Before We Met: What Happens When You Fall For The Same Man Twice But Don't Even Know It

by Madeleine Cardell

  Vera’s life was maybe not as wild as other peoples’, but it sure was a steady adventure of exploration, discovery and self-transformation. Since her early years, spent as an only child, the most prominent longing of her heart had always been to have someone dear with whom she could share her journey with. Tony was everything she ever wanted in a man - he gave her butterflies, but was also her best friend. And now she was asking herself a difficult and a very uncomfortable question - why exactly did she dump him? Did she want to make him realize that he loved her? she pondered, with her thoughts in disarray, or did she just want to control him, maybe even bully him into moving in with her, despite the fact she knew he wasn’t ready? And maybe Astrid, after all, was right about one thing - he had just needed time. If she hadn’t pressed all the wrong buttons, if she hadn’t given him that silly ultimatum, it would most likely have all been sorted out by now, and they would probably still be together - and very happy.

  And as she walked down the street, even more erratically, it suddenly downed on her - Tony didn’t do anything wrong! It was her. It was all her fault! For the last five, almost six weeks, she’d been trying to convince herself and everyone else that he was conflicted, that he was a commitment-phobe - but only because she wanted to somehow justify this hoax breakup. But now, the truth was staring her right in the face. She’d dumped the man she loved and played mind games, played with his emotions … and she lost out. She was left alone and desolate. Her plan to make him see sense about her had blown up in her face. Was there anything she could do right now to reverse that damage? she wondered, bring everything to how it was five weeks ago? Could she tell him that she’d made a big mistake? That she was wrong to give him any kind of ultimatum, and that she’d like them to start over? Would he give her another chance?

  All these thoughts were going through her head at once, leaving her breathless and confused. But deep inside, Vera knew that there was only one thing she could do to start undoing this mess - she needed to call him and explain everything, and the sooner the better. She needed to call him right now. Walking chaotically, she inadvertently stepped into the road, frantically looking for her phone in her bag, and immediately found herself in front of a car. The driver hit the brakes sharply and sounded the horn.

  ‘Lady, can’t you see that the light is red?!’ he shouted. ‘It’s a damn busy road!’

  ‘Sorry, really sorry,’ she gasped as she crossed to the other side, still looking for the handset in the bag. And then she felt it at the bottom of the bag and took it out. In the near distance, Vera saw the next set of traffic lights, but looked down at the phone in her hand, instead, and went through respective letters in her contact list - a, b, c - her heart was racing, and she was almost running down the road. She was about to do it! She was about to call Tony. She selected t and his name popped up on her screen. But just as she was about to press her finger to the screen, she experienced a weird feeling - her body was catapulted in the air, like it was involuntarily hijacked by space, and flew over the road towards the curb on the over side. And then, just as quickly as she was launched through the air, she started to fall back down to the ground ...

  PART II

  CHAPTER 9

  West End Lane, the main street in West Hampstead, was closed to traffic. The distinctive sound of sirens, indicating that an ambulance was on its way, was getting louder by the second. A woman was lying in the middle of the road. Nobody knew yet but her name was Vera Smith. She was unconscious. Someone was performing CPR, and many people had stopped to watch. As more arrived, others told them what had just happened - that the woman lying unconscious was crossing the road, that the car came downhill and she got hit, flew a few meters and landed near the curb on the other side. It was a red Ford Fiesta that had hit her, they pointed to the car in the middle of the road. In a near distance, the driver of the car was frantically talking into his phone.

  ‘She just appeared out of nowhere,’ he was shouting into his phone. ‘I swear! She wasn’t looking as she stepped into the road. I hit the brakes but there wasn’t enough time!’ He then stopped for a moment and asked the person who was helping Vera if she was okay, and if she was breathing. She was breathing, the person told him, but she was still unconscious. So the driver carried on talking into the phone. A few people were picking things up that were lying on the road - her bag, some keys, and a phone. One of them, a woman in a black coat, went through the phone, scanned through Vera’s contacts, and found ‘Mum’ - then she dialed the number.

