Secret Sister (3 page)

I’d lost her. I’d lost Cathy. I should have stopped this from happening.

I could have. I’d asked her to stay home with me, suggested we go back to bed and make love and then I would take her out to lunch. Mexican. She loves Mexican food. I asked her not to go out with Roxanne, but she said she had to, that it was really important.

I shuddered and pushed thoughts of Roxanne away.

If I had been a better husband, I would have insisted she choose me over her friend. It would have shifted the reality of the last hours. Cathy would be home with me. Fixing dinner. Smiling at me over a glass of wine.

With that thought, my body started to shake. I knew it was absurd to think I could have made Cathy do anything she didn’t want to do. She never did anything unless she wanted to. When we were sixteen and first in love, I’d begged her to come live with my family and get away from her drunk son-of-a-bitch stepfather.

But she wouldn’t. She said she had to stay and take care of her new kitten, her first pet. She said she had promised the cat she would never let anything bad happen to it. “It needs me,” she’d said. And my mother was allergic to cats. Cathy had giggled about that, how we’d have my mother sneezing all day and night if we tried to hide the cat in my room.

I shut my eyes and tried to remember the sound of Cathy’s laugh.

I couldn’t.

“She can’t be dead,” I sobbed.

Zoë sat beside me, rhythmically hitting her forehead against the steering wheel. She pulled up to the takeout window, but didn’t order. Instead, she floored the car and we headed back out onto the road.

Chapter 3

Monday, July 18, 1 p.m.

Roxanne’s Hospital Room

When I ‘woke up’—strange words to use after being unconscious for what was surely days, not hours—I felt remarkably lucid. Which is to say, I opened my eyes and saw and understood that I was in a hospital bed, there were nurses working in the area outside my glassed-in room, and I was hooked to an I.V. and some other kind of machine.

I didn’t know the story of how I got here, but assumed it was bad. I remembered hearing, somewhere, that I had been in a terrible car accident, but I was blank to any other details.

For instance, I didn’t know my name.

I examined the contents of my brain and started a list of unknown things. Where was I? No clue. What day was it? I looked outside and saw blue sky. Zero. I was blank to the most basic of information.

My chest tightened and a roar began in my head.
Don’t panic
. I gulped air, blinked; fought to stay awake.

I had to pee and tried to call out for help, but the only sound I made was a gasp. Then I peed, and realized I was hooked up to a catheter. I closed my eyes and sighed. I remembered when I was four years old, a million years ago, my mother telling me it was okay that I’d wet the bed. She would wash the sheets. No big deal.

“Roxanne? Roxanne, are you awake?”

The voice was insistent but unfamiliar. I felt the pressure of a strange hand on my arm, opened my eyes, and looked into the face of a black woman, dressed as a doctor, standing beside the hospital bed.

“Hi,” I said. It sounded like, “aaah.” My vocal cords were not functioning very well.

The woman’s expression changed from surprised to all business. She put her hand on my face, flashed a light at my eyes and, when I blinked, she nodded. “How do you feel?”

Like I’ve been hit by a truck
. I cleared my throat. She must really be a doctor. Good, because my head hurt so bad I thought I would faint from the pain. I groaned and shut my eyes.

“Why?” I asked. The noise I made came out like, “gaaa.”

“Roxanne. Roxanne Ruiz. Do you know where you are?”

I didn’t recognize that name. In my brain I saw a face. A kind face, smiling. A great looking guy with strong arms and blue eyes.

I had no idea who he was.

“Aahhh,” I said, this time louder, then moaned in surrender.

The doctor patted my shoulder. “Rest, my dear. Don’t try to talk. I’ll be right back. Your mother is here.”

That’s not possible
.

I told myself to sleep.

When I woke up the second time, I hurt in more places than I have ever hurt in my life. I groaned and only then noticed there were people in my hospital room.

A middle-aged woman with red hair and glasses, an older lady with a gray pixie cut wearing a sweatshirt that said, “Palm Springs is for Lovers,” and a very hot, dark-haired guy with his arms crossed over his chest sat in a cluster of chairs opposite my bed. The man’s eyes were closed, as if he were napping. The red-haired woman was staring at me; the older lady was reading the
Los Angeles Times.

As soon as she realized I was awake, the redhead bolted toward my bed. “Oh, my God! Roxanne’s awake! Oh my God, someone get the doctor!”

At her words the older woman joined her by my bedside, tears streaming down her powdered skin. The commotion woke up the guy, who stood and grasped the metal bars at the end of my bed.

“Hey doll, how are you feeling?” he asked.

I stared back at the three expectant faces and felt absolutely nothing. I did not recognize them, any of them, in any way.

