Memory's Edge: Part One

by Gladden, DelSheree

  Seeing him again was harder than she expected. It was worse to see him bandaged up, wrapped in plaster, and strapped to the bed in case he woke up and panicked. The majority of his skin not covered by the hospital gown was bandaged. He was lost inside the wall of gauze. Pulling a chair up to his bed allowed Gretchen to sit down next to him.

  His chest moved up and down shallowly, but the heart monitor kept beeping at a steady cadence, giving her hope he would pull through. She wanted to take his hand and let him know someone was there, but the dark purple splotches covering his skin held her back. Instead, Gretchen sat by his side watching his labored breathing, and following the jagged line that tracked his heartbeat. She watched and waited, and couldn’t help but wonder about his life.

  Did he have a family? If he did, did they even know he was missing? What was he doing out on the highway? Was he just passing through, or was he from New Mexico? Most of all, she wondered what led to him being beat up and left for dead in the middle of the desert.

  Gretchen sat watching his chest rise and fall until her eyelids began copying the motion. She knew she was about to fall asleep, but she couldn’t leave. He had nobody. Adjusting herself in the uncomfortable chair, she tried to stay awake.

  “He can hear you if you talk to him.”

  The voice startled Gretchen. Trying to recover from the surprise, she turned to see who had spoken. A middle-aged nurse in pale pink scrubs, not the one who had snuck her into the man’s room a few hours ago, stood behind Gretchen with a sad smile.

  “Can he really?” Gretchen asked.

  Nodding, the nurse moved over to the side of the bed and checked his vitals. “There have been plenty of studies saying coma patients are at least partially aware of the sounds around them,” she said. “Plus, it helps the family, too.” She marked everything down in the chart and turned back to Gretchen. “The other nurse told me what happened to this guy. It’s too bad. You’re real sweet to stay with him.”

  “I just want to make sure he’s going to be okay,” Gretchen said. “I feel responsible for him. Does that sound weird?”

  “Not at all. When he wakes up, he’ll be glad to know somebody cared.” Setting the chart back down in the sleeve at the end of the bed, she stuffed her pen back into her pocket. “Talk to him. It will make you both feel better.”

  Shaking her head, Gretchen said, “I don’t know what to say. I don’t even know him.”

  “Then introduce yourself. My name’s Maria, by the way.” She held her hand out and Gretchen shook it. “Just press the call button if you need anything. Oh, and there’s a blanket and pillow in the cupboard over there.”

  “When do visiting hours end?” Gretchen asked.

  “Don’t worry about it. Feel free to stay as long as you want tonight.”

  “Thanks, Maria.”

  She smiled and went on with her rounds. Her suggestion to talk to him stuck with Gretchen. She thought about what she should say to him for a long time. Too long probably. He was in a coma, after all. She didn’t even have a name for him, but she didn’t want to keep calling the guy “Him” or “The Man.” The only name he had was John Doe. Well, Gretchen thought, John isn’t so bad. He could get stuck with worse. It would have to do for now. Still unsure of how to start, she settled for simple.

  “Hi, John, my name is Gretchen Gesner.”

  Chapter Three

  Just This Once

  Gretchen thought she must have been asleep for at least an hour before Maria woke her at three in the morning and told her to go home and rest. There had been no change in John’s condition. Maria assured her there likely wouldn’t be for a while. Damage that severe would take time to recover from. Feeling guilty, even still, Gretchen had taken her advice and gone home.

  It wasn’t until she pulled up to her house and heard her neighbor’s front door burst open that she remembered he had been waiting for her. Carl stormed across their front yards, panic and relief fighting for dominance in his expression and body language.

  She only managed to get her door open and put one foot on the ground before he made it to her and yanked her into his arms. “Where have you been?” he demanded. “Did you get any of my texts or calls? I’ve been freaking out! You were supposed to be back by six o’clock. I thought something had happened to you. What is going on?”

