Shakedown

Chapter Fifty-nine

Kate was in recovery when I got back to KU Hospital. A nurse told me which room she had been assigned to and that I could wait there. There was a hospital version of an easy chair in the corner of the room. I collapsed into it and fell asleep without a fight.

When I woke up, morning sunlight was streaming into the room. Kate was looking at me, her eyes half dreamy with the residue of anesthetic, the room smelling faintly of disinfectant. I pushed myself out of the chair and stood next to her, her hand in mine.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey, yourself.”

“Some first date, huh?”

“Yeah. I got shot. You got conked on the head and we still spent the night together.”

“You okay?”

“Just a scrape but the ER nurse said I had a cute ass.”

“Damn, and she got to see it before I did.”

“I’m giving tours on the half hour. Let me know when you’d like to take one.”

Kate took a deep breath. “I guess I was pretty stupid.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. You had me convinced that going to see Latrell was a good idea. How do you feel?”

“Like the inside of my head is under construction.”

I looked at the clock next to her bed. It was seven-thirty. “Have you talked to Dr. Benson this morning?”

“He was here a little while ago. He said that I looked better than you did and that I’d be fine. He’s going to send me home tomorrow morning if I can stand up without falling down.”

She squeezed my hand and tears ran down her cheek. I wiped them with a tissue.

“That’s good news,” I said. “It’s okay to cry for good news.”

“I know. I should be grateful but no one understands what it’s like.”

“What don’t we understand?”

“I can’t see them anymore.”

“See what?”

“Micro expressions. Not yours, not his, not the nurses’. Something happened, some brain damage, I guess. It’s like I’m half blind.”

She forced her eyes wide open, searching my face, straining to lift her head closer to mine. Exhausted by the effort, she fell back on her pillow, closed her eyes, and turned away. I smoothed her hair, uncertain what to say.

“It’s probably just the side effects from the anesthetic. You’ll be reading my mind again before you know it.”

I kissed Kate softly on the cheek. She nodded and bit her lip, letting me know that she heard me even if she didn’t believe me. I told her to get some rest and promised to come back later.

I roamed the halls, looking for Dr. Benson, but couldn’t find him. I didn’t know much about head injuries, only that football players and boxers were never quite right after they had had too many concussions. Kate, it seemed to me, had suffered more than a concussion.

When my father had a stroke, the doctor explained that it caused bleeding in his brain. Dr. Benson had said that Kate was bleeding in her brain, but I knew that didn’t mean that she had had a stroke. She didn’t look or act the way my father had, one side of his face paralyzed in a confused mask, his speech slurred, his sense of balance shattered. Yet a part of her brain had been damaged and it wouldn’t matter what label Dr. Benson put on it. Whatever the diagnosis, Kate had lost a part of herself.

I knew what would come next. The doctor would order tests to measure and define her condition. He’d prescribe treatment if there was any and apologize if there was none. Kate’s family and friends would give her advice and encouragement, cutting out newspaper and magazine articles on the latest breakthroughs, urging her to try holistic cures, acupuncture, Eastern medicine, visual imaging, meditation, and chiropractic. Through it all, she would keep asking herself one question, a silent inquiry made in private that no one could answer: Who am I now?