Page 36 of Brain Damage

Maggie shakes her head again. “Trust me,” she says to the old man. “This patient did not start anything with him. She hardly ever even talks.”

“She did!” Jamie insists.

Then he picks up another handful of peas from his plate and throws those at me too. God, they gave him way too many peas.

“James!” his father yells. “You stop that right now!”

Jamie picks up what remains of the peas on his plate. At this point, it’s painfully obvious to everyone what he’s going to do. Maggie grabs his arm and attempts to wrestle the peas away from him. She at least manages to get his fist open, and the peas scatter all over the floor.

Better on the floor than on me.

“God, I’m so sorry,” the old man says to Maggie. “You have to understand, he’s not like this… usually. I mean, before.”

“It’s understandable,” Maggie says as she crouches down on the floor to scoop up stray peas. “He has a head injury. This behavior is part of the recovery.”

“I know, but…” The old man bites his lip. “Jamie’s the last person you’d expect to act this way. Honestly. He’s the nicest guy you’d ever meet. And he’s always been so responsible. When he was growing up, he never gave me the slightest bit of trouble.”

Maggie glances at Jamie, like she doesn’t quite believe it. “Is that so?”

The old man nods. “I’m not sure if you know this, but he’s been raising his son all by himself for the last six years. The kid’s mother… she just took off.” His eyes cloud up for a second, then he shakes his head. “Anyway, you have to believe me that if Jamie had any idea how he was acting, he’d be completely mortified.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Maggie says as she scoops the remainder of the peas into her hand. She gets back on her feet. “However, we would like Jamie to apologize.”

“Of course,” the old man says. He looks down at his son. “Jamie, tell this woman that you’re sorry for throwing food at her.”

Jamie’s eyes widen. “She started it,” he insists. “She should apologize to me first.”

“Say you’re sorry, Jamie,” his father says in a stern voice.

Jamie screws up his face for a second, like he’s going to throw a fit. But then I guess he thinks better of it. He sighs and faces me. “I’m sorry, Helmet Girl.”

“And I apologize for his behavior too,” the old man says to Maggie.

Maggie smiles. “Really, it’s okay. He’s probably just bothering her because he thinks she’s pretty and he likes her.”

“I don’t!” Jamie yells.

And to emphasize his point, he picks his roll up off his tray and throws it at me. It bounces off my helmet.

I try not to be angry with Jamie because I know his brain is injured like mine. I’m different than I was before too. When we were in the hallway the other day, they put on this movie about a guy who gets shot in the head during a robbery. Before he got shot, he was this really big jerk