The Secret of the Villa Mimosa (3 page)

Recognizing her, the nurse on duty smiled. “You mean the Jane Doe who was brought in at eight twentytwo this morning,” she said briskly in response to Phyl’s inquiry. “They assumed she was dead when they saw her down there in the ravine, but when they got her up, she still had a pulse. And broken ribs, possible internal bleeding, and a couple of holes in her skull, left temporal area. They rushed her right into OR, and she’s not out yet.” She glanced up from her notes. “I guess they’re doing their damnedest for her,” she said encouragingly. Then suddenly alert: “You know her then?”

Phyl shook her head. “I saw the rescue on the morning news. Somehow she just stuck in my mind.”

“I can imagine,” the nurse said feelingly. “It’s a pity you don’t know her, though, because we have no identification. The cops are searching the ravine for her
purse or any other clues, I guess. But as far as I know, she’s still just plain Jane Doe.”

“Maybe they’ll run her picture in the newspapers,” Phyl suggested, still thinking of the mother, not knowing her child was so near death. Surely a mother’s touch, the sound of her voice, just her presence in the same room would help. Suddenly it seemed terribly important to find her, to bring her here.

“There won’t be any pictures,” the nurse said. “Not the way she looks. Even her own mother wouldn’t recognize her.”

Phyl sighed regretfully as she thanked her and turned away. It was foolish to become so involved; she didn’t even know the young woman. Still, she hoped she made it through. Forgetting all about the focaccia sandwich, she drove slowly through the traffic to the Medical Center at UCSF.

Later she saw her private patients, and for once she found herself losing her concentration. She was relieved when her last patient failed to show at seven, and it wasn’t until she was driving home that she remembered she hadn’t eaten a thing all day.

No wonder you were losing it
, she admonished herself, because she felt guilty that she hadn’t given her all to her patients. She swung the car onto Sansome, turned again on Embarcadero, and found a parking spot right in front of Il Fornaio.

As usual, the restaurant was jammed. “I could seat you at the bar, Doc,” the hostess said. Phyl often dropped in after work when she was too tired to think of fixing supper at home, and everyone there knew her well. “There’s a quiet corner where no one will bother you.”

The hostess showed her to a seat at the far end of the bar and handed her a menu. Phyl ordered a glass of red wine. A copy of the
Chronicle
was lying on the counter. It ran a picture of the rescue scene at Mitchell’s Ravine on the front page. WOMAN’S BODY FOUND IN
RAVINE, was the headline. She read it, surprised, but then remembered that at first everyone had thought the girl was dead. Probably tomorrow, unless something more important took over the news, the paper would reinstate her in the land of the living. Unless, by then, she
was
dead.

She toyed with her pasta, thinking about going home to her empty apartment, remembering it was her thirty-seventh birthday. On an impulse she ordered a glass of champagne and then almost instantly regretted it. A birthday celebrated alone was not a real birthday.

She flicked through the newspaper, stopping at an enticing travel article about Paris. “Paris.” The very word sounded full of promise: springtime and chestnuts in blossom, café tables under the trees, and walks by the Seine. A handsome man in your bed, sharing cups of hot, strong coffee the next morning … The stuff of dreams on a rainy San Francisco night.

She sighed wistfully again. She recalled vaguely there was to be a psychiatric conference in Paris later in the year. Maybe she would find time to attend. Feeling better, she called for her check, powdered her nose, and added a flash of Paloma red to her lips.

The woman sitting next to her turned and smiled as she got up to leave. Her red hair swung around her shoulders, and Phyl thought with a pang of sorrow of the girl hovering between life and death in intensive care at the San Francisco General.

She called the hospital from the car. The neurosurgery had been successful, but the girl was in a coma. The doctors were still not sure about brain damage. It might be a while before they knew, one way or the other.

Tears spilled down Phyl’s cheeks as she drove slowly home. She was remembering things she did not want to remember, things that as a good psychiatrist she had tried to put behind her: the fear and the guilt and the grief … And now, because of a brutalized redheaded
girl lying in a hospital, they had all come flooding back again.

Fool
, she told herself severely.
You’re a damn fool, Phyl Forster.

3

T
he girl was hurtling through a dark tunnel, faster, faster toward a speck of light. She needed that light, needed it urgently, yet no matter how fast she catapulted toward it, it was always the same distance away. But she knew she must not let it go; she had to catch up with it: it was where she belonged.
Faster
, she told herself,
faster, fly toward it
… and then she was falling oh, God, she was falling, drifting down, arms outstretched. The sound of the wind was in her ears as she fell into an abyss from which she knew she would never return.

“No,” she screamed. “No, no, no …”

“It’s all right, honey, you’re okay. Just don’t worry about a thing.”

She tried to open her eyes, but her lids seemed to have weights on them. And she couldn’t move, couldn’t feel. There was no use flying down the tunnel toward the spot of light. She was dead after all.
“I don’t want to be dead,” she cried, anguished. “I don’t want to be—”

“You’re not dead, honey,” the nurse said soothingly. “You’re right here in the hospital. You had an accident, but you’re going to be okay. Don’t worry about a thing.”

