by David Archer
"I'm sorry," Jake said, over and over again as Katie tried to calm him. Jake was agitated and was alternately tearfully apologizing and angrily demanding to be left alone. He looked at the nurse, still crying, and said, "I just wish I could remember."
"You will, Jake," she reassured him. "It’s just going to take some time, seriously."
He heaved a sigh and drew several deep breaths. Sitting back against the mattress, he finally relaxed as he looked around the room and saw that only he and Katie were present. His breathing returned to normal.
"See? It's okay."
He nodded. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
"Shhh, it's okay. Why don't you try and sleep now? Do you want me to get you something to help you sleep?"
He shook his head 'no' vehemently. "No. No medications. I'll—I'll go to sleep now."
"All right, then," Katie said as she pushed the button that moved the bed back down into a sleeping position. She drew the rails up beside him, set the call bell in place and straightened out his covers. Taking his chart from the foot of the bed, she exited his room, shutting off the overhead light on her way.
Katie sat at the nurses' station and detailed the incident in Jake's chart. Following the request Dr. Peterson had left with her, she sent a text, informing the doctor of this newest occurrence. She called downstairs to the ward on which Tina was a patient and spoke to Tina’s nurse, Candace.
Fifteen minutes later, Katie returned quietly to Jake's room. He was asleep and she moved silently, replacing his chart in its spot.
* * *
"Okay, thanks, Pete. If you need anything else, just let me know." Carol tucked her cell phone back into a pocket and moved from her fax machine over to her desk.
After seating herself, she booted up her computer and returned her attention to its screen. She read everything Dr. Peterson had sent her about amnesia, and an hour later she felt a little better about Jake's prognosis. Letting out a sigh, she shut down the computer and leaned back for a moment.
"Dinner," she decided after glancing at the clock. She'd missed lunch altogether in her hurry to consult Jake's doctor earlier. It hadn't occurred to her then to grab something to eat on the way back to the office from the hospital. She'd spent most of the afternoon compiling the information Pete had requested in conjunction with the team's current case, which had something to do with locating the assistant to a state senator who had gone missing, taking a lot of classified information with him. Now she was starving.
It was almost seven when she finally got to the pickup window of a fast food joint two blocks from the hospital. She drove on to the hospital, pulled into a visitor's parking spot and, still in her car, hurriedly gulped down her dinner. When she was finished, she headed into the building to visit Jake and Tina.
The nurse was just finishing with Tina's vital signs as Carol yanked open the door and entered the room.
"Whoops, sorry," she apologized, and asked the nurse, "Did you want me to wait outside?"
"No, I'm done here, it's fine," the nurse replied as she entered her findings on Tina's chart and hung the clipboard back on the end of the bed. She left the room then, shutting the door behind her, and Carol stepped up to the side the bed. The room was filled with flowers; there were at least a dozen vases full of blooms and several live arrangements. Carol stepped carefully around them as she made her way over to Tina's bedside.
"It looks like a flower shop in here!" she said with a smile. “How are you feeling?"
"It does, doesn’t it? I'm good, Carol. Thanks," Tina replied and promptly burst into tears.
"Tina!" Carol hurried to envelop the distraught woman in a hug. "What happened? What's wrong?"
She sniffled and managed to control her outburst, drew a deep breath and calmed herself.
"It's Jake. He…" She paused as a surge of sadness passed through her. "He kinda flipped out on me, on us, tonight."
"Tina! What do you mean?"
"We were just talking. Him and me. Katie, his nurse. And the nurse—Michelle, I think, was her name—who delivered his dinner tray. He seemed fine, talking normally, and suddenly he just started yelling for us all to leave him the hell alone." She shook her head slightly. "That's just not like him."
"Aw, Tina. It's the amnesia, I'm sure of it," Carol stroked Tina's back affectionately, trying to reassure her. "That's one of the symptoms, honey. Calm and rational one moment, and then something sets them off and the patient gets angry or weepy. Dr. Peterson sent me all sorts of information about the condition."
