4.50| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
There was pain. Intense pain. The whole world seemed to be comprised entirely of pain, an aching sensation that could not be soothed. Eyes opened, but only to a dim blur. If there was light, it couldn’t be seen. If there was sound, the pain prevented any recognition or comprehension. The only smell was that of bandages in desperate need of changing.
The pain increased, drowning all else out, gradually building until there was room for no more. A scream erupted, then all fell silent. Then there was nothing.
Consciousness returned, dragging with it the usual unbearable ache, making it all but impossible to sustain the simplest thought. Soon enough, the eyes could make out shapes in the darkness, most noticeably two bedposts and a pair of covered feet. At the far end of the room was a plain door, left slightly ajar, from where what little light there was trickled in. To the right of it was a three drawer dresser, on top of which sat what looked like a jewelry box, intricately carved with Celtic designs. In the far left corner of the room was a small, featureless table, and an equally unnoteworthy chair. None of it looked familiar.
Images flooded in, mostly of rain and windshield wipers that couldn’t throw it off the car fast enough. Images of headlights suddenly appearing from nowhere. Images of the world spinning madly like a gyroscope. As the pain took over and light faded to black, one last image came. It was the face of a dead person. A woman.
The pattern continued—pain and unconsciousness, pain and unconsciousness—for several days, or maybe just several hours. The room was dark every time he woke up, so he had absolutely no sense of time. The ache now only surged through his legs, chest and right arm instead of his entire body. He had a headache, too, but it no longer restricted his ability to think. All in all, he considered himself very lucky to be alive, even if he didn’t know where he was or how he’d gotten there.
All he really remembered was speeding in a rainstorm and suddenly spinning out of control. He couldn’t remember if he’d been racing to somewhere or running away from something, just that whatever it was had been of the utmost urgency; and now, for some reason he could not grasp, he felt as though he had failed at whatever it was he had hoped to accomplish.
The sound of footsteps drew his attention away from his thoughts to the door across the room. It opened slightly, he heard muffled voices, and then in walked a young girl of no more than eighteen or nineteen years. Her sandy-blonde hair was scraggly and draped loosely over both sides of her shoulders down to the top of her grass and dirt stained coveralls. An attempt had been made to clean her face, but traces of dirt still remained on her chin and forehead. She looked tired and worn out, but the deepness of her blue eyes and the way she smiled at him made it difficult to take his eyes from her.
“So you’re finally awake, are you?” she asked through a yawn.
He tried to reply, but what came out was an incomprehensible, muted whisper. The failure frustrated him, but the girl just smiled again and walked toward him, pulling a chair he had previously been unaware of away from the wall immediately on his left. She sat down and leaned closer.
“It’s really good to see you coming around,” she said, reaching up to remove the bandages from around the top of his head. “There isn’t a doctor closer than sixty miles from here, and the storm knocked out any chances of contacting her for at least a couple days. I was praying and hoping that everything I did helped you instead of hurt you.” She wadded up the bandages and threw them on the floor next to her, then reached up again to smooth out his hair.
“We would have tried to take you to the hospital ourselves, but dad drove his car into the ditch when he swerved to avoid you.” She allowed herself a light chuckle. “He’s still pretty made at you, but I think he’s being like that to hide the fact that he feels partly responsible for this.”
Another car. Headlights. He had swerved, too, and that was when he had lost control. His car had started hydroplaning, then all of a sudden it was rolling over down a steep hill. And then impact, and then he woke up here.
“Don’t worry,” she assured him, apparently noticing the look that had overtaken him. “Dad wasn’t hurt. Just his car, and it was on its last leg anyway. Yours looked like it must have been pretty nice.”
“Yes,” he was finally able to gasp. Yes, but next time I think I’ll get the model with airbags. He managed a weak smile, which drew another from her. It was one he doubted he would tire of.
“I would change the bandage around your arm, but we don’t have any more and since it’s still broken, I’d rather not try to move it just yet. Doctor Kern hasn’t had time to teach me any first aid other than just the basics, and I haven’t been able to get any medical books or anything, so all I can do is try to use common sense and hope you keep getting better.”
“Thanks,” he whispered.