The girl did not trust her. She knew the abyss was
waiting. “Then why can’t I open my eyes?” she whispered hoarsely.

“You will, honey. You will. Just give yourself time. Lie quietly now. Rest. The doctor is on his way.”

She lay still, taking in the sounds around her: the low hum of machinery and electronic bleeps, the rustle of starched cotton, and the pad of rubber-soled feet across the room. She could smell things, too: hospital smells of disinfectant and soap. And something sweet, a gentle floral scent that was hauntingly familiar. So delicate, so pretty, so … familiar. But she just couldn’t recall exactly what it was.

She tossed her head in frustration on the pillow, then gasped as a pain like a hot knife shot from the base of her skull and exploded somewhere in her brain.

“Lie still, honey.” The nurse pressed her back against the pillows. “Here comes the doctor now,” she added, sounding relieved.

There was the sound of brisk footsteps, then a cool hand on hers and gentle fingers on her pulse. “Well, young lady, we’re certainly glad to have you back with us again.” The doctor’s voice was crisp, deliberately cheerful, encouraging.

“Why?” she asked in her new, strangely hoarse voice. “Did you think I was going to die?”

He laughed, a nice easy sound, and she felt her own mouth stretch into a smile. “We try hard not to let the pretty patients die on us,” he joked.

“Sexist,” she whispered, and heard him laugh again.

“The truth,” she begged. “Please. Tell me the truth.”

She could feel him hesitate. Then: “There was an accident. You were injured. Broken ribs, damage to the spleen—we had to remove that—”

“My head,” she insisted. “What happened to my head?”

“Depressed fractures of the skull, in two places. We operated, fixed you up. Good as new.”

“Then why,” she asked plaintively, “can’t I open my eyes?”

He lifted her left lid and shone a light into it. It bounced somewhere in the back of her brain, triggering memories of daylight and sunshine. Maybe she had come out of the dark tunnel after all. “Are you real?” she whispered, still not believing.

He took her hands in both his. They felt strong, comforting, human. “You are in the San Francisco General Hospital. You’ve been in a coma for almost three weeks. You’re alive all right. Now all you have to do is get better. And don’t worry about opening your eyes. Soon enough they will open, and then you can check us out for yourself. Meanwhile, get some rest. Maybe later we can talk again. Then you can tell us who you are.”

“Who I am?”

“Later,” he said. “Don’t worry about it now.”

She heard his departing footsteps on the floor, a whispered conversation with the nurse, the closing of the door. From the deepening silence she knew she was alone.

An accident, he had said. Three weeks in a coma. In San Francisco. Was San Francisco her home then? She thought about it for a minute. Vague images of Telegraph Hill, the Transamerica building, the Golden Gate Bridge flipped through her mind. She told herself triumphantly,
You do know it.
But she did not know this hospital; she didn’t know where it was or what had happened that had put her here.

An accident. She pondered the word, visualizing a car crash, the harsh screech of metal against metal, the sharp crescendo of breaking glass, the burn of brakes and rubber, but it was like a film without characters; it meant nothing to her. She did not remember it. She shivered.
Maybe it was better she didn’t.

The doctor had said head injuries, a brain operation…. The pain zigzagged upward again as she turned her head restlessly, and she moaned. And then it came to her. She couldn’t open her eyes because her face was smashed. They were keeping her sedated so she couldn’t see the terrible faceless mess she was….

She tried to lift her hand, she wanted to feel it, trace the damage with her fingers, but her arm was anchored by needles and tapes and drip bottles and machinery.

Tears of despair trickled from her closed eyelids, coursing a hot, salty path down her cheeks, into her ears. Like a child, she thought; in bed, crying in the dark, calling for her mommy—except there was no mommy.

“Mom?” she said tentatively, out loud. But she knew her mother was not there. She tried to bring a picture of her into her mind, but nothing came.
That’s odd
, she thought, puzzled.
I can remember how the Transam building looks, and the Golden Gate Bridge, but I can’t remember my own mother’s face. I can’t even remember her name.

My
name.
She searched the blackness inside her head for an answer. There was none. There was just nothingness, and the tunnel threatening to drag her back again, away from the light, away from remembering. Away from life.

“You’re going to be fine now, honey.” The nurse’s voice had a smile in it. “Maybe tomorrow we can unhitch you from some of these drips and machines. And maybe, if you’re good, you can have a little ice cream for your supper.”

“I don’t like ice cream,” she replied automatically.

“Well, frozen yogurt then. You like that, don’t you?”

Did she? She couldn’t remember, yet she had just remembered she didn’t like ice cream.

Panic forced her eyelids open. They lifted slowly, like a theater curtain on a dim set, but still it dazzled her.
Gradually the room swam into focus. Someone was bending over her; the light behind her head was like a halo.

It was a madonna’s face. Pale skin, dark hair, red lips parted in a welcoming smile. She felt a cool hand on her brow as the madonna said, “Hi there. Glad to see you’re finally awake. I’m Phyl Forster.”

The girl gripped her hand as though it were a lifeline. “Phyl,” she whispered, “you must know me.
Tell me who I am.
”

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