Danny

Chapter 12

A small hand lays gently on my shoulder. I am awake, but just barely. My mind feels like it is a crumpled map trying to spread over a table it cannot possible cover because it is too large. I am trying to make sense of my surroundings with little success. My eyelids are too heavy and keep falling over my eyes preventing clear vision. My ears are alert, but the sounds do not make sense to my confused mind. There are voices and beeping all around me. The noise is bringing me out of the darkness of sleep.

The small hand is removed off my shoulder and a sweet voice starts humming. She is near my right side. The tune is soft and gentle like her touch. There is a tone of longing in the song she is humming. It makes me feel like singing, but the words are escaping my memory. I am becoming more aware of my new nightmare. I am the lost person with no memory. My mind pushes the thoughts of the song aside. I realise I will probably remember the words when it is much too late. I focus on the pitiful thing lying in that bad. The feeling of loss takes hold and brings tears to my half opened eyes.

I start opening my eyes with less effort now. A bright light is shining over me. It makes me want to blink and my eyes quickly jerk closed. The tears forming at the corners escape and run freely down my cheeks onto the pillow below my head. More tears form quickly replacing the escaped drops. Damp little spots form on each side of the pillow. A tightness grips my chest and a ball forms in my throat. A quick thought surfaces of Chelsea. Her soft nature and trust makes me long for her in a way I never knew. She somehow seems so important right now. My mind wants to sit up and hug her. The feeling of her small frame between my arms.

The humming stops. There is only the loud monotonous noise of the heart monitor. The gentle hand is back on my shoulder with a whisper of encouragement. She tells the operation was a success and I will soon take to the ward. She assures me that everything will be okay. The hand moves away from my shoulder to the damp streak on my face. She gently wipes the traveling tear away. Her eyes look at me gently. I can only see the effects of a smile by the small creases around her eyes as she is wearing a mask over her mouth.

Her encouragement is enough to get me motivated me to keep my eyes open and focus on all the things around me including the nurses who are walking up and down doing things they need to do. The nurse with the gentle touch and beautiful humming walks away from my bed to a desk nearby. She sits down and starts writing on a page. Her head is dipped down low as she writes. I faintly hear her humming in the shirt distance. She clearly loves that song and loves the sound of her voice.

Her hair is dark and rough. It is tightly pulled back into a small bun. Her dark skinned hands hold pen and paper tightly as she concentrates on her writing. Her focus and attention is absolute while she hums and writes. She barely notices the other nurses around her. One walks past her in a rush and bumps the table slightly and the humming nurse continues to write.

Another nurse approaches the desk the humming nurse is sitting and writing. This nurse is plump and stands in a posture that demands respect. She projects authority as she stands over my humming nurse. She stands with her dark hands perched on her wide hips while she talks. It appears that this large nurse is the senior nurse. After some time the humming nurse nods her head affirmatively and stands up from her desk. She slowly walks out of the room with a quick glance in my direction at the door.

She returns a short while later with a tall man dressed in a long white cloak. She introduces the man to me as the porter who will take me back to the ward. Her gentle hand is placed on my shoulder one last time before she starts removing the devices that connected me to the monitor. The monitor bleeps momentarily as she takes the things off me and wraps the cord around into a tight ball and puts it away. She turns the monitor off and nods in the direction of the porter. The stretcher jerks slightly as the porter pulls the stretcher.

Not long after I am rolled back onto my bed I see a familiar face enter the room. I am relieved to realise that it is visiting hours otherwise this lovely woman, Chelsea, would not be able to be there. She enters cautiously because of our last encounter. She looks at me warily after walking two steps into the room. I smile at her hoping she will see that I mean peace. She takes another step forward and stops again. I clearly see that she is not convinced she is safe to enter the room.

"I am so sorry, " I quickly apologise in a desperate need to bring her closer. She stares at me for a moment before sighing and taking another step inside. I look down at my hands feeling the guilt of our broken relationship weigh heavily on my shoulders. I hear her footsteps come closer. I look up slowly to see her right next to me.

"I am also sorry. I should not have said anything about the memory loss. Danny, you are perfect just the way and I am so sorry for suggesting otherwise," she says quietly. She feels ashamed for the sharp words. I know she did not mean to hurt me, but she did and she feels guilty for the hurt. She thinks the whole thing is her fault and it melts my heart to think she is taking full responsibility for the argument.

I smile gently and reach out to touch her with outstretched hand. She cautiously recoils at my action. My eyes blink away tears at the thought. She looks at me with concern and then reaches for me. Her long fingers intertwine between my fingers and brings a great deal of comfort.

"Thank you for coming back," I say.

"Of course. I felt so terrible when I left yesterday. I see you have some good news to tell me about your leg," she says smiling looking down at the leg without the large contraption on it. The leg is now free to move. The pain is still there in a dull ache travelling up and down the leg.

We remain in that simple pose for a while with her sitting on her chair next to my bed and me lying in my bed and us holding hands like that. She smiles at me and I at her. Nurse Gumede's advice is sitting on my mind . Time and patience. The silence between us is still and precious. It is not awkward. It is a moment we are sharing that can never be taken away. There is a connection between us that cannot be doubted.

