The Shadow Grove Chronicles - Book I: Fated Reunion

XII - Recovery

I woke up in a dark hospital room, on the dimly illuminated whiteboard I saw the purple cross logo used by Parkland, one of the major hospitals in Dallas. There was beeping coming from over on my left. I moved my head to see what was causing it and quickly found that it was a bad idea. Even that small movement was enough to cause me to retch from pain and nausea. A tray was quickly placed near my mouth just in case. I looked to see who was holding it and saw a worried look carved onto Becca’s face.

“Don’t try to move. You have a concussion.”

“I had figured that one out already, but thanks for the warning. Becca, where are my daughters?”

“They’re safe. I have them staying with a friend of mine until you are well enough to get out of the hospital.”

“How long?”

“Hard to say. Derrick did one hell of a number on you, but you’re tough.”

“How bad is it?”

“Here, you need to get some fluids in you. Drink this.” She held a large clear plastic mug with a straw near my mouth.

“How bad…”

“Er…” Becca grimaced. “He cracked three of your ribs, severely bruised your abdomen, your nose is broken, you have a fractured ocular socket, and small lacerations to your scalp from where hair was ripped out. Luckily there wasn’t any vaginal tearing from the r**e, just bruising that you would expect from rough s*x. I can’t imagine having to go through what you did. But you survived.”

“Have they found him yet?”

She grimaced again, and my heart sank like a lead weight. “No, they haven’t. The local police, the sheriff’s office, and the state troopers are all out looking for him but it’s like he vanished into thin air.”

“Are you sure that they’re safe?” I heard my pulse speed up the monitor’s beeping as I started to fear for my daughters’ lives.

“Yes, I’m sure. They’re in hiding. I can’t say where right now, because even I don’t know where, but there is a protective detail around them. Not even that wily son-of-a-b***h could get through. I receive regular reports every few hours from the officer in charge of them, that friend I mentioned. That way you could speak to them once you regained consciousness.”

I tried to sit up but Becca gently held me down with one hand, preventing me from doing so.

“Hold up there. You’re not going anywhere. You may not have life threatening injuries, but you are in no shape to get out of that bed.”

“Again! How long!?” I was getting angry.

“At least a week, preferably two, to keep you under observation and make sure nothing else is wrong.”

“I want to kill him…”

“I know, hon.” She scooped up one of my hands into both of hers and squeezed gently.

“No, Becca. You don’t quite get it. I really want to kill him. Slowly.” There was an edge to my voice that she had never heard before and her eyes widened as she saw the rigid set of my jaw as I clenched my teeth. I can’t imagine what my eyes looked like, but I’m sure they burned as coldly as I felt inside.

***

Just as Becca said, I was in the hospital for a little under two weeks while healed, my bruises turning from deep purple to soft brown. They had stitched my scalp, bound my ribs, and set my nose back in place. I looked like an absolute wreck in the mirror as I brushed my hair, careful to not bump the sutures on my head. I wasn’t anywhere near as bad as when I first saw myself in the mirror.

I had demanded one almost at once so I could take stock of just what had been done to me. I didn’t even look like myself. One eye was swollen shut and my face was covered with dark purple. A nose splint obscured most of my face, so I couldn't see all the damage Derrick had done.

I had felt livid when I first saw what had been done to me. I had devoted most of my life to caring for this man. I had birthed and raised his children, kept his home, cooked his meals, and put up with his dissatisfying attempts at “love-making,” which were often far too short lived. Plaything, am I? I wanted to show the hateful darling just how “playful” I could get.

I stood in front of the mirror, and meticulously scrutinized my face. My nose was now off center by a hair to the left. The deep bruising had now faded to near invisibility against my alabaster complexion. Both eyes were now able to open and they appeared normal, aside from the dark rings that were under them. I touched the edge of the lower orbit of my left eye, feeling where the crack in the bone was hidden beneath my skin. Not the same as I was before, but also not the pile of tenderized meat I first saw upon awakening.

I took in a deep breath before I started to put on my makeup. I had not done this daily ritual since the day of the incident. It helped to center myself as I covered what was left of the damage he had caused. As I finished applying my lipstick, I felt more like myself, but there was something different in my eyes. They seemed sharper somehow.

I dropped the towel wrapped around me to the cold tiled floor. The bruises on my body were more noticable against my pale skin.