Tina was nodding. "Uh huh, that's what Katie said, too. But it's just so not like him. It was hard to watch, Carol. He was so upset." She dabbed at her eyes.
"Tina, do you remember what exactly you were talking about when he lost it?"
Tina thought hard, but couldn't recall the conversation.
"It's okay. Maybe it'll come to you." Carol decided to change the subject. "You know, I really miss you at work. Pete called needing information on a couple of people, but Josie was at her doctor’s appointment. Took me five times as long to dig through those computers to find what would've probably taken you five minutes."
"Oh. I can help." Tina looked around the room and said, "Of course, I’d need my laptop."
"No. No, no, no. Sorry, Tina, that's not necessary." She remembered something and drew a phone from her pocket. "However, I did smuggle in your phone for you," she confessed, handing over the device. "But no work. I just wanted you to know we miss you at the office."
Realization dawned on Tina. "Uh-huh,” she said. “You're trying to distract me from thinking about Jake."
Carol grimaced. "Okay, maybe a little bit."
"I understand, and I appreciate it. Right now, though, I think it’s important that I'm there for Jake—oh my god, Carol. Did they tell you?"
"Tell me what?" Her eyes grew large with concern. Had Dr. Peterson neglected to mention something?
"You know that Jake kept asking for his wife, right?"
Somewhat relieved that there was no new troubling issue with Jake's health, Carol nodded. "Yes. Remember? We talked about that this morning."
"Well." Tina sat up straighter and told her, "It's me , Carol. He somehow has the idea that we’re married."
Carol cut off the laughter and met Tina’s gaze.
"Seriously?" she asked. “Like, to each other?”
“Yes, to each other,” Tina said. "I thought I ought to play along, and the nurse agreed, and then later Doctor Peterson said it was a good idea. He was still really fragile when he was first coming out of it and they wanted to keep the stress on his mind to a minimum. If he believed that he was married, they were gonna go along with it. And then when I showed up to visit him, and he thought I was his wife, well…"
"You probably helped a lot." Carol nodded approvingly. “Good job.”
"Uh huh," Tina said with a nod. "You know, Jake is a pretty great guy. I would do just about anything for him."
"And what are you gonna do when he remembers the truth?"
"I will tell him the same thing I just told you, Carol. I would do anything for him," she replied resolutely.
Carol pondered that for a moment and then asked, "Okay. But what if he never remembers?"
Tina’s eyes went wide, but her determination didn’t waver. "Then I’ll probably end up picking paint chips and fabric swatches for a new apartment with my husband," she said. "But he'll remember. He'll remember everything, Carol."
Carol locked eyes with Tina. “Are you sure about that?”
"This is Jake we're talking about, Carol. He’s a genius, remember? Pete hired him for his brain, not his brawn. Amnesia doesn't have a chance, my friend."
Nodding, Carol couldn't help but chuckle. "And this is another reason we miss you so much at work."
* * *
Jake tossed and turned in his bed for several moments before finally awakening from a nightmare. He sat up in bed and blinked several times, shaking off the images of being strapped naked to a cha
ir. It seemed so realistic, he thought.
The room was dark and he couldn't make out its details. Everything was out of focus and he realized he needed his glasses. He pawed along the tabletop next to the bed and finally found them. As he slipped his glasses on, the room came into focus and realization set in again.
"I'm in a hospital bed," he whispered, taking in the medical equipment around him. He rattled the bed rails on his right, but failed to dislodge them.
Frustration mounted within him and he became acutely aware of his state. "No. No, not gonna happen," he declared as he tried rattling the rails on his left side. He took several quick, deep breaths and calmed himself. "Water," he decided and reached across his bed to the table where a small, plastic pitcher was waiting. His hand brushed against something clipped to the bed and he recognized it as the call button for the nurse.
He pushed the button and waited.
