by Liz Crowe
“What in the hell,” I shouted as I jolted awake, my breathing labored and my heart pounding. I felt sweat on my brow. The dream frightened me and left me with so many questions. How could my perfect paradise turn into something so horrible? Who was the man in my dream and what happened to him? What was the conversation between the serpent and the man? And why had the serpent bitten the man? All of these questions ran through my head as my eyes adjusted. Where am I, I wondered.
I could tell I was lying in bed but it wasn’t my own. The mattress was less pillow top and more like a vinyl padded cushion. I could smell copper, antiseptic and stale air. Stark fluorescent lights overhead hurt my eyes. Through the blurriness I could see that the walls were a bland yellow; I definitely wasn’t in my bedroom. I heard the ticking and beeping of machines, and I was apparently hooked up to them by something stuck in my wrist and taped to my chest. A TV hung on the wall, and I used it as an object to refocus my vision. It was set on a news station, the volume muted. I could decipher pieces of the closed captioning; something about a car accident in Tennessee. An entire family of six was killed. Someone who looked like a nurse fluttered about the room.
“Where am I?” The nurse walked to my bedside. Her name badge read Marlo.
“Allison, you’re okay,” Marlo replied, her voice soft and soothing, almost reassuring. “You’re in the hospital.” Marlo held my gaze and I felt my anxiousness fade away, as if her eyes were pulling it out of me. She was a pretty woman, tall and thin with thick wavy red locks that flowed to the middle of her back. Her eyes were most captivating. They were a beautiful shade of lavender, deep and intense in color, with gold specks. They reminded me of irises that bloom in early spring.
“I’m in a hospital? What happened?” I asked in disbelief as I tried to sit up. Marlo gently but firmly pushed my shoulders back toward the mattress.
“You’re at Medina Memorial Hospital. You were in a pretty bad car wreck a few nights ago, but you’ll be fine.”
“Car wreck?” I tried to think back to a few days ago, but my mind was a blank slate. There was nothing there. I couldn’t recall anything…not what I had been wearing, or where I had been going or even the accident itself.
“Yes, and you are very lucky. You’ve been unconscious for a few days but you didn’t break any bones and there was no internal bleeding.”
“Accident,” I whispered to myself, still in disbelief and still trying to recall something.
“Now that you’re awake, let me get Doctor Frid so that he can examine you.” Marlo turned towards the door and before exiting added, “And you also have a visitor.”
I didn’t fully grasp Marlo’s last words. My mind was still wandering, searching for a memory to fill in all the blanks about the accident.
“Wait,” I half shouted, but Marlo was already out the door. “Where’s Matt?” I whispered to myself. Surely the visitor she mentioned must be Matt. He would definitely be here at the hospital waiting for me to wake. It wouldn’t be like him to not be here by my side, unless…
No, I couldn’t think of that. Matt must be with the doctor. I was sure they were discussing my injuries and what I needed to do next and my follow up doctor appointments. Matt was here, I was sure of it.
The doctor knocked on the door and stepped inside. He was an older gentleman with salt and pepper hair. He wore thin spectacles that sat on the edge of his nose and the requisite white lab coat and stethoscope. A hospital tag hung around his neck identified him as Doctor Jonathan Frid.
“Good morning, Allison,” he said, “How are you feeling?” He reached into his lab coat searching for some instrument I was sure he was going to inspect me with.
I looked at him and back at the door and wondered where my visitor was.
“I’m fine. Where’s Matt?”
Before the doctor could speak, the door cracked open. I strained my neck to see who it was. It wasn’t Matt; it was my best friend Jenna. Panic set in over me.
“Would somebody please tell me what is going on?” I said through clenched teeth, tears welling up in my eyes. “Where is Matt?”
“Allison, please take it easy,” the doctor said. Jenna walked over to the other side of the bed, opposite Doctor Frid. “You were in a serious accident and I need you to stay calm.”
My eyes flitted back and forth between the doctor and Jenna. They exchanged a glance that made it apparent they knew something I didn’t.