“I’m sorry.” My voice was all rasps and dry phlegm. I wanted to add, ‘Would you all please go away,’ because I suddenly realized I wasn’t wearing panties under the flimsy little hospital gown. Entertaining strangers without panties felt very precarious.

“Poor baby, don’t be sorry. It isn’t your fault. Oh God, I’m so glad you had your seat belt on. It saved your life.” The redhead started to cry, too, and grasped my shoulder as she collapsed against the bedside. The older woman patted her on the back and beamed at me. She started to laugh and cry at the same time. “She’s awake, Michael. She’s going to be fine. Roxanne is okay!”

“Are you okay, Roxanne? Do you remember what happened? The accident?” The guy called Michael smiled as he asked these questions, but there was doubt in his face. Doubt and something else. Guilt.

Guilt? What the heck was that all about? Did
he
cause me to be in the hospital?

I didn’t understand any of this. And I really didn’t want to. I pulled the blanket tight against me and closed my eyes. I didn’t have enough energy to be polite. Or curious. I wondered briefly if that was how I have always been.

“Roxanne, do you remember the accident?” the older woman said.

“I don’t,” I whispered. “I don’t remember anything.”

Even with my eyes closed, I felt their shock in waves rolling toward me. They knew what I meant. I didn’t remember anything or anyone. I didn’t remember them
.

I wet my lips and wished the doctor would return and make them all leave. They seemed nice. Caring. But whoever they were, whatever the story with this ‘Roxanne’ they cared so much about, it was too hard to deal with right now. I felt a flash of panic.

I longed for sleep and squeezed my eyes tight, as if I were a child.

“How are we doing in here?” a voice asked.

“Dr. Badu,” the redhead said. “Roxanne is awake. But I don’t think she recognizes us! You said when she came out of the coma she would be okay. She is going to be okay, isn’t she?”

I relaxed.
Dr. Badu, right, that’s her name
. The pretty doctor. Dr. Badu, it said on the tag on her white doctor’s coat.
I like her.
I kept my eyes closed. Surely the good doctor would make them all leave if I kept my eyes closed.

“How are you doing?” Dr. Badu asked close to my ear.

My lids fluttered open. She looked into my eyes as if trying to see my thoughts.

Dr. Badu patted my arm and said in a firm voice, “Okay, everyone. We need to clear out and let Roxanne get some rest. Mrs. Haverty, Mrs. Haverty, Michael, why don’t we talk in my office.”

Mrs. Haverty and Mrs. Haverty?
Both the women visiting were named Mrs. Haverty? This was hilarious. I started to chortle; my throat swelled and a huge, rough laugh burst out of my mouth.

I kept laughing, which was painful, and struggled to breathe. What was wrong with the world? I had no clue who I was, despite all these people calling me ‘Roxanne,’ and yet there were two women in my room who had the same name. Was my name Mrs. Haverty, too? That would be hysterical! I covered my mouth and rolled over on my side, wincing in the midst of my giggles as the needle in my IV pinched my vein.

“What’s wrong with her?” the man asked. He sounded nervous.

“This is a common reaction to the drugs she’s been given. And to the stress she’s been under,” Dr. Badu replied. “She’s been unconscious for most of the last several days. It’s going to take a while for her to get her emotions under control.”

I laughed louder and felt like I would explode. My body screamed in pain, but I couldn’t stop. I gasped, choking on my laughter.

“Can’t you give her something for this?” Michael asked. “She sounds psycho.”

“Michael, please!” the redhead chided. “Roxanne uses humor to diffuse things when she’s tense. Surely you remember that.” She turned to the doctor. “So this is a good sign, right, Dr. Badu?”

“Come on, everyone, let’s leave her alone now. Follow me,” the doctor ordered in a stern voice.

One of the Mrs. Havertys squeezed my foot. “I’ll be back later, honey.”

Great. We’ll have a meeting of the Mrs. Haverty Club.
Hysterical laughter started again and I felt like I might gag.

The group shuffled out. After a few more belly laughs, I rolled onto my back and tried to get a grip.
Start remembering something useful
.
Like your name. Because surely it isn’t something as fussy as ‘Roxanne.’

Moments later, I took a breath and looked down at my body. It was good. Nice breasts, flat stomach. I touched my hair. It felt like someone else’s hair, very coarse. I noted my hands. They looked competent but were kind of wide and mannish. There was a mirror on the table beside the bed.

I picked it up. A stranger blinked back at me. Brown eyes. Sharp nose. Full lips. Pretty. Actually, beautiful. Wow, this was a surprise. Though the image was no one I knew.

