Decker turned his back to me as he shrugged on his jacket, which was all the good-bye I was going to get.
My head felt sticky and cold as Dr. Logan stuck wire after wire onto my skull. I caught a glimpse of myself in the glass window and did a double-take. I was a walking science experiment, thin wires shooting out of my head like a blond Medusa. The wires wound down my side to a small box. And just as he attached the last of the wires, the itching started.
I raised my hands and left them hovering just above my scalp. “It itches,” I said.
“Hmmm.” Dr. Logan rested his pointer finger on his chin. “Itching or discomfort?” Like I didn’t know the difference.
“Itch,” I repeated. “But inside.” Deep in the center of my brain. And, like the day before, the tugging intensified from one direction until it wasn’t a tug at all but a pull. A strong, persistent pull. “I need to get out of here,” I said, swiping at the electrodes on my scalp.
“Wait, calm down,” Dr. Logan said as he gripped my wrists with his hands, preventing the destruction of his work.
“I gotta go, I gotta go,” I said as the itch spread down my neck. I rolled my head back and tried to swing my legs out of bed.
“Go where?”
“I gotta go,” I repeated, because the pull was strong and the itch was spreading down my shoulders and I didn’t know exactly where. Somewhere out in the hall. Somewhere to my right.
And then the itch made its way down my arms to the tips of my fingers and they burned and twitched as the itch tried to escape. Dr. Logan loosened his grip on my wrists and looked at the movement. He frowned at the readout. “No seizure,” he said.
Then he looked back at me, like that should’ve stopped the twitching in and of itself. I got up, jerking the machinery with me, trying to dislodge the wires from my head. Dr. Logan pressed a button over my bed and engulfed me in his arms, almost like a hug, but not really because I couldn’t move. More like a straitjacket. And then someone came into the room and I felt a pinch on my arm and everything went fuzzy and a little bit silly. I was pretty sure I was giggling when the blackness took over.
Melinda scrubbed my scalp with industrial-smelling shampoo. At the salon Mom and I both went to, everything smelled of coconut and mint. Not here. This shampoo smelled like toilet cleanser and felt like that stuff Mom used to put on my cuts. I lay flat on the bed, head hanging off the bottom end, feet hidden under my pillow. Blood pooled in my head. I hoped the increased pressure wouldn’t cause any further damage.
Dr. Logan stood near the door while my parents paced around the room like newly caged animals. Viewing the scene upside-down was disorienting and dizzying, so I closed my eyes and listened to the conversation unfold as the nurse kneaded my scalp with her fingertips.
“We really need to get her home,” Mom explained to Dr. Logan. “The Internet says that a hospital is the worst place to be unless you’re really sick. It makes you sicker. Isn’t that right?” Dr. Logan cringed. Doctors must hate the Internet.
“And I’ve been speaking with insurance,” Dad said. “We stay here much longer and we won’t have a house for her to come home to anymore, we’ll owe so much money.” That was just like Dad. He probably had an Excel spreadsheet of our expenses for the past two weeks, including a category for the vending machine. I wondered if he planned on deducting it all from our taxes.
“Her EEG was normal, but I’m still concerned about the hand tremors. She became incredibly agitated both times,” Dr. Logan said.
I cleared my throat. Agitated? I flipped out. I had to be sedated. Sedated.
“She’s doing well. Really well,” Mom said. “I can handle things at home.”
I knew I wasn’t doing really well. I opened my eyes and made eye contact with Dr. Logan. I think he missed the message. I was upside-down, after all. Gravity made it impossible to contort my face into disbelief and panic. Or maybe I succeeded and Dr. Logan didn’t really know me well enough to translate the message.
“Let’s talk outside,” Dr. Logan said. The pacing stopped, my hair was rinsed and towel-dried, and I was left alone.
Ten minutes later, it was decided. I was going home. “You’re cleared by me,” Dr. Logan said. “Except for the ribs, of course, but that’s not my specialty anyway.” He winked. I narrowed my eyes. We sat around for the next four hours while the hospital processed the discharge papers. Mom read me the end of Catch-22. I learned that my rehab situation was indeed a Catch-22. I discovered another one, as well. Death is finite. Unless it’s not. In which case it wasn’t death in the first place. Just an absence of life.
Dr. Logan said I still had to come in for monthly consultations, with the potential for recurrent MRIs or EEGs, depending on my symptoms. I appeared to have escaped any lasting neurological damage, except for my hands, of course. My parents didn’t seem worried about the twitching. Dr. Logan acted like he thought it would eventually pass. I didn’t want to have an episode at school. I was already the smart kid. No need to be the smart kid with the freaky twitching hands.
When my parents left to find an edible meal in the cafeteria, I picked up the hospital phone and called the only number besides my own that I knew by heart.
“I’m coming home,” I said in halting syllables.
“Thank God,” Decker said. Either dread did not translate adequately over the phone, or Decker didn’t know me quite as well as I thought. “Don’t worry,” he added, “I’ll be there.”
I let out a sigh of relief and hung up before I said something I’d regret. Something like, I’m scared.
Dr. Logan came back to go over some documentation, outlining possible side effects to watch for. “Let’s not forget that Delaney is indeed a victim of traumatic brain injury. Don’t let her recovery fool you. Be on the lookout for headaches, fatigue, depression or anger, sleep disorders, memory trouble, and speech issues. That’s what therapy is here for.”
My parents nodded, half-listening, and signed the paperwork. Melinda eased me into my wheelchair.
“Last time,” she said. She tucked my hair behind my ear and pushed me down the hall. I said good-bye to the blue room, my home for the last week. In the lobby, my parents thanked Melinda for her care.
“Let me take it from here,” Dad said. He pushed me toward the exit, a narrow hallway with open double doors at the end. Mom put her hand on my shoulder as she walked. The afternoon sun reflected off the snow in a blinding light. My body and mind resisted. I wanted to stay. I wasn’t ready to go home. But they pushed me toward it, the light at the end of the tunnel.
Chapter 4
“Wake up, honey.” Mom’s voice roused me from unconsciousness. “We’re home.”
“And look who’s here,” Dad said. “Surprise, surprise.”
Decker sat on the front steps, shovel resting by his side. The recent snow sat heavy on the grass, but our walkway was clear. Our house, a cool gray, looked dark in contrast to the white yard. Small icicles hung like teeth from the eaves over the front porch. The house waited to consume me.
Decker opened my car door and reached his arms inside.
“I got it,” I said. I held my breath as I pulled myself upright, careful not to move my rib cage any more than absolutely necessary.
The first thing I noticed when I stood on the driveway was my skin. It felt normal. There was no tugging sensation, no feeling that I might fly apart. Maybe Mom was on to something about hospitals and illness.
“Get the bags, Ron. I’ll get the kids settled.” Mom gave Decker a radiant smile and kissed me on the forehead before unlocking the front door. “Go on, get back to normal now,” she said.
I paused in the entryway. The house looked immaculate but smelled stale, like wood and plaster. I guess that’s all a house really is at its core. My absence had taken the life out of our home.