A thought comes to mind. We have apologised to each other for a silly little argument and yet she had more reason to put her argument forward and she doesn't even know it. My fragmented memory comes to mind and touches the tip of my tongue in that moment of silence. I break the silence by fumbling with the truth of my vague memory I reached out to when I was lying on the operating theatre table.

"I remembered something today," I say breaking that beautiful silence.

"That's great. What did you remember?"

"You were right about something going wrong,"

"I am so sorry," she says. "I didn't bring it up to make you upset. I am worried about you. I care for you and only want the best for you."

"I know. I remember there was a time when I was still in the trauma unit. I must have been under with drugs that night because the memory I have is only of the voices. I tried to open my eyes, but I couldn't. I overheard the doctor talking about me. Something about me needing oxygen when going for some scan."

She stares at me for a moment. I almost see the cogs working in her head to say something that will support her theory and support me to. She licks her lips and cautiously begins while she rubs her hands nervously. I understand why she is so nervous and I wish I could go back in time to change our last conversation. She starts stammering before she clearly says anything at all. It breaks my heart to see her this uncomfortable so I nod reassuringly with little chance of it making any difference.

"Randal did mention something to do with injury to the brain with lack of oxygen," she finally says out loud. "It doesn't mean that it definitely did happen. Besides this way we can spend more time together. I am looking forward to helping you get better at home."

She is so eager to please and I cannot pity her any longer, "Surely, most of the healing has happened already. Besides, don't you have a job to go to. I am sure there is plenty for you to do at..." I stop myself too late. I start saying something, but cannot finish it as I realise I have no idea where she works or what she does for a living. Guilty wraps itself eloquently around me.

She smiles and finishes my sentence for me, "At the Lukhozi Centre where I work as a social worker. I can work from home, with the exception of consults at clients homes. I don't have go into the office everyday. They can manage most other tasks without me. It's mainly the r**e victims and the victims of domestic violence."

I feel the blood rush to my face making me feel super flushed. I look away embarrassed by my lack of memory. Hearing her say what she does for a living makes so much sense. I see her as a gentle white dove showing there is an end to the flood that punished us for our sins. Her smiles makes me think of the rainbow after the flood. The emotions running through helps me feel content and at peace and then it struck me.

"Did I go to Sunday school as a child?" I ask randomly looking back at her. Her big eyes grew even bigger, though it almost seemed impossible to believe. She looks at me with amazement. A warm smile slowly spreads across her face as understanding came to the forefront of her mind.

"Did you remember something?" she asks eagerly.

"Not quite. I felt like I knew a story from the bible. It came to me as you told me about your work. I was thinking how you must seem like a symbol of hope for those poor victims. The likeness came to me in an instant where I likened you to the white dove Noah used at the end of the great flood to determine when it was safe to leave the ark. The white dove is a symbol of hope of the end. At first I didn't understand why I would think of a white dove, but then it struck me I had heard this story before."

"That's wonderful, Danny. It means you are starting to remember," she says with delight leaping forward to give me a big hug to stop just above my bed. She clears her throat before stepping back and sitting on the chair next my bed. "I mean so you can be happy."

"I am happy," I tell her with a small chuckle, "Come give me that hug."

She looks down at her hands and then looks up at me. Her eyes are full of hope and desire. Behind her eyes I see the workings of her mind arguing the pros and cons. She is fearful I will reject her and at the same time she sees me offering her a hug as a token of peace. She wishes she simply can leap forward and grab me in an embrace but the previous fight has made her cautious. She sees me open my arms and eventually decides it is safe and reaches forward and wraps her arms around me. Her head leans to my right allowing her breath to flow over my right shoulder. The warmth of her arms around me is a great relief from the coldness of the aircon.

Slowly she peels herself off me and places herself on the chair again. I already feel the icy chill of the air conditioning in the hospital as she backs away. I try not alarm her so I hold back the tears. She looks so delighted as she tells me about her day in the office yesterday. She starts telling me about a young man who recently started doing his practical hours for his diploma in social work. She animatedly describes him with a warm smile on her face and all I can think of is how I want her arms around me again. I am nodding appropriately, but not really listening. My thoughts wander around at the idea I could know someone who is this sweet and kind. She continues to talk as if she has no noticed I have stopped listening. I blink a few times and stare into her soft eyes as the words tumble out of her pursed lips. Slowly the words start registering and I nod my head as I catch the end of her little speech.

The nurses outside my room start ringing the bell and calling the visitors to leave the ward. Visiting hours are over. We hug each other one last time. The embrace is easy and comfortable. She tells me the next time she will see me is when I am discharged. She wants to take me home. I smile and nod an affirmative for her. Excitement at the possibility of going home soon floods my mind and gives me a new hope.

That night I struggle to sleep with so many thoughts on my mind. The thoughts are dancing between finally being able to leave this room to not knowing where we live or how we live.