Page 5 of Shielding His Heart
“No, I don’t want them at the hospital.” Maybe my tone is harsh, but apparently, he needs me to be firm to get the point across. “I’ll see them, but not here. Not like this. When I’m better, and they let me go.”
I don’t know what it is about me, but I have this talent for shutting down even the most innocuous conversations these days. Mentally, I shrug my shoulders because I know, in this case, I’m right. And if the result is that he lets me enjoy the afternoon in silence, even better. Apparently, post-accident Tana is a real bitch.
“I understand,” he says softly, finally. “I’m sorry for pushing you.”
And then I feel like crap, so I look away from him. I wish he’d stop being so goddamn nice to me all the time. Especially when I don’t feel like I’ve done anything to deserve it.
The quiet is back, but at least we’re outside where it feels like I have room to breathe. To be. After a time, Alec begins pushing the wheelchair through the hospital courtyard, and I don’t protest because the change of scenery is so,sowelcome. Hopefully soon, I’ll get to see more than this courtyard.
“I’ll take you back up. It’s time to see Dr. Rennen,” Alec says after a while.
I nod silently, and neither of us says anything else as he wheels me back up to my room.
* * *
I’ve liked the doctor from the moment I met him. He’s the one point of calm in my day where I feel like someone knows what the hell is going on. That’s why it pains me to want to wring his neck.
“What do you mean it may never come back?”
I try for a calm voice but don’t manage it. At all. Anger and disappointment make my voice quaver pitifully. Hot tears threaten, but I blink them away. I won’t cry anymore. I won’t.
Dr. Rennen sits at my bedside and meets my gaze. “I’m sorry, Tana. I wish I had better news. I’d hoped your memory would return within the first few weeks after the accident. It still can, but there are rare cases when it never returns. I know we’ve spoken about how you may remember some of your childhood memories and early adulthood. It’s the more recent memories you’ve lost. You’ll have difficulty retaining new information for a time, but I have every confidence that with therapy, you can live a normal, healthy life.”
“So I can remember how to do multiplication and tie my shoes or ride a bike, but I can’t remember the man I’m married to or the children I gave birth to?”
The doctor takes off his glasses and cleans them with the side of his coat. “It’s not fair. I’m sorry.”
For some reason—I don’t know why—I glance up at Alec, who has gone sheet-white. The urge to take his hand overwhelms me, so I grip the material beside my thighs.
“Are you saying she may never get her memories back?” Alec’s voice is much steadier than mine, even if he looks like he’s going to be sick.
“The brain is a mysterious thing, but I can’t tell you with certainty if she will. Her short-term memory will improve with time, and she’ll need to continue her therapy to improve her fine motor skills. But that doesn’t mean she won’t otherwise recover physically. I fully expect to see her running circles around us by next spring.”
Should I miss the woman I used to be? The one everyone seems to know? I don’t know how to feel about this news. A part of me hoped I’d wake up one day with the answers to all the questions in Alec’s eyes. But then there’s a part of me bursting in anger at how all of hishopemust have known, deep down, that there wasn’t any. The woman he loved may as well have died, and he’s stuck with me.
A stranger.
I swallow hard. “When will I be released from the hospital?”
“Provided you have somewhere to go and someone to help you to and from appointments and help you transition, I don’t see why you couldn’t be released today,” Dr. Rennen says in a helpful voice.
My shoulders droop. I don’t even know if I have anyone—anyone other than Alec. “I—”
“Of course she does,” Alec says and takes a step closer to me. He’s got some of his color back now. “She’s coming home with us.”
“I don’t want to be a burden,” I start.
Alec pays me no mind. “You’ll let me know about her appointments and therapy. Is there anything I can do at home to make her comfortable?”
The conversation fades under the sound of buzzing in my ears. I want to speak up, to object, but I realize with growing horror that I have no one else. No one has come to see me aside from Alec. I don’t even know if I have family outside of him and his girls. My girls. Or any friends to speak of. Besides, how could I ask anyone to take me on when I don’t know what the past holds for me, let alone the future?
CHAPTER3
ALEC
Dr. Rennen leaves, and I collapse into a chair, rubbing a hand over my face and feeling the scruff there. I’m in desperate need of a shave, but I don’t think I’ve slept in the weeks since Tana’s accident, let alone had time to groom myself properly.
I keep replaying our last conversation in my head, wondering if I’d said something different or done something different, could I have saved us both from all of this? Would she have been at that intersection if I’d turned down working that extra shift like she’d asked? I should have been there taking care of them. It should have been me. Tana was the glue that held our family together.
