“And you play guitar too?”
“Y-Y-Yes.”
She gave herself a little shake and her eyes filled with the desperation I’d seen the other day. “God, if only…”
“If only?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I feel so comfortable with you. It doesn’t make sense. We don’t know each other. You’re the first person I’ve seen since I came back.”
“Thea…”
“Whatever happens, Jimmy, please don’t stop singing to me. Okay?”
I swallowed hard. “What do you think is going to happen?”
It wasn’t an Alonzo-approved question, but I had to ask. I had to know if she knew.
“I might go away again,” she said, her voice strangely hollow. She glanced around the silent grounds under a blanket of thick, heavy air. Her hand in mine. “I don’t want to go away again.”
I gripped her fingers hard. “I don’t want you to either.”
Now her eyes filled with tears and she moved closer to me. “Jimmy,” she began, but the rest of the sentence was lost forever. Time was up. Our five minutes was over.
I watched myself disappear in her eyes, then reappear as she glanced around.
“Who…?” She pulled her hand out of mine and took a step back, brows furrowed.
Remember me, Thea. Please.
Her gaze dropped to my nametag. “Jim?”
I nodded, my breath held tight.
“How long has it been?”
I exhaled all my stupid, baseless hope.
“Two years, Miss Hughes,” I said.
Two years and five minutes.
Chapter 8
Jim
Alonzo was in the rec room when I brought Thea in for her drawing time. As I collected pens and paper, I felt his gaze at my back.
“Thank you, Jim,” Thea said with a bright smile. “You’re a pal.”
“Yup.”
A pal. Not Marc Antony. Not the guy who sang to her and gave her the chills. I was no one again.
Walking toward the door, I felt ill.
“You look like you just came back from a date that crashed and burned,” Alonzo said.
“Rita needed help,” I said, crossing my arms. “So I helped.”
My boss narrowed his eyes. “Uh-huh. I hired a new guy. Starts in a week. That’ll help too.”
I nodded.
“You remember what I said about Miss Hughes?”
Every muscle in my body tensed, my stomach tightened. “I remember.”
“See that you do, son,” he said, pushing off the wall. “Because she never will.”
That night, I picked up my guitar and sang “Sweet Child O’ Mine.” The lyrics came out fluidly, without hesitation or self-consciousness. The music drowned my life’s customary soundtrack—the rattle of a chain-link fence, the taunts of bullies and Doris’s poisonous commentary.
I’d sung to Thea Hughes. Out loud. Because she liked my voice. It made the hairs stand up on her arms. She thought it was sexy.
It turned her on.
I buried that thought deep. Thea wasn’t capable of consent and it’d been wrong to fantasize about kissing her. But I could take care of her. Protect her from the deafening silence of her mind. Maybe do what Mrs. Marren had told me years ago.
Find your voice, Jim. Don’t let it fade away because the words don’t come easy. Or because you’re afraid of looking weak. You’re not weak. Not so long as you do what’s right for yourself.
What was right for me was doing right by Thea Hughes.
I put my guitar away and read some of Fight Club. A story about a guy who created another version of himself. A stronger, better self who didn’t give two fucks what anyone thought of him. Who had no failings. No stutter.
I read until my eyes drooped, then slept.
I dreamed I had two selves, like the narrator in Fight Club, and I met up with the two selves of Thea Hughes. The four of us stood before the oil painting in the foyer of the Blue Ridge Sanitarium: the stuttering orderly and the resident with unalterable brain damage. The orderly did his job and gently assisted the resident back into the dim confines of the sanitarium.
But the beautiful artist took the stutter-less version of me by the hand and led him out into the bright light of day.
That morning, before shift, I sat around the employee table with Rita, Joaquin, and the head nurse, Anna Sutton. Over snacks and sodas, they shot the shit about the Netflix shows they’d seen lately, while I struggled for a way to bring up Thea without sounding like an obsessed psycho.
“What’s our budget for rec rooms activities?” I said at the first lull.
All heads turned toward me. “Why do you ask?” Anna said.
“Mr. Webb does the same jigsaw puzzle, day in and day out,” I said. “And Thea Hughes needs better supplies. A canvas. Real paint and brushes. I was wondering what the budget is for getting some new stuff in here.”
Anna gave me a dry look. “Mr. Webb does the same jigsaw puzzle every day because it’s part of his therapy. When he’s ready for a new puzzle, he will begin a new puzzle.”
Fuck. Stepped in that one.
“As for budget,” she continued, “we have none. Blue Ridge Sanitarium is a rarity. Not many memory care facilities deal solely with brain injury. The money goes toward staying open. Paying salaries.”
“Why would Miss Hughes need a bigger canvas anyway?” Joaquin asked. “She can’t remember that she’s only had paper. She doesn’t know one way or the other.”
Inhale. Exhale. “What if she does?”
Joaquin laughed and kicked his feet up on the table. “Please welcome our new neuropsychologist, Dr. James Whelan.”
Under the table, my fists clenched.
Sure, tell them about the word chains. Doris sneered. I’m sure they’ll come as a huge shock to everyone who’s been working with Thea for years.
“The actual neuropsychologist has been all over this case a hundred times,” Anna said. “And in any case, Miss Hughes is regurgitating what her brain picked up. That’s all.”
“Isn’t that memory?” I asked.
“No, Jim,” Anna said slowly, as if I were a child. “It’s a groove of routine. She cannot bring anything to mind, therefore she has no awareness of her quality of life, so long as we keep her calm.”
Rita put her hand on my arm. “Is that what you’re worried about? That Miss Hughes is suffering?”
“How could she not be?”
“Because she can’t remember,” Anna said, shooting Rita a hard look. “Without conscious awareness of her situation, how can there be suffering?”
It sounded plausible, but the itch in the back of my mind wouldn’t leave me alone.
“Why is she so accepting of her situation—wherever she is and whoever she’s with—when a reset hits?” I asked.
“Didn’t Alonzo give you the rundown?” Joaquin asked.
I crossed my arms. “I want to hear it again.”
“Miss Hughes didn’t accept anything after her accident,” Anna said. “It took months before she stopped becoming hysterical with every reset. She’s calm now because underneath the bells and whistles, the brain’s most basic function is survival.” Lips pursed, she stood up, checking her small gold watch. “Time to clock in. Are we satisfied, Dr. Whelan?”