by David Archer
The next hour was one of the hardest any of them had ever gone through. By the time everything was sorted out, they knew that Tina had lost control of her car and crashed over the edge and into the ravine. She and Jake were taken to the hospital, where they were both listed in critical condition.
Carol and Gabriella went to the hospital, just to be there in case either of them woke up. Because they were covered under the company’s health insurance, Carol was able to provide the hospital with all the information they needed on that score. Unfortunately, neither of them was allowed back into the emergency room where heroic efforts were going on to try to stabilize both of them.
Tina had suffered a fractured arm and several broken ribs, but the most serious of her injuries was a thin fracture in her C4 vertebra. It had caused some swelling that affected her spinal cord, and the doctors were very concerned about the possibility of paralysis. As a result, she was placed into an induced coma, until the swelling could begin to go down.
Jake, on the other hand, was in much more serious condition. Besides the injuries he had received from Alan Batts, he was now dealing with a fractured skull and severe swelling of the brain. His head had impacted the window of the car, and that was struck by a rock when the car came to rest on its side. His swelling was very serious, and there was even a small amount of internal bleeding in the cranium. Both of these were signs of potentially serious, even life-threatening brain damage.
Chance and Pete stayed at the scene of the accident and waited until the car had been dragged back up onto the road. The two of them looked the car over, and were frankly amazed that either of them came through the accident alive.
Chance was looking inside the car when Pete called for his attention. He walked around the back of the vehicle where Pete was squatting down.
“What do you see right there?” Pete asked. He was pointing at a spot on the bumper that was smashed and broken.
“Looks like it hit a rock or something?” Chance asked. “The car probably flipped a couple of times on the way down.”
Pete pointed a couple of other places. “That’s what those are,” he said. “Rocks, branches, could be anything could make dents like those, but this one on the bumper, that’s different. Look closely.”
Chance knelt down beside Pete and looked closely at the spot he was indicating. “Looks like—is that paint smeared on there?” he asked.
“Sure is,” Pete said. “Somebody hit the car and forced Tina to lose control. And that paint stain is the same color as Alan Batts’ car.”
“You think he ran them off the road?” Chance asked.
“Probably,” Pete said. “After all, it was Jake who managed to take his prize away from him. Are you really surprised he wanted revenge?”
“Then we aren’t done with him yet,” Chance said. “And I want to handle this son of a bitch personally, this time.”
Pete glanced up at him. “I agree,” he said. “All we have to do is find him.”
* * *
Three Days Later
Tina Reynolds would always wonder if she had dreamed during the time she was in the coma. There were fleeting memories that she couldn’t quite grasp, and she wondered if maybe they were dreams from her comatose state. She had asked the doctor about that, once she understood what happened to her, but the doctor told her there weren’t any real answers. Nobody knew for sure whether people dream in comas or not.
Fortunately, it had only lasted a day and then they began to remove all the hoses and wires. She would still be wearing a couple of casts for a while, but she was awake enough to greet the people who came to visit. She was overjoyed that afternoon when Carol and Gabriella came in.
"Dr. Peterson said you were gonna be okay, Tina," Carol told the young investigator as she closed the hospital room door behind them. She and Gabriella took a few steps closer to Tina's bed, and each of them gave her a very light hug. "She said you'd probably have a bit of a headache for a while, though, and that I can’t make you come back to work for at least a month." Carol smiled as Tina stuck out her tongue.
"I know how I am, Carol. That's not what I keep trying to find out. Nobody seems to want to tell me how Jake is." Tina glared at her. “Are you going to be honest with me?”
Carol pursed her lips, trying to decide how much to tell her and Tina drew a deep breath.
"Carol?" she asked in a hard voice, before her courage broke and her eyes began to fill with tears. "Oh, my God. Is he—?" She couldn't bring herself to say it out loud.
