“She knows there was an accident. She knows she was hurt and something’s going on with her brain and the doctors are working on her case. That’s all she needs to know. Her older sister, Delia, is her guardian now. She directs Miss Hughes’ care, and she’s adamant we don’t spill the beans that their parents didn’t survive. No need to upset her. Even if she won’t remember it a few minutes later.”
I frowned, trying to wrap my mind around Thea’s condition. “But… if Thea’s—”
“Miss Hughes,” Alonzo said. “Always Miss Hughes.”
“If she’s taking a bite of food or in the shower and the reset hits, what does she think is going on?”
“She goes with the flow,” Alonzo said. “The brain is a complicated mechanism, but its basic function is survival. The way her docs tell it, Miss Hughes’ memory resets, but she continues on calmly because she’s in this facility, and the facility doesn’t change. Calm is our number one goal. And since you’re so chatty all of a sudden, lesson one: you go up to Miss Hughes and what do you say?”
I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry this happened to you.
“I’m n-not sure what you mean.”
“Most people would say, ‘Hello, Thea. How are you, today?’”
“Okay.”
“Wrong. Three huge mistakes in that sentence. One: using her first name implies you know her, but she don’t know you, so that upsets her. You gotta call all residents by their last names. It’s polite and respectful, too.”
I nodded.
“Two: never ask how she’s doing. She don’t know. She has no idea how she should be feeling in the few minutes since she ‘came awake’ again, so don’t ask.”
Came awake again. I still couldn’t grasp having only a few minutes’ worth of consciousness.
“Three,” Alonzo said, “never use words like today or this afternoon or good evening or Merry Christmas. She don’t know one day from the next, one minute from another. No sense of time. When she asks, ‘How long has it been?’ she means since her accident.”
“Two years,” I murmured.
“Yep,” Alonzo said. “And reassure her that the doctors are working on her case. No more than that. If she talks to you, listen. If you get in trouble, redirect her to whatever she’s doing. Like her art. She can hold a conversation for longer than a few minutes if she’s occupied. When her attention is pulled—bam. Reset. You got all that?”
I nodded, but my expression must’ve given me away.
Alonzo leaned back in his chair. “Spit it out.”
“How can she live like this?”
“Quite happily. Calmly. And it could be worse. A fellow in England’s only got forty-five seconds’ worth of memory. Miss Hughes can go as long as seven minutes before reset, but that’s not usual.”
“How does that happen?”
He tapped a finger to his skull behind his ear. “A truck plowing straight into your gray matter will do the trick.” He held up his hands at my sharp glance. “I don’t mean to sound cold, but that’s just what happened. Our job isn’t to ponder it or feel sorry for Miss Hughes. We don’t waste time talking ourselves into thinking she’s fine just because she looks high functioning. She’s got permanent brain damage, but she’s not suffering. She don’t know what she don’t know. Our job is to take care of her and keep her calm. Okay?”
A thousand questions crowded in my mouth and I couldn’t get out a single one. I recalled our conversation yesterday. The best I’d had in years and then… gone. Erased. And Thea—Miss Hughes—living only a few minutes at a time. For two years now.
Alonzo stared me down. “I know it’s hard to take, son, but that’s the reality.” He tapped the file folder. “Come on. We got twenty-five more residents to talk about.”
We went back to work, going through case files, but I could hardly concentrate with Thea sitting behind me. The desire to talk to her was like a hunger in my gut. I didn’t talk to anyone and now I wanted to sit down across from her and demand to know if she was suffering. Was she happy?
Don’t be stupid. It’s none of your business. Do your job.
After the case files, Alonzo went out for a smoke. Mr. Webb and his nurse left, so I cleaned up his jigsaw puzzle. My eyes kept stealing glances at Thea.
She smiled as she worked. Maybe Alonzo was right. Maybe Thea’s amnesia kept her from the horrifying reality of her situation. She didn’t know what she didn’t know.
But what if she did?
Thea looked up and gave me a friendly, polite smile. Then her entire face froze. I froze too, watched her reset. Her clear blue eyes clouded with confusion and she leaned toward me from her seat.
“How long has it been?”
I glanced around for Rita but the only other person in the rec room was the duty nurse watching a soap opera on a small TV propped on her desk.
I took a step toward her.
“How long—?”
“Two years, M-M-Miss Hughes.”
Fuck, there it is.
Thea didn’t seem to notice the stutter. She nodded, her hunched shoulders easing back down. “I had an accident,” she said. “You’re the first person I’ve seen since I came back.”
I took another step toward her. Inhale, exhale. “Came back?”
“I’ve been away for two years. But I’m back now and the doctors are working on my case.” She looked at my nametag. “Jim.”
“Jim Whelan,” I said.
I have a feeling about you, Jim Whelan.
I silently willed Thea to remember, for recognition to light up her eyes. For her smile to turn familiar and warm as she recalled our conversation yesterday.
She held out her hand. “Nice to meet you, Jim Whelan. I’m Thea Hughes.”
Chapter 3
Jim
She’d introduced herself to me three times now.
Three of hundreds to come, if not thousands. Her brain was damaged. She’s not going to magically remember you.
It was hard to believe her amnesia was so severe, when she sat there looking this vibrant and sharp. I recalled Alonzo’s instruction to redirect her after a reset and glanced down at her work. She’d drawn a pyramid. On closer inspection, she’d built one out of words. Strings of words written in ballpoint pen, colored over with Magic Markers.
“That’s really good,” I said. More than good.
“Thank you,” Thea said, frowning at the paper. “It’s okay but there’s something missing. It feels…”
“Small.”
She glanced up at me with a wry twist to her lips. “Are you an art critic, Jim Whelan?”
“N-N-No, I just meant—”
“I’m teasing,” she said with a sigh and turned back to her drawing. “It is small. I wish I had a canvas as big as a wall. And paint to last me for months.”
“That’s exactly what I meant,” I said, still standing over her awkwardly. “Your talent is bigger than paper and pens. Grand Canyon-big.”
I hoped the cue from yesterday would spark her, but Thea blushed and grinned playfully at me. “I take it back. You can critique my art any time you want.”