SHE LOOKED BEAUTIFUL, standing outside in the garden, catching the morning light. He watched her every day about this time. She’d take her walk, sit for a few minutes on the stone retaining wall surrounding the sculpted flowers, then return to the building.
Once, he’d wondered what weighed her down so heavily. She had that look—the one he remembered from many of his patients, and probably even more he didn’t remember. She—Lizzie, she’d told him her name was—always smiled and greeted him politely. But there was something behind that smile.
Of course, who was he to analyze? It had taken a photo he’d found among his things to remind him that he’d been engaged. Funny how his memory of her prior to his accident was blurred. Nancy was a barely recognizable face in a world he didn’t remember much of. And, truthfully, he couldn’t even recall how or why he’d become engaged to her. She didn’t seem his type—too flighty, too intrusive. Too greedy.
Yet Lizzie, out there in the garden, seemed perfect. Beautiful. Smart. In tune with everything around her.
So what wasn’t he getting here? Had he changed so much that the type of woman who’d used to attract him didn’t now? And taking her place was someone...more like Lizzie?
Dr. Mateo Sanchez watched from the hospital window until Lizzie left the garden, then he drew the blinds and went back to bed. He didn’t have a lot of options here, as a patient. Rest, watch the TV, rest some more. Go to therapy. Which somehow he never quite seemed to do.
This was his fourth facility since he’d been shipped from the battlefield to Germany, and nothing was working. Not the therapy. Not his attitude. Not his life. What he wanted to know they wouldn’t tell him. And what he didn’t want to know just seemed to flood back in when he didn’t want it to.
The docs were telling him to be patient, that some memory would return while some would not. But he wanted a timeline, a calendar on his wall where he could tick off the days until he was normal again.
He reached up and felt the tiny scar on his head. Whatever normal was. Right now, he didn’t know. There was nothing for him to hold on to. No one there to ground him. Even Nancy hadn’t stayed around long after she’d discovered he didn’t really know her.
In fact, his first thought had been that she was a nurse, tending him at his bedside. She’d been good when he’d asked for a drink of water, even when he’d asked for another pillow, and she’d taken his criticism when she’d told him she couldn’t give him a pain pill.
This had gone on for a week before she’d finally confessed that she wasn’t his nurse, but his fiancée. And then, in another week, she’d been gone. She wasn’t the type to do nursing care in the long term, she’d said. And unfortunately, all she could see ahead of her was nursing care, a surgeon who could no longer operate, when what she’d wanted was a surgeon who could provide a big home, fancy cars, and everything else he’d promised he’d give her.
So, he knew the what and the when of his accident. What he didn’t know was the annoying part. As a surgeon he needed to know all aspects of his patients’ conditions, even the things that didn’t seem to matter. It was called being thorough. But for him...
“Giving you the answers to your life could imprint false memories,” his neurologist Randy always said, when he asked. And he was right, of course. That was something he did remember. Along with so many of his basic medical skills—the ones he’d learned early on in his career.
The more specific skills, though... Some of them were still there. Probably most of them. But in pulling them out of his memory he hesitated sometimes. Thought he remembered but wasn’t sure of himself.
Wait a minute. Let me consult a textbook before I remove your gall bladder.
Yeah, right. Like that was going to work in surgery.
He looked up and saw Lizzie standing in his doorway, simply observing him. Probably trying to figure out what to do with him.
“Hello,” he said, not sure what to make of this.
She was the house primary care physician—not his doctor, not even a neurologist. Meaning she had no real reason to be here unless he needed a vaccination or something.
“I’ve seen you watch me out in the garden. I was wondering if you’d like to come out with me for a while later...breathe some fresh air, take a walk?”
“Who’s prescribing that?” he asked suspiciously.
“You are—if that’s what you want to do. You’re not a prisoner here, you know. And your doctor said it might be a good idea...that it could help your...” She paused.
“Go ahead and say it. My disposition.”
“I understand from morning staff meetings that you’re quite a handful.”
“Nothing else to do around here,” he said. “So, I might as well improve upon my obnoxious level. It’s getting better. In fact, I think I’ll soon be counted amongst the masters.”
“To what outcome?”
He shrugged. “See, that’s the thing. For me, there are no outcomes.”
“If that’s how you want it. But I’m not your doctor and you’re not my problem. So, take that walk with me or not.”
“And tomorrow? What happens to me tomorrow?”
“Honestly? I’m a one-day-at-a-time girl. Nothing’s ever guaranteed, Mateo. If I get through the day, tomorrow will take care of itself.”
“Well, I like seeing ahead. And now, even behind.”
“To each his own,” she said nonchalantly.
“Which implies what?” he asked, feeling a smile slowly crossing his face. Lizzie was...fun. Straight to the point. And challenging.
“You know exactly what it implies, Mateo. In your effort to see ‘behind,’ as you’re calling it, you’re driving the staff crazy. They’re afraid of you. Not sure what to do with you. And that false smile of yours is beginning to wear thin.”
“Does it annoy you?” he asked.
“It’s beginning to.”
“Then my work here is done,” he said, folding his arms across his chest.
He wanted clothes—real clothes. Not these blue and green things that were passed off as hospital gowns. Those were for sick people. He wasn’t sick. Just damaged. A blood clot on his brain, which had been removed, and a lingering pest called retrograde amnesia. That kind of damage deserved surfer shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, seeing as how he was in Hawaii now.
“And my work has nothing to do with you. I was just trying to be friendly, but you’re too much of a challenge to deal with. And, unfortunately, what should have been a simple yes or no is now preventing me from seeing my patients.”
She sure was pretty.
It was something he’d thought over and over about Lizzie. Long, tarnished copper hair. Curly. Soft too, he imagined. Brown eyes that could be as mischievous as a kitten or shoot daggers, depending on the circumstance.