The River Leith (4 page)

Leith didn’t understand. What ring? A mishap? He had a million questions, but the words were jammed up. He didn’t feel right. Something was off, and he wasn’t sure what it was, but he was wound tight, like a spring about to let loose. What was Arthur doing in Florida? It had to be bad for him to come all the way from New York. “Am I going to die?”

“No, of course not. You’re on the mend now.” Arthur had patted Leith’s chest, smiled through teary eyes, and then cleared his throat. “Where’s my phone? I told him to get some sleep. He’ll be upset he’s not here. I should call right away
—
”

Leith had blinked and looked around. If he was in the hospital, and that crazy pounding feeling in his chest was right, and things were definitely not good, their father should definitely be there. “Are you calling Dad?”

Arthur froze with his cell phone in his hand. His eyebrows drew together. “Leith, our father is dead.” He’d looked at Leith carefully. “You know that. He’s been gone for almost three years. Not long after you came back from prison.”

“What? Came back? I’m not out yet!” Leith had started to claw at his arms, trying to get rid of the feeling that he was stuck in his skin as panic rose in him. “Bullshit! Is this your idea of a joke?”

Arthur had backed away from the bed. “Let me get someone. Just a second, Leith. Everything’s okay
—
”

Leith’s heart pounded. “Don’t lie to me,” he’d yelled, ripping the cords and IVs from his arms and chest. Alarms rang, but no guards came. “Why am I here? Where am I? What are you doing to me? Let me out. I want out!”

As nurses burst in, Arthur rushed to hold him back, but Leith lashed out, and the sound of his fist hitting Arthur’s jaw had cracked through the room.

Blinking, Leith focused on the fresh-cut grass at his feet. He was wearing ridiculous slippers that should have embarrassed him, but after two years in an orange jumpsuit, pajamas and slippers were a step up. It was still hard to believe he’d been out for three years. Yet here he was, right back in a different kind of prison.

Dr. Thakur waited patiently beside him, and Leith wasn’t sure how long it had been since either of them had spoken. “But you said I had a bad reaction to the anti-seizure medication, and my brain was swollen. It’s better now, isn’t it?”

“Yes, we’ve adjusted your meds, and the swelling has subsided. But your frontal lobe sustained some damage, and the unconscious psychological trauma of knowing that something was wrong
—
and being unable to place yourself in the world or in time
—
is still affecting you. Your extreme fight or flight reaction occurs when you experience emotional stimulus that your over-taxed brain can’t handle.”

“It was just clay,” Leith muttered.

“Until we can at least hope that you’ll choose flight over fight if triggered, we must continue to be slow in your introduction to the parts of the past you don’t remember.”

“I’m just afraid
—
” Leith began, and then stopped.

“Of?”

“I’m afraid I won’t ever remember it.”

“And what’s so bad about that?” Dr. Thakur asked.

Thinking inexplicably of Zach’s face as he’d turned away the day before, fighting tears, Leith said, “I don’t want to let anyone down.”

“Who are you afraid of letting down?”

Leith shrugged. “People. My friends.”

“Like your friend you met yesterday? Zachariah Stephens?”

Leith turned his head and studied the red roses on the other side of the gravel path. “I don’t know. A little. It’s everyone really.”

“Do you think it’s possibly significant that you had that outburst this morning after meeting him?”

Leith looked back to study Dr. Thakur’s face, looking for a clue as to what he was missing. “Why?
Is
it significant? Should I think it is?”

“That’s your call. I was simply curious.”

Leith shrugged, and they sat in silence as he remembered the moments just before his rage that morning. Quietly, he said, “It isn’t just time or memories that I’m missing. I feel like I’ve lost who I am. Like, there’s this feeling that I’m a big, human-shaped lump of clay, and
I’m
somewhere inside it if I could just dig myself out. But I can’t
remember
who that person is supposed to be anymore.”

Dr. Thakur didn’t say anything until Leith looked at him again. Then he spoke with a deep empathy that made Leith feel safe, like a small, well-liked child.

“Leith, a lump of clay could be formed into almost anything by a person with skillful hands. If you remember your past, that might be a blessing, and it might not be. I couldn’t possibly judge that. What I know is that you’re the artist of your life, and you can mold this hunk of clay into anything you want. You don’t have to take anyone else into consideration, unless you want to do so.”

Leith thought of the wing he’d been working on in art therapy
—
the way it had emerged so beautifully from the clay before the failure of his hands had been revealed, and it folded and broke under its own weight. “I’m not much of an artist,” he whispered.

Dr. Thakur put his hand on Leith’s shoulder and shook him a little. “I think you’ll make it just fine. Just watch that you don’t throw your life against the wall too.”

Zach didn’t come again after all. Instead Marian and Ava showed up with a basket of food and an excuse from Zach
—
something about a late night. But Marian didn’t met Leith’s eyes for the first few minutes after they arrived, which made his stomach hurt for some reason.

“So, what did I used to do in my spare time?” Leith asked them, munching on the fresh grapes from the basket Zach had sent. His eyes occasionally strayed to the tops of Ava’s breasts on display in her v-neck sweater. They looked soft and reminded him of his mother’s chest, which he’d used as a pillow when he was still a tiny, sleepy child.

Marian shrugged. “Mainly you and Zach would hang out. Sometimes we’d all play foosball or have a movie night, but you kept yourself busy with training.”

“What did Zach and I do together?” Leith asked, wondering if they went camping or hiking. For some reason, Zach didn’t seem the type.

Ava blinked rapidly for a moment, and caught Marian’s gaze. Then she smiled brightly. “You know, stuff. You talked. Joked a lot. That sort of thing. Can I have a grape?”

“Sure,” Leith said, passing the fruit to her. He wanted to ask them more about Zach but he didn’t know what to say. “Zach seems like a really nice person.”

“Yeah,” Marian said, stuffing a few grapes in her mouth too. “Super nice.”

Leith thought about Zach’s smile and his eyes, and the sweet-spicy scent of his cologne. “He’s probably got a lot of friends.”

“Zach sure never met a stranger,” Marian agreed.

“That’s what I thought.” Leith sighed.

Marian and Ava looked at each other, both of them stuffing more grapes into their mouths. Leith thought Ava in particular looked good with her mouth full, but he was distracted enough by their strange eyebrow-arching exchange that he didn’t let his thoughts go too far down that path.

“What?”

Ava chewed quickly, swallowed her mouthful of grapes, and said, “Oh! I just remembered…” She fished around in her purse and pulled out a flat, smooth cell phone. “Yours. Arthur said to give it to you.” She stood up and leaned against the bed, pressing the phone on. “See? It’s programmed already. From before.”

She showed him the various functions, and Leith noted that Zach was the first listed under Favorites, followed by Arthur, and then Marian and Ava. He leaned a little toward her; he could smell her perfume, something light and airy, and it made him feel calm and a little happy. The emotional response to her scent was interesting, mainly because it seemed so mild in comparison to the jolt he’d felt from Zach’s cologne.

He considered asking Marian or Ava to bring a sample of Zach’s cologne to him, so he could smell it whenever he wanted. It made his mind itchy to even think of the scent, and yet he knew what a strange request that would be. He stayed silent.

Ava said she had to get to work, and kissed him on the cheek. Marian stuck around for a while longer, though Leith didn’t really know what to talk to her about. She told him that Ava worked as the manager of an attorney’s office, and mentioned someone named LaMarcus.