A few moments later, the night nurse arrived. He wasn't familiar with her and felt himself getting agitated again. Swallowing hard, he fought the rising panic within. He reasoned that she was in uniform, wearing ID, and calmly asked, "Who are you?"
"I'm sorry, Mr. Claridge. I'm Gina. I'm your night nurse. You have been asleep or unconscious every night that I've been here so far. Katie told me that you regained full consciousness yesterday morning, but I was off last night, so I missed actually meeting you."
She moved forward to offer her hand, which he looked at briefly before relenting and offering his own in return.
Her brow furrowed but she said nothing and instead asked, "You called for me. What do you need?"
He motioned to the bed rails. "Take these down, please?"
"I'm not sure that's a good idea, sir."
"I need to go to the bathroom," he said, looking embarrassed.
"Oh!" She relented. "All right, sorry then." She disengaged the rails on his right and walked him to the bathroom, holding his arm, and waited by the door. After he was done, she returned him to the bed and he gave her a look of dismay when she set the rail back in place.
"I'm sorry, Jake, but it's a safety protocol. You have a head injury."
He nodded in surrender and sighed before lying back down on the bed. "So the reason I don't recognize you is because we've never actually met before."
She smiled in agreement. "You're okay, sir?"
"I'm not gonna have an episode, if that's what you mean. I had a nightmare. I think maybe I remembered something from the past, but I'm okay."
"Do you need anything else?"
"I need outta here."
She chuckled and shook her head. "Well, I'm sorry, Jake, but obviously that's not gonna happen until you start really getting better."
"I know," he said resignedly.
"Back to sleep now, okay? We'll see how you are in the morning."
"You'll let my wife visit me in the morning?"
Her eyebrow rose, but she nodded anyway. "I'll leave a note with the day nurse."
"Thank you," he murmured before snuggling down under his covers and going back to sleep.
Chapter 27
"How was he last night?" Tina asked Katie as she arrived at Jake's hospital room door. She'd been permitted to dress in her own clothes that morning, and Tina had chosen to wear a sunny and bright colored dress paired with a short sleeved white knit sweater against the 60 degree weather outside.
"He woke up needing the bathroom once. Met his night nurse finally, but he did all right. She—Gina, that's his night nurse—thinks he managed to work himself through a bad memory."
"And he asked for me?"
"He did indeed."
Tina wasn't sure whether she should be anxious or happy about that.
"After he yelled at us to get out yesterday," she mused. "I hope he's past whatever set him off."
"I suggest we don't bring up the subject of weddings today," Katie advised. "Although I don't think Michelle meant anything by her comment."
"Oh my, that's what it was!" Tina exclaimed.
"I'm sorry?" Katie asked.
"He had mentioned to me a little bit earlier that he couldn’t remember our wedding."
"Oh. Well, of course he wouldn't!" Katie shook her head. "Of course he wouldn't remember. And that's what set him off, oh my goodness! Michelle made that comment about hospital food not exactly being like a catered wedding dinner."
"It seems so irrational, but given the circumstances, totally understandable. Poor Jake." Tina nodded at Katie as her hand grasped the handle of the door. "I won't bring that up!"
Katie smiled her agreement and headed down the hallway towards the nurses' station.
Tina entered the room and gave Jake a bright smile.
"Hey you! How are you, my love?"
* * *
"Open and shut case, Carol. Chance and Gabriella did some damn good legwork on this one," Pete told her as they walked together down the hallway to her office. "Now, tell me about Tina and the whiz kid. They're going to be okay?"
"Tina's fine, just waiting for stitches to come out and casts to come off." She let out a sigh. "Jake, not so much. He's got amnesia, Pete. He knows his name, but doesn't seem to remember Chance or anyone else. He recognized me when I went to visit him, but had to ask me my name repeatedly. It's so weird. His doctor says his case is unusual. I've got all sorts of data and studies his doctor shared with me if you wanna read 'em."
She opened her office door, ushered Pete in and quickly booted up her computer and logged in to her email.