The girl yawned again. “Well, I’m about beat, so I need to turn in for the night. Is there anything you need before I leave?”
“Aspirin.”
“Just a second,” she winked at him, then disappeared for a few seconds, returning with two caplets and a small glass of water. “I brought you some Tylenol. The night-time kind so you can sleep better.”
She sat down beside him and held the caplets to his mouth, allowing them to fall in when he opened it. She then slid her arm under his neck in order to help him sit up enough to take the water.
“Easy. Easy,” she said, noticing him wince almost every other second. When his back was at a near forty-five degree angle to the bed, she pressed the rim of the glass to his lips and tilted it so that the water flowed in no faster than he could handle it. When he finished, she stood up and walked to the door, placing the glass on the corner of the dresser on her way.
“Good night,” he said as loudly as he could, which was still little more than a gruff whisper.
She turned to face him as she opened the door. “Good night, Bradley.” She winked and smiled at him a final time, and disappeared.
Bradley? My name’s Bradley? He’d been so caught up with the pain and wondering how he got here in the first place that it had never occurred to him just how much of his memory was missing. Somehow the name seemed familiar enough, but yet it didn’t. It did, however, bring back another image, one that left him more troubled than before.
A message. An operator for the hotel he had been staying at had come running into the conference waving it madly in the air. He had been up on the podium speaking when she had cried out, “Mister Hale! Mister Brad Hale!” He had raised his hand to get her attention. Two seconds later she thrust it into his hands, sobbing.
“I’m sorry Mister Hale. I tried to keep her on so I could get you, but she hung up. I tried to write down best I could what she said. I’m sorry.” Then she ran from the room as quickly as she had entered, crying even harder. His eyes immediately went to the paper in his hands. It had read, “Brad—can’t go on anymore—don’t blame you—”
He had stopped reading there, and had run out of the room faster than the operator had. Before he knew it he was in his car, driving in the rain at probably twice the speed limit. The message had been tossed into the seat next to him. He had glanced at it several times during the hours that he drove, or at least it had seemed like hours, and had finally given into his curiosity and grabbed it. Still driving way too fast for even clear weather, he had tried to start reading it again. That was when the headlights appeared, which was when he had swerved and began to hydroplane. Then the car had started rolling. Then all had become still except for the rain outside, and as consciousness had faded away, his eyes had remained fixed on that message.
Brad closed his eyes, searching the fragments of his memory for the identity of the woman who had left that message for him. Nothing. No, less than nothing. A pure void. That and the feeling that it was all his fault. The medicine took hold thirty minutes later, and as he went out he was still wondering who he had killed.
Morning had taken Brad Hale completely by surprise. He had gone from a deep, albeit troubled sleep to complete consciousness in a matter of seconds, and for a few seconds afterward his eyes scanned around the room for the main light source before realizing it was coming from a window behind him. Elsewhere in the house, he could hear silver clanking against plates. A slight aroma of cooked meat, probably sausage, crept in under the closed door. Not until then did he realize how hungry he was, something a low rumble in his stomach confirmed.
What came as even more of a surprise was seeing his left hand come up to cover his mouth when he yawned. He checked both of his legs and was pleased to see his knees rise an inch or so, mainly because it meant he wasn’t paralyzed. He didn’t bother moving his right arm because, as his young Florence Nightingale had said, it was still broken. It felt that way, too. He still felt extremely sore all over, but his arm throbbed every time a breeze whistled by the window.
He heard a knocking at the door, followed by the entrance of the same young lady who had come to him the night before, this time carrying a steaming plate and a glass of orange juice. He also noticed that she was wearing a clean shirt and pair of coveralls, her face was spotless, and that her hair was clean and straight. This young girl, he though, has got to be the local heartbreaker. Her smile seemed much more enthusiastic this morning, and she even seemed to have the proverbial skip in her step as she covered the distance between them.
“Good morning, Bradley,” she said.
“Brad,” he corrected her politely, noticing a major, but not full, improvement in his vocal chords. “And good morning to you, too.” He returned the smile.
His caretaker was beaming when she, too, noticed this improvement. “It certainly is! You look a whole lot better. How do you feel?”
