“Rapid-eye movement, doctor. He may be dreaming, or—”
“Or he may be waking up. I’ll be right down.” The phone went dead in her hand and the nurse’s attention went back to Alex.
Once more, the beeping began, and the occasional faint twitching in Alex Lonsdale’s eyelids increased to an erratic flutter.
Hazily he became vaguely aware of himself. Things were happening around him.
There were sounds, and faint images, but none of it meant anything.
Like watching a movie, but run so fast you couldn’t see any of it.
And darkness. Darkness all around him, and no sense of being at all. Then, slowly, he began to feel himself. There was more than the darkness, more than the indistinct sounds and images.
A dream.
He was having a dream.
But what was it about? He tried to focus his mind. If it was a dream, where was he? Why wasn’t he part of it?
The darkness began to recede a little, and the sounds and images faded away.
Not a dream. Real. He was real.
He.
What did “he” mean?
“He” was a word, and he should know what it meant. There should be a name attached to it, but there wasn’t.
The word had no meaning.
Then slowly “he” faded into “me.”
“Me.”
“Me” became “I.”
I am me. He is me.
Who?
Alexander James Lonsdale.
The meaning of those little words came back into his mind.
He began to remember.
But there were only fragments, and most of them didn’t make any sense. He was going somewhere. Where? A dance. There had been a dance. Picture it.
If you want to remember something, picture it.
Nothing.
Going somewhere.
Car. He was in a car, and he was driving. But where?
Nothing. No image came to mind, no street name.
Picture something — anything.
But nothing came, and for a moment he was sure that all he would ever know was his name. There was nothing else in his mind. Nothing but that great dark void. Then more names came into his mind.
Marshall Lonsdale.
Ellen Smith Lonsdale.
Parents. They were his parents. Then, very slowly, the blackness surrounding him faded into a faint glow.
He opened his eyes to blinding brightness, then closed them again.
“He’s awake.” The words meant something, and he understood what they meant.
He opened his eyes again. The brightness faded, and blurred images began to form. Then, slowly, his eyes focused.
Certain images clicked in his mind, things he’d seen before, and suddenly he knew where he was. He was in a hospital.
A hospital was where his father worked. His father was a doctor. His eyes moved again, and he saw a face.
His father?
He didn’t know. He opened his mouth.
“Wh-who … are … you?”
“Dr. Torres,” a voice said. “Dr. Raymond Torres.” There was a silence, then the voice spoke again. “Who are you?”
He lay quiet for a few seconds, then, once more, spoke, the words distorted, but clear enough to be understood. “Lonsdale. Alexander James Lonsdale.”
“Good,” the man whose name was Dr. Torres told him. “That’s very good. Now, do you know where you are?”
“H-hob …” Alex fell silent, then carefully tried it again. “Hos … pi … tal,” he said.
“That’s right. Do you know why you’re in the hospital?”
Alex lapsed into silence again, his mind trying to grasp the meaning of the question. Then, in a rush, it came to him.
“Ha-hacienda,” he whispered. “Car.”
“Good,” Dr. Torres said softly. “Don’t try to say anything else right now. Just lie there. Everything’s going to be all right. Do you understand?”
“Y-yes.”
The image of the doctor disappeared from his vision, and was replaced by another face that he didn’t recognize. He closed his eyes.
Ellen and Marsh rose anxiously to their feet as Torres walked into his office a few minutes later.
“He’s awake,” he told them. “And he can speak.”
“He … he actually said something?” Ellen asked, her voice alive with hope for the first time since the accident. “It wasn’t just sounds?”
Torres seated himself at his desk, his demeanor, as always, perfectly composed. “Better than just saying something. The first thing he did was ask me who I was. Then he told me his name. And he knows what happened.”
Marshall Lonsdale felt his heart pounding, and suddenly a vision leapt into his mind. It was the chart of probabilities he’d seen two days earlier. Partial recovery had been only a twenty-percent chance. Full recovery had been zero percent. But Alex could hear, and he could speak, and apparently he could think. Then he realized that Torres was still speaking, and forced himself to concentrate on the doctor’s words.
“… but you have to realize that he might not recognize you.”
“Why not?” Ellen asked. Then: “Oh, God. He … he isn’t blind, is he?”
“Absolutely not,” Torres assured her. His eyes fixed on her, and Ellen felt a small shiver run through her. There was a quality of strength in his eyes that had not been there twenty years ago. Where once his eyes had smoldered in a way that she used to find frightening, now they burned with a reassuring self-confidence. Whatever Raymond Torres told her, she was suddenly certain, would be the absolute truth. And if Alex could be healed, Raymond Torres was the one man who could heal him. In his presence, the overriding fear she had fallen victim to since the moment she heard of Alex’s accident began to ebb away. She found herself concentrating on his words with an intensity she had never felt before.
“At this point there’s no way of knowing what he will remember and what he won’t. He could remember your names, but have no memory at all of what you look like. Or just the opposite. You might be familiar to him, but he won’t remember exactly who you are. So when you see him, be very careful. If he doesn’t recognize you, don’t be upset, or at least try not to let him know that you’re upset.”
“The fact that he’s alive, and that he’s conscious, is enough,” Ellen breathed. Then, though she knew she could never truly express what she was feeling, she went on. “How can I thank you?” she asked. “How can I ever thank you for what you’ve done?”
“By accepting Alex in whatever condition he is now in,” Torres replied, ignoring the emotion in Ellen’s words.
“But you said—”
“I know what I said. You must understand that Alex will undoubtedly have a lot of limitations from now on, and you must learn to deal with them. That may not be a simple task.”
“I know,” Ellen said. “I don’t expect it to be. But whatever Alex’s needs are, I know we’ll be able to meet them. You’ve given us back Alex’s life, Raymond. You … well, you’ve worked a miracle.”
Torres rose to his feet. “Let’s go see him. I’ll take you in myself, and I’d like to do it one at a time. I don’t want to give him too much to cope with.”
“Of course,” Marsh agreed. They started toward the west wing and paused outside Alex’s room. Through the window, nothing seemed to have changed. “Does it matter which of us goes in first?” he asked.
“I’d rather you went first,” Torres replied. “You’re a doctor, and you’ll be less likely to have any kind of reaction to whatever might happen.”
The Lonsdales exchanged a glance, and Ellen managed to conceal her disappointment. “Go on,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”
Torres opened the door, and the two men stepped inside. Ellen watched as Marsh approached the bed, stopping when he was next to Alex.
Alex’s eyes opened again, and he recognized Dr. Torres. On the other side of him was someone else.