“That’s right. It’s not a permanent condition. Your doctors seem very confident that your memories will return in time. However, that does leave us with a bit of a problem.”
I almost want to laugh. A bit of a problem? I was in an accident that I don’t remember, I have no idea who I am,and theythinkI’ll remember who I am eventually. That’s a huge fucking issue, but she’s trying to keep me calm, so I do everything I can to stop myself from becoming hysterical.
Who knows? If I lose it, they might relocate me from this hospital room to the psych ward…
“Can I… can I help?” I ask, hating how weak I sound.
Carol gives me a motherly grin. “That depends. You see, when you were found after your fall, the paramedics didn’t discover any identification on you. No purse, either. You did, however, have a phone.”
Hope replaces enough of the panic that I start to sit up. The machines don’t like that. Neither do the wires attached to me. Carol leans forward, hand flying up to warn me against moving too fast, but that’s not necessary. As the room explodes in renewed beeps, I lay my head against the pillow.
“The phone was damaged in the fall,” she says, resuming her casual pose once the beeping slows again, “but it powers on. It’s locked, though. Now that you’re conscious, with your consent, we can see if the phone has the answer to some of our questions.”
“Yes,” I whisper. “Please.”
Carol nods, then reaches beneath her. She lifts a black tote bag from under her chair. Reaching inside of it, she pulls out a sealed plastic bag. There’s a phone inside of it, and I only hope it’s mine; I don’t recognize the case or the model. She shows me the front and I see that the screen is covered in spiderweb-thin cracks. Just like she said, when she presses the side button, it lights up.
“I don’t expect you to know the passcode. Luckily for us, it appears to use facial recognition,” she tells me. “Would you be comfortable trying it?”
For a split second, I hesitate, almost as though a part of me is terrified to let someone dig through my device. But that’sridiculous. That thing in her hand might be able to tell me who I am.
I nod.
Carol eases up from her seat, placing the clipboard on the chair behind her before she approaches the head of the hospital bed. She holds it in front of me. The screen glows, scanning my features. My stomach lurches as it hits me that I… I don’t have any idea what I look like, either. I’m a woman, obviously. I don’t have a huge chest, but there are boobs beneath my hospital gown, and though my voice is somewhat deep and definitely raspy, I sound feminine enough. I have short, chin-length blonde hair that’s tangled fromsix daysin this bed, but other than that, my appearance is as much of a blank as my history.
To make it worse, nothing happens right away. My fuzzy head whirs. Is it someone else’s phone? Does the face ID not work? What if?—
It unlocks with a soft chiming sound, and I relax the tight fists my fingers had curled into.
I get a glimpse of the home screen before Carol shifts the phone so that she can search it. There isn’t much to it. A handful of apps—phone, messages, browser, weather—with a stock standard wallpaper of a field of yellow flowers behind them. It’s only a quick glance, but there’s no sign of any personality on the home screen at all.
But then Carol opens up the settings panel, clicking one of the options, and turns the phone to face me as a name appears at the top:LUCY WRIGHT.
The name lands softly, like it belongs to someone standing just outside my reach, but not necessarilyme.
“Does that feel familiar?” Carol asks. “Are you Lucy?”
I wait for a sense of recognition as she uses that name. For understanding. Foranything… but it doesn’t come. I feel aslost as ever, and even more pitiful that I have to disappoint my advocate.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “Maybe.”
She nods, turning her attention back to the phone. Is she looking for a photo? A selfie album, maybe, some way to prove that I’m the mysterious Lucy, owner of the nearly smashed phone? What about emails? Texts? Is someone calling me?
Does someone know who I am?
“Hm. I don’t see any programmed contacts in here,” Carol says quietly, glancing up from the screen, “but you do have a recent call listed. Would you like me to try that?”
Considering my hands are trembling at the thought of dialing the number myself, I nod.
Carol taps the number before engaging speaker phone mode and holding the phone near her chest so that we can both hear it.
The phone rings once. Twice. Three times.
And then?—
“Samuel E. Reynolds Building, administrative office,” a woman answers in a brisk yet professional tone.
Carol straightens slightly. “Hello, my name is Carol Boulanger. I’m a patient advocate at St. Luke’s Grandview. I’m calling on behalf of a patient who has this number listed under her recent call records. Lucy Wright. She was admitted after a fall. I was hoping that you would know who she was trying to reach.”
