Sia (5 page)

“
Go to sleep, Sia,” Carol suggests.

I snort. “Good luck with that. No way I’m sleeping tonight.” I unzip my sleeping bag and cocoon inside, staring between the dumpsters into the stars.

Carol sounds worried. “Have you regained any memories?”

“
Nothing,” I say, shaking my head. “I’m still in the dark. It’s as if I never existed before I woke up in the park.”

“
We should consider . . . seeking help.”

An inexplicable chill runs through me. Same as when I considered approaching the policeman at the park. What’s wrong with me? Every time I try reaching for my past, I crash into this invisible wall. My own mind holds me prisoner. A warden of memories.

“
No,” I say in a shaky voice. “I need more time.”

“
Your family is probably looking for you.”

My chest tightens. Strangely enough, her comment only escalates my fear.

“
Yes. But it might not be for the reasons we think. I just . . . get the feeling I’m in some sort of trouble.”

She groans. “Child, what if we get attacked again? What if I can’t protect you next time? I’ll never be able to live with that.”

“
Nothing will happen to me as long as I’m with you.” I reach out my hand to slip into her rough, worn ones.

She sighs heavily, knowing I won’t be convinced. Silence fills the air. I decide to change the topic, so I ask a question that’s been burning inside me since I met her.

“
How did you end up here, Carol? Homeless, I mean.”

Carol says nothing for a few minutes, and I wonder if she’s fallen asleep. When I glance over, her eyes are open, their deep brown reflecting a night glowing with stars. Like me, she’s wrapped in her sleeping bag, her head on her backpack, her hands folded across her ribs. A dog barks in the distance, and we hear someone yell for it to be quiet. The constant shushing of vehicles driving along the highway provides a background noise, but this is a quiet place overall. It seems like a safe enough place to really talk.

“
I had a good life once,” Carol muses softly. “I had a husband who loved me and a good job taking care of my neighbors’ children. We even had a little house.”

I close my eyes, imagining. Carol hesitates before continuing.

“
He got shot, my Tommy. He was at the shop, closing up for the night, and a couple of hoodlums busted in and wanted the money. Well, it wasn’t Tommy’s money, was it? He had to protect it. He hit the one fellow, but the other pulled out a gun and shot him.” Her voice has softened into an almost songlike quality. “Someone took him to the clinic, but he died. After that, I lost the house, lost my job. I went to a shelter, but someone stole all my things. I’ve been on my own ever since.”

The dog starts barking in the distance again, breaking the silence of the night. The sound pulls Carol from her thoughts.

“
And that’s all there is to my story.”

The next afternoon’s lineup outside the soup kitchen is subdued. News of Patch’s assault has traveled with lightning speed through the homeless population. He was discovered by police later that night, but he’s in a coma in the hospital. No one holds out much hope. That could have been me. I sidle closer to Carol, who’s talking with Tito again.

“
I brought you a little something,” Carol says to him.

She drops in the two cans we found.

I look at Tito, whose eyes are fixed on the sidewalk, and I see exactly why Carol gave them to him. Before, Tito had been a quiet shadow of a man. Now, he seems hardly there. Most of his head is covered by a wool hat, which is ridiculous for April in California, and his slouch is even more exaggerated. When he lifts a finger to dig in one ear, his hand shakes as if it belongs to a very old man, even though Tito can’t be more than sixty.

“
Me too,” I say softly, dropping in my own pop can.

Tito glances up in alarm, but Carol intervenes. “Tito, this is my friend Sia. She’s a good girl.”

“
Sia,” Tito whispers. I resist the almost overwhelming urge to draw away. The man stinks and lives in his own personal cloud of filth. Tito pronounces my name with a heavy lisp, and a fine mist of spit sprays out with the word. But it’s the first sound I have ever heard the man make, so I give him a gentle smile.

“
That was kind of you,” Carol says as we head inside.

“
I didn’t know he could talk!”

Carol grins. “Actually, neither did I.”

Even though the line was short, the room is crowded. The soup kitchen clientele apparently is seeking safety in numbers. It’s a while before I can get even halfway down the line. Carol leaves me on my own since she needs to go to the bathroom. I realize it’s the first time I’ve ever been alone in the place.

At first, I’m intimidated, wary of every movement around me. As if someone might leap out of the almost motionless throng and attack me. When I figure out no one is paying any attention to anyone else, let alone to me, I begin to relax. It’s not like I can depend on Carol forever. It’s been eight days already; I’ll have to start looking after myself eventually.

When my tray is finally loaded up, I turn from the line and scan the room, looking for an available seat. The place is busy, most of the spots taken, so I enjoy a slice of fresh bread while I wait for an opening. The bread is still slightly warm, and the butter has been spread so thickly, it’s like icing on a cake. It tastes homemade. Almost decadent. The scrape of a chair moving backward tells me an empty place has opened up across the room. But just as I move forward, I accidentally slam into one of the volunteers.

“
Oops! Sorry,” I say, stepping out of the way.

The volunteer stops dead in his tracks and stares at me with such malice that I pull away. “You!” he hisses, taking me completely by surprise. “What are
you
doing here?”

“
What?”

“
Is this a joke to you? You think this is
funny?
” He looks around. “Or maybe you’re doing some sort of hidden camera prank show?”

“
What? A show? No!”

“
You have no right to be here,” he says through gritted teeth. “Get out.”

Tears rush to my eyes. What’s going on? “But—”

“
Get. Out.”

My mouth opens and closes like I’m a fish, but I can’t think of how to answer. He’s taken me completely by surprise and I’m disoriented by his attack. As if he’s given me a shove, I spin and run toward the door.

