Stranger is the Sail Ch. 02

In my old job, I used to come into contact with people who had suffered major head trauma in a car accident fairly regularly. I think the genesis for this story came out of the heavy use of car accidents as a plot device in LW stories...they tend to either cause some minor injury that is rehabilitated as a background part to the larger story, or put people into a coma that they later come out of without much real damage. I thought that a touch of tragic truth was worth injecting.

I purposefully chose the style of writing used in this story because it sounded really fucking hard, and it has been. If the results have been somewhat convoluted or confusing, I apologize.

Sunday, March 27
LAURA BURKE

He's awake. Oh, God, he's awake.

The doctors all come and go with the same haphazard timetable, but their expressions show obvious relief. I don't think they were all that convinced he was going to wake up at all.

Adrian isn't talking yet, and his face is hauntingly expressionless. It makes him seem more lifeless than when he was asleep, somehow. But he watches us as we move around the room. His pupils follow any motion put before them. Especially mine. He stares at me all the time, almost passively. I can't stand it. What is he thinking? What does he remember? I feel like I'm being judged, or carefully studied, every second that I'm in that room, but he doesn't so much as frown. Or smile.

God. What if he doesn't even remember who I am?

The doctor says it's too early to tell. His awareness right now is minimal but growing fast, like a protracted version of someone who wakes up from getting way too much sleep. But it's still possible that the damage is extensive. Without exactly saying so, without committing themselves in any way, they seem to be setting me up for the possibility of permenant disability. Am I going to spend the rest of my life as a caregiver to a man who was broken by my selfish stupidity? Is that what I'm going to get up to, every morning? The tattered remnants of a man I murdered, who refused to die?

I'll do it. I promise you, Adrian, I'll do it. Every morning, forever, without fail. I'll be there for you. I'll make this as right as I can.

Just don't hate me for it.

RACHEL JOHNS

Amanda called this morning with good news. Adrian's awake.

It was sweet of her to think of me. I mean, I would have been hurt if I had been kept out of the loop for long, but I still feel appreciation for it.

They don't know much about the condition his mind is in, and they still can't make a decision about his eye. It's just too clouded with blood, still. But they're going to decide one way or another in a few days, when he's had a chance to wake up more. Seems weird to set a timetable on a thing like that. Ben says that just means that they want to get their decision to the insurance company as quickly as they can, so they can start sorting out the payment. Maybe he's right.

Everybody down there is busy gossiping about what he may or may not remember, what he may or may not know. I guess he keeps eyeing Laura, frightening her senseless with his stare, but with his jaw wired shut and his mind still plenty fuzzy from the medication there's no real knowing what it means.

If you ask me, they ought to tell him anyway. All this nonesense about protecting him is just code. You don't help a person with lies. It doesn't work like that.

I'm sitting out on the porch with a glass of water, thinking about the way the world moves. Thinking about my boys, and looking at that empty four way with the one stop sign. Thinking about the time Michael rushed into town because the girl he was seeing thought he'd been fooling around, and was out dancing with Victor Casey.

Laura's still a wreck, Amanda tells me.

Well, goddamn it, sheshouldbe.

Sunday, March 28
AMANDA DOLE

"Show me your left hand, Adrian," the nurse says. They do that...stick his name into every other sentence. These children with tired faces and blue scrubs talk to my daughter's damaged husband like he's some child brought in with a cough.

Adrian raises the hand up a few inches, watching his own limb move with the deeply sunken eyes of a starving man.

"Good, Adrian," the nuse smiles. "Show me right."

He does.

"Excellent. We're making real progress here. I'm very impressed. I'll check on you later, okay Adrian?" He smiles at me as he leaves the room.

I guess it should feel a lot more reassuring than it does. Each new day brings its own new positives. They even think that Adrian will get to keep his right eye, now. It'll be uselessly blind, and it'll probably always be watery and red. But, still, his own eye. Not a prosthetic.

There's no kidney damage from the potent antibiotic they had to put him on, either. I didn't even remember hearing that was a possibility, and nearly got into something of a shouting match with the doctor about it. Bill assures, though, me that it was mentioned at some point as a possibility. I take his words like the river takes water, but I still don't remember. Too many things being said out loud, not enough of them put into writing, is what I think. How am I supposed to keep track of all this? Are they so scared of lawsuits, anymore, that they hesitate to even diagnose?