  Cringing at the fear in his voice, Gretchen felt horrible for worrying him. They had planned to watch a basketball game together that night when she got home, Carl grilling burgers for dinner even though it was still too chilly for barbecuing. It hadn’t even crossed her mind to text or call to tell him she wouldn’t make. She hadn’t looked at her phone once since getting back into her car to follow the ambulance.

  Her relationship with Carl was complicated, but she felt awful for scaring him. “I’m really sorry. It’s been a crazy night,” she said as she relaxed into his embrace. It wasn’t something she would normally allow, but she was exhausted on every level.

  “What happened?” Carl asked, more calm now that he had her in his arms and knew she wasn’t dead or kidnapped.

  That thought made her flinch, because John wouldn’t be going home to his family, if he had one, any time soon. Guilt she didn’t completely understand poked at her.

  “It’s a really long story, and I need to get some sleep before school tomorrow.”

  “Call in sick,” he ordered.

  “I’ll get docked points on my evaluation,” Gretchen complained.

  “It doesn’t matter. You’re about to drop. A few hours of sleep isn’t going to make you ready to deal with a bunch of high school punks. Call in sick, or I’ll do it for you.”

  “They aren’t punks,” Gretchen snapped, though there wasn’t much bite behind it. “I’ll be fine. And you can’t call in sick for me.”

  Carl laughed. “I think you’re forgetting I’ve lived here all my life and have known your boss a hell of a lot longer than you. I’ve been calling everyone, including her, to try and figure out where you are. I’ll call her if you don’t. I mean it.”

  Even though Gretchen hated when he bossed her around and pretended to always know what was best for her, she could barely keep her eyes open and was on the verge of asking Carl to carry her to her house. Which he would certainly do. She sighed. Asking anything like that of Carl would be a huge mistake, but she was forced to admit he was right about calling in. Three hours of sleep was not going to be enough to get her through a full day of teaching.

  “Fine.”

  She didn’t have to look up at Carl to know he was gloating. Shaking her head, she tried to pull out of his arms. He wasn’t interested in letting her go. The only concession he gave was to turn her toward her house and go from full embrace to an arm around her shoulders.

  After unlocking her front door, Gretchen intended to tell him goodbye and send him packing before he could read anything more into what was happening than she knew he already had. Carl was not a small man. So when he swept her into his arms, there wasn’t a whole lot she could do to stop him aside from weakly complain.

  “Put me down,” she whined.

  He ignored her while shutting and locking her front door.

  “You’re not staying,” Gretchen said. Her voice was as stern as it could possibly be at three a.m., but had little effect on him.

  “I don’t hear from you for nine hours, when you’ve been traveling alone, and you think I’m just going to say goodnight and go to bed?” He scoffed. “Keep dreaming, Gretchen.”

  Gentle, despite his annoyed tone, Carl set her down on the couch and took the spot right next to her. “Now, what happened, and where have you been all night?”

  There was no chance of getting him to leave without an explanation. “At the hospital,” Gretchen said with a sigh.

  “What?” His gaze scanned her body, looking for signs of injuries.

  “I’m fine,” she reassured him, “but something happened on the way back. Not to me, but…I was driving and saw something in the road.
I thought maybe it was an animal. It…wasn’t.”

  Carl’s eyebrows rose. “It was a person?” When Gretchen nodded, his concern deepened. “Dead?”

  She closed her eyes, trying not to picture John’s mangled body. “Almost.”

  “Gretchen, wow, I’m sorry,” he said. “That couldn’t have been an easy thing to see.”

  “I almost hit him,” Gretchen whispered.

  Carl’s pulled her to him, and stroked her hair. “It wouldn’t have been your fault, but you didn’t hit him, and you called for help, right? You did everything you could.”

  His words sounded so final, like she could walk away with a clear conscience. Shaking the feeling of responsibility for the poor man lying alone in the hospital was impossible. Discussing that with Carl felt…strange. Instead, she asked, “Who won the game?”