  When the ambulance arrived, the paramedics jumped out and took over from the passerby performing CPR. In the meantime, the crowd had got bigger and a traffic jam formed behind the red Fiesta. Then a police car arrived from one of the side roads. After getting off the car two of the policemen tried to diffuse the traffic; the third one approached the clearly distressed driver of the Fiesta and took him into the car for questioning. But then someone in the crowd shouted – “She’s awake!” - and the rest of the people gave a little cheer. They could see now that Vera was moving. She lifted her head, and she tried to get up, but the paramedics asked her to lie back down. They then lifted her onto the stretcher and carefully placed her into the back of the ambulance. The woman who had phoned her mother, offered to get into the ambulance with her. After the door had closed and the ambulance sped in the direction of the hospital, the crowd started moving, and the driver of the red Fiesta continued talking to the policeman. The street remained closed.

  In Reading, Patricia Smith, a petite woman in her early sixties with slightly greyish hair called her husband. Her hands were shaking. She’d just been told that her daughter had been hit by a car and had been taken to a local hospital. She didn’t know what state she was in. She only knew that Vera was unconscious initially, and then woke up due to resuscitation. She was told that the accident looked serious, but that the nature of her injuries was unknown. Apparently Vera had flown past another car and ended up on the other side of the road.

  ‘Stan, it’s about Vera,’ she exclaimed into the handset, when she finally reached her husband. ‘She’s had an accident! You need to come home immediately. We have to go to London!’

  Just fifteen minutes after leaving West End Lane, the ambulance arrived at the A&E department of the local hospital and stopped at the entrance. The paramedics opened the door and got Vera out on a stretcher. She was conscious, but was bleeding lightly from her knees, elbows, and her left cheekbone. When they got into the building, a doctor appeared immediately to examine her. The woman who travelled with her in the ambulance told the doctor what she had witnessed and confirmed that the patient’s name was Vera Smith – and also that she had informed Vera’s mother of the accident. The doctor asked the woman to wait outside. He then advised the nurse.

  ‘We need to clean the wounds and cuts. Prepare the injections,’ he said. He then turned to the patient.

  ‘Vera, do you know where you are?’ he asked her.

  ‘In a hospital?’ she asked back.

  ‘Yes, you are in the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead. You’ve had an accident. You were hit by a car. Can you tell me if you can move your head please?’ He stepped away from the stretcher. Vera slowly turned her head up and then moved it slowly from left to right.

  ‘Did it hurt?’ He looked at her neck.

  ‘Yes, a little,’ she answered quietly.

  ‘Can you move your legs?’ His eyes wondered to the bottom of the bed.

  Vera tried to move her left leg slightly, but failed. Her whole body was shaking.

  ‘Slowly, Miss Smith.’ The doctor put his hand on her knee. ‘Move your toes first, and then your foot’ he instructed. Vera did as he said and eventually lifted her leg.

  ‘Good!’ He looked at her with a small smile. ‘Now please move the other one in the same way.’ He watched her once again. ‘Excellent. Did it hurt?’ he asked.

  ‘No, it didn’t,’ she answered after a short pause.

  ‘Are you in pain anywhere else?’ />
  ‘No, not really, I don’t know ...’ She sounded confused. ‘I feel sick, naus … eous …’ her words were breaking.

  ‘I understand. Please relax and just lie still. Are you comfortable?’

  ‘Yes,’ Vera answered.

  ‘Okay,’ said the doctor. ‘I’m afraid I have to ask a couple more questions. Can you remind me what your name is?’ Vera’s body started shaking even more.

  ‘My name is Vera Smith,’ she said after another long pause.

  ‘Thank you for that, Vera. And how old are you?’ He looked at her face.

  ‘Seventeen,’ she answered slowly. ‘It was my birthday recently, I think …’ she added.

  ‘Any other memories?’ asked the doctor.

  ‘Just my birthday,’ she answered him faintly.

  The doctor and nurse looked at each other.

  ‘Vera.’ The doctor pulled in a chair and sat next to her. ‘You’ve been in a car accident, and you’re in shock. So it may come as a surprise to you that you’re not seventeen, but thirty-one years old.’