The neurosurgeon is the only one who seems pessimistic. He keeps talking about the unique needs of people with brain damage. How they can experience swings of emotion, or periods of irrationality. Memory and behavioral changes are "probable." I can see Laura just crumbling every time he comes around. It's a wonder she doesn't just melt right into her seat.

Well, this idiot can say what he wants. He doesn't know Adrian Burke. That man will surprise them all.

He has to.

I worry a lot about the future in a way that I haven't had to in some time. It's a hell of an experience. You get to be my age, you like to think you've earned the privilege of relaxing. Of having that...word...not mean so damn much. Future. It should be so unimportant. I thought I'd seen all my worst problems come and go. Even the things I do worry about...cancer, or Bill's heart...don't seem nearly as horrific now that we've outlived the hills. Now that I feel so heavy, and tired all the time. Now that I'm old.

Let these aches be forgotten, and the Lord take me home.

But now? It's complicated, isn't it? I want my daughter to be happy. I'll admit to hoping that she suffers the minimum repercussion for her actions, in spite of how angry I am. And I will feel no guilt for doing so. But Adrian is family, too. He didn't deserve any of this, and it horrifies me to think of what she's put him through. I can't understand it. It's like finding out that your child is a violent criminal. They can put the evidence down right in front of your eyes, but they can't make you see it. They can't make it real.

Adrian is falling asleep again. His eyelids droop, and he doesn't fight them. It doesn't take very much to exhaust him right now. The nurse smiles at me across the bed and body and soundless machines, and then he leaves.

I reach out and touch my son-in-law's cheek, and I let myself feel a little pity.

I hope you never find out what's been done to you. I hope you never remember how badly she let you down. How she ran away.

How she ran to the arms of another man.

And I hope that, if you do find out, you are good enough a man to forgive my daughter for these sins.

I hope I can, too.

Wednesday, May 5
54 days after the accident
ADRIAN BURKE

I thought maybe it would feel weird, sitting in a car. I thought I'd be scared, or...desperate. Like I had to get out before it was too late. But I don't feel any of these things. I just feel sad.

I thought it might help me remember something, too. The doctors said that might happen...that it might bring some kind of sense memory out. It hasn't brought me anything at all.

I can half see my reflection in the window. I don't care for that, so I roll it down. There's a stranger in every mirror these days, and he's trying to look just like me. I'm not worried. He always fails. There are too many scars on his face. His jaw sits all wrong, like a broken toy. His right eye is the biggest give away, even though most people might think it looks almost normal. I see it for what it really is: a mortician's bad joke.

And he's so thin. Thirty pounds lighter than I am. Surely...

Laura glances over, probably wondering about the window, and I give her a smile. She attempts a return, but her muscles don't move that way anymore, so she goes back to watching the road.

That feels strange, too. I should be the one driving. Maybe someday.

I'm so lucky to have Laura. Now more than ever. If I had to go this alone...

I think a little more about that stranger. It's not just the way he looks that bothers me. It's all the medication that he's on. All the doctor's appointments he has to keep. The difficulty he has with short term memory. The way he butts up against simple math problems, fumbling uselessly like soft tissue in a car collision, or fails to process most of what he reads. That son of a bitch has no place pretending he's me. Not Adrian Burke. I'm a financial advisor, goddamn it, and a closet science fiction nerd. My whole existance is wrapped up in the things he can't do.

I shake my head. The wind feels good on my face. It feels like time is rushing past me, accelerating by the second. Like I'll grow old and die in a blink of an eye.

Laura's birthday was on Tuesday. I asked her parents if that might have been why I was headed to Castlewood...if maybe we were going to plan a surprise for her. They kind of said that it was possible, without seeming certain. Well, Amanda said it was possible. Bill just always looks at her with a tightness around his eyes and doesn't answer any of my questions. He looks pretty worn out. I suppose this has been hard on the two of them, too.

Anyway, Amanda claims that we'd discussed the idea but hadn't set anything down for sure. Doesn't seem like I would have driven all that way without some kind of certainty.

