There’s a pause.
“Hold please,” the voice says.
My pulse pounds so loudly, I hear it thudding in my ears. I don’t know why. The name of the office building means nothing to me, and yet…
Another voice comes on the line. Another woman, as professional as the first if a touch friendlier.
“This is Loni. How can I help you?”
Carol lifts the phone up to her mouth as she repeats everything she told the first woman who answered. Then, when she’s done, she says, “Ms. Wright is conscious, but due to her current condition, I am advocating on her behalf. We’re attempting to locate emergency contacts or next of kin. This is the last number she called before her incident. We’re hoping you might know why.”
There’s another pause, even longer than before.
“Thank you for calling,” Loni says carefully. “I’ve taken the message down, and I’ll notify my boss and see if he knows anything about this. Is there a number where he can reach you if he knows your patient?”
Carol rattles off a number. “My name is Carol Boulanger. That’s B-O-U-L-A-N-G-E-R. I will be handling Ms. Wright’s case until she’s discharged.”
What happens then, I wonder. If I don’t know who I am or where I live… what happens when the hospital lets me go? How am I going to pay for so many days? I can’t imagine how much it’s costing me already, and if I had a job before I got hurt, I doubt I still do. I’ve been in acomafor six days and it doesn’t look like anyone has tried to find me.
Do I have friends? Family?
There’s a simple gold band on the ring finger on my left hand. Is that a wedding ring? Am I married?
Is my husband out there, wondering what happened to me?
I don’t know. I don’t know a damn thing, and as the weight of the black hole that’s my memory threatens to swallow me whole, my eyes prickle with scalding tears.
Carol reaches down, patting the top of my hand. “It’ll be okay, Lucy,” she murmurs. “Someone will know who you are. I’m sure of it.”
Maybe. Maybe she’s right. Or maybe there isn’t anyone out there who cares that I’m missing—or hurt—at all.
Who am I?
I don’t know. Oh, I have a name. When the good samaritan who found me called 9-1-1, all I had with me were the clothes I was wearing, the ring on my finger, and the phone in the back pocket of my ruined blue jeans. Thankfully, the phone survived the accident, and that’s how we eventually discovered that my name is Lucy.
At least, Carol assumed it was from the settings on the smashed phone. With her help, I searched the device for some clue of how Lucy Wright really is. But there aren’t any photos. No texts, either, or stored messages. Even weirder, there’s not a single incoming phone call, as though no one ever bothers to call me—or, as I overheard one hospital tech murmuring to another outside my door, someone found a way to wipe the phone before my traumatic accident. Or maybe it was a new phone. It could be.
I don’t know. I don’t knowanything. They tell me I’ve been in this sterile room with its non-stop beeping and countless nurses and doctors and technicians coming in and out for almost a week, and now that I’m awake again, they thought I would recover quickly. Not quiet. My contusion is doing okay and I’m breathing on my own, but when it comes to my amnesia, I’m not showing any signs of improvement.
Who am I?
Nothing.
No one.
I’m alone in a hospital of hundreds, with a memory that’s a black hole, and this constant ache that even the pain drip can’t dull. Because while the medicine is helping with all of the otherinjuries, it can’t do anything to mend a broken heart. Someone out there has to love me; after all, that ring means I had to have been married. They have to care that I’m gone, that I nearlydied. But, so far, Carol is waiting for someone to claim me, and there hasn’t been a single call coming through to my phone, checking to make sure I’m okay.
To make sure I’malive.
It’s like I’ve been abandoned while I was unconscious, and nearly a week into this new, terrifying reality, I’m beginning to believe that no one will come for me until?—
“Dandelion.”
FOUR
ST. LUKE’S
DALLAS
