Right Here, Right Now

by Georgia Beers

  Weirdly, I felt bad for Nascar Kyle. He was just a kid. Well, okay, not exactly a kid. But it’s not like he hit me on purpose. “Maybe that will make him more careful.” Scott was as doubtful about that as I was; I could tell by the grimace he made.

  “Anyway, Gisele was in the stairwell on her way to catch up to you when she heard the tires screech. She said she booked it down the stairs and out and you’d already been hit. You were unconscious.” He swallowed hard, and I realized that the image he’d just painted made my brother a little bit ill. “She called 9-1-1, and they brought you here.”

  “How are Mom and Dad?” I could only imagine what they’d been going through. Three days? Really?

  “Worried sick. Dad’s been biting the head off your doctor on the daily.” He grinned at me.

  I returned it. “I bet. They’re not working fast enough, hard enough, good enough.”

  “Exactly.” Scott’s smile faltered just a touch, and he reached for me, brushed my hair aside. “I was worried, too, Lace-Face. You scared us. I’m really glad you’re okay.” His eyes welled up.

  It was a golden opportunity I couldn’t resist. “Are you crying?” I asked. “Like, seriously crying? Bawling over your sister like a little tiny baby?”

  He laughed outright and wiped the back of his hand across his eye. “Shut up.”

  Our gazes held. My relationship with my brother had always been swirly, like liquid through one of those funky straws I had when I was a kid. A little contention, a little affection, a lot of mocking/teasing/making each other miserable. But I felt like we’d grown up over the past month or two. Or maybe I felt like I had. Whatever it was, whoever had done the growing or changing, my brother loved me. I saw it on his face, I sensed it in the room. And I felt safe.

  Before I could shake away the sentimentality to mock him some more, my parents burst through the door like a couple of typhoons, all happy gasps and thrilled smiles. My mother leaned over the bed and covered my face with about six dozen kisses, until I finally had to tell her she was smothering me to death. Thank God, the doctor arrived not far behind them and made them move so he could get close.

  He introduced himself as Dr. Panjabi. He was a tall, very handsome man, either of Indian descent or maybe Middle Eastern; I wasn’t sure. His aftershave was somehow comforting, and his dark brown eyes were soft and kind. He examined my leg, my torso, my head with a very gentle touch. When he finished, he stood up straight, made a couple notes on the tablet he carried, then made direct eye contact with me, which I found reassuring.

  “Everything looks great, Ms. Chamberlain. We’re going to keep you for another night or two, just to observe you for a little longer. You’re going to need to keep those ribs wrapped for a couple of weeks and avoid any twisting or sudden movements. Which will be difficult anyway while you’re on crutches.” He gave me a wink, and I couldn’t help but toss him a half grin. I liked him a lot. He made me feel comfortable. He touched my shoulder, gave it a squeeze. “You just relax and get some rest.”

  I nodded, which was a mistake, so instead told him I would do my best. Then he was gone and my mother was back at my side, her face too close to mine, her relief almost palpable—and the reason I let her stay so close.

  The rest of the afternoon passed in kind of a haze. The pain meds made me woozy and sleepy, and try as I did, I couldn’t stay awake once I got a fresh dose. I wanted to. I had visitors in and out on a constant basis. Leanne came in and reiterated everything Dr. Panjabi had told me, then assured me that he was good at his job. I understood that it was her way of feeling useful, of feeling like she was doing something to help, so I kept to myself that I’d drawn my own favorable conclusions about Dr. Panjabi. Leanne talked a good game, but I could see the relief in her eyes, very much like my mother’s. Mary stopped by with a gorgeous bouquet of flowers and told me there were six more in the office from various clients with whom she’d had to cancel appointments during my hospital stay.

  “I thought about sticking Leo in my purse and smuggling him in but wasn’t sure that was such a good idea.” She grinned at me.

  “Probably not,” I agreed.

