Lou anyway. She was Lou’s best hope of recovery—the thought made him shiver involuntarily.
“You should come back when he’s better,” Dr. Hendricks said. “Then you can better appreciate what we’ve accomplished. We’ll call you.” His stomach churned at the thought, but he owed Lou that much.
Outside, Tom zipped up his coat and pulled on his gloves. Did Lou even know it was winter? He had seen no exterior windows anywhere in the unit. The gray afternoon, closing in to dark, with dirty slush underfoot, matched his mood.
He cursed medical research all the way home.
I AM SITTING AT A TABLE, FACING A STRANGER, A WOMAN IN A white coat. I have the feeling that I have been here a long time, but I do not know why. It is like thinking about something else while driving and suddenly being ten miles down the road without knowing what really happened between.
It is like waking up from a daze. I am not sure where I am or what I am supposed to be doing.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I must’ve lost track for a moment. Could you say that again?”
She looks at me, puzzled; then her eyes widen slightly.
“Lou? Do you feel okay?”
“I feel fine,” I say. “Maybe a little foggy…”
“Do you know who you are?”
“Of course,” I say. “I’m Lou Arrendale." I don’t know why she thinks I wouldn’t know my own name.
“Do you know where you are?” she asks.
I look around. She has a white coat; the room looks vaguely like a clinic or school. I’m not really sure.
“Not exactly,” I say. “Some kind of clinic?”
“Yes,” she says. “Do you know what day it is?”
I suddenly realize that I don’t know what day it is. There is a calendar on the wall, and a big clock, but although the month on display is February, that does not feel right. The last I remember is something in the fall.
“I don’t,” I say. I am beginning to feel scared. “What happened? Did I get sick or have an accident or something?”
“You had brain surgery,” she says. “Do you remember anything about it?”
I don’t. There is a dense fog when I try to think about it, dark and heavy. I reach up to feel my head. It does not hurt. I do not feel any scars. My hair feels like hair.
“How do you feel?” she asks.
“Scared,” I say. “I want to know what happened.”
I HAVE BEEN STANDING AND WALKING, THEY TELL ME, FOR A couple of weeks, going where I am told, sitting where I am told. Now I am aware of that; I remember yesterday, though the days before are fuzzy.
In the afternoons, I have physical therapy. I was in bed for weeks, not able to walk, and that made me weak. Now I am getting stronger.
It’s boring, walking up and down the gym. There’s a set of steps with a railing, to practice going up and down steps, but that is soon boring, too. Missy, my physical therapist, suggests that we play a ball game.
I don’t remember how to play, but she hands me a ball and asks me to throw it to her. She is sitting only a few feet away. I toss her the ball, and she tosses it back. It’s easy. I back up and toss the ball again.
That’s easy, too. She shows me a target that will chime if I hit it. It is easy to hit from ten feet away; at twenty feet I miss a few times, then hit it every time.
Even though I don’t remember much of the past, I don’t think I spent my time tossing a ball back and forth with someone. Real ball games, if real people play them, must be more complicated than this.
THIS MORNING I WOKE UP FEELING RESTED AND STRONGER. I remembered yesterday and the day before and something from the day before that. I was dressed before the orderly, Jim, came to check on me, and walked down to the dining room without needing directions. Breakfast is boring; they have only hot and cold cereal, bananas, and oranges. When you’ve had hot with bananas, hot with oranges, cold with bananas, and cold with oranges, that’s it. When I looked around, I recognized several people though it took me a minute to think of their names. Dale. Eric. Cameron. I knew them before.
They were also in the treatment group. There were more; I wondered where they are.
“Man, I’d love some waffles,” Eric said when I sat down at the table.