“Oh God,” I said. “He was in the car with me, wasn’t he? Was he hurt? Is he okay? Is he…” I couldn’t finish the sentence. I couldn’t bring myself to say the word.
I fell back in the bed, covered my face with my hands and sobbed uncontrollably. Through my bawling, I could make out bits of the conversation going on around me.
“I guess it’s confirmed,” Jenna stated. “She doesn’t remember making me her emergency contact, or…”
“Yes, she has memory loss,” Doctor Frid interrupted, cutting off Jenna’s statement.
“How bad do you think it is?” Jenna asked the doctor.
“Hard to say until she calms down…”
“Should we say anything about…?” Jenna’s voice trailed off.
I stopped sobbing long enough to choke out, “Would someone please tell me what is going on? What are you talking about?”
Jenna pulled a chair up to the side of the bed and handed me some tissues. Her face was blanketed with concern. She looked different to me. Her brown hair was shorter than the last time I saw her, which I couldn’t recall when that was.
“Ali,” she started in a soft tone, almost a whisper. “Matt died three years ago.”
I froze. My tears stopped as did my breathing. My heart may have even stopped for a second. I stared into Jenna’s dull brown eyes, searching for answers or some explanation. I had no idea what she was talking about. Matt didn’t die three years ago. I forced my mind to go back in time and thought about where was I three years ago, where Matt was and what possibly could have happened to him. I could picture our house, with the cream and brown front, and the yard with the woods all around. I could see my Jeep and a motorcycle. But I couldn’t see Matt.
“I don’t believe you,” I whispered.
Jenna grabbed my hand. “Ali, it’s true, he was at work and…” I tuned her out.
I forced my mind to think about my accident. Surely if I thought about it hard enough, I would recollect something. Jenna continued talking. I could hear her murmurs, but I couldn’t hear the details. I had to think hard, bring something out from the depths of my mind.
And there it was – a brief flash. It was instantaneous, but it was what I was looking for. I could see me sitting in my Jeep with Matt in the passenger seat, rain beating down on the windshield. As quickly as I saw it, it was gone. But it was vivid and more importantly, it was real.
“No, you’re wrong,” I shouted. “Matt was with me! I was driving and he was in the passenger seat. I just saw it! I can see it. He was with me!”
Jenna stood up still holding my hand. “Ali, that’s not possible.” Her eyes were filled with sympathy, her face with concern. She slowly shook her head from side to side and she seemed pretty convinced she knew what she was talking about.
Doctor Frid spoke. “No one else was with you in the car, Allison. I read the response team report; you were the only passenger.”
“No, no, that’s not true! Matt was there, I’m telling you!” I felt myself coming unglued, launching into hysterics. Tears flowed freely. “Why won’t you believe me? He was there!” I shouted. The machines behind me beeped at a frantic pace.
“Nurse! Nurse,” Doctor Frid yelled. “Please give her something to calm her down.”
A different nurse, rotund with tanned skin and dark hair, entered the room. I backed myself into the bed trying to escape the needle headed in my direction. “No, I don’t need a shot; I need to see my husband! Somebody please tell me where he is!” I felt the shot of whatever the nurse poked into my IV start to work its magic. I w
as calming down, but my mind was still racing for any memory of me and my husband that would prove Jenna and the doctor wrong.
“Where’s Matt?” I asked Jenna in a sleepy voice. “Where…is…Matt?”
I drifted off to sleep.
Chapter Four
It wasn’t a bad dream; this was my new reality. I had hoped to open my eyes to Matt lying next to me, but instead, I woke up still in the hospital. The prior day’s events came crashing down like a boxer’s left hook to the jaw. I had been in an accident. My husband was dead.
My head and eyes were killing me; it felt like I had cried all night. I rolled over and found Jenna sitting on the couch in my hospital room. “Hey,” she said, and walked over to the side of my bed. She gently brushed the bangs out of my eyes.
“Hey,” I muttered back.