  “But don’t worry. He’s doing just fine. He’s been wandering through your office, though, wondering where you are, I’m sure. And he’s been visiting next door regularly. Alicia’s been carrying on complete conversations with him, according to Gisele.” Everyone in the room chuckled…Mary, my parents, the nurse.

  I didn’t, though. At the mention of Alicia’s name, I had a couple snippets of memories, a few things that clawed at the far reaches of my brain, but nothing I could grab onto firmly. And then my meds kicked in, and I didn’t hear anything else Mary said.

  When I opened my eyes again, it was dark, with the exception of a small lamp near one of the visitors’ chairs. I had no idea what time it was, but there was a lone figure in the chair near the foot of the bed. I squinted until my vision cleared and saw that it was Gisele and she was scrolling on her phone. After a moment, she glanced up and smiled when she saw my open eyes.

  “Hey,” she said, very softly. “You’re awake. Hi.”

  “Hi,” I croaked, and as if reading my mind, she got up, grabbed my plastic water container, and held the straw to my lips. I drank greedily. “Thanks,” I told her when I was done.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked. Everybody asked that, and I knew they were being polite. Seriously, what else do you ask somebody who’s in the hospital? What’s your favorite color?

  “A little better.” It was true. My leg throbbed and my ribs still ached, but my head was finally beginning to feel less like there was a little construction team at work inside it with various tools. I let my gaze wander around the room. “You the only one here tonight?”

  “Your parents just headed home about fifteen minutes ago. Scott’s getting us coffee.”

  “You don’t have to stay here, you know.”

  “I know.”

  I backpedaled, realizing how I’d sounded. “Not that I don’t appreciate it. I do. Just…hanging out in a hospital room is beyond boring.”

  Gisele smiled.

  “So…you and my brother, huh?” Her smile widened and she looked down at the sheet covering me. “Wait, is that blushing I see?”

  She covered her eyes with a hand. “Stop,” she said, but that big smile remained.

  “He’s a lucky man,” I told her, and I meant it.

  “I’m doing my best to take things slowly,” she said. “But…”

  “Yeah, Scott doesn’t do anything slowly.”

  “I’m realizing that.”

  As I watched her, I had another flash of memory. Something Scott had said. I felt my brow furrow as I hunted for it.

  “What?” Gisele asked. “Are you in pain? Should I get a nurse?”

  “No. No, I’m fine.” Then it hit me. “I remember almost nothing from the day of my accident, but when Scott was telling me what happened, he said you’d called 9-1-1 because you were the first person there, that you…” I searched for the words. “That you were on your way to catch up with me. Were we going somewhere?”

  The way Gisele’s smile faltered was so subtle, I’d have missed it if I wasn’t looking right at her face. “No,” she said, and toyed with the hem of the sheet. She was quiet for so long that I began to think that was all I was getting. Finally, she blew out a breath and said, “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  The door whooshed open then and Scott came in, carrying two white paper cups with the green Starbucks logo of joy on them. “You’re awake,” he said to me as he handed Gisele one of the cups, then bent to kiss my forehead.

  “I am. And I’d kill for a latte right now.”

  “I can probably see if you can have some coffee, but I bet they don’t want you having all the fixings…” He grimaced.

  “S’okay,” I told him. “I’m in the middle of talking to Gisele about my accident.”

  A look passed between them, and Scott pressed his lips together. Ne
ither of them said anything to each other, but Gisele returned her focus to me.

  “Why did you feel you needed to see if I was okay?” I asked her. “Did something happen?” I was struggling. You don’t realize how hard it is not to be able to remember something until you’re hunting through your own memories and can’t find it. You know it existed. I mean, I obviously had an entire day, right? But I remembered almost nothing from it. Not getting up. Not going to work. Not driving or drinking coffee or answering phones. None of it. Dr. Panjabi had told me the memories would likely appear little by little, and he was right. Over the past half a day or so, snippets and slices and shards were beginning to appear in wildly random order, which was nearly as disconcerting as not being able to remember at all. I remembered Leo on Mary’s lap. I remembered the molding in the hallway of my office building. I remembered the smell of peaches.