Confusion overwhelms me and I stumble, sobbing, into the street, not paying the slightest bit of attention. I barely hear a car horn when it blares just a few feet away from me.

Suddenly, the bright yellow hood of a taxi reflects the sunshine, glaring white as it approaches. The brakes screech wildly.

But there’s no way it can stop fast enough.

CHAPTER SEVEN

A constant beep pokes at my mind, a relentless, terrifying pitch that reminds me of a car horn, of stepping into nowhere and—

I burst into consciousness and am almost blinded by the sterile brightness of the room. Everything is white, cold, shiny, and far cleaner than anything I’ve been around in days.

The noise continues. I turn my head, surprised by the fact that I’m resting on a bright white pillow. The sound is coming from a machine of some sort, a small box flashing red lights and numbers. A hospital. I’m in a hospital. A tube is attached to the back of my hand. My head is pounding, and I am very thirsty.

“
Ah. Look who’s awake,” says a male voice. I look up as the door swings open. “Sia Holloway? My name is Dr. Weinstock. How are you feeling?”

Holloway. One mystery solved. “Wh-what am I doing here?”

“
You were in an accident, Sia. Do you remember stepping into traffic downtown? A taxi . . . ”

Everything comes back in a rush. I swallow hard. “I thought that was just a nightmare.”

The doctor has a kind face. He tilts his head and tightens his lips in sympathy. “Unfortunately, it wasn’t. However, every cloud, as they say, has a silver lining. And I’m about to reveal yours. Even though you didn’t have any identification on you, we were able to locate your family. It helped that they filed a missing persons report. Your parents say you’ve been missing since last week.”

I stare at him in shock. “My parents? You found them? You mean . . . you know who I am? That’s great!”

Dr. Weinstock frowns. “I don’t understand.”

I shrug at him. “Me neither. I’ve been wandering around all that time, not having a clue who I am. Until you just said it, I didn’t know what my last name was.”

“
Really?” He scribbles some notes on my chart. “Tell me about this. What can you remember? Do you know what happened to cause your memory loss?”

I shake my head, even though it hurts.

“
Who’s your best friend? Do you have a pet? Any brothers?” His questions seem endless and he makes careful notes of my responses. He looks fascinated with my answers. “Wait here a moment. I’ll be back.”

Where else would I go?

He returns with a clipboard and resumes his questions. A nurse trails behind him, carrying a small plastic tray. She hands me a cup of ice water, which I suck back right away. Big mistake. Brain freeze grabs my head and squeezes hard, shoving at the backs of my eyes.

While I’m waiting for the pain to ease, she reaches for my hand. “Just a little pinprick,” she says, jabbing the needle into my vein.

I peer at the doctor to distract myself.

“
Other than today’s episode, do you know if you’ve ever had any major accidents?” the doctor asks.

“
I don’t think so. I have no scars or bruises or abnormal pain.”

“
Do you use recreational drugs?”

I shrug. “Not as far as I know. Definitely not this week.”

“
All right. We’ll do a series of blood tests and see what we come up with.” He takes my hand—the one without the needle in it—and smiles. “You’ll be just fine, Miss Holloway.”

“
What about my parents?”

“
I’m sorry?”

“
You said you’d found them. Are they coming?”

“
They were in a couple of times before you woke up, but they had to leave for a bit. They said they’d be back here in a couple of hours. By then, we should have some of the test results.”

In fact, my parents arrive almost exactly two hours later. I hear their unfamiliar voices in the hallway, but I know who it is because Dr. Weinstock calls them “Mr. and Mrs. Holloway.”

He gently draws them away from my door. “There have been some complications with your daughter’s case,” he explains.

“
What? Is she all right?” squeaks a woman I assume is my mother.

“
She’ll be fine, Mrs. Holloway. But it appears she has some fairly significant memory loss. We are running tests to determine the cause and possible prognosis, but you should know that Sia has forgotten much. In fact, she didn’t remember her own name.”

I strain my ears to eavesdrop; I don’t want to miss anything being said about me.

A moment later, the woman asks, “But . . . does that mean she won’t remember us?”

“
There’s a chance that seeing you could trigger her memory, but you shouldn’t get your hopes up.”

A man clears his throat. “Can we see her now?”

Dr. Weinstock enters first, followed by two complete strangers. I stare at them, seeing the worry in their expressions and the money in their clothes. I want so badly to remember them. Who are these people? How can I even be sure they are my parents?

“
Sia?” The man speaks first. My father, I assume. “Are you all right, baby?”

I nod, feeling close to tears. My mother is instantly beside me, nestled on the edge of the bed. “Oh, sweetheart!” She brushes a few strands of hair from my face and tucks them behind my ear. “My beautiful girl! We were so worried about you! Are you in pain?”

“
Not really.”

My father clears his throat. I can see he’s emotional, too. “Your mother and I were frantic. We went to the police, but no one knew anything.” He shakes his head. “And then a car ran into you? What an awful way to find you. Is she all right, Doctor?”

“
Her physical injuries are non-threatening. Bumps and bruises, mostly. She did suffer a concussion, which is why we kept her overnight for observation. But everything else seems fine. Except for her memory.”

Everyone stares at me, and I stare blankly back. “I’m sorry I had you worried,” I eventually manage. “I didn’t know what to do. And I’m sorry, but I . . . I have no idea who you are.”

The couple look at each other, clearly at a loss. “Well, I’m your mother,” says the woman. She speaks slowly, as if she’s addressing a young child. My mother holds one hand out awkwardly. “My name is Janet. And this is your father, Raymond.”