Page 9 of Forgotten
“Oh. Right, sorry. Ford.” The name tastes weird in my mouth. But as I watch his sleepy face, I realise how right it fits. “Ford,” I say again and it fits perfectly the brown of his eyes; the curly red hair; the skin a couple of tones darker than mine from the sun; the dimples framing his bright smile.
“Ash,” he says back in a way that makes me feel like the name was always supposed to belong to me and to me only. He looks at me with new curious eyes, as if it is the first time he’s seeing me.
Chapter 5
2024 - Ashford
The first week, time has no significance.
Being awake is a humongous effort and if I whine dramatically enough, Lindsey the nurse pumps a delicious cocktail in my veins that doesn’t give me nightmares but also doesn’t give me dreams. People come and go, discussing my arm; my recovery; my memory, or lack thereof. They think I can’t hear them, but unfortunately, I hear it all.
When Doctor Parker is not alone, he’s with either Doctor Carter from Neurology or Doctor Taylor, also known as the best Orthopaedic in town. I grit my teeth in an attempt to stay present but keep yawning and squinting whenever they are around. My brain can’t focus—can’t follow anything they say.
The nurses plug and unplug stuff to my arms. They ask me to rate how much this or that hurts on a scale of ten. It’s eight, always an eight. I go through various machines and it’s a bit like being back at school. I’m doing well, but not well enough.
I wake up alone sometimes and the time on the monitor looks blurry. I repeatedly make a mental note to ask for a watch but I forget every time, so I just start counting to one hundred and back to zero until the hospital door opens.
Most often, who’s walking in is the very person who taught me the trick of counting to kill time: Ash. He brings his books and magazines with him and he reads to me, just like he used to do when we were eleven and into collecting every issue of all the existing comics. Ash would come over to my house and we would read for hours but while I got tired of it at some point, Ash wouldn’t. He would start reading the stories to me then and every time it would get too complicated, he would flip the page over to show me the pictures. He’d even make voices and recreate scenes for me, holding a black sock on his face to play Batman or wrapping a yellow blanket around himself to play Robin.
Whenever Ash shows up empty handed, he asks me random stuff. “Do you remember where you went to university?”
Duh.
“Do you remember the street we grew up in?”
Also yes.
I don’t tell him he sounds like a security question. I don’t tell him that I’d rather be the one asking thequestions.
Other times, it is Lindsey the nurse who walks in the hospital room. “Just call me Lindsey, please.”
I nod in agreement, but she does not get it. I need to think of her as Lindsey-the-nurse. I’m too afraid I will forget who she is, alongside everything else.
Each time she appears, she makes a point of having me move something. “To avoid stiffness.”
Her reassuring tone has the complete opposite result. Stiffness is unavoidable, it has already happened. I can barely move on my own. My skin is itchy and my bones are all superglued together.
The first time my dad comes to visit, I’m barely conscious. “Fordy.” Dad huffs as he walks in and the sight of him is incredibly comforting. His long beard is slowly turning white and so is his curly hair. He sits in the chair that is usually Ash’s and has only time to ask me how I’m feeling before I fall into a heavy sleep.
When I wake up again, I’m alone and the darkness outside tells me it must be night time.
???
I’m half-heartedly listening to Ash read a chapter from one of his favourite books out loud when Lindsey the nurse comes in one morning.
“Good morning Ash, good morning Ford. How is our bladder this fine morn’?”
That, together with the muscle atrophy and the breathing exercises is one of Lindsey’s obsessions. She’s all about finding the right time to remove the catheter and helping me to the bathroom and not for the first time. I’m in awe of nurses. I’ve been here for a little over a week and I’m already exhausted.
However, Lindsey is resolute as she waits for myanswer.
“Alright, I think?”
“Good enough. We ought to start bladder retraining and I have been far too gentle with you, Mr. Hale. I blame your dimples.” With a wink, she gets to work.
When she starts telling me about a commode chair and how it works, I feel light headed. “N-no,” I mumble.
“Come again?”
