July 1, Friday
TODAY I CAME BACK from wherever I’ve been since the accident that put me here. Well, not back entirely, but just below the surface of wakefulness, close enough to process the audio inputs around me, yet not close enough to respond. But I’m starting to string together those gluey inputs, starting to make sense of things. From repeated muffled announcements over a public address system, I know I’m in Brady Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. I recall Brady has a renowned trauma center, a fact that both terrifies and comforts me. And from the conversations between nurses and orderlies, I gather I’ve just been moved to this room. The fact that my situation is new to them is helpful to me because it’s new to me, too.
“I see we have a fresh one,” a male voice said.
“Right,” another guy said. A rustle of paper sounded. “Chart says her name is Marigold Kemp.”
“Ha! A marigold in the vegetable patch—that’s funny.”
The ‘vegetable patch,’ I realized, was the term given to the long-term care ward. And apparently, there were four of us veggies in the room.
“What happened to her?”
“TBI.”
“Huh?”
“Traumatic brain injury.”
“That explains the head bandage.”
Ack—a bandage? I needed my thin, brown shoulder-length hair to frame my face just to be passably attractive. I was pretty sure a bandaged head was not a good look for me.
“Head-on collision Memorial Day weekend. You know Keith Young?”
“The Falcons new hotshot receiver? Yeah, man.”
“He was driving the other car.”
“No shit? Is he okay?”
Of course they would be more concerned about a Falcons recruit than little old meaningless me.
“Physically, yeah, but they say he was driving drunk. He’s screwed, big-time.”
“Were there any witnesses?”
“Yeah, another girl in the car… a sister, I think.”
Sidney? Oh, my God, was she—?
“But she walked away with only a few scratches.”
Thank you, Mother Mary.
“Which means she can testify against Young.”
“Yep.”
“Damn, there goes any hopes of being in the playoffs.” Their voices faded, then I heard a door open and close.
I’ve never heard of Keith Young, but then I’m not a football fanatic. How can someone grow up in the Southeastern Conference with an older brother playing college football and not be a fan? Let me clarify—I know the rules of the game and I cheered on my brother Alex as he pounded and got pounded for the University of Georgia Bulldogs, but I guess I just never saw the point. Ironic, huh, that my mother always fretted he would end up in the hospital with a head injury? Even more so now that Alex is in Afghanistan. He’d once joked with my parents that the traffic in Atlanta is more harrowing than a battlefield, and I guess he was right.
I backtracked and assimilated the information I’d overheard. My sister and I had been in a car accident caused by an inebriated professional athlete, and apparently I’d sustained the brunt of the impact. I had no memory of the event and, in fact, couldn’t remember my last memory. There were wispy bits in the corners of my brain, but they remained elusive. According to the timeline I’d cobbled together, I’d lost the entire month of June. How was that possible? Where did it go? And how insignificant is my life that I could be absent from it for a month and the world had pretty much kept bumping along?
And I hate to start sounding like a whiney little vegetable, but where is my family? Because it’s pretty obvious to me now that I can hear and understand what’s going on around me, I’ll be waking up any minute now.
July 2, Saturday
“THE TRUTH IS, she might never wake up.”
My mother burst into tears, and my father made a sound like a wounded animal. My sister Sidney murmured soothing words to my parents while I sent hateful vibes toward Dr. Sigrid Tyson, who seemed to be the acting authority in the room.
“All along the hope has been
TODAY I CAME BACK from wherever I’ve been since the accident that put me here. Well, not back entirely, but just below the surface of wakefulness, close enough to process the audio inputs around me, yet not close enough to respond. But I’m starting to string together those gluey inputs, starting to make sense of things. From repeated muffled announcements over a public address system, I know I’m in Brady Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. I recall Brady has a renowned trauma center, a fact that both terrifies and comforts me. And from the conversations between nurses and orderlies, I gather I’ve just been moved to this room. The fact that my situation is new to them is helpful to me because it’s new to me, too.
“I see we have a fresh one,” a male voice said.
“Right,” another guy said. A rustle of paper sounded. “Chart says her name is Marigold Kemp.”
“Ha! A marigold in the vegetable patch—that’s funny.”
The ‘vegetable patch,’ I realized, was the term given to the long-term care ward. And apparently, there were four of us veggies in the room.
“What happened to her?”
“TBI.”
“Huh?”
“Traumatic brain injury.”
“That explains the head bandage.”
Ack—a bandage? I needed my thin, brown shoulder-length hair to frame my face just to be passably attractive. I was pretty sure a bandaged head was not a good look for me.
“Head-on collision Memorial Day weekend. You know Keith Young?”
“The Falcons new hotshot receiver? Yeah, man.”
“He was driving the other car.”
“No shit? Is he okay?”
Of course they would be more concerned about a Falcons recruit than little old meaningless me.
“Physically, yeah, but they say he was driving drunk. He’s screwed, big-time.”
“Were there any witnesses?”
“Yeah, another girl in the car… a sister, I think.”
Sidney? Oh, my God, was she—?
“But she walked away with only a few scratches.”
Thank you, Mother Mary.
“Which means she can testify against Young.”
“Yep.”
“Damn, there goes any hopes of being in the playoffs.” Their voices faded, then I heard a door open and close.
I’ve never heard of Keith Young, but then I’m not a football fanatic. How can someone grow up in the Southeastern Conference with an older brother playing college football and not be a fan? Let me clarify—I know the rules of the game and I cheered on my brother Alex as he pounded and got pounded for the University of Georgia Bulldogs, but I guess I just never saw the point. Ironic, huh, that my mother always fretted he would end up in the hospital with a head injury? Even more so now that Alex is in Afghanistan. He’d once joked with my parents that the traffic in Atlanta is more harrowing than a battlefield, and I guess he was right.
I backtracked and assimilated the information I’d overheard. My sister and I had been in a car accident caused by an inebriated professional athlete, and apparently I’d sustained the brunt of the impact. I had no memory of the event and, in fact, couldn’t remember my last memory. There were wispy bits in the corners of my brain, but they remained elusive. According to the timeline I’d cobbled together, I’d lost the entire month of June. How was that possible? Where did it go? And how insignificant is my life that I could be absent from it for a month and the world had pretty much kept bumping along?
And I hate to start sounding like a whiney little vegetable, but where is my family? Because it’s pretty obvious to me now that I can hear and understand what’s going on around me, I’ll be waking up any minute now.
July 2, Saturday
“THE TRUTH IS, she might never wake up.”
My mother burst into tears, and my father made a sound like a wounded animal. My sister Sidney murmured soothing words to my parents while I sent hateful vibes toward Dr. Sigrid Tyson, who seemed to be the acting authority in the room.
“All along the hope has been
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