he was honest, and their flat was conveniently close to the hospital which suited him. He was also worried that for Charlie to find somewhere within their budget they’d have to move further away from the hospital. Yet she surprised him a couple of weeks later. He was just leaving the hospital as the sun was rising, and he saw Charlie walking towards him.

  “Bad night,” she said seeing his expression.

  He nodded, and smiled at the fact that she’d been able to tell this from his face alone. She kissed him and drew him into a hug, and he couldn’t help smiling again at the fact that just her being near him was making him feel better about what had been a truly awful night. He’d lost two patients, and he was feeling despondent and exhausted.

  “I have something to show you,” she said.

  Matt normally loved her surprises, but he was incredibly tired and he wanted to go home to bed. As he began to say this to her though, she flashed her big brown eyes at him and he smiled. She smiled in return knowing that she’d won, and she took his hand in hers and led him away from the hospital. After a short walk, in which he stifled yawn after yawn, she stopped them both in front of a small house and looked at him expectantly.

  “What?” He asked a little grumpily, at a loss to fathom out why they were stood where they were when he’d much rather be in bed asleep.

  “Welcome home,” she said as a smile formed across her beautiful face.

  Matt didn’t say anything, and he instead just stood there staring at her.

  “Well?” She finally asked after a couple of minutes of silence.

  “It’s so close to the hospital,” he said to her.

  “I hadn’t noticed. Oh but that’s handy isn’t it,” Charlie said before laughing lightly.

  Matt laughed too, and then he kissed her.

  Charlie pulled back from his kiss though and said; “plus everyone will be able to remember our new address really easily.”

  “Why?” Matt asked looking at Charlie curiously as a smile was once again spreading across her beautiful face.

  ***

  “She’s fighting intubation,” Emily told Matt as he hurtled full pelt towards Charlie’s room.

  Matt had just been about to return to the hospital when Emily had called his mobile. She’d called him from one of the hospital phones though, and recognising the number he had initially been too afraid to answer the call.

  What if it was bad news he’d thought? What if they’d been ringing to tell him that her condition had deteriorated, or worse that she’d succumbed to her injuries? This is what he’d known that they’d say, just as he had said to other people’s families and friends in the past when he’d been the one delivering bad news.

  “With no change in her vitals before it happened?” He demanded as they raced along the corridor.

  “We don’t know,” Emily said.

  “Why don’t we know?” He demanded again.

  “The only person in the room with her when it happened was Harry,” Emily answered; “and he wouldn’t have known what to look out for.”

  Matt felt his temper rising. He knew that he shouldn’t have left the hospital, and he thought that Nurse Willis better not be around for her sake. She’d said that she’d stay with Harry and Charlie, and clearly she hadn’t.

  “She’s breathing on her own?” He asked Oak.

  “Yes,” Oak replied; “all of her vitals are stabilising.”

  He stepped past Oak and moved toward the bed. He saw that the ventilator had gone, and that Charlie was breathing on her own again. He reached for her chart, and Emily handed it to him.

  “There’s no reason why she shouldn’t regain consciousness,” he said to Oak turning to face him.

  “Matt. As in all these situations as you well know, all we know is what we know right now. Her brain went without oxygen for some time. We shouldn’t get our hopes up and assume a full recovery,” Oak said rationally.

  Matt nodded, but whilst he knew that what Oak had just said to him was right. Charlie was breathing without a ventilator, and that was huge! Her vitals were stable and everything looked good, and that was huge! She was going to be okay, he just knew it. She had to be okay.

  He sat down next to Charlie on the bed and stroked her face. He kissed her lightly on the lips, and then he gently lifted up her hand and placed it in his own. He closed his eyes, and willed her to wake up and come back to him.

  “Your breathing,” he told her silently; “but now you have to wake up. I need you to wake up.”

  Emily

  She’d found the past week immensely difficult. She’d grown used to seeing Matt and Charlie together, and the jealously that she’d felt initially had decreased as she’d hoped that it would. Yet in the past week seeing Matt’s devotion to Charlie had re-awoken her desire for him.

  Emily was now more jealous of Charlie than she had ever been before, and whilst she obviously didn’t want to trade places with her. She desperately wanted there to be a man in her life that was as devoted to her as Matt was to Charlie, and she knew that she wanted Matt to be that man in her life. She wanted him to love her the way that he so obviously loved Charlie, and she wanted him to stroke her face and hold her hand while she slept.

  She had also struggled with the fact that she had become the unofficial designated go to person for Matt and Charlie’s friends. She had found it difficult to know what to say, or how to reveal the full extent of Charlie’s injuries to them.

  Emily had always found it difficult to communicate bad news to the friends and families of a patient, but trying to tell people that she knew about someone that she knew had just been so much worse. Although she couldn’t imagine how much worse it had been for Matt, even though he’d been the one to teach her how to deliver bad news.