  Before Gisele could answer me, the nurse pushed through the door wheeling her little Cart of Medical Paraphernalia, and Gisele popped up out of her chair as if ejected from it. “We’re going to get out of your hair,” she said and threw a look at Scott.

  I was exhausted. Already. Which was incredibly frustrating. So I let them gather their things, knowing I had little energy to argue. They both kissed my forehead, and I took that moment to say, “Don’t think you’re off the hook. I know there’s something you’re not telling me.”

  Again, they exchanged a glance.

  “Subtle, those looks.”

  Scott had the good sense to look sheepish.

  “Go. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  The nurse that night, whose name was Karen, was gentle and kind. She took my temperature and my blood pressure, asked me some questions about how I felt, brushed my hair for me, and brought me vanilla pudding. It’s possible I fell a little in love with her.

  Getting a good night’s sleep in a hospital is next to impossible. That’s my takeaway from my time there. Somebody comes into your room every two hours or so and pokes and prods and sticks you, and by the time they’ve left and you’ve relaxed and started to drift back off, they’re back to poke and prod and stick you some more.

  It had to be somewhere around five or six in the morning when I finally drifted off. The light outside my window was softly crimson, the sun beginning its ascent into the late spring morning sky. I watched the hue change as my eyelids gave up the battle and then closed.

  When I woke up a couple hours later, I felt heavy. Pummeled. Like I’d been beaten up in my sleep. Because in a way, I had. I remembered a chunk from that day. A discussion with Alicia. It was funny to me that I’d spent so much time and effort trying to recall a day that I now knew I’d have been better off forgetting altogether. I used so much energy to remember, and now I couldn’t get it out of my head. It echoed. And it wouldn’t stop.

  “I can’t do this. I’m sorry. I just can’t. It’s too hard. Please. I need you to leave me alone. I need you to let it go. For me. Please.”

  I refused to cry, mostly because I knew it would cause an epic headache I didn’t need, given, you know, my concussion and brain swelling. But I could still hear the final “Please” in my head, the desperation and pain injected into that one word. I reminded myself of exactly what I knew about Alicia, of why she said what she did, and that seemed to help a bit as I told myself to just relax, to just breathe. I needed to feel in control of something as I lay in a hospital bed, unable to walk or eat anything more than pudding and Cream of Wheat.

  I was gazing out the window trying not to think about her (and failing) when my parents arrived. My mom brought her usual cheer and warmth; it followed her like a cape she wore, and I found myself feeling the tiniest bit better just from seeing her face. But Alicia’s voice still echoed through my head, try as I might to put a lid on it somehow.

  “I need you to let it go. For me. Please.”

  When my eyes welled up, my mother took a quick step back like I’d burned her. “Oh, honey, did I touch your leg? I’m so sorry.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  They kept me in the hospital for two more days, and I was getting antsy. By the time Dr. Panjabi came in and told me I was being released, my eyes welled up with joy and relief and he simply kept his hand on my shoulder until I pulled myself together.

  My parents were there to take me home. My dad filled out my paperwork while my mother helped me dress. I missed Leo so badly, it made my chest ache. The nurse had been helping me get around on crutches, and they now leaned against the wall in the corner. Once I was dressed, my mom got them for me, and I hobbled around the room, getting a feel for being upright. It was glorious. Difficult and painful, but glorious.

  Scott and Gisele showed up as I sat on my bed waiting for my official release. My mom was in the hall, chatting with the staff that she’d come to know quite well, because that’s how she is. Dad had gone to bring the car around. Scott went to say hi to Mom.

  “They’re springing you, huh?” Gisele asked, and looked a little bit uncomfortable. She hadn’t been back since our last conversation, and it was obvious to me that she was still unsure how to proceed. But Scott coming to visit and then immediately leaving the room was a pretty big clue that she wanted to talk. I decided to let her off the hook.

  “They are. Look, Gisele, you can relax. I remembered a little bit of the time before the accident. I know you were coming to check on me because of my last conversation with Alicia.”