Gabriella moved quickly to Tina's side. She took Tina’s hand in hers and said, "No, no, no! I'm sorry, Tina. He is alive, but it's just…" She paused to choose her words. "I'm afraid that it’s not good yet. He's got some badly broken ribs and internal injuries, and an awful lot of bruises and stuff, but it's his head, Tina. He's…”
Carol took over again. "Tina, the doctor says he's not himself, not at all."
Tina’s mouth fell open and she stared at them. "Not himself? What the hell is that supposed to mean? Tell me!"
Carol and Gabriella looked at one another, then turned back to Tina. It was Gabriella who spoke.
"Dr. Peterson called it trauma-induced amnesia. He's got big holes in his memory, Tina, the way I did, but not the same. He knows his name, he seems to know he's an investigator, but he doesn't really recall details. He doesn’t remember the crash at all, or why you guys were even in the car. He doesn’t remember anything about rescuing Angela, or about being kidnapped, but he knows who he is and it’s not like he’s missing the last fifteen years, the way I was."
Tina looked at her. “You got your memory back?”
Gabriella nodded. “Every bit of it,” she said. She rolled her eyes from side to side. “There might have been a few things I would’ve been willing to leave in limbo, but I guess it’s best to know it all. The doctor said it’s normal to recover memories after traumatic memory loss, so she has confidence that Jake will, as well.”
They both smiled at that, and Carol went on. "He told me about a whitewater expedition he went on a few weeks ago, but he couldn't remember my name just five minutes after I told him it was Carol. Dr. Peterson says it's because of all the injuries to his head. There's a lot of swelling on his brain, and it's a little weird, because in Jake's case, there are both old and new memories that he can and can’t remember. She said usually it’s either one or the other, short term or long-term memories, that are affected. It’s unusual, but in Jake’s case, it’s both."
Tina nodded as she replied, "Of course. Our whiz kid would have to be different, wouldn’t he?" She started trying to sit up and said, "I wanna go see him. I need to see him."
"Let me check with your doctor," Carol said, “and if it’s okay, then we’ll take you up to his room.”
She left the room to find Doctor Peterson, and Gabriella leaned closer to the bed. "There's probably one more little thing we ought to tell you," she said. Tina’s eyes went wide again, but she waited quietly for Gabriella to continue. "Somehow, the doctor says he’s come to believe that he's married. He keeps asking for his wife."
Amazingly, Tina’s eyes got even wider. “Married? Jake? He’ll never get married, he’s terrified of women.”
Gabriella shrugged. “What can I say, the doctor says it’s not uncommon for some amnesia patients to have hallucinatory false memories. I don’t even know what those words mean, but whatever it is, Jake has it.”
Carol returned at that moment with Doctor Peterson, who checked Tina over and then gave the okay for her to get out of bed and ride the elevator up a couple of floors. “Just don’t stay out of bed too long,” she cautioned. “You’re still healing, young lady. Some of your stitches will be coming out soon, but we don’t want to put any undue stress on them.”
When the three women arrived at Jake's hospital room a few minutes later, the door was closed. Carol knocked quietly and after a moment, the door opened and a nurse peeked out.
"It'll just be a couple of minutes, we're not
quite done yet," she said with an air of authority that allowed no defiance.
"Um, okay," Carol replied, somewhat puzzled at the apparently hostile tone. From inside the room, they could hear Jake's voice. He was angrily demanding that someone tell him when his wife would be coming to visit.
"There." Carol looked at Tina. “You heard it for yourself. See what we mean?”
"And it must be agony for him, wondering why she hasn't been here in all this time," Tina said. “Poor guy.”
"What’s weird is that he's missing real memories,” Gabriella said, “but somehow his mind has manufactured an imaginary wife. I can’t imagine what would’ve happened if I had done something like that."
Tina stared at her for a moment and then they both burst out laughing.
Carol caught Gabriella’s eye. "Tina, I think we’re going to let you go and see him. We need to check in with Pete and the others about the case we’re working on now, and I need to look into something else too. We’ll be back a little later, okay?"
“Okay,” Tina said, and Carol touched her shoulder.