“Better,” he replied, raising his right knee to show her and finding the effort a little more difficult this time.
“Great! Feel like eating breakfast?” She held out a plate of two dark, plump sausages with grease seeping out of every pore, two half pieces of lightly buttered toast, and a healthy portion of scrambled eggs. “Made it myself.”
“Okay,” he smiled again. “Since you put it that way. Care to help me sit up?”
“Sure.” She went to the table and placed the food down, then returned and helped him sit up as she had the night before, this time bringing him fully upright. The movement had hurt a good deal more than he expected, mostly because doing so inevitably meant moving his right arm a little bit, but he made every effort to conceal the pain from his eager hostess. It didn’t work. “Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked.
“Yes,” he lied, fearing that she would take it personally if he had said otherwise. Since it elated her to see him improving, he didn’t want to say or do anything to spoil it for her.
“Okay. Would you like me to feed you, or do you feel strong enough to feed yourself?”
“Well, my left arm can move okay, but I’m also right handed. You’re the doctor, I’ll let you decide.”
As impossible as it seemed, the girl smiled even wider. She ran back to the table for the food and returned quickly to the chair at his side. She drew a fork from the front pocket of her coveralls and began cutting into the sausage. “So you think I could become a doctor someday?” she asked.
“I think I can see that happening,” he answered before closing his mouth around the third of sausage that she held out to him. It was slightly burnt, but he let on like it was the best he had ever tasted, which wasn’t difficult considering it was his first meal since the accident. Of course, with his amnesia he couldn’t remember having sausage before, anyway.
“Just one problem with that, though,” she said, the excitement in her voice dropping noticeably as she prepared the next bite.
“What’s that?”
“I can’t pay for college. Every cent we make goes into keeping the farm running for the next year, and even if I could get a scholarship, Dad still couldn’t afford to hire someone to take my place here. Sometimes I don’t think I’ll ever get out of here.”
“What kind of doctor do you want to be?”
“A surgeon. I want to be someone who can save lives. Really help people.”
A knot formed in Brad’s throat. “What will you do when you can’t save someone?” The face of the oddly familiar dead woman flashed in his mind.
The girl paused, surprised by a question she apparently hadn’t thought very much on. “I…I don’t know. Why?”
Brad started to answer, but decided to switch the subject since he found himself wishing he hadn’t uttered the question in the first place. Instead he asked, “How did you find out my name?”
“Oh, your wallet had fallen out of your pocket when we were pulling you out of your car. I looked at the driver’s license before I gave it to Dad to hold onto.” She then held up her right hand, forkful of sausage and all, and said, “I didn’t take anything out of it, though. Honest.”
“That’s okay,” he smiled. “I owe you plenty for saving my life. I don’t think I could object if you had.” He stressed the words ‘saving my life’ hoping they would have a positive effect on her spirits. They did. “Where is it, anyway?”
“In Dad’s room. Want me to go get it?”
“Please.”
“I’ll be right back, then.” She placed the plate on his lap, handed him the fork, and dashed out of the room.
Left to himself, Brad rediscovered two things. One was that he was ambidextrous as far as eating was concerned. The other was that he was a fast eater. By the time the girl had returned, the sausages were gone, as was the toast and nearly all of the scrambled eggs. The girl, of course, was more than pleased to see this. She allowed him to finish before handing him the wallet.
“You never did tell me your name,” he said as he looked over the tri-fold piece of alligator leather to familiarize it in his mind again.
“I’m sorry. It’s Cassie.”
“A pretty name for a pretty girl,” he said as he winked at her, noticing her blush slightly.
He turned his attention back to the wallet and opened it. His driver’s license indicated that he was indeed Bradley James Hale, age twenty-four, five-foot-four with blonde hair and blue eyes. If his picture was any indication, he was even rather handsome.
The leftmost section of the tri-fold was where he stored all his photos and miscellaneous cards. Currently facing him was his social security card, which he turned over to reveal two pictures which caused him to freeze instantly.
The one on the left was of the face of a young woman his age, with short brown hair, brown eyes, and the biggest smile he had ever seen. Around her neck she wore a thin, gold necklace with a class ring hanging from it. Embossed on the lower right of the picture was CINDY ’91.
