“What’s wrong?” Charlotte asked. “What am I doing in here?”
“You don’t remember?”
She bit her lip, eyes darting toward the door. “How long have I been like this?”
“A few hours,” I said, checking my watch. “About eight.”
“Eight? What happened to me?”
I took a deep breath and tried to start, but lost my grasp of vocabulary. All the words in my head suddenly gone.
“Roland,” she says, “am I… sick?”
“You were in an accident. You really don’t remember?”
Her eyes grew wide. “If I remembered, I wouldn’t have to ask. Why did everyone just leave? What’s wrong, Roland? It’s something terrible, isn’t it?”
I nodded my head, unable to do more.
She gazed around the room in frustration, casting back in her mind. Putting the pieces together, I suspected. Working out what must have occurred. Exhaling, her body grew small under the covers, her chin trembling.
“Why wasn’t Jessica here? I didn’t see her. Where is she?”
“She’s…” I willed myself to say it, but still nothing came. “She’s -”
“Is she all right? Is Jessica all right? Roland, did something happen to her? You have to look at me and tell me. Tell me what happened.”
I tried, but couldn’t even bring myself to look at her, or even imagine the expression on her face. Begging me, imploring me to do the most terrible thing, to wound her in the deepest way I could. Suddenly, I didn’t want to be the one.
“Baby, she’s…” But no. I couldn’t.
“There was an accident.” Her voice matter-of-fact. “Was she in it? Was she hurt in the accident?”
I nodded.
Charlotte sucked in her breath, and the tethered hand went to her mouth. I glanced up to see her eyes welling with shock.
“A car came,” I said. “The driver ran the light. A drunk driver. She ran into you, into your car.” My throat tightened. I began to cough. “She hit… She hit the passenger side.”
“I was driving?” she asked. “I was behind the wheel? Who was the passenger? Was it Jessica?”
I nodded again.
Her breathing took on a voice, each gasp an unknown word sighed into the air, a glossolalia of grief.
“She’s all right, though,” Charlotte said. “She’s all right.” She imbued the pronouncement with a confidence she surely couldn’t feel. The intervals between each sentence, each word, punctuated by the strange sibilance of her breathing. She’s all right, the words said. No she’s not, the breath answered. “Tell me, Roland. Tell me she’s all right.”
My head shook.
“She’s… hurt?”
My head shook again.
Charlotte’s lip trembled. “She’s -?”
“I’m sorry,” I said, choking on the syllables.
Her face opened utterly, the eyes wide, the mouth a twisted gash, even the tear ducts began to burst and stream, as if a prophet had struck a rock. The moaning breath came quicker and quicker, hyperventilating, and her arms thrashed at the bedclothes, twisting the plastic tubing against her skin. I moved up the bed, my arms circling, holding her down, squeezing gently.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“It’s my fault,” she whispered. “I did it.”
“No, it’s not your fault.”
The door opened and I turned to find Ann there, hands over her mouth. I waved her back and she retreated, letting the wood slam against the doorframe.
Charlotte shrank in my arms, emptied herself out. The sigh from her lips was like a soul departing. Her eyes fluttered again, then closed. She rested her head against the pillow, going slack.
I stood, feeling so drained, so completely flayed open and raw. But it was done. The unthinkable deed. I shrank back, edging alongside the bed, resuming my seat near the footboard. The room grew quiet apart from the occasional beep and hiss of the monitors. I felt my own eyes closing, though there was no relief.
“Roland?” she said.
“I’m here.”
I opened my eyes and she was sitting up in bed, examining the tubes in her forearm. She smiled wanly, preternaturally calm, glancing around the room in mild dismay.
“What’s wrong?” she said. “What am I doing here?”
“What do you mean?”
She bit her lip. “How long have I been like this?”
“Charlotte, I already told you this. It’s been eight hours – ”
“Eight?”
“I told you – ”
“What happened, Roland? Tell me what happened?”
My fist closed around the blanket. “Are you serious?”
“Am I… sick?”
“You were in an accident, remember?”
“An accident?” Her hand went to her mouth again, tugging the tubes taut. “What’s wrong, Roland? It’s something terrible, isn’t it?”
“You don’t remember?” I heard myself saying. “You don’t remember what I just told you? About Jessica?”
“She’s all right, isn’t she? Tell me she’s all right.”
Her hand reached toward me, eyes pleading, the bruises on her cheek glowing with lividity, and I… I recoiled, retreated into my chair, glancing to the floor in confusion, the gears of my mind seizing up and grinding.
“She’s hurt, isn’t she?”
I choked back a sob.
“But she’s not -?”
“She is,” I said.
Again, the strange breathing, the primal keening grief, as fresh as the first time. Her cheeks flowed with tears, her mouth gaped, and then her arms, so recently still, flailed with renewed violence, slapping the intravenous cable against its pole. I forced myself forward, wrapping her again in my arms.
“It’s all right,” I told her. “It’s okay.” Not even listening to what I said, the words running contrary to all reality and sense.
But they calmed her. Just like before, she subsided. The tide of pain went out, leaving her adrift, her head lolling on the pillow. I got up again, weary and disoriented and a little freaked out. The chair was just a few steps away, but I barely reached it before sinking down.
Jessica. Her body was just a few doors down, unless they’d already moved her. I wanted to be with her, to stay at her side, her small cold hand clutched in mine. If I kept holding it, she would have to stay, and the doctor, sensing my state, had offered to tell Charlotte for me, to break the news. He’d volunteered reluctantly, stoically, the way a man steps forward for a thankless task, to do his duty to God and country, and I was tempted. But this was my job, not his, so I had unclasped my hand and let my daughter go.
Now Charlotte’s breathing was steady and deep, like she’d gone to sleep. I glanced at the doorway, wishing someone would come through, too tired to get up and open it.
“Roland?”
At the sound of my name, a shiver ran through me.
“What am I doing here?”
She sat up in bed, glancing dreamily at her surroundings, smiling with her chewed lip, the bruises purple and bright, like she thought someone was playing a trick on her. Like she’d been transported to the hospital in her sleep so we could all have a good laugh.
“What’s wrong?” she said, the shine leaving her eyes. “It’s something terrible, isn’t it?”
“You don’t remember.”
Her hand reached out. “Tell me what happened.”
I pushed myself out of the chair, then went to the door.
“Roland?” she called. The note of ignorant alarm, the terrible suspicion alloyed with hope, was the same as before, her memory resetting to the moment she woke up.
“Because of her head injury,” I tell Cavallo, “my wife suffered memory loss. Short term. She’d keep forgetting things, and you’d have to tell her all over again. Not who she was or anything like that, but the immediate past. The crash. She’d ask about it. She’d ask about… her,” I say, finally getting the pronoun out. “And at first I kept telling her, and her reaction every time was pretty much word for word like she was reading from the same script, her head playing the moment over and over again.”