"Give him our best, too, Tina," she said as she and Gabriella turned and walked down the corridor to the elevators.
Finally, the door to Jake's room opened wide and the same nurse reappeared. She smiled this time and ushered Tina right on in. She saw several floral arrangements sitting in a line along the windowsill, and noticed a couple of books perched on top of the small table next to his bed.
"Thank you," she said to the nurse, then focused her attention on the man in the bed. Tina pasted a smile on her face and approached the bed, determined to be positive no matter how bad Jake's injuries were.
"Jake," she whispered as she reached out with her hand to take one of his. There was an open book sitting on the bed beside him and Tina picked it up and set it on top of the others on the table. She carefully bent down to kiss his cheek, then rubbed her thumb on the back of his hand. "Are you awake?"
"I am now." He sighed deeply and drew her hand up to his lips, kissing it softly. Tina grinned, then seated herself on the edge of the bed and leaned forward to touch his cheek.
"You scared me,” she said. “I was so worried that you were gonna—" Her eyes began leaking tears as she spoke. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't be—I'm just so glad you're…" She paused for just a beat and finished, "getting better."
“I'm a lot better, now,” he said. He took in the sight of the bandage that encircled her head. "You're hurt," he said softly.
"I'm okay. I was in a coma for a day or so, but I'm okay. I had a concussion, but I just have a bit of a headache now. I'm okay, knowing you're here, you're safe."
He searched her face for a long moment, taking in the sight of her hospital gown and noting the ID bracelet on her wrist. She watched intently and saw his reaction as his mind made the connections.
"That's why you haven't been here sooner. You're a patient here, yourself."
She nodded acknowledgment. Her gaze transferred from his face to her hand and she realized his right hand was playing absently yet affectionately with her fingers. "I'm sorry, I would've been here sooner but I didn't even know you were here in this hospital until this morning." She sighed. "They said you've been in and out of consciousness—and mostly out—until this morning."
He nodded and brought her hand up to his lips again, softly kissing her fingers. His nurse returned to the room, carrying a tray bearing his lunch. Tina rose from the bed, moving to one side so the nurse could step closer. She set the tray down on the small, portable patient table and smiled at them.
"Well, hi, Jake." She waved at the tray. "Good to see that you've decided to stay with us." She consulted his chart and nodded approvingly. "This says you regained consciousness almost four hours ago now."
Jake nodded.
"Well, that's good. Hopefully you're hungry. Now, I want you to eat that broth and that Jell-O. If that holds and you want more to eat, I'll see about something a little more substantial."
"Yes, ma'am," he laughed, and then, holding Tina's hand, he introduced them. "Tina, this is my nurse, Katie. Katie, my wife, Tina."
Chapter 26
Tina managed to stifle the gasp that tried to escape, and she quickly covered up with a small cough. Her eyes met Katie's and she pulled her hand from Jake's grasp and extended it to the nurse. "Nice to meet you. I trust you've been taking good care of my Jake."
Tina’s glance managed to convey the message she wanted to send: Play along! Please, just play along with him for now.
Katie nodded, almost imperceptibly, and then moved so that Jake could not see her face before she quickly made eye contact with Tina again. Thank you, she mouthed. Tina smiled and turned her attention back to the man who thought he was her husband.
He was looking confused.
“Jake? Everything okay?”
"I'm sorry," he said. "It's so frustrating. I remember us being in, I think they said it was the police station? I have no idea what we were doing there, or how we ended up in a car wreck at the bottom of a ravine. They said I'm a private investigator, and I kind of remember that, but the memories are so disjointed. I remember…" He paused and looked up at her as she sat down next to him once again and took his hand in her own.
"I remember being in the office, sitting in my desk beside yours. Our supervisor came by to talk a little while ago. What’s her name, Carol?" He paused as Tina nodded, then continued. "She showed me some pictures of people we work with, but I don't remember all of them. I know who you are, but I can’t remember our wedding.That’s what makes it so weird that I can’t remember some of those people, because they would’ve surely been a big part of our lives together. Help me, sweetheart. Help me remember all this."