  It had been Matt that had taught her that you had to keep it simple and short. She’d learnt from him that it was often kinder on the families if they didn’t know the full extent of everything that was happening. They just needed to know if their loved ones would be okay. Yes or no. Were they dead or alive? Yes or no. They didn’t want to know the medicine, and he’d known that a lot of the time they were better off not knowing.

  Emily had wondered if he’d wished that he hadn’t been a doctor the moment that he’d seen Charlie on the stretcher in front of him. Had he wished that he hadn’t known what she and the other doctors had known? Had he tried not to think about the full extent of Charlie’s injuries and the severity of her condition? Had he not read her chart, or monitored her vitals as he’d sat by her side? Had he stopped himself from trying to determine her chances of survival?

  She felt desperately sorry for him, but she didn’t know how to help him and so she was keeping her distance. She knew though that Oak thought that Matt was being overly hopeful and optimistic, but she felt sure that he was doing this as a coping mechanism. She felt sure that he was trying to close off the medical part of his brain and just be a good husband to Charlie, and she honestly wasn’t sure that she could blame him for that.

  Emily wanted to hug him and tell him that she was there for him. She wanted to hold his hand and comfort him, but she knew that these were actions that would only make her feel better and not him. She knew that the only thing that would make him feel better was Charlie waking up and telling him that she was going to be alright. Yet that didn’t seem likely to happen anytime soon, if at all.

  Matt

  He sat watching Charlie, but he could feel his eyelids getting heavier with sleep. He wondered how much longer he could stay awake, but as his eyelids drooped again Charlie opened her eyes. He jum
ped up and hit the call button.

  “Yes doctor?” A nurse asked coming into the room quickly.

  “Call Oak,” he said. To which the nurse was gone.

  “You’re awake,” he said softly to Charlie.

  She looked directly at him.

  That was a good sign he thought. She was clearly able to react to the sound of his voice. Matt felt himself smile, and Charlie half smiled back at him. He smiled even wider. She had reacted to his reaction. That was another excellent sign. Her brain was functioning.

  “I need you to say something for me,” he said. Please he urged silently, willing her with all of his heart to be able to say something. “Can you say something, anything,” he said.

  “Where am I?” She asked incredibly throatily.

  Thank god Matt thought, relief overwhelming him. “You’re in hospital. You were in a car accident,” he said stroking her face; “but your okay. So there’s no need to worry, okay?”

  Charlie looked pale, but she nodded her head. “Are you my doctor?” She asked, and Matt laughed. Even after everything that she’d been through, she was joking with him straight off the bat. The sound of his laughter woke Harry, and he got up and came straight over to the bed.

  “She’s awake?” He asked Matt. “You’re awake,” he said to Charlie.

  Charlie nodded, but Matt noticed that something in her face was off. Her expression seemed confused. His laughter died away, and he felt something inside his stomach sink. There was something very wrong with how Charlie was looking at Harry and at him.

  “Do you know your name?” He asked praying that he was reading too much into the expression in her face, and that she would laugh at him and think that he was being ridiculous.

  “Of course she knows her name,” Harry said. “Why would you ask her that?”

  Matt didn’t look at Harry though, and neither did he reply. His eyes instead remained locked on Charlie’s.

  “Do you remember your name?” He asked her.

  She shook her head slightly. The question had brought to her attention the fact that she didn’t know the answer to what was a very obvious question. She started to look tearful and suddenly scared, and Matt looked from her to Harry who looked dumbfounded.

  “Do you remember my name?” Matt asked whilst willing himself not to cry too as he looked into his wife’s face, which he could see was filling with anguish.

  She shook her head again, and Matt could see that there were tears now in her eyes.

  “That’s alright,” Matt said sounding far more reassuring than he felt. “Do you know who this is?” He asked pointing to Harry, but he knew instantly that he’d over done it.

  Charlie shook her head for a third time, and Matt watched helplessly as the tears that she’d been trying to contain began to silently run down her cheeks.

  Emily

  She’d been stood with Oak when the nurse had come to find him, and she’d followed him as he’d headed straight for Charlie’s room. Yet as they turned into the corridor that Charlie’s room was on, they both saw Matt pushing Harry out into the corridor.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Harry demanded.

  “Stop yelling,” Matt said firmly; “you’re terrifying her.”

  “This doesn’t sound good,” Oak said to Emily.

  Matt turned to Oak as he walked towards him, and he said stoically; “she might have amnesia, it’s probably from the head trauma.”

  Oak nodded and walked into the room, and Emily followed him in.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with him,” Charlie said in a small voice.

  Oak smiled reassuringly and said; “well I’m more concerned with you right now. So I just want to ask you a couple of questions, okay?”

  Charlie nodded, but she still looked worried as she asked Oak; “what’s wrong with me? Why can’t I remember my name?”

  Oak looked at her calmly and said; “we’re going to run some tests, but it seems that you may be suffering from amnesia. It’s more than likely that it’s just temporary, so don’t worry. This can happen following a head trauma, which you experienced in your accident. Isn’t that right Dr Grayson?” He asked Matt, who he’d seen just walk back into the room.