  ‘What?’ Vera whispered. ‘Thirty-one?’ She sighed. ‘How?’ She lifted her head slightly, her eyes revealing her distress at that realization.

  ‘Relax, Vera. You need to relax.’ Seeing her obvious distress, the nurse directed her back onto the pillow and held her left hand. ‘It’s common not to remember stuff like that after an accident,’ she reassured her.

  Then the door opened and a couple in their mid-sixties - a thin, petite woman and a much taller man with balding hair and heavy black-framed glasses - made their way towards them. They were Vera’s parents and they were visibly nervous, and obviously distressed.

  ‘Vera, darling,’ the woman cried as she approached the bed. ‘Are you okay?’ She wept openly and turned to the doctor. ‘Is she going to be okay? I’m her mother. We’re her parents.’

  The nurse, who had been holding Vera’s hand, moved aside.

  ‘I’m Doctor Manafi’ the doctor said, and he offered his hand. ‘From the A & E department.’

  ‘Hello, Doctor Manafi,’ Vera’s dad shook his hand. ‘How’s my daughter?’ He looked at him with a face that betrayed his fear, but also displayed his faith in the doctor.

  ‘I presume that you know what happened?’ Doctor Manafi’s eyes scanned their faces.

  ‘Yes, we do’ answered Stanley. ‘The kind lady who came here with our daughter in the ambulance just filled us in on everything.’ His eyes then turned again to Vera lying motionless on the stretcher. ‘Please tell me - how is she?’ he asked the doctor once more, looking very concerned.

  ‘She’s stable, and she can move - which is good news. None of her limbs are broken, so it seems she’s had a lucky escape. My colleagues are about to take her upstairs for a scan,’ answered Doctor Manafi. ‘You and your wife are welcome to go with her.’

  Stanley nodded his head.

  ‘Of course we will,’ he said quickly.

  ‘One more thing before you go,’ the doctor said. ‘Vera is in shock at this present moment, as it is often the case after a significant trauma occurs, and she seems to think that she’s seventeen.’

  Stanley and his wife looked at each other and then back at the doctor.

  ‘It would suggest that she doesn’t remember anything beyond that age - at this moment,’ Doctor Manafi continued. ‘But please do not worry. It is very common in patients who have experienced a blow to the head. We’ll monitor this for the next twenty-four hours, and run some tests if need be when the shock wears off.’

  ‘So what you’re saying is that she’s got some form of amnesia? Is that correct?’ Patricia, who had been quiet until now, apart from quietly weeping, finally spoke. ‘Is that what this is called?’ she asked the doctor.

  As soon as she said it, Vera raised her head slightly.

  ‘Mum, don’t talk about me like I’m not here,’ she suddenly said.

  Patricia immediately abandoned the conversation and turned towards her daughter.

  ‘Oh darling, I’m sorry. I’m just trying to find out exactly what’s going on,’ she said, apologetically.

  ‘So what is it that you remember, sweetheart?’ her dad asked, approaching the bed.

  Vera, still lying straight on her back, with her eyes focused on the ceiling and her arms resting along her body, took a few moments to compose her answer.

  ‘I remember my birthday, and breakfast the following day …’ she began. ‘I remember you Dad leaving for work, and you, Mum, going to work in the garden. But I don’t remember anything else.’

  CHAPTER 10

  ‘Doctor, is this really normal? Vera’s mother spoke quietly, trying to steer him aside. They had just watched Vera undergoing a full body scan. Both she and her husband were seriously worried about their daughter.

  ‘Mrs. Smith, Vera has suffered a big blow when she’s hit the road, and we can’t speculate right now. We need to wait and see how this situation develops, and what the scan will show up.’

  ‘She says that she remembers her life at home, with us, as her last memory. How is this possible? Is she really unaware of the latter years of her life?’ Patricia looked to him for answers.

  ‘I wouldn’t want to say for certain, because we need to run the tests first.’ He tried to avoid the answer directly, choosing to maintain professionalism, but he could hear the panic in Mrs. Smith’s voice.