  The groan of disappointment gave away the answer, but he said, “Not the Nuggets. They’re down by three games now, and not looking like they’re going to come back.”

  “Sorry,” Gretchen said, mostly heartfelt in her condolence. She had never bothered to follow sports before moving in next to Carl. Even after seven months of watching games with him, she still didn’t really follow his favorite teams, so much as support his addiction.

  The weekend Gretchen arrived in New Mexico with a small U-Haul trailer packed with her entire life, Carl had seen her struggling to wheel her dresser into the house and strode across the neglected lawn to help. Even though she’d shied away from his help and friendliness, he’d unloaded the entire trailer and had stuck around ever since.

  Watching games together started with preseason football soon after she moved in. She’d tried to refuse the invitation. Carl was hard to resist, especially when he never gave up asking. He seemed to understand a romantic relationship was the last thing on her mind when starting her first teaching job and moving to an unfamiliar town, and was simply there to keep her company when she was feeling lonely. At first.

  Carl made no secret of the fact that he would like more, if the offer were on the table. It wasn’t. He respected that, for the most part. Gretchen didn’t really mind his stolen hugs and the occasional arm around her shoulders as much as she got onto him about it. She wasn’t in a place where she could admit that to him, but she cherished his friendship. Until she got to know some of her coworkers better, he’d been her only friend in town, and he had been a good one.

  “You could have called me,” Carl said. “I would have driven out to help, and waited with you at the hospital.”

  “I know,” Gretchen said quietly. “I’m sorry I didn’t. I was just so scared and worried, I guess I shut everything else out.”

  He pressed her closer to his chest and took a deep breath. “Is the guy going to be okay?”

  Gretchen could only shrug. “Nobody’s sure. He was still unconscious when I left.” Yawning, but too tired to attempt covering it, Gretchen’s eyes slowly began to close. “I’ll check on him tomorrow.”

  Carl was quiet for a moment. “You will?”

  She nodded and tried to tell herself to get up and go to bed. Alone.

  “Why?”

  “He’s…by himself, and hurt,” she said, her words broken up by another yawn.

  “Gretchen,” Carl said cautiously, “this may not be something you want to get involved in. If it’s drug related…”

  Gretchen wanted to shake her head at the suggestion, but even though the town was fairly small, Carl had told her stories of cartel influence and trafficking. They lived in the northern part of New Mexico, but it was still a border state. His warning did give her a moment’s pause, but the need to know the man she’d rescued was at least going to survive was too strong to overcome.

  “I’ll just stop by and make sure he’s doing all right. I can’t imagine waking up alone from something like that.”

  Carl sighed. She knew he’d continue to fight her on the subject, but it was well after three in the morning, and Gretchen knew despite his insistence that she call in sick to work, he wouldn’t do the same. It reminded her that she really did need to call in, and pulled away from Carl to find her phone.

  She fished around in her purse sleepily before Carl finally took it from her hands and extracted her phone. He handed it over and leaned his head back against the couch as though he intended to stay there all night. Shaking her head, Gretchen sent her message and turned to face him.

  Without opening his eyes, Carl snaked his arm around her waist and pulled her to his chest. Her lips parted to complain, but he spoke first. “Just once, let me have this, okay?” He settled his chin on the top of her head and exhaled slowly. “I thought something awful had happened, and I was going crazy waiting to hear from you. I want to be mad at you for letting me think you’d gotten into a horrible car accident or something, but I’m so glad you’re okay I can’t work up enough strength to be upset. I just want to hold onto for a few minutes, all right?”

  There was a good chance it was a line she was about to cross with Carl she wasn’t ready for, but Gretchen couldn’t bear to refuse him. Just this once. It had been a long night for both of them. As she relaxed against his chest, the tension he’d been holding since storming out of his house finally melted away.