Oh, well. Surprise, Laura! I hope you like it. It's sort of like the man you married, only uglier, stupider, and broken down. Happy birthday. No gift receipt included.

I reach up and trace my scars with my fingertips. I am so sorry, honey.

I asked Laura about that weekend, too. She wasn't travelling with me, so where was she? I'm trying to find some piece of the puzzle that allows the rest to become clearer, you know how it is. But she said she was called off to work, and I kinda remembered that anyway, so it doesn't help.

She looks at me again. "I'm going to start the AC," she says. I nod and roll up my window. After a time, I close the vent that points at me. The air that the car provides may be cooler, but it doesn't make me feel the way the wind does.

I glance out the window again. The stranger is still there. I wish him great harm and terrible, and smile. He smiles, too, like it's funny. Like he's wishing the same on me.

"Too late," I say.

"What?" Laura asks.

"Nothing. Just being stupid."

She's quiet for a moment. "I'm glad that you're finally coming home," she says for the tenth time. "Doesn't it feel good, Adrian? Getting out of that place?"

I nod. So does the stranger. "I just hope that you still think I'm worth keeping." I try to make it a joke with my voice, but she flinches. "Listen," I tell her, "it's okay. I know I look different. I know that I'm going to have some...weaknesses. But we have to be able to talk about all that. We can't just ignore it. Be honest with me whenever you can. I promise to do the same. And sometimes, honey, you just have to let me joke about it a little."

"Okay." She's tearing up. She grabs my hand and holds it. "I love you so much."

"I love you, too. As long as I have you, I'm still lucky."

We lapse back into silence, and I start testing my vision and processing by seeing how many words on the billboards I can read before they go by. My top score, after a few miles worth of tries, is one.

Fuck. What am I going to DO with my life?

One of the billboards has a picture of a baby on it, and the sight of it punches me somewhere soft.

"A baby," I blurt out. "We had a conversation about having a baby!"

Laura gasps, and her eyes go wide. "What?" Her hands grip the steering wheel.

"Sometime before the accident, I brought up the idea of us having a baby. You..." the rest is a haze. "I remember that we didn't end up deciding to go for it, but I don't remember why. Do you...do you remember that?"

She frowns, taking a long time to answer. "I remember that," she says softly.

"What was said specifically? Anything that might explain what I was doing?"

"Not really, no. We just agreed that it wasn't time yet. I was putting in so many hours at work, and you wanted more time to get ready financially, so..."

I look at the stranger, and he shakes his head. For once I agree with him. That story doesn't quite sound right to me. But without the memory, what do I know after all? "How did I act, though?" I ask her. "Was I upset? Disappointed?"

She shakes her head, looking more confident now. "You didn't seem concerned about it. Like I said, we pretty much agreed that we needed to wait a little while longer."

I try to imagine the talk, and I can't do it. There's a vague sense that the conversation was different from what she's saying it was. That it was not a pleasant one for me. But that's all. It doesn't mean she's lying. Hell, maybe I hid my disappointment from her to spare her feelings...or to avoid an argument. I guess it's possible. "It was a mistake, I think," I tell her now. "We shouldn't have waited."

She's quiet for a moment. "Why do you say that?" she asks in a small voice.

"Because if there had been a baby at home that needed us, then I don't think anything could have made me run off to your parents' house like that. Not a birthday party, not anger...not anything. I would have stayed home, and not gotten hurt, and not had to be put back together again by all the king's men. I would have been whole, and I would have been a good father. Now, what kind of father could I hope to be?" I'm surprised at how quickly the tears come. "I can't be anybody's dad, now."

She sniffles, and wipes her hand across her face. "Adrian..." she seems ready to say something, but trails off and shakes her head.

"Hey," I tell her, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to..."

"I love you," she says quietly. "I'm so, so sorry this happened."

"I love you, too. More than you'll ever know." I glance at the stranger, but he just looks sad. "And it's not your fault."

Thursday, May 6
LAURA BURKE

Twenty-four hours down, the rest of my life to go.

I'm doing my best to be positive, to make this really work. But Adrian isn't helping matters. He's trying so hard to be independent, to be himself, and it's just not happening. It's way too early for that. It's making him mad.

