Me Again (13 page)

Dad, still laden with my belongings, said, “I’m going to put Jonny’s stuff in his room.”

He disappeared down a hallway, and in a moment my mother hurried off to the kitchen, to get me a drink I’d just told her I didn’t need. I took advantage of the moment to look around some more. One wall was nearly covered with family photos, mostly me and Teddy, although a few showed some older people I didn’t remember. And there was one shot of my parents together, which must have been taken shortly after they married. Their hair was darker and thicker, and I realized for the first time that my mother had been pretty.

“Is everything the way you remember it?” my mother asked, appearing behind me with a glass of iced tea.

I took a sip to gather my thoughts. Mercifully it was much better than the toxic brown stuff they served at the hospital.

“Mostly,” I said. I decided to lay some groundwork for the errors I’d inevitably make. “But I have to admit, some of it isn’t quite so familiar. It’s funny what I can and can’t remember.”

“It will all come back,” she said. “You’ll see.” I wasn’t sure whether she was trying to boost my confidence, or her own.

“I hope so.” I sipped my tea, supporting myself with one arm on my walker.

“Why don’t you sit down?”

“No, that’s okay.” Seeing my father return, I said, “Actually, I’d love to see the rest of the house.”

My parents then led me on a tour of what my father called
the Hooper Castle
, revealing a pleasant and spacious house that made me realize just how small my room in the hospital had been. In the kitchen, Mom opened a door that she said led to the basement, but I stopped and pointed at my walker.

“I can’t do stairs yet,” I said.

Without skipping a beat, my mother closed the door and turned. “Just as well,” she said. “It’s a mess down there.”

“Hey,” said my father, “
I
know where everything is down there.”

“That makes one of us,” she said, leading me off in another direction.

Stopping in front of a doorway, she said, “This was your room, but like I told you, Teddy moved into it later, because it was bigger. I thought about moving you in there, but he still comes down to visit from time to time, and he’s really finicky about his things.”

“That’s fine,” I said, surveying the room, which didn’t look at all familiar. A large bed took up most of the floor space, and a desk cluttered with computer gear dominated the far corner.

“Teddy leaves his computer here?” I asked.

“Oh, that’s his old one,” Mom said. “It’s slow and obsolete – it must be at least four years old.”

I assumed four years must be an awfully long time – I couldn’t imagine a computer wearing out.

“Your mother had me take down his posters after he moved out,” my father said, “so that took away my only reason for coming into this room.”

Mom gave his arm a good-natured slap. “We don’t need half-naked women on our walls, George.” Turning to me, she said, “Besides, Jonny probably doesn’t even know what Baywatch is.”

Enjoying a rare moment of clued-in-ness, I smiled conspiratorially at my father. “Who did he have on the wall?” I asked. “Pamela or Yasmine?”

This got a chuckle out of my father, and an indignant scowl from my mother.

“Jonathan!” she barked. “Don’t tell me that with everything you’ve forgotten, you remember...
that show
?”

I shook my head, smiling. “No, Mom – it’s just one of the shows that was on a lot at the hospital. I watched a lot of TV when I was training myself to speak.”

Mom was not amused. “Well, you could have watched PBS,” she said, refusing to crack a smile.

“Teddy liked Pamela,” my father said, still smiling, “but I was always more of a Yasmine guy. How about you?”

“Yeah, I guess I’d have to go with Yasmine,” I agreed.

“How nice for both of you,” my mother said, turning to leave. “Now let me show you where the bath towels are. Then I’ll show you where you’ll be staying.”

The tour continued with no further mention of pneumatic young actresses. And in fulfillment of my own dwindling expectations, I didn’t see a single thing that triggered any memories. But I felt I’d broken the ice a bit with my father, making the prospect of living under the same roof with him a little less uncomfortable.

I was just getting settled in my new room when my mother appeared in my doorway, knocking on the open door to get my attention.

“I almost forgot,” she said, holding out a pale yellow envelope. “This came for you in the mail.”

I thanked her and took the envelope, expecting it to be from either a medical provider or an insurance company. But my name and address were handwritten in a crude script, and there was no return address. Curious, I tore it open.

Inside was a greeting card showing a sad-looking puppy with an icepack on its head and a thermometer in its mouth. The card’s cheerful red lettering urged me to GET WELL SOON.

“Oh, how cute,” Mom said. “Who’s it from?”

I opened the card to find out. Inside, the same red font offered me BEST WISHES FOR A FULL AND SPEEDY RECOVERY.

The words FULL and SPEEDY had been underlined by hand, in a dark blue ink that matched the barely legible signature:

- Brandon

Chapter 15

“W
HAT TIME SHOULD I PICK YOU UP?”

My father had opened the back door of the car and was leaning in to pull out my walker.

“I’m not sure, exactly.” That much was true – I didn’t know if Leon would have a new regimen for me now that I was doing outpatient PT, or just the same old workout. But that wasn’t why I was hedging.

“Should I just wait for you?” Dad asked, starting to work on unfolding my walker.

“No!”

My father’s bemused look told me I’d answered a little too vehemently.

“I don’t want to leave you hanging,” I said, trying to recover. “It’s just that I’m hoping to spend a little time afterward with a... a friend of mine. Would it be okay if I just call you when I’m done?”

Dad looked at me, the beginning of a smile on his face. “Would this friend by any chance be a lady friend?”

“No. I mean, yes. But not like that. She’s a lady, yes. But she’s just a friend. She’s married.”

“Too bad,” my father said, still smiling.

I started to reply but realized I had nothing to say, because I agreed with him. It was too bad.

I opened my door while Dad set the walker down on the pavement.

“Need a hand?” he asked, standing poised to help.

