Chapter 3
THE NEXT THREE DAYS PASSED LIKE EONS. WE’D SET MY surgery for Friday. In those three days I came close to cancelling a hundred times. Somehow the morning of the procedure managed to arrive. I was due at the hospital at 8:00 a.m. The first two hours would be prepping, then into the operation. I couldn’t drive myself, since I’d need someone to bring me home in two days. Sherry said she’d pick me up, but she couldn’t take me. She was busy getting her daughter to school. I’d scheduled a cab.
“Where to?” the taxi driver asked.
I carried a small overnight bag, my purse inside. No makeup, no jewelry. I’d put my wedding rings in a dresser drawer.
“Hillsdale Hospital in Palo Alto.”
His dark eyes flicked me a look in the rearview mirror. “You sick?”
“No.”
“Visiting someone?”
“No.”
He left me alone.
Sherry and I had talked at length on the phone last night. “I still can’t believe you’re doing this,” she said.
“Me either.”
“It’s just so . . . drastic.”
“I need something drastic. And they insist it’s a pretty simple procedure.”
“It’s your brain.”
“It’s my life.”
Silence.
“Are you scared?”
“Petrified.”
She grunted. “Me too.”
The cab pulled up in front of the hospital. My nerves jittered. I walked inside and headed to the second floor, as I’d been directed. With each step my legs grew heavier. What was I doing? This was the last chance to change my mind. I didn’t even like hospitals.
In the clinic area a young nurse with chic brown hair met me, all smiles. Pretty face. Such graciousness and calm. Deb Smith, read her name tag.
Such a common name. Was it fake?
I frowned at myself. Why in the world would I think that?
“This is for you.” She handed me a multicolored cotton gown. “All your jewelry’s off already?” She looked me over. “That’s good. You can put your clothes in the rubber bin over there.” She pointed behind me.
“Where’s the surgeon?” I hadn’t even met him. Or was it a her?
“He’ll be along shortly.”
“Where’s the brain chip?”
“He’s got it.” Deb Smith patted my hand. “Don’t worry. This is a straightforward procedure, really. I’ve seen many a person before you sail right through it.”
But what about afterward? Would my life be changed? “Tell them not to give me a fake one. Please.”
“Well, that’s out of my jurisdiction, I’m afraid.”
“I don’t want a broken one either.”
The nurse gave me a mild look. “There’s a sealed and sterile envelope with your name on it. The chip inside is meant only for you. And it’s been checked and rechecked. No way it’s broken. Now just get dressed in your gown, and we’ll be back for you soon.”
She pulled the curtain closed with a swoosh.
I changed into the gown. My body shook. I’d never been through surgery before. Not even for tonsils. What if I was allergic to anesthesia?
Hugging myself, I sat on the gurney and waited. It was cold. A wave of aloneness rushed me. If Ryan were still alive, this wouldn’t be happening. Even if I’d been attacked, I could have made it, with Ryan.
Soft footsteps sounded. They stopped outside the curtain. “Ms. Newberry? May I come in?”
“Yes.”
The curtain drew back.
My doctor looked in his sixties. Thick gray hair, a round face. “Hi, I’m Dr. Rayner. I’ll be doing your procedure, along with Dr. Frank. Do you have any questions?”
So many. My lungs clogged at the sheer weight of them. “Are you . . . do you work for Cognoscenti?”
“Yes. Dr. Frank and I have done many of these procedures. You’re in good hands, if I do say so myself.”
I nodded.
“Anything else?”
My head shook. I simply could not talk.
He spoke with me until Deb Smith returned, clearly trying to reassure me. “Okay.” The doctor smiled. “I’ll go prep, and we’ll see you soon.”
“So. Looks like you’re set.” The nurse’s eyes drifted to the bin behind me, containing my clothes. “Whoa, cool bra. Bright blue.”
What? I blinked.
“Where’d you get it?”