  Gisele grimaced and sat down next to me. She studied her feet for a long moment, then slowly nodded. “That had to be hard. We all heard the gist of it. I’m so sorry…” She let her voice trail off as she raised her head and stared off into the room.

  “It’s okay.” I shrugged. I stared at my hands as I asked quietly, “Does she know I’m here?” A beat went by, and I could feel Gisele’s gaze on me, the weight of it. “What?” I said as I turned to her.

  “Lacey…” Her brow furrowed. “You don’t know, do you?”

  “Know what?”

  “She was here.”

  I gave her a look of what I was sure was befuddlement because that’s exactly how I felt. “What? What do you mean?”

  “Alicia. She was here while you were unconscious. Like, a lot. She stayed through the night. She stayed through all three nights.”

  I blinked at her. It was all I could do because I couldn’t compute what she was saying. I had no memory of her, which I wouldn’t, of course, because of being unconscious and all. “I don’t understand.”

  Gisele took a deep breath. “It was loud, when you got hit. Screeching brakes and…” I heard her swallow. “When you hit. It made a horrible sound. Lots of people in the building heard it, including Alicia. She got to you only a minute or two after me.”

  I fought to stay with her story. It was the absolute weirdest feeling to have somebody tell you all about something that happened to you that you had zero recollection of. It freaked me out a little bit, and I could feel my heart beating harder in my chest.

  “She and I drove to the hospital in her car. She drove like a madwoman. I’m honestly surprised we didn’t end up in the room next to yours. And she kept saying things like, ‘I’m so stupid. Why did I do that? This is my fault. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean any of it.’ I knew she was talking about the conversation with you, but she wasn’t really saying it to me, you know? So I didn’t pry. I just let her mutter until we got here.”

  “And then?”

  “Once you were admitted and your family got here, she went home. But she came back that night. And both other nights. The nurse said she stayed all night. Your mom probably saw her.”

  It didn’t compute. I couldn’t make it. “But she hasn’t been here since I’ve woken up. How come?”

  Gisele frowned, tipped her head from side to side in a gesture of uncertainty. “I can only speculate on that.”

  When she didn’t, I raised my eyebrows expectantly.

  She blew out a breath. “Guilt plays a big part in Alicia’s world. I think you k
now that.”

  I nodded.

  “I suspect she feels partially responsible for what happened.”

  “Well, that’s ridiculous. She wasn’t driving the car.”

  “True. But she upset you. She knows it.”

  I couldn’t deny that. Since early this morning, memories had returned in trickles. A little snippet here, a tiny sliver there. One thing that was full-blown, though, was the memory of how much Alicia’s words had hurt me. But that didn’t mean I held her responsible for the accident, and I told Gisele so.

  “I know. I’m just telling you what I suspect Alicia is thinking. I’m not saying it’s rational.” She gave me a small smile and Scott came into the room then, followed by my mother and a nurse with a wheelchair.

  “Ready to blow this joint, Lace-Face?” Scott asked.

  “You have no idea.” I waved off any help and managed to use my crutches to get myself from the bed into the chair. The nurse was a large, bald man whose name tag told me he was James. Which was perfect because I pointed to the door and ordered, “Home, James.”

  He chuckled behind me. “Yes, ma’am.”

  I was able to put the whole Alicia thing aside for a while so I could focus on getting home. I needed a shower so badly, I wanted to see my dog, I was ready to eat something I actually had to chew. My mother insisted on staying the night with me and, while I put up a feeble protest, I was actually grateful to have her there. Mary had already dropped Leo at the house, so he was waiting for me, and if his excited barks and two-legged jumping were any indication, he’d missed me as much as I’d missed him. Mom kept him from ending up either clubbed by crutches or squashed flat by his falling mommy, who was still learning to navigate on said crutches.

  The house smelled a little bit stale from being unoccupied for days. “Mom, can you open a couple of windows?”

  “I can. I’m going to scramble you some eggs, too. Okay?”