And that was it. Mom, Dad, Dr. Logan, and the nurse Melinda entered my room and formed a semicircle around my bed. Dr. Logan looked at me just like Dad used to when I’d cry out in the middle of the night, scared of a monster in the closet—an expression of concern laced with condescension.
“Someone was in my room,” I said before anyone else could speak.
Dr. Logan nodded and Mom patted my hand. Dad started pacing the room. “Brain injuries,” said the doctor, “can often lead to hallucinations.”
A tear escaped Mom’s eye, ran down her cheek, and fell to her shoulder, staining her silk blouse.
“Soon,” Dr. Logan said, pointing to my forehead, “we’ll take a look at what’s going on up there.”
The day passed slowly. I moved down a floor to a new room with blue walls and its own bathroom. Which was reassuring since the walls were bright and happy, which meant I was supposed to see them, which meant I was supposed to be conscious. And maybe even use the bathroom. But I felt that unnatural tugging, same as last night, only fainter. A pull on my body from up and down and left and right. Alternately faint and strong, growing and receding. I folded my arms across my chest and tucked my hands under my ribs. I held on tight, but the feeling remained.
Decker came after school and sat real close to the bed. As close as he could without actually touching me. We watched daytime television together and didn’t talk, but it still felt good. We knew each other well enough that we didn’t need to fill the silence. Besides, it didn’t seem like he was in the mood to talk either. Then I was pulled away for my tests, which weren’t like tests at all, as I didn’t do anything, just lay there while machines clanked and banged and took pictures of my brain.
That night, Melinda came in and replaced the IV bags. “Just a small dose tonight, darling.” Then she placed the sleeping pill in my mouth and held the cup to my lips, just like the night before. And then that same sweet nurse whispered soothing words, brushed the hair out of my face, and tied my arms to the bed.
I was fully detubed the following morning. Saturday, I thought, trying to orient myself. Gradually, I felt the tugging grow again. Outward and downward. A new nurse, who didn’t smile, dumped a container of pills in my mouth and forced the water down my throat. I missed the tubes.
When Dr. Logan entered my room, he nodded at my parents and flicked a light switch, illuminating a white screen on the far wall. Despite the painkillers, my ribs ached with every breath. Worse, the glowing wall unit gave off a faint buzz. Like an itch in the center of my brain. Dr. Logan slid a large film onto the screen.
“Let’s have a look, Delaney,” he began. “First, an MRI of a typical brain.” He pointed to the film. Images of brain cross sections were lined up in a grid, three by three. I imagined playing tic-tac-toe on them. The images looked like photographs of halved fruit taken by an old black-and-white camera. Everything was shades of gray.
He took out another large film and stuck it onto the screen. “And here’s your recent MRI.” The cross sections of my brain were much more exciting to look at. Small bright spots sporadically broke up the shades of gray. There was even a short bright streak in one frame, like someone had taken a paintbrush to the film. I kept my mouth shut. Personally, I thought my brain scan was nicer, but it definitely wasn’t typical. An atypical brain wasn’t good news. Mom squeezed my right hand. Dad sucked in a deep breath, the kind that makes a wheezing sound.
“As you can see, there was significant damage. These bright spots are everywhere, indicating abnormal tissue.” Dr. Logan shifted his lower jaw around and blew out a breath. I waited for the “but.” As in, “But it turns out you don’t need those parts of your brain.”
Instead he said, “Obviously, this is surprising since you woke up fully aware, memory complete, speech intact, everything firing, as we like to say.” He stuck his hands into his white lab coat and continued, “I have no idea how this is possible.”
I touched my fingertips to my hairline. “I have a damaged brain? I’m brain damaged?”
“Yes and no. Technically, yes. But you show no symptoms of brain damage.”
“So, what’s wrong with my brain?”
He scratched at a tuft of his salt-and-pepper hair. “A lot is wrong with your brain, according to the MRI. You should have serious memory issues, both short and long term, but you don’t. You should have debilitating speech, cognitive, and coordination handicaps, but you don’t. Actually, you should still be in a coma, or some sort of vegetative state.”
Panic surged in my chest, contracting my ribs. At that moment, I welcomed the physical pain. It distracted me from my mental terror. What if this was all temporary? What if nature realized its mistake and returned me to my rightful comatose form, an empty shell?
I gently touched the top of my head and whispered, “Am I going to die?”
He leaned forward and shook his head, but didn’t quite deny it. “Honestly, so little is known about the brain. So little.” If he meant that to be reassuring, he failed. Coming from a neurologist, that statement was downright horrifying.
I asked for clarification. “So, I’m not going to die?”
Dr. Logan clasped his hands together and looked up, as if expecting an answer from above. Receiving none, he sighed and said, “Not today.”
I didn’t believe any of it. He continued. “I don’t know how you’re functional with this widespread trauma. It’s as if other areas of your brain are compensating for the damage.”
Mom tapped her heel on the floor twice as fast as she spoke. “So”—tap, tap, tap—“she’s going to be fine.” Tap, tap, tap. She placed a hand on my forehead.
Dr. Logan grinned, a closed-mouth smile revealing nothing. “We’ll start rehab as soon as the paperwork clears. We’ll know more then.”
Dad blew a clump of hair out of his eyes. He was blond, like me, with no signs of gray yet. Right then, with his hair shaggy and his clothes scruffy, he looked almost like a cool parent. That would be a lie.
The only other times I’d seen my father with messy hair was on vacation, and that was only if Mom forgot to pack his hair gel. Every other morning he slicked his hair back, put on his loafers and tie, and set out to work at his accounting company. That was my real father. This rumpled man at my hospital bed was an imposter.
Dad used to work for a large CPA firm, traveling most weekdays to conduct audits. He quit when I was in elementary school and opened his own firm in the next town over. It was just him and his secretary, and nobody in our part of Maine earned enough money to make him rich, but it paid the bills and he was home every night. That was enough for him.
“Will this all be covered by insurance?” he asked. Now that sounded more like the father I knew.
“You’ll have to speak to central billing.” Dr. Logan slid the images down and stacked his files on the counter.
I scratched at an itch on the side of my head. I wondered if I was scratching the surface of the damaged part of my brain or the newly rewired part. Maybe it was the buzzing. Maybe everything was so screwed up that neurons fired randomly, telling me things itched when they, in fact, did not.
“I’m okay,” I said to the room, even though my body was pulling apart in every direction, even though my brain scan lit up like the sky on the Fourth of July. “I’m okay,” I said again, because if I said it enough, maybe it’d be true.
Mom kept tapping and Dad stared out the window, probably running numbers in his head. Dr. Logan looked at me, but he wasn’t looking in my eyes. He looked a few inches higher, where the medical anomaly resided, and slowly backed out of the room.
Decker came in as soon as the doctor left and dumped the contents of his backpack at the foot of my bed. Dad took Mom by the elbow and led her out of the room, whispering into her ear.
Decker didn’t seem to notice the lingering tension in the room. “Cards,” he said, throwing a handful of get-well-soon cards onto my lap.