“Becca! Would you come in here, please?” The bathroom door soon opened a crack.

“What do you need?”

“I need help with my chest wrap.”

She came in and tried to not to look at me in the buff. She took the wide bandage from off the counter and started to wrap the cracked ribs below my breasts as I held my arms raised over my head. After she put in the last of the metal clips to hold it in place she left me to finish getting dressed. They were simple, loose fitting clothes that Becca had grabbed for me from the house after the police had cleared her to do so. I slipped the long black skirt over white cotton briefs and pulled the multi-colored top over my head then looked at myself in the mirror again. It was so good to get back into regular clothes. Hospital gowns are not designed to be comfortable.

I left the bathroom and padded over to the bed to get my shoes on. It was hard to get my socks on, my ribs felt like they were getting stabbed as I bent down to slip them on. I slid into a pair of black canvas slip-on deck shoes. I let my legs dangle off the bed as I just sat there quietly, lost inside my thoughts. I wasn’t reliving what had happened to me, as bad as it was, I was thinking about that book and what it meant.

How the f**k did this “Joanne” write about my life like that? How did she know that Derrick had snuck into the house and was lying in wait for me? How does she even know me? I had never met anyone named Joanne in my entire life! It didn’t make any sense! I had absolutely no clue how to answer any of these questions. I did have the book though. I had made sure to ask Becca to bring it along with the clothes I would be wearing today for the day I would be discharged from the hospital.

I had read it to the end as I sat convalescing in my hospital room. There were no names that I recognized, although a great many of them seemed familiar. It was deja vu in literary format. The story, while somewhat lengthy and familiar, was rather simple. House wife, Ellie, discovers that her husband was cheating on her, in the book it was with a hooker instead of a stripper. She divorces him and he retaliates by beating the s**t out of her and r****g her before leaving her to her injuries.

Going to her class reunion after she heals, she meets with an old classmate who had written a book that had predicted what had happened to her. She ends up falling in love with the author over the course of the story as they deal with further retaliations from her villain of an ex-husband, and his gang of drug-running mobsters. At the climax they find and infiltrate his hideout and end the threat to her life.

Okay, I thought to myself. So here's a book that predicted reality, and inside the book’s story is another one doing the same in that reality. I imagine that you could just go on to infinity with this mind boggling recursiveness. It hurt my head to even think about it.

I could feel Becca watching me as I sat staring at the hospital room’s wall, lost in thought. Her leg bounced as she worried about me. I had been pensive and distant after I had awakened in this room after my ordeal. She must be thinking that I was dwelling over the assault and not the bizarre existence of the book she had brought me.

“Do you want to talk?” Becca sounded a little worried.

“Not just yet. I just want to get the hell out of here.”

No sooner had I said that, an orderly and a nurse came in through the open door with a wheelchair.

“Are you ready, hon?” The nurse was a short, stocky woman with dark ringlet curls and a motherly disposition.

“Absolutely,” I had said while standing up. “I’ve been feeling stir-crazy in this room for the past couple of days.”

“That’s to be expected. The Doctors have already gone over your recommended aftercare regimen?”

Becca waved a thick stack of printed papers, giving general care instructions, tips to deal with the psychological after effects, prescriptions, and an appointment reminder for a Dr. Holly, a psychiatrist who specializes in cases like mine.

“Got it all here,” Becca chimed.

“Well, looks like we’re all ready then. Let’s go!”

I got up, somewhat painfully, and took a seat in the wheelchair, resting the book in my lap. The orderly rolled me out into the hallway with Becca and the nurse a few paces behind. We got to the entrance and Becca’s car was already there with a tall beefy blonde man sitting in the driver’s seat. He got out and opened the front passenger door for me. Rebecca got in behind the wheel and I thanked the man who opened the door for me.

“Who’s the beefcake,” I had asked Becca, under my breath so he would not hear over the sounds of traffic.

“Oh! I’m sorry. Allie, this is Officer Falkner. He was the one who ran the protective detail watching over Jessi and Tammi while you were in the hospital. Frank, This is Allie.”

“A pleasure to meet you,” he had said from the back seat.

“Likewise,” I replied.

“Introductions all taken care of? Good, let’s go see your girls!”

“Sounds like a plan,” I had said flatly, but I really was excited to see them again after so long. It’s just that I was stuck in my head, trying to puzzle out the mystery that the book held in my hands represented.