I looked at the bra, bewildered. Was it bright? I hadn’t noticed. “Victoria’s Secret.”
She raised a shoulder. “Of course. Where else?”
How surreal, discussing underwear at a time like this.
Another nurse appeared. I needed to lie down so they could prep my head. I obeyed, a rag doll. Sections of my hair were parted. A shaver whirred.
Fear crammed my throat. I was really doing this.
Next thing I knew, they were wheeling me into surgery. I watched the ceiling go by, my thoughts hazed. What was I doing here? Had I lost my mind?
I still had time to pull out of this.
The operating room felt even chillier. “Why’s it so cold in here?” I asked one of the masked docs. Which one was he?
“The lower temperature keeps the germs down.”
Oh.
“All right,” somebody said. “Ready to go.”
My eyes squeezed shut.
“It’s okay, Lisa, you can relax.”
My heart cantered.
A plastic-feeling mask descended over my nose and mouth. “Okay now, just breathe normally.”
Panic spun through me. I gasped in air. Let me out of here. Out, out, out!
Was someone above me telling me everything was okay? It wasn’t. Not at all. I sucked more oxygen.
Dense fog carpeted my veins. So . . . heavy . . . Desperately I tried to move my mouth. Yell Stop!
Nothing happened.
Another breath, and the fog thickened.
No, please. I don’t . . .
A third breath. It sucked me down, down, to the depths of the ocean. I struggled to swim up.
But my feet . . .
Got . . .
Tangled.
Chapter 4
A SECOND LATER I WOKE UP.
Sensations and thoughts chugged in my head. This ceiling—not the one in the operating room. A different blanket on me. My body felt like lead. An IV needle was taped into a vein in my arm.
How did this happen? I’d just gone under.
I blinked hard, feeling my mind. Nothing seemed different.
Maybe they didn’t do the procedure. Maybe something went wrong
Or did I get the placebo? The thought leadened me. I couldn’t even hold it in my head. Couldn’t bear to think it.
Ryan. Were memories of him still with me? I visualized his face. His smirk when he used to tease me. I could hear his voice. His off-key singing.
Yes, he was there! I wanted to cry but didn’t have the energy.
Footsteps. The curtain around me edged back. Carefully I rolled my head to the left. I sensed bandages on that side of my skull but felt no pain.
“Lisa?” A quiet voice spoke. Deb . . . somebody. Smith?
“Huh?”
“Ah.” She stepped inside. “You’re awake. How do you feel?”
“Uh-huh.”
Deb smiled. “That good? Well, all right.”
I swallowed. My throat felt like a desert. “Did they do it? Put in the chip?”
“Sure did. Everything went like clockwork.”
“But I passed out only a second ago.”
She was checking the IV. “It just feels like that. Anesthesia puts you so deep under, you don’t have a sense of time like when you’re asleep. A total time warp, isn’t it?”
Way beyond a time warp. Downright eerie. “You sure? ’Cause it doesn’t feel . . .”
She patted my arm. “Trust me.”
I closed my eyes, trying to absorb it all. I’d done it. Really gone through with it. Should I l
augh—or cry? “What . . . happens now?”
“We’ll take you to your room. A private one.”
Good. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. Just wanted to sort things out.
“I feel . . . heavy.”
“You’re drugged.”
“What happens when I’m undrugged?”
“You won’t feel heavy anymore.” She threw me a smile, as if to apologize for her lightheartedness. “Your head may hurt some. We can give you more pain meds.”
“I don’t like pain meds. Can’t function on ’em.”
“Okay, your choice. But we’ll send you home with some, just in case.”
Decoration for my medicine cabinet. “Where are my clothes?”
“You’ll find them in your room. Like magic.”
My other questions evaporated. I just wanted to sleep.
“You ready to get out of here?” Deb asked.
“Uh-huh.”
“All right. I’ll get another nurse, and we’ll take you up.”
I drifted into unconsciousness.