  ‘Please, doctor, tell us what you know!’ Patricia pleaded with him.

  Doctor Manafi wondered in silence if it was his place to speak before the results of the tests. But when he looked into Vera’s mother’s face, he knew he wasn’t going to get away from her without giving her some idea of Vera’s state.

  ‘If the memory loss persists, it might be a case of retrograde amnesia - in short known as R.A.,’ he said.

  ‘Retrograde amnesia?’ Patricia repeated after the doctor. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It’s a loss of memory, access to events, or information that occurred before an injury took place - very often a sharp blow to the head, just as in Vera’s case.’ He stopped to make sure they understood him. ‘R.A. is distinctively different from other forms of amnesia,’ he continued, ‘because patients suffering from it are more likely to lose memories that are fairly recent, or occurred close to the traumatic incident, as opposed to more remote memories.’ Doctor Manafi discretely looked at his watch.

  ‘Is that reversible?’ Patricia held Stanley’s hand as she asked.

  ‘As I previously mentioned.’ He adjusted his uniform. ‘R.A. is closely associated with the loss of episodic memory, including autobiographical information. In very extreme cases, individuals may completely forget who they are. But this doesn’t seem to be the case with your daughter, because the first thing she remembered was her name - which is good news. If she remains the same way until tomorrow, we will run several tests to help us diagnose her condition correctly. Do you have any other questions?’ he asked. He was aware that he had another case to attend to as a matter of urgency.

  ‘What kind of tests?’ Stanley.

  ‘A neurologist will set a test for factual knowledge, such as knowledge of public events for example, and an autobiographical memory interview that comprises names of relatives, personal information, Vera’s education and job history. This information will help us determine the degree of memory affected.’ He needed to get away now, but Patricia threw yet another question at him.

  ‘Doctor, will this affect her as a person? You often hear that people’s personalities change after accidents like this.’ She squeezed her husband’s hand harder.

  ‘Mrs. Smith, there are many aspects essential to the patient that remain unaffected by R.A., but that depends very much on individual cases. In many patients, though, their personality remains the same. General knowledge about the world is usually unaffected also. However, episodic memory - which refers to the patient’s life experiences - might be heavily impaired, and for various amounts of time. You can speak about it with the neurolo
gist tomorrow. But now, I’m afraid, I’ll really have to get back to A&E.’ He offered his hand to them.

  ‘Thank you very much, Doctor,’ Stanley said, shaking his hand.

  ‘My pleasure. We shall speak again, but goodbye for now.’

  As they watched him make his way down the corridor, a nurse wheeled Vera out of the room where the scan had taken place. Patricia and Stanley walked towards them. The nurse then wheeled the bed down the corridor and opened the door to another room.

  ‘You can come in too,’ she said, smiling at them.

  Vera still lay flat on her bed. Her facial expression suggested that she might have been in pain. After the nurse positioned her bed and set the brakes down, Patricia and Stan walked towards their daughter.

  ‘Are you hurting, darling?’ Patricia leant on the bed and gave her a kiss on the head. Vera winced. ‘Oh I’m so sorry, darling, I didn’t mean to make it worse …’ She lifted herself off the bed for fear of causing Vera more pain.

  ‘I know, Mum,’ she replied faintly, ‘it’s just that my whole body hurts now –’ she whispered.

  ‘That’s what happens after an accident,’ interrupted the nurse. ‘It will take a few days and then you’ll be as good as new. Now rest, and try to sleep a little,’ she urged her.

  ‘We’ll look after her.’ Patricia smiled at the nurse. ‘Could we stay here tonight?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m afraid you can’t. It’s against the rules,’ the nurse answered her, with an apologetic smile. ‘But you can come back tomorrow. You will be able to speak to a doctor early in the morning. You must have had a nasty shock yourselves.’ She looked at both of them. ‘So, I recommend you go home, have a good night sleep and come back tomorrow. There’s nothing you can do for her right now. She’s in good hands,’ she concluded.

  Patricia and Stan look at each other; they both knew she was right.