  “Yes, that’s exactly right. You have nothing to worry about Charlie,” he said with a small smile. Unfortunately Emily couldn’t help but think that his smile looked somewhat more of a grimace.

  “Charlie? Is that my name?” Charlie asked innocently, and Emily saw Matt’s forced smile falter. “So you are my doctor?” She asked, and she smiled her warm friendly smile at him.

  Matt left the room at almost a run, and Emily excused herself and followed after him. When she finally caught up with him he was outside. He had his arms stretched out in front of him with his palms pressed flat against the wall of the hospital, and he was kicking at it with his right foot.

  “Matt,” Emily said.

  He turned to look at her, and she saw that there were tears streaming down his face. The site made her heart lurch, and she had to fight every impulse in her body not to throw her arms around him.

  “She doesn’t know me,” he just about said through his tears.

  “You’re forgetting something important you know,” she said forcing herself to smile at him.

  Matt looked at her confusedly.

  “She’s conscious! Yesterday the medical opinion was that she had a slim chance of ever regaining consciousness again. It was likely that you’d have to decide whether or not to take her off the ventilator, but today she’s awake! So she doesn’t remember you? You heard Oak. It’s probably just temporary,” she said positively; “caused by the stress of the accident.”

  Matt stared at her for a whole minute without speaking. Then as he regained his composure, a smile came back to his face. He moved towards Emily, and she stood still transfixed by him. Yet when he was face to face with her he leant towards her and kissed her on the lips. He picked her up and swung her in a full circle, and she laughed as he set her back down on the ground.

  “You’re right,” he said. “You’re absolutely right. I’m over reacting. It’ll just be temporary. She’ll remember in a day or two once her haze clears. Then things will all go back to normal.”

  He walked away and Emily watched him go, feeling as though her heart was on fire. She knew that she had lied to him, but then there hadn’t been anything else that she could say to help him in that moment. She worried though that he might blame her when the realisation hit him that Charlie might not be okay.

  She cursed herself for thinking about how this would affect her relationship with him. She should have been thinking about Charlie – her friend, and how all this was going to affect her.

  It was with this thought though, that she realised that up until this point she hadn’t once thought about Charlie. Charlie, the woman who hadn’t only housed her but had invited her into hers and Matt’s lives. Her only friend, whose life she knew had been turned upside by an accident. Matt’s wife, who had just woken up to find that she had no memory of her life.

  Emily felt deeply guilty, and she knew that the best thing that she could do now for both Matt and Charlie was to stay away from them. They needed each other, and they needed Charlie’s memory to come back. They did not however need her.

  Part Two – Six months later

  Matt

  He rolled over and turned on the lamp beside his bed. He rubbed his eyes, picked up his pager, and simultaneously looked at the clock.

  4.03am.

  Matt sat up, shook his head, and swung his legs out of bed. He let his arms rest at his sides for just a second before forcing himself to stand up and walk over to the window seat. There lay a pair of jeans and a jumper, which he threw on at the same time as working his feet into a pair of old and much worn trainers. It had long since become a habit to leave clothes out in preparation for middle of the night pages. This was the life of a doctor.

  He headed back towards the bed to turn the lamp off, but as he d
id he saw Charlie stir. He froze. He didn’t want to wake her. There was no reason to cause her any further and unnecessary confusion.

  Matt had been careful ever since she’d come home from the hospital, not to disturb her when he had to go out in the middle of the night. She needed peace and rest, and if he was honest at this time of the morning he had neither the inclination nor the required level of patience to deal with her confusion.

  She settled again and let out a little half sigh half snore, which made Matt’s heart ache. He turned off the bedside light and left the room and then the house quickly. He didn’t even bother to make his usual flask of coffee. He would pick something up at the hospital.

  As he walked his well trodden route to work, his mind was a mine field of emotion. The past six months had been the worst of his life, and the day to day realities of living with a wife that remembered nothing of their life together was taking its toll. His optimism that her memory would return had long since evaporated, and he felt more and more hard done by with each passing day.

  Charlie’s parents had been no help at all after Charlie had regained consciousness. Diane had even refused to visit her. She’d said that she was unable to face a daughter that couldn’t recognise her own mother, and Harry whilst more stoic about the situation at first had also avoided spending time with Charlie. He’d either spent all of his time in the waiting room, or outside of Oak’s office.

  Matt’s parents had also not handled the situation well, but Matt’s patience with them had quickly worn thin. He’d found it strange at how his tolerance for his own parents had been so much lower than with Charlie’s. He’d also been shocked at how despite having always tried to be kind and patient as a doctor when dealing with patient’s families, he had within days of Charlie waking up found himself telling his parents to go home.

  He hadn’t regretted telling them to leave, but the guilt about the way in which he’d said it to them had plagued him for days. Yet he had been starting to feel increasingly irritated and short tempered with everyone, and his mood hadn’t been helped by the stream of friends and loved ones that had all showed up to show their support and love for him and Charlie.