This morning he didn't understand where he was when he woke up. Gave us both a bit of a scare. Short term memory is getting better, but his brain is addled from the collision.

He did break into the most heartbreaking of smiles when he saw that he was home, in bed with me. I almost wanted to tell him about the affair, right then. Sick, isn't it? But nothing he could do to me in anger would match the guilt I felt right at that moment.

I'm folding laundry, now, trying to think of something we could do for the weekend, when I realize I haven't heard from him in a while. I don't know why...maybe its this new fragility...but I get nervous enough to go looking for him.

He's standing in the center of the kitchen, lost in thought. Who knows how long he's been there. I lean on the entryway and watch him, waiting, knowing that he'll only ask me after he's done his best to work through it on his own. Knowing that he'll fail.

Finally, he sighs, and says something garbled. He doesn't always realize that he's slurring his words when he doesn't concentrate on what he's saying. I keep pointing it out, but he keeps forgetting. The doctor says that might pass with time. Might...what an enormous word that is.

I give him my warmest smile and softest tone. It's like taking care of a child. "What, honey?" I ask.

He scrunches up his face in irritation. I know what he's thinking: it's bad enough that he has to ask at all. I'm sure it drives him crazy to have to repeat the query.

"Where do we keep the milk?" he says slowly.

"In the fridge, dear."

A nod is all I get. He doesn't say thank you, or anything that might be interpreted that way. That would be acknowledging his failure. He just turns and opens the fridge. The milk is front and center, but it still takes him a few moments to locate it. I turn and walk down the hall. He doesn't want me to see him struggle like that.

Going back into the bedroom, I hear the humming of my cellphone on the dresser. I have a new text. I start to pick it up, but then I see the screen and freeze.

It's from Victor.

I haven't spoken to or heard from him since I decided to check my voice mail, as we sat nuzzled into each other in the airport waiting for our flight home. That eye blink of a moment felt like more of a betrayal than all the intimacy, the lust, the emotional pull that I had allowed to fester. I was sitting nuzzled up against my lover when I finally learned of my husband's crash.

I stare at that name for a moment. Victor. Then I delete the message without reading it.

I'm not going anywhere, Adrian. I'm not.

Friday, May 7
ADRIAN BURKE

Laura doesn't think I can see that she's constantly walking on egg shells around me. But I see it. I see every little moment of her nervous, lonely sorrow. I see it and I understand.

Last night we were watching television, and I guess I must have been squinting at it. I'm still getting used to the change in vision...besides, the talk too goddamn fast on TV. I can't keep up. Laura was sitting on my right hand side, my blind side, so I suppose she figured I'd never notice that she spent most of the time looking over at me...staring, really....with her heartbreak in her eyes. But I saw her. The TV fed me her reflection. Like she was the stranger, or something. I didn't say anything. I didn't want to know what she saw.

And I'm not gonna say anything to her about it now, either, because then she'll just start faking happiness all the time. She has a right to some sadness. She's lost a lot, too. She's a widow, don't you know.

It rained this morning, so I couldn't go on my walk. Too bad. That's one of the highlights of my day. Honest. I'm getting pretty good, getting some strength back. Yesterday I made it more than a quarter mile before I had to turn around. Needed to rest afterwards, though. Today, I wanted to try for a half.

It won't always be that way, Laura. I promise you that. I don't care how hard I have to push, or how much it hurts to get there. I am going to be me again. Someday, I'm gonna be able to walk all the way to Castlewood if I want to.

Wednesday, May 12
LAURA BURKE

Adrian is hunched over the packet the doctors gave him, counting using his fingers. He gets as high as four, pauses, then curses. Closing his fist, he starts over. The second time he manages to reach five, but it all drops as he tries to transfer from one hand to the next. For a long moment he looks at his hands, flexing and unflexing them, studying the knuckles. Then he starts over again.

"Honey," I say, "why not give it a rest? The doctor said you should try to put in forty minutes a day. It's been two hours."

"Gonna have to push hard, if I want to be anything besides a stockboy at Walmart for the rest of my life. If I ever want to get off this fucking medication."