My last memories rushed back into my conscious with a vengeance. I couldn’t believe Matt was dead. It didn’t seem possible, but the alternative was also unlikely; Doctor Frid and Jenna wouldn’t lie to me about something like this. My heartbeat quickened and my breath shortened as I became more alert. I tried to compose myself, to hold it together in front of Jenna; a shot of whatever the nurse gave me yesterday would really help right now.
“How are you doing?” Jenna asked.
“About as okay as can be expected, I suppose.” I shifted my position in an attempt to depress the anxiousness I felt creeping up on me.
“The doctor said you can go home today.”
“Yeah? Great,” I responded flatly. And what exactly would I be going home to, I wanted to ask. I wasn’t in any hurry to rush back to an empty house.
“Jenna?” I asked. “Is it true? About Matt?” I couldn’t help myself. It seemed so unreal that he could be gone. Maybe if I asked the question again I would get the answer I wanted.
Jenna glanced out the window, then back at me, and sighed. “Yes, it’s true. I wouldn’t lie about something like that.”
That wasn’t the answer I wanted.
“Then why don’t I remember? If he’s gone, why can’t I recall what happened? Why don’t I remember his funeral?”
“The doctor said you hit your head pretty hard in the accident. He suspected you would have some memory loss, but he wasn’t sure how bad it would be.”
“Hmm.” I supposed that made sense. I lay there for a few minutes taking in the gravity of my situation. My husband was gone. What would life be like without him? I apparently knew the answer in the depths of my memory since I’d lost him three years ago, but it felt like I was living through this for the very first time. “What about the vision I had last night of me and him in my Jeep? I was driving and he was in the passenger seat; it was dark out and it was raining heavily. It was so vivid, so real.”
“Doctor Frid said that could be your mind recalling some other time the two of you were together.”
Tears welled in my eyes and I scrunched my face in an effort not to cry.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Jenna said, and sat on the edge of my bed. “You’re going to be okay. You’ve managed without Matt for the past three years; you’ll get through this too.”
“Yeah, but Jenna,” I said, tears streaming down my cheeks. I could taste the salt at the corner of my lips. “It feels like I just lost Matt, like right now or yesterday when you told me. I don’t remember how he died. I don’t remember the funeral. I don’t remember the past three years without him. It’s like my mind is this big black hole and everything you are saying is new to me. Hearing the news last night, or yesterday, or whenever it was, was like hearing it for the first time.”
“I know, Ali,” Jenna said quietly. “Maybe when we get you home some things will start to come back to you. Let me get Doctor Frid so he can clear you for discharge.”
I was escorted to Jenna’s car in a wheelchair. It seemed unnecessary but the nurse insisted it was hospital policy. Besides my tear-induced headache, I felt amazingly fine. I didn’t have any scratches, sore muscles or broken bones.
The crisp October air greeted me as I was wheeled outside. I pulled my sweater tighter in an effort to keep me warm. Sunlight filtered through a sea of gray clouds. It wasn’t enough to warm me but it nonetheless shocked my eyes. The combination of fluorescent hospital lighting and hours of crying had taken their toll, and my eyes were not prepared for the natural light. Jenna offered up her sunglasses and I quickly put them on as the nurse helped me into the passenger seat.
We sat in silence as Jenna drove. I tried to wrap my head around the last three years’ events.
“Can you tell me what happened?” I asked.
Jenna glanced at me. “According to the police report, you hit your brakes hard, even though you didn’t have a stop sign. You flipped through the intersection and landed in a ditch.”
“Doesn’t sound like it ended well for the Jeep.”
“Nope; it’s totaled.”
I strained my mind, trying to imagine my Jeep flipping through an intersection in an attempt to recall the accident. I came up empty. I didn’t remember where I was driving to or from, or hitting my brakes, or anything for that matter. “That’s not what I was asking about, though.” I wasn’t really interested in the details of my accident; I was thinking about my husband. “What happened to Matt?”
