|
|
"That was great!" Jessica backed away to let him get off the floor to a standing position with no assistance. Five pushups. Yeah, not bad. Considering a week ago he couldn't lift his body an inch off the floor. She moved over and hugged him, holding him tightly, cheek to cheek, her chin on his shoulder. Her tears were happy ones now. He was feeling something in his own eyes, wondered if she could see it. And didn't care if she did. "Let's get some breakfast. He walked, slowly but unaided, into the kitchen. "I need to get my life rebuilt." he said. "Seeing people and places does help. I need to absorb as much as I can of my past. I think I may be able, maybe, to come back." "You can, and you will. What do you want to do today?" "Dunno. Let me think." "We do need to talk about your experience." Jessica said. "I'm into your records quite a ways, and I'm not liking what I see. Why don't we go back and go over some of it?" "Sounds good."
"I've got these organized." Jessica said. "They were pretty haphazard. I've put them in chronological order." "Any ideas?" "The ones I have so far, I don't like. Most of the information I need is in these nurses logs. All handwritten, badly. But what I've been able to make out I don't like. There are some things in here, that shouldn't be. Alex waited. "The drugs they were using." Jessica said. "So far, almost a dozen anti-psychotic drugs. Several anti-anxiety drugs. And this I can't figure out. What were they using fentanyl for?" "Fentanyl I recognize. Isn't that only used for anasthesia or really bad pain? What kind of pain was I in? I was in a coma. Or something." "Right. They might have used it over at Saint Bernards, during or after your surgery. Here, I don't know. More to the point, all of those drugs are dangerous. Even when prescribed - and that's for mentally ill people - they're dangerous. And destructive, neurologically." Alex waited. "I don't know." Jessica said. "You were essentially catatonic, when they sent you over from St. Bernards. Tell me - I wasn't there as much as Charlie and Sam - what do you remember, other than what happened during those last three weeks or so.?" What do I remember? Nothing except what's happened in the past few minutes. If that much. I'm not ever retaining new memories. Am I? "Couple of things, maybe. These seem real, and they've stuck with me, where nothing else has. "One is, I was in an ambulance. Moving, on the gurney. I looked up, there near my head. On the bulkhead. There were license plates, from Missouri, Tennessee, and Mississippi. I remember thinking, this is an Arkansas ambulance. Why are those license plates there? Are they required? Because the ambulance operates in those states? Maybe they were souvenirs? Still don't know but that's how my mind was working, if you know what I mean." "I understand. What happened next?" "The ambulance stopped somewhere, backed into an unloading bay. They took me out. Into the building. I remember thinking about movies, where they're rolling the gurney through the halls, it hits those swinging doors and goes through them. Just like that. And that was it." "It couldn't have been when they took you to Arkansas Methodist in Paragould. You were completely out of it. And when they took you to Jonesboro, you were sedated. That could only have been when they took you back to Saint Bernards to replace the feeding tube." "Probably." "During that time, the drugs wore off, you woke up. They would have sedated you again to replace the tube. What was the other time?" "Trish was in town. Heard about me, came to see me." Trish was Tricia Thompson. A former employee of B&H, had moved to the Chicago area. Still visited family in Jonesboro regularly. "What happened then?" "We watched television. The Barrett-Jackson auction was on. You know Trish, likes cars. Likes to watch those auctions. We watched, talked about cars, couple of hours." "I may want to talk to her. Get an idea of your condition. What's your assessment?" "How'd I know that?" "Know what?" "That Trish liked cars, watching auctions?" "I'd guess you just remembered it. Everything is in there somewhere, you just have to find it." Yeah. How do I find it all? How do I know if I find it all? "That was the only other time that seems real. Everything else, dreamlike. Hallucinations, a lot of it." "Interesting. I need to find that feeding tube incident, time-wise. Tell me about what happened after you woke up, and stayed awake. Before you left." |
|