Remembering Red Thunder. Sylvie Kurtz
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worried Taryn. The swollen blue and purple mark curved from temple to temple. Five stitches pinched the skin above his left eyebrow.
Watching him so still and white beneath the hospital sheets made her soul wither by inches. The emergency-room doctor had told her Chance had regained consciousness for a while before he’d slipped into a coma and that he might also be suffering from traumatic amnesia. He’d told her not to worry, that Chance’s injuries probably weren’t life-threatening. But how could she not worry? The man she’d thought invincible was lying in a hospital bed unconscious.
“The chili will keep,” she told him, trying to keep up a one-sided conversation to fill the silence that was otherwise too heavy to bear. “Probably taste even better tomorrow. So will the pie. And I’m sure Ruby will have another basketful of beans to sell before the week’s out.”
Not a muscle moved, not an eyelash twitched. She could be watching a corpse, except that the machinery beside him with its beeps and moving lines told her he was alive.
“Maud came by the bakery this afternoon. Right when I was closing, too. Have you ever noticed she seems to time her every action in a way that will irritate somebody?” Taryn gave a weak laugh. “She was complaining about the heat as she bought every last buttermilk biscuit I had. Plus a loaf of cinnamon raisin bread. Plus half a dozen sweet rolls. And you know those didn’t last until she got home.”
Taryn held Chance’s hand and stroked the back of it with her thumb. The skin was rough and familiar beneath her finger, but cold. She hiked the blanket over his chest and wrapped both her hands around his to warm him. Her lips trembled and she pressed them tight to hold back a sob.
“Hey,” she said, trying hard to inject some lightness into her voice. “Maybe now you’ll take the vacation you’ve been meaning to take—for what?—seven years now. We could go away for a week. Or ask Liz and Jake to join us, and you and Jake could go diving while Liz and I go antiquing.”
Wake up. Please wake up. Seeing him like this was killing her. She couldn’t bear the thought that he wouldn’t come back to her, of trying to live without the man she loved with all her heart. He gave her confidence, made her feel secure. He was always there for her. She needed him now more than ever. She squeezed his hand and willed him to squeeze back.
“I’ve got something to tell you. I think you’ll be pleased. But I want to see the look in your eyes when I tell you my secret. So you’ll just have to wake up, you hear?”
She wanted to see the initial shock of her announcement widen his dark eyes, then see the slow spread of his smile. His lips always kicked up a bit higher on one side than the other and lent him a boyish charm she’d found hard to resist since the first time she’d seen him stroll into her mother’s diner.
She kissed his fingertips. “Wake up, Chance. Please wake up.”
What if the doctor was wrong? What if Chance didn’t come back? What if he stayed in this coma? What if he couldn’t remember her? What if he died? Taryn scrunched her eyes closed and swallowed hard. One hand went to her belly and cradled the life growing there. Could she raise this baby alone? The process of single parenting had turned her mother bitter and angry. Was that what she had to look forward to?
No, she wouldn’t think about it. Chance would recover. He had to. She would accept no other alternative. She’d waited seven years to start this family; she wasn’t going to have her dream taken away from her before it materialized.
“Mrs. Conover?”
The voice startled Taryn out of the loop of her worries. She turned to see a man standing at the door. “Could I speak with you for a few minutes?”
She glanced from Chance to the man and back. “I—I…”
He took the extra straight chair along the wall and dragged it next to her. “I’m Dr. Benton, the staff psychiatrist. I’d like to go over your husband’s chart with you.”
“Psychiatrist?” She frowned. Dr. Benton had a compact body under a lab coat that somehow reminded her of a cowboy’s duster, lank pale red hair that needed a cut, and green eyes that bugged out as if he’d read too many books in less than ideal light. He looked all wrong. A psychiatrist should have a calm, reassuring presence, but this man seemed to have a frenetic energy dancing all around him. “Why does Chance need a psychiatrist?”
“Dr. Gregory, the doctor who saw your husband in the emergency room, believes that the patient’s amnesia is not of a physiological nature.”
Taryn swiveled her body away from Chance, but still held on to his hand. “But Dr. Gregory said the coma was temporary. That it was helping him heal.”
Dr. Benton flipped a page on the chart he was carrying and flicked two fingers on the paper. “Head wounds often look worse than they are because they bleed so profusely. But other than the small laceration on his forehead, there seems to be nothing physically wrong with him.”
“But he’s in a coma. The knock must have been harder than you think. Chance is strong and healthy. He wouldn’t turn into a weakling so easily.”
Dr. Benton tried to look sympathetic, but the twist of his features looked more patronizing than concerned. “There’s no sign of trauma. The X rays, the MRI all came back negative. There’s nothing physically wrong with your husband.”
She shot up, placing herself between the doctor and Chance. “Other than the fact that he almost drowned and now he’s in a coma! What exactly are you trying to tell me?”
“When your husband came to in the emergency room, he couldn’t remember who he was, where he was, what happened to him.”
Taryn’s heart thudded heavily once in her chest. She hadn’t wanted to believe Dr. Gregory when he’d mentioned Chance’s probable amnesia. He couldn’t forget her. She’d prove that to everyone once Chance woke up. He wouldn’t forget the love they had; it was too strong. She squeezed her nape as she ordered her thoughts. “But that’s normal. He was in an accident. He’ll remember soon. Dr. Gregory said so.”
Dr. Benton eagerly bent over the chart. “In his paperwork, it’s noted that he suffered a previous episode of traumatic amnesia.”
Oh no, God, no. Her pulse jagged fast and hard. She didn’t like where this was heading at all. Could Chance have forgotten everything again? How was that possible after all they’d shared? Her legs felt shaky. She sat. “Fifteen years ago.”
Dr. Benton licked his lips, his eyes bugged out even more, and he seemed to savor what was coming next. “I believe your husband is suffering through a second episode of traumatic amnesia brought about by the return of a state-dependent memory.”
“You lost me.”
“The original trauma took place fifteen years ago,” he explained slowly as if she were dim-witted. He turned the chart at an angle and pointed. “It says here that his body was discovered not far from where today’s accident happened.”
“Yes, I know.”
A restless energy overtook Dr. Benton as he pointed to a second entry. “The time of the year is the same. Late May for the first incident. Early June for this one.”
“Yes, but what does one have to do with the other? The incident happened fifteen years ago.”
He scooted to the edge of his chair and leaned forward. “Traumatic events elicit major physiological responses in the body. Memories of the event are biochemically ‘attached’ to the traumatic physiological state and that produces a state-dependent memory.”
“Please, Dr. Benton—”
He held a hand up and rushed on. “I believe that something about the conditions today—something he heard or saw or smelled—brought back the memory he forgot fifteen years ago and it threw him back into that world. Those cues were a match to the conditions that existed fifteen years ago at the time of his trauma and brought back the lost memory. He didn’t just remember what happened,