“Oh,” Jenna said. She stared straight ahead at the road, almost concentrating too hard on driving. “Um, well, he was working at the stamping plant repairing one of the presses which stamps out car parts. Apparently the machine wasn’t locked out properly. He was rushed to the hospital but there was nothing they could do for him.”
I winced as she recited her abbreviated version of the accident. I appreciated her sparing me the gory details. I could only imagine that he was working inside the press when someone accidentally started it back up. It had to have been horrific. I bit my lip and closed my eyes, not wanting to think about the pain he must have been in. If there was a God, hopefully He took Matt without much suffering. I looked out the side window, trying to hold back tears. “Oh,” was all I could say.
So he was really gone and I couldn’t remember any of it. I knew my best friend wouldn’t lie about this, but it still seemed impossible. Even with a serious injury to my head, I should have been able to remember something of my husband’s passing. And if I couldn’t recall it on my own, I should at least remember something as Jenna spoke of it. A significant event like that should be recallable no matter what.
“Can you do me a favor?” I asked, still staring out the window.
“Sure, what?”
“Can you take me to the cemetery? So I can visit Matt?”
Jenna continued staring straight ahead, focused like a laser beam.
“Please?” I asked.
“That’s not possible.”
“What do you mean, that’s not possible? He’s dead, isn’t he? He must be buried somewhere.”
“Yeah, Ali he is. But after Matt died, you insisted on cremating him.”
“Okay, so where are his ashes?”
Jenna tossed me a look that said I wasn’t going to like what I was about to hear. “Well, you decided to have a private service. Very private. It was just you and the captain of a boat you chartered. You threw the urn overboard into Lake Erie. You insisted it was what Matt would have wanted since he loved boating and fishing.”
“What!” I exclaimed. “How could I have done that?”
“You weren’t exactly yourself after his accident and none of us could talk you out of it. You insisted on it.”
“Good grief,” I whispered. “It’s like I don’t even know myself or my life.” I sat there and stared at my fingers resting in my lap. Several minutes passed. My thoughts drifted from Matt’s accident to my life without him. “What have I been doing these past three years?”
“I’m not quite sure,” Jenna responded tentatively.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, after Matt died, you shut out all of your friends and were practically a recluse. Other than the
occasional phone call to let me know you were still alive, I have no clue what you have been up to. You haven’t been working though, that much I do know. You quit your job after receiving the settlement from Matt’s accident.”
Settlement, I thought. The more details Jenna shared with me, the more this story came to life. I was like a child listening to a story for the first time, but instead of being in awe over an exciting tale, I was in awe of the fact that this story was my life. It didn’t seem real, but it had to be true. My mind was empty and Jenna had all of the answers. My best friend wouldn’t lead me astray, but this was all a bit much to absorb.
“I’m sorry,” I said, though I didn’t know what I was apologizing for. I was sorry that I gave my friends the cold shoulder. I was sorry that I was asking so many questions. I was sorry that Jenna had to take care of me. I was sorry that I appeared to be getting on Jenna’s nerves. It felt like we had been through this before. Nothing was more frustrating than not being able to recall any of this. But Jenna was my only source of information and I needed to know what she knew so that I could start putting my life back together. So I could stop being a sorry basket case.
“No Ali, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be upset with you. It’s just been really hard seeing you in so much pain for so long and you shutting everyone out of your life. All of our other friends kind of gave up on you. They tried to help but you shut them out.”
I sat there not knowing what to say so I started picking at my fingernails. I couldn’t imagine shutting out my friends. Since I had no family besides Matt, my friends were my family. I must have been in a terrible amount of pain and turmoil after Matt’s death to choose to lead a life without my friends. My fingernails held my attention for a minute until I noticed the sun was irritating my neck. I rubbed it, hoping to relieve the irritation, and as I looked up I saw a familiar highway sigh. “Hey, isn’t that the exit to my house?”
“Yeah, your old place.”
“My old place?”
“Um, yeah. You sold the house on Peace Eagle after the accident. You said you couldn’t stand living in the house you and Matt shared; it was too big for you to keep up with and too painful to be there without him.”