"There. It's all in there. I know you guys—you and everybody—wanna see Jake, Pete, but Tina says he gets really agitated when he can't remember something or someone and it's not good for him. He didn't know Chance when we showed him pictures, and Tina really wants to keep the stress to a minimum for him. For now, anyway."
Pete nodded his understanding. "Whatever he needs, Carol. I get that."
"I have a couple errands to run. Be back later."
Pete acknowledged her, giving her a small wave as she left and then sat down at Carol's computer to read.
* * *
Jake stared blankly at Tina for a long moment before he finally spoke. "Sorry. You are?"
Tina's eyes grew wide. Oh My God, he doesn't recognize me? went through her mind. How do I react? What do I say?
She bit her lip and stuttered, "I'm Tina. We, um, work together."
Did he forget he thought I was his wife? How should I proceed?
He blinked and rubbed his temple with his right hand. Closing his eyes in pain, he shook his head slowly from side to side.
"I'm sorry, I—I have such a headache." He sighed heavily.
"I'll go get your nurse!" Tina exclaimed and scurried out the door to find Katie.
Half an hour later, Jake's eyelids drooped as the pain medication took effect and he fell asleep. Tina tucked the blankets up around his chest and then sat down in the chair next to his bed. Taking her iPhone from her pocket, she clicked it on and sent out several text messages, then proceeded to surf the 'net.
At noon, Katie entered and shooed Tina back to her own room. They spoke in hushed tones.
"Dr. Peterson will be in here to examine Jake in about an hour. And you need to go eat your lunch."
Tina nodded. "She’s supposed to see me today, too. I might be getting out of here. I mean, I might be getting discharged. I won't be leaving, though. I'll be here with him for however long it takes…" She trailed off.
"Go," Katie encouraged.
* * *
The door to Tina’s room opened and Carol peeked in.
"You decent and awake?" she asked in a teasing voice.
"I'm getting outa here!" Tina replied happily. "Doctor Peterson says I'm well enough to leave, but I have to come back in three days to get the stitches out."
A smile stretched across Carol's face that widened even further as she correctly anticipated Tina's next words.
"Though I won't be going anywhere, except upstairs to Jake's room."
"How
's he doing? Any better since yesterday?"
Tina heaved a sigh and set down the bag she'd been packing.
"He didn't recognize me when I went in to see him this morning, and he was complaining about having a headache. It looked so bad I went for his nurse and she gave him pain meds. And Carol…" She sighed again. "We all know how he feels about narcotics."
"Oh, damn,” Carol said. “That sounds like he's getting worse, not better."
"Yeah. No. I don't know." She gestured unhappily with her hands and continued, "Katie said the night nurse reported he had a good night. After the um, episode, earlier in the evening, he settled down and had a good night and apparently worked his way through some bad memory he had without incident." She met Carol's gaze. "She didn't know what the memory was, he didn't get into specifics, just that it was apparently a bad one. But he didn't flip out; he handled it. So that's good news, right?"
Carol nodded. “I'm sure it is.”
"But him not remembering me?" Tina asked.
"Maybe the headache had something to do with that," Carol said soothingly.
Tina nodded and brightened a little. "I hope you're right."
"Think he's awake yet?" Carol asked and before Tina could reply, she added, "Since you don't wanna go home, let's go upstairs and see him."
Carol took Tina’s bag in one hand and held her arm with the other and together the two of them walked to the elevator and rode up two floors to visit their friend. Katie was on the phone but waved them on in as they passed the nurses' station.
They opened the door carefully and looked inside; Jake was standing by the window, intently watching something outside. Carol set Tina's bag down silently and exchanged a glance with Tina.
"Hi," Tina said in a quiet voice, drawing the single syllable out to several until he heard her and turned to face them. For just a moment he stood still, eyeing them, and then he broke into a smile and took several steps forward, enveloping Tina in his arms. She slid her arms up around his neck and returned his hug.