Sometime later I found myself in a private room, propped up on pillows in the bed. Questions stormed me all over again. Did I get a real chip? What did I feel? What was my life going to look like?
Deb got me comfortable and made sure I had water. She showed me how to put the bed up and down, and where the nurse call button was located. “You just give us a ring if you need anything, all right?”
I nodded . . . and once again floated into sleep.
Dreams of Ryan came, vague and rambling. Then he stood before me so clearly. I held a baby in one arm. I could see my husband, touch him, smell him. I reached out, ran my fingers through his hair—
And woke up.
My bleary eyes saw a hospital room. But Ryan’s face still pulsed in my mind. The dream had been so real. I’d had them like this before and always woke up sobbing.
Not this time.
I held my breath. Could that be true?
Any minute now it would hit. I braced for the familiar pain . . .
It didn’t come.
Had this really worked? Please, please, please.
I waited longer—and still nothing.
After a few minutes I made myself picture Ryan again. I went over the dream in detail. Seeing Ryan’s face. Touching him. Even with that, my heart lay still.
This was beyond amazing. I could feel my husband, remember him with warmth and love. I could even smile at the image of the baby we never had. But that deadening grief was gone.
I’d gotten the real chip. It was working!
Lightness surged through my body. Had I ever felt such joy in my life? I wanted to jump up and run through the hallway. I wanted to shout and sing. Tell the world it had happened! To me. This promise, this unbelievable gift—
But I could do none of those things. Drugged and weak, I could only lay there, tears running down my temples. Smiling until my cheek muscles burned. Eventually the tears ran out. My throat was thick and my nose clogged. I didn’t care. I just smiled on.
At that moment I didn’t think I would ever stop.
Chapter 5
SOMETIME LATER I WOKE UP AGAIN.
How had I ever gone back to sleep? With all the elation knocking around inside me?
I bunched the covers up to my neck and closed my eyes. What if my head wasn’t quiet anymore? Maybe I’d dreamed the whole thing . . .
At first I was too scared to test it. Then I focused on more memories of Ryan. Our wedding and honeymoon. The first time we’d kissed.
And still my head was quiet.
New wonder surged through me. I wanted to tell the world! I longed to phone Sherry, but trial participants weren’t allowed calls. Cognoscenti didn’t want me talking to anyone who might influence my thinking.
My hand fumbled around for the call button and pushed it. In a few minutes a middle-aged nurse with large brown eyes appeared.
“Hi, hon, how we doing?”
“I’m healed! My brain is healed!”
She smiled. “Well, that’s great.”
“No, you don’t understand. My depression is gone! I can remember my husband and everything—but I don’t feel the grief in my heart. I can think. I can even be happy.”
The nurse beamed at me. “That’s really wonderful, hon.”
She had no clue.
“You need to go to the bathroom while I’m here? I’ll help you up.”
She really didn’t get it. How could she not just fall over?
“Uh, yeah. Okay.”
Sherry would understand. Tomorrow I could tell her.
The nurse fussed over me, taking the IV out of my arm.
When I got up my legs were sluggish, but not as bad as I’d expected. More good news. Just think—in a few days I’d get my physical energy back, too. That would be so awesome. The things I could do.
When I was done in the bathroom, the nurse helped settle me back into bed. “You need any more pain pills?”
“No way. I just want to feel . . . everything.”
She raised her eyebrows. “You’ve got quite a high pain tolerance there.”
I’d hardly noticed the pain. It didn’t matter.
The rest of that day I dozed on and off. Every time I woke I felt stronger. Over the hours my excitement settled into the most wonderful sense of peace. How had I managed to live through the past nine months? The time since Ryan’s death now seemed like a black hole. I could never, ever go back to that.
I passed the time soaking in my new sensations. I remembered funny moments with Ryan and laughed. Laughed. I pictured the three times I’d miscarried and knew the pain. Understood it. But it wasn’t that smothering darkness that had threatened to kill me.