  Chapter Four

  A Sound

  In one week, Gretchen learned more about comas and coma patients than she ever expected to learn in a lifetime. Textbooks she hadn’t touched since her first year of college were littered over her kitchen table. Carl didn’t approve of her interest, but kept his frustration to warnings about what getting involved might lead to.

  The nurses, however, were supportive and helpful. They updated her on tests they ran and prognoses the doctors gave. It felt good to learn about what was happening to John as he lay asleep in his hospital bed, but every day he didn’t wake up, stepping into the hospital got a little harder. As did going home to find Carl pushing her to stay out of it.

  It didn’t stop Gretchen, though. Every day after school she packed up her books, along with papers in need of grading, and drove across town to the hospital. By Wednesday evening, the duty nurses stopped in to say hello as much as to check on John. Thursday, there was a cup up tea waiting for her in John’s room.

  The nurses told Gretchen her visits were helping him heal. She knew there was research validating they said, but she felt she was the one benefitting from her visits the most. Concern and responsibility slowly morphed into a calming sense of purpose. When she walked into the room, the day’s craziness gave way to the gentle rhythmic sounds of his breathing. It felt good to watch over John, though she doubted her presence made any difference to him.

  Gretchen told no one at work about continuing to visit John, except her best friend Desi. They had all heard about the incident of course, but after a few “How are you doing?” comments, their interest faded away as the bell rang. They probably all assumed Gretchen had forgotten the experience as quickly as they did.

  Desi, however, thought it romantic. She asked once if Gretchen wanted her to come with her, but she said no. Gretchen didn’t want to share her time with him, or admit how much she enjoyed the quiet visits. So Friday afternoon, she packed up her weekend stack of grading and hurried to the hospital alone.

  Stepping out of the elevator on the fifth floor, Gretchen took her usual route past the nurses’ station, pausing to say hello to everyone, and down the hall to John’s room. Lynn, a nurse she had become friends with over the week, was busy checking his vitals when she walked in. She looked up when she heard Gretchen bump into the side table. “Hey, Gretchen. Violets?”

  Gretchen glanced down at the potted plant in her hand. Violets weren’t the showiest flower in the world, but their delicate beauty always drew her in. “I thought they might brighten things up,” she said.

  “They’re beautiful,” Lynn said. She stuck her pen back in her scrubs pocket and put her hands on her hips. “How are your high school hooligans doing? You ready for summer yet?”

  �
��Don’t even mention summer to me. It’s still two months away. If I start thinking about summer now, I’ll never make it.” Gretchen laughed as she said it, but it was true. It was her first year of teaching and she was ready for a break.

  “That bad, huh?” Lynn grinned as she started toward the door. “Just be glad my son isn’t in any of your classes. That boy is the bane of his teachers’ existences. It will be a miracle if he graduates.” She laughed as she walked out of the room.

  Gretchen set the violets down on the table next to John’s bed. Lynn griped about her son, but the smile in her eyes said he couldn’t really be as bad as she made him out to be. Still, Gretchen couldn’t help but be glad she wasn’t his teacher.

  After watering the violets, she sat down next to John. He already looked so different from the first time she had seen him. His bruises were starting to heal. Instead of black and purple, his skin had lightened to a mottled brown and yellow with a few splotches of deep purple that lingered where the more serious injuries were. The casts would stay on for another six to eight weeks, but many of the stitches were already beginning to dissolve. Even the cuts were looking significantly better. The steady beep-beep of the heart monitor was reassuring white noise Gretchen heard without really noticing anymore.

  He was healing. At least his cuts and bruises and broken bones were healing. What was happening to his brain? Nobody really seemed to know. Information from the nurses had dropped off in the last few days. Unless something changed, which it didn’t, they didn’t have any news for her. They kept encouraging her. Keep talking. Keep visiting. Have hope. He’ll wake up soon.

  Gretchen clung to those thoughts.

  She told herself it was because then he would be able to explain what happened and go home, ending her sense of responsibility. Everyone could go back to their normal lives. Which was mostly appealing.