“No, thanks. I can get out.” With that I grabbed the walker and pulled myself out of the car. “I have to get used to doing it myself.”

“Fair enough. Just don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. Sometimes asking for help is harder than the actual thing we need help with.”

I looked at him for a moment. He was a heavyset man, slightly taller than me, with a thinning head of grey hair that suggested my own hairline’s prospects were less than encouraging. But now and then he surprised me with some quiet insights that let me know that behind his blithe exterior there might be a man of considerable substance. It just wasn’t a side he showed very often.

“What you just said – it’s very true,” I said. “I mean, because of what happened to me, I’ve had to get used to asking for help. But it never gets any easier.”

“It never will,” my father said. “But that’s okay. That’s one of the burdens of being a man.” Closing my car door after I had shuffled clear of it, he said, “Me, I’ll take that burden any day over having a menstrual cycle.”

Like I said, he was not without some insight.

* * * * *

Leon beat me up. Not literally, but the routine he put me through left me weak-kneed and sweaty.

“You need me to get you a wheelchair?” he asked at the end of our session.

“No way,” I managed to gasp, my eyes on Rebecca, who was finishing up with Lucinda across the room.

Leon followed my gaze. “She’s a fine looking woman. Looking even finer recently, you want my honest opinion.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” I lied.

“Bullshit. Now get out of here so I can get ready for my next victim. And if that arm is sore tonight, put some ice on it, but only thirty minutes.”

Seeing my face, he said, “Ah, shit. Let’s see – that’s, like, one episode of a sitcom. You know, Friends or Seinfeld or some shit. You got it?”

“Got it,” I said. “Thanks.”

“No problem. See you Thursday.”

I walked towards the door, half hoping Rebecca would call out my name. Then I realized that wasn’t her way – she wasn’t a yell-across-the-room kind of person. So I stopped and turned, to see if she was looking my way. She wasn’t. Then I decided to stop acting like a small child and walked over to her. By the time I got there, she was sitting on a bench, packing her gym bag. Lucinda watched my approach, glaring at me with the disdain she seemed to have for all things male.

“Hi, Rebecca,” I said.

She looked up and blessed me with one of her shy little smiles. “Hi, Jonathan – I was hoping we’d get to talk. Do you have time to go get an iced tea in the cafeteria?”

Remembering my promise to never lie to her, I said, “Actually, I think I’d rather have a Diet Coke – isn’t that what you usually get?”

“Okay, Diet Coke, then,” she said. “What time is your ride coming?”

“I told my dad I’d just call him when I was ready. I mentioned that I might stay and visit for a while.”

Rebecca’s face grew serious while she made an adjustment to whatever device was holding her hair in a ponytail. “So how does the phone thing work?”

“The phone thing?”

“You can’t count,” she said, “but you can remember your phone number. How does that work?”

“Oh,” I said, finally understanding. “Apparently I’m pretty good at remembering
sequences
– groups of words, letters; even groups of numbers. They found that out when they were testing me. You know, to assess my brain damage.”

“God, I hated all those tests,” she said, grimacing at the memory. “But now that you mention it, those I.Q. tests did seem to have a lot of questions where they gave you a series of numbers and then asked you to repeat them from memory.”

I nodded. “I actually did really well on those.”

“But how can you do that if you don’t know what they mean?”

I thought for a moment, and then said, “Grok, snert, flidge, woogle.”

Rebecca looked up at me, with much the same expression one might see worn by somebody encountering Mr. Samuels for the first time. “Um... pardon?”

“You heard me. Grok, snert, flidge, woogle. Now say that back to me.”

I became aware that I was looming over her, so I parked my walker and sat down on an adjacent bench while she thought this over.

Rebecca spoke slowly and deliberately, a determined look on her face. “Grok... snert... floodge – no,
flidge
. Oh, and woogle.” Looking rather pleased with herself, she began zipping up her gym bag.

“See?” I said. “You did just fine with those words. And I assume you don’t know what they mean?”

She shook her head. “I think
grok
actually means something. But I get your point.”

Encouraged by what looked like the trace of a smile, I said, “My dad had an interesting observation. He pointed out that the way I remember phone numbers isn’t really any different than how everybody else does it.”

“How do you mean?”

“He said that even people who
can
count aren’t actually thinking about what their phone numbers mean.”

The way Rebecca was scrunching up her face told me I still wasn’t making any sense to her.

“Think about it,” I said. “Do you know what your phone number adds up to?”

Her eyes widened. “I have absolutely no idea.”

I nodded. “From what my dad tells me, neither does anybody else. They just remember the sequence.”

“I never even thought of that.”

“Yeah,” I said, “it turns out that the way I do ‘the phone thing’ is one of the few areas in which I’m actually pretty normal.” I leaned closer, adopting a hushed tone. “But don’t tell anybody – it could ruin my mystique.”

This got a smile. And I realized I was smiling, too.

The moment ended, and Rebecca stood up, slinging her gym bag over her shoulder. “Anyway,” she said, “I drove myself here, and Big Bob’s at work, so I don’t have to hurry home, either. In fact, if you want, I could drive you home.”

I’m not sure why, but the idea made me a little uncomfortable. But I couldn’t think of any polite way to protest, so I got up awkwardly and mumbled, “If it’s not too far out of your way...”

“You’re out by the mall, aren’t you?”

I nodded.

She waved a hand. “That’s not far at all. Come on, I need to drink something cold after what Lucinda just put me through.”

“Yeah, Leon was pretty brutal with me. I can barely hang on to my walker.”

Rebecca looked concerned. “I could get you a wheelchair.”

I wasn’t about to start going backwards like that. “No, I’ll manage.” Together we walked to the cafeteria, cheerfully arguing over whose workout had been more cruel and inhuman.