By late afternoon more incredible things had happened. I dared myself to even relive the attack—and didn’t feel it. I visualized my car as I walked toward it in the dark. Remembered my hand rummaging inside my purse for the keys. Heard the pounding steps behind me. I felt the sudden hit of an arm clinched around my neck, a force pulling me backward. Scream, scream, my brain wailed, but no sound would come. I could smell the man’s sweat, almost taste it.
I saw myself at the San Mateo Police Station, wrapped in a blanket, shivering, shivering. The smell of old coffee and despair. A detective taking my statement.
Then I thought of the months after that. The sleepless nights and shuddering days. The clotting depression. I saw myself unable to think, finally quitting my admin job at the investment company. Collecting the two hundred thousand from Ryan’s life insurance and putting it in the bank with no care to spend a dime.
And I thought of my mother. How I’d failed her so often. I hadn’t been the cheerleader type, as she’d been. Or athletic. Hadn’t excelled in anything. Was an average student. Hadn’t given her grandchildren. I could hear her voice from childhood. “Lisa, you can do better than that, and you know it. Do you try to disappoint me?”
Those memories hurt. But not like before. Their trappings of guilt and shame were gone.
I’d never guessed that was possible.
During my depression, no one could really help me. Not even Sherry. And they couldn’t possibly know what I was going through. I’d felt lost, utterly alone, and without the energy to do anything about it.
Now it was like someone had flipped a switch in my brain.
That day I cried a lot. Happy tears. It was almost more than my heart could contain.
By dinner time the drugs had worn off completely. Then I could feel more than ever that the old weight in my chest was gone. Thought came more easily. Clearer.
I missed Sherry.
After eating I got up and shuffled around the room. Ventured a few steps into the hall. A nurse I hadn’t seen before asked how I was doing.
“Fabulous!” I spread my arms. “You wouldn’t believe how the chip has worked.”
Friday night I slept soundly for the first time in months.
Saturday morning I felt even better. I told every
nurse that came in how my life had changed. What the Empowerment Chip had done for me. They couldn’t shut me up. That afternoon Jerry and Clair came by.
Ice Queen carried a notebook and pen. “How do you feel?”
Couldn’t they see, just by looking at me? “I’m healed.” The words bounced off my tongue.
Jerry’s eyebrows rose. “How so?”
I told them, my words tripping over themselves. Ice Queen took notes. She seemed to record not only what I said, but my gestures and tone. Her chilled poker face remained in place, but she couldn’t keep the gleam from her eyes. It was the same excitement I’d seen when she talked about the chip a few days ago.
A lifetime ago.
Now I fully understood why she felt so passionate about the Empowerment Chip.
“I know I got a real one,” I declared. “You can tell me now.”
Jerry shrugged. “We don’t know. We won’t know until the trial is over and we report our findings.”
Didn’t matter. I knew. “Who do you report to?”
“Richard Price, V.P. of Research. And he reports directly to Dr. Hilderbrand himself, who developed the chip.”
“Tell them they did it.” My voice caught. “Tell Dr. Hilderbrand thank you. For my life.”
Jerry smiled. “They’ll be glad to hear you’re better.”
They set a meeting for me to see them at the Cognoscenti offices the following Friday. Jerry wrote the time on the back of his card and left it on the tray near my bed. Next Friday. Just think of all the things I could accomplish by then.
I shifted my top pillow. My head hurt only a little. I’d taken a couple over-the-counter pain relievers. “I can’t wait to get out of here tomorrow. I’ll be able to do things now. The future is a promise, not a threat.”
“That’s great.” Clair smiled and managed to look half warm. “But don’t make decisions too quickly, all right? Just let yourself continue to heal from the surgery this week.”
“Okay.” Although I couldn’t imagine just sitting around for a week. I wanted to move.
“Once you get home someone will call you about setting up your post-op appointments,” Jerry said. As part of the trial I’d continue to report how I was doing to a Cognoscenti interviewer once a week for six months.
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