He leaned forward into Tina’s arms and buried his head in her shoulders.
"How can I help, Jake?"
He leaned back and searched her face. Tina kept her expression as neutral as she could, seeing the distress mounting in Jake's own countenance.
"Help me remember." His voice caught. "Why can't I remember? Carol said I'm supposed to be smart, but how can I be if I can’t remember anything?"
"You’re incredibly smart, Jake! It’s just that things are a little messed up inside your head right now. I don't remember exactly what she said it was, Jake, but you have some swelling in your brain that's affecting your memory."
He considered this for a minute, and Tina was buoyed by how much he seemed like his pre-accident self at that moment. The look on his face mirrored how he often looked when he was thinking about a case. His eyes seemed focused on some point in the distance, but she knew he was deep in thought and his brain was solving some sort of problem. His glance shifted to the books on the table and then suddenly shifted again, making eye contact with Tina.
"The hippocampus," he said in the same confident tone of voice he used when they were talking about the Alan Batts case.
"The what?"
"My brain is compromised by swelling to the hippocampus. It's a ridge of gray matter roughly shaped like a sea horse. It's the part of the brain that's the center of emotion and memory. Located in the medial temporal lobe, it—"
"And when your head got banged around in the crash—" Tina realized.
"It did?" He was surprised and started to shake.
"Uh huh." She clutched his right hand tightly, then released it and instead pulled him into a tight hug. "It's okay, it's okay," she reassured him gently. He pulled back to reestablish eye contact.
"Why don't I remember that?"
"I don't know," she answered, and then ran her fingers carefully through his hair. "And it doesn't matter. It'll come to you eventually, Jake, don’t let yourself get all upset over this."
He bit his lip and stared at her for a long moment. "Why don't I remember when we were dating? I mean, obviously we met at work, right? But I don't remember—wait." His brow furrowed as his mind tried to decipher the clues it was receiving. "We went to a Beyoncé concert together."
She
smiled broadly and nodded. "And you had a fantastic time, as I recall."
He smiled back at her in return and then just as quickly a frown crossed his face as he remembered something else. "That was when you told me you would never go out with me."
Her face went blank and she thought quickly. "Didn’t you ever hear of a girl playing hard to get? And it worked, didn’t it?"
"Really?" He looked relieved.
"Yep. Hey, you remembered something! That was excellent, Jake."
He thought about it for a moment and then nodded. Tina was disturbed by how quickly his demeanour changed from confident to rattled, and just as quickly from agitated to ebullient.
"What do you know about amnesia, Jake?"
"It's a deficit in memory, generally caused by brain damage, a result of physical or psychological trauma or the use of specific sedatives or hypnotic drugs. Memory loss can be total or partial, but that’s determined by how much damage occurs to the brain."
His brow furrowed and Tina patted his hand.
"What is it?"
"I don't know," he said in a frustrated tone. “It seems like I should be able to just remember everything, like this isn’t normal.”
Tina smiled and told him, "Of course it isn’t normal, Jake. And, to be honest, that isn’t much of a surprise. If there’s anything we all know about you, it’s that you don’t do anything in a normal way."
"I don’t?"
"Nope." She stood up and pushed the tray table closer to him. "You need to eat your lunch, Jake. And I need to get back to my own room before my nurse puts out an APB." She bent down to kiss his cheek and promised him, "I'll be back later."
She tapped a finger on his lunch tray and said, "Eat!" and then turned towards the door.
Jake laughed and called out after her, "I will. I love you."
She stopped and turned back towards him. Smiling, she blew a kiss in his direction, then she opened the door and left.
* * *
Tina stared at him. She had come back later that evening just to check on him again, but he insisted he had no idea who she was. When another nurse entered the room to bring his dinner, he had suddenly started yelling at them to get out, and she was shocked. When it became obvious that he wasn’t going to calm down, she had turned and fled the room, then went back to her own.