Everything You Are(76)

Waking in a hospital bed under a pile of blankets, his hands swathed in bandages, an IV dripping warmed fluids into his arm.

His sister’s face, broken by grief.

He hears music, loud and insistent, the tones so clear and perfect he looks around for the cello and the player, but of course it’s all in his head.

Hold it together, Braden, this is no time to lose your shit.

The nurses move in and out, checking vitals, reassuring him that Allie is fine, she’ll make a full recovery.

Phee pops back in, squeezes his shoulder, tells him she’ll be back in the morning and all he has to do is call if he needs her before then.

Every time he needs to step away from Allie, even for a minute—to go to the bathroom, or when the nurses come in to do procedures—it edges him toward panic, and when he’s asked to return to the waiting room while they transfer her to a room upstairs, it’s agony.

Lucky, he reminds himself.

Lucky she’d taken oxycodone rather than hydrocodone and been spared the liver damage. Lucky she didn’t take all the pills. Lucky she didn’t vomit and aspirate. Lucky they found her when they did.

The nurse who comes to tell him he can go into Allie’s room now is very kind. “She’s doing so well. Are you sure you don’t want to go home and sleep?”

“I can’t leave her,” he protests. “Not now, not yet.”

And the woman smiles and shows him into the new room. It’s softer, not so clinical. Allie is still connected to monitors, but the tube has been removed from her nose and the oxygen discontinued. Her sleep looks more natural. There’s a hint of color in her cheeks.

Braden pulls a chair to the bedside and wraps his hand around hers, wishing for full sensation but grateful for what he has. He needs the physical link between them to reassure himself that she’s here, alive, not in a coffin, not dead in a tawdry motel room.

His hand, her hand, and then her words, echoing in his head.

There’s nothing wrong with your hands.

It’s not the first time he’s heard these words, though he’s worked hard to submerge them under gallons of alcohol.

“What if there’s nothing wrong with your hands?”

The psychologist is short, thin, with a ratlike nose and wire-framed glasses, a know-it-all who dares to suggest the loss of sensation—paresthesia, he calls it, drawing out all of the syllables—is in Braden’s head.

Braden laughs at the absurdity of the question. “I have no sensation in my fingers. Pretty sure that’s not normal.”

“Your medical reports say your hands are fine now. Fully recovered.”

“The docs are welcome to borrow my hands and see for themselves. How do they know what I feel?”

“Can we talk about what happened?”

“I don’t remember what happened.”

“What do you remember?”

“Only what I’ve been told.”

The psychologist tents his fingers. “Don’t you want to remember?”

“Of course!” He says it vehemently, knows it’s a lie. Dread coils in his gut whenever he dares to stare into the abyss of what he’s forgotten.

“What if remembering could heal your hands?”

“Memories can heal frostbite now?” A deflection. A desperate one, but the psychologist is not to be deterred.

“There is a condition called conversion disorder, a psychological block that affects the body. It’s caused by trauma and protects the sufferer from having to face a decision or action that is too horrific or terrifying for their consciousness to handle.”

“The only thing I’m suffering from is nerve damage brought on by frostbite.”

“Possible.”

Braden bolts up out of his chair. Shouts: “I don’t believe this. I came here so you could help me deal with this loss. And now you’re trying to tell me it’s not a loss at all. I don’t need your psycho mumbo-jumbo quackery. Excuse me, but I’m out of here.”

Out of the office, into a bar. Drowning the very possibility in an alcoholic haze.

Braden drifts in and out of memories and sleep, sometimes waking sharply with no idea where he is or what he is doing here, whether he’s been remembering or dreaming. The nurses move in and out on quiet feet. Sometimes they work around him. Sometimes they rouse Allie to check her level of consciousness, to care for her personal needs, shooing him out to pace in the hallway. Always, when he returns, he takes the chair beside her bed and claims her hand again while the slow clock ticks away the hours of the night.





Chapter Twenty-Nine PHEE

Phee also watches the clock, restless in her own bed, clear now on what she needs to do. Long before dawn, she gets up, showers, takes Celestine out for a walk.

Time crawls as she waits for a reasonable hour to start making phone calls. Nine o’clock, her mother always taught her. Phee lasts until seven. If she wakes people, so be it. Her first call is to Braden to check on Allie. Then to Oscar. Her last is to Braden’s sister.

“Jo. It’s Phee.”

“Well, aren’t you the early riser.”

“Sorry if I woke you.”

Scoffing laughter. “I get up at four. Have for years and can’t break the habit. I haven’t talked to Braden yet, so—”