Nausea roiled through my stomach. I put the mirror in the drawer and slammed it shut.

A nurse stuck her head in the door. “Everything okay?”

“Peachy.” My voice didn’t sound like it belonged to a very nice person.

Wonderful. I’m beautiful and bitchy. Whoever I am, I’m a cliché
. My heart raced and one of the monitors started to blip. I willed myself to be calmer.

What was this mental blankness? What had happened to me, whoever the hell I was? Amnesia? Giggles welled up again and I took several deep breaths. This wasn’t funny. It was terrifying.

I’d heard about amnesia, read books about it, seen
The Bourne Identity
while Matt Damon bounced around the world not knowing what name his mother had given him. But I’d never known a real person with this affliction.

For a moment the terror receded and it felt kind of cool and exciting. Whatever my life had been, maybe I could now have a new one, like a movie.

Only the movie
was
my life, and no one had shown me the script. What if it was a horror flick?

Panic, tamped down for a few moments, galloped up my spine and I no longer felt like laughing. I felt like running. “What am I supposed to do now?” I asked the empty room. My voice sounded crazy.

Great. Pretty and bitchy and what had that dark-haired man said? ‘Psycho?’ I sighed and peed into the little bag. And started to cry.

I awoke and fell back to sleep several more times, had a bath in bed, had my hair washed in bed, and found that it was impossible to stand on my own two feet, which seemed odd since they were chunky and looked like they could hold up a piano.

The young nurse who helped me do all these bed tasks told me not to worry about my lack of strength. “If you don’t walk for just three days you start to lose body mass and muscle. After a week, most people can’t even take a few steps. You’ve been out nine days. But you’ll get there!”

She was cheerful and cute, but she wanted to talk more than I did. I nodded in a noncommittal way.

“So, can I get you anything else?” Her tag said her name was ‘Carin.’

“Ice cream?” I asked.

“I’ll check,” Carin said, her bright smile beaming.

A few moments later Dr. Badu came in my room, accompanied by a short, dark-skinned man with a cultured British accent.

“Hello, I’m Dr. Patel,” he said with a nod.

“Dr. Patel is a psychiatric resident. He specializes in head trauma injuries,” Dr. Badu explained. “He would like to do a preliminary assessment with you before we make any recommendations about treatment.”

She was watching me, measuring my response in some ‘doctor way’ I couldn’t work out.

“I can’t walk.”

“No, you can walk, Roxanne,” Dr. Badu assured. “Your muscles are just weak from spending so long in bed. We had you strapped to a trauma board for two days. And you were heavily sedated once we were certain you had no brain injuries. We didn’t know for sure if you had spinal damage. But you are going to be fine. All you have is two cracked ribs. And stitches in your legs. You’re very fortunate to have no permanent injuries.”

My fingers found the heavy tape on the left side of my ribcage. I was aware of bandages on my legs, my knees, and something on my rear end.

“I have something on my bottom,” I said.

Dr. Badu nodded, as if I’d given the right answer to a geography question. “Yes, yes. A burn. From the accident. On your right buttock cheek.”

I chuckled, felt hysteria returning; covered my mouth. Dr. Patel narrowed his eyes and stroked his chin as he looked at Dr. Badu. For several moments no one said anything.

Laughing at the words ‘right buttock cheek’ must be a symptom of something bad
.

“The burn is healing nicely,” Dr. Badu offered. “The dressing needs to stay on a while longer. And you may need some plastic surgery. But you’ll be good as new very soon.”

I cleared my throat. “Then what?”

More silence.

“You’ll go home. Your mother thinks you should stay with her, but that will be totally up to you.”

I pictured ‘home.’ No image came to mind at first, and then I visualized a large white house. With pillars and huge oaks, full of weeping Spanish moss. I realized it was “Tara,” from
Gone with the Wind
. I met Dr. Patel’s dark eyes.

Since I doubted I lived in a Pre-Civil War colonial, I moved on. “What about work? What do I do, by the way?”

Dr. Badu looked happy at this question. “You’re a teacher. Third grade. But it’s still summer, so you’ve got a little time to do nothing but take care of yourself.”

“Do you remember who you are?” Dr. Patel asked, all serious face and penetrating stare. “Do you remember the car accident?”

I shook my head and began to cry, though I did not feel sad. By that I mean, no pang over a specific image, thought, recollection or memory ran through my mind or heart, causing despair. Crying was a reflex, unhooked from emotion.

Dr. Badu murmured something to Dr. Patel I couldn’t make out. “I’ll be back in the morning,” he said. “We’ll start your interview then. Rest now, Roxanne.”