The photo on the right, however, was what solidified her identity. It showed him in a brand new tuxedo and Cindy, almost a year older here, in a long, white gown with a veil pulled up over her head. Both of them were standing in front of white, three tiered cake. Cindy bore a smile in this one, too, but this one looked forced.
Brad felt hot and shaky all over. Images flooded his mind yet again. The conference. The message. The rain. The message. The headlights. The spinning. The message. Everything but the lifeless female face. For some reason, it had never been a clear image, and apparently had only kept recurring simply because that was what he had expected to find when he returned home. But how could he find hope in that, when it was obvious he was too late to save her?
He fell back, no longer caring about the pain in his arm, and began to weep. His memory had returned, and all it meant was that he knew how he had gotten here, why he had been in such a hurry, who he had been in such a hurry to see, and that now she was dead. Nothing else mattered. Lucky to be alive, indeed.
“What is it?” Cassie asked, puzzled by his sudden change of behavior. “What’s wrong?” She leaned over and looked at the photos, becoming even more confused. “Your wife?”
Brad nodded, then choked back tears as he said, “I need to be alone, okay?”
The young girl seemed hesitant to leave, but was still respectful of her patient’s wishes. She picked up the plate and fork, leaving the orange juice in case he wanted it later, and headed for the door.
“Wait,” Brad called out as she was opening the door. Cassie turned around. “Can you do something for me?”
“Yes,” she replied eagerly as she ran up to the bed again. “Anything. What do you need?”
“Are you going near my car today?” He sounded a little more under control now, but he was struggling to stay so.
“Well, not near, but…”
“I need something from it. A piece of note paper…”
“A piece of note paper?”
“Please. It’s important.”
Cassie’s eyebrows lowered in confusion. “Something to do with your wife?”
Brad started to answer, but he had finally lost the battle to contain his emotions, and the best he could do was to nod. After that he just placed his good arm across his eyes and let loose the torment that he had only been half-aware had been building up.
Cassie placed her hand on his shoulder and rubbed it compassionately. “I’ll do it, Brad. And I won’t let you down, either. I promise.” With that, she ran out of the room, not even noticing that she had left the door open behind her.
Hours passed. Hours in which Brad had nothing to do but contemplate and wonder how he could have ever let any of this happen. Hours in which he searched for slightest glint of hope that Cindy might somehow still be alive, and found only deeper despair. Why bother going to hell? he thought. It had already come to him.
What made things even worse was that he hadn’t’ even seen it coming. He and Cindy had dated since their senior year of high school and all through his undergraduate career at the university. They were as close as two friends could possibly be. He had expected her to be surprised when he proposed on their graduation night in front of all the other graduating seniors, and he had expected her to have cold feet just before the wedding, just as he had.
What had never occurred to him was that she had never wanted to get married. It wasn’t until two nights before he left for the conference that she finally told him. Pressure and shock, she had told him were what had caused her to say yes to him on graduation night, that and the lack of a desire to cause him a major embarrassment. She had tried several times to tell everyone she had wanted to call the wedding off, but he had always been too excited, much like Cassie about becoming a doctor, that she couldn’t bear to bring him down like that. Her parents, on the other hand, refused to even notice her lack of desire to be married. “Oh, the other boys are nice,” they had always agreed, “but you, Cindy, you made the best catch of all.” Never much of one to argue with her father, she succumbed and concentrated all her energy into putting on the appearance of being a happy and willing bride. Since divorce was out of the question—Cindy was of a background that frowned heavily on such a thing—she just went on with her life, acting as though nothing were wrong at all, all the while bottling up what she really felt. And I allowed myself to stay too blindly in love to notice. What a callous heel I’ve been, only now it’s too blasted late to change anything.
Brad had been so deep in thought that at first he didn’t even notice Cassie standing in the doorway, holding in her right hand the very piece of paper, now somewhat dirty, that had helped place him in the bed he currently occupied. His depression seemed to immediately double.
Judging from the long, regretful look on her face, he gathered that she had already read the message. A tear dug a groove through the dirt on her face, and she wore the expression of one who not only understood his pain, but also shared it. She approached his bed slowly, and placed the paper on his chest. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know.” She started to say more, but from fear of saying the wrong thing, she simply said nothing and left the room, this time closing the door as she went.
Trembling even though he already knew the horrible truth, he picked up the paper and did the best he could with one hand to straighten it out so he could read it. Brad—can’t go on anymore—don’t blame yourself—I’m sorry—only one way out for me—don’t come home—911—just a simple fune— The message cut off here, the point where the operator must have finally realized what was going on and tried to talk Cindy out of it, and Cindy had hung up.
Brad now had no choice but to admit once and for all that Cindy was dead, but accepting it was another matter entirely. Perhaps when I get the strength, my darling, I may decide to come and join you. Yes, I believe that’s what I’ll do, if only to be able to tell you how truly sorry I am.
Sleep had not come easy for Brad. It had, in fact, seemed an impossibility until he found himself waking up to the sound of a vehicle pulling up outside, followed by a loud, almost incessant knocking at the front door. He heard Cassie run by his door shouting, “They’re here! They’re here!” The front door squeaked open, and then he heard Cassie again. “It’s you!”
Moments later, his door was thrown open and Cassie ran in, looking more excited than he ever thought possible. “In here,” she called out to the hallway, then turned to him. “She’s here! Can you believe it?”
“Who?” he asked, then saw his question answered right away by the appearance of someone else in the doorway. “Cindy?”
Hardly a moment passed before Cindy was at his side, wrapping her arms around him the best she could, and cried on his shoulder. “I was so worried about you.”
“But I thought you…the message…”
Cindy pulled back and wiped her eyes. “I tried. I really did. I had everything set up and I was about to place the rope around my neck, when I noticed something different about my reflection in the mirror above the fireplace.” She grasped her husband’s left hand, the took a deep breath before continuing. “I’m pregnant, Brad. I have been for over three months now.”
Brad was so stunned he couldn’t react. One minute he thought his wife had committed suicide and he was ready to do the same, the next he saw her alive and carrying a baby. Thousands of words came to his tongue, but none could leave. All he could do was smile and let the tears, now joyful ones, flow freely.
“It was then I realized the selfishness of what I was doing, and how much I would really be leaving behind. I’ve always loved you, Brad, and I was wrong when I thought I didn’t want to get married. You’re the best husband a woman could want, and I was just too stupid not to see it.” She was nearly choking now, but forced herself to continue. “What I’m getting at is I want a chance to start over again. I’m ready to be your wife now.”
“Was this your decision?” Brad was finally able to ask.
“Yes.”
“And you’re sure?”
“Brad, when they told me you had run out of that hotel to come back home, and you never showed up, I knew something had happened to you. I thought I’d lost you, and that really scared me.” She nodded toward the message sitting on the chair next to the bed. “I guess I deserved it, too. If you never forgive me, I’ll understand.”
Brad pulled himself up and brought her closer. “Of course, I forgive you.” Then he kissed her, more passionately than he had at their wedding or their wedding night, more passionately than he had previously believed all of mankind to be completely incapable of. When they were finished, he noticed Cassie blushing and making a half-hearted attempt not to watch.
“How did you find her?” he asked.
“I didn’t think I had,” Cassie explained, boiling over with excitement. “When I saw that the phone lines were back up today, I thought it only right that I try to contact your family and let them know where you were. I offered to call Cindy’s parents, but they said they would, and that they would be out here as fast as they could. When I opened up the door, here she was.”
“Mom and Dad are here?” he asked Cindy.
Cindy nodded. “Mine, too. We all wanted to make sure you were okay.” She turned to Cassie. “Thanks for taking such good care of him.”
“My pleasure entirely,” she beamed.
“We came in Dad’s van,” Cindy said, turning back to her husband, “so we’d be able to take you to the hospital. If you’re ready, that is.”
“No way am I going to spend another second away from you. Of course, I’m ready.”
The two girls helped Brad to his feet, which were still weak but strong enough to keep him up. Within minutes, he was falling asleep in the van, with one last image coming to him as he faded out of consciousness. It was the image of a marriage that maybe, just maybe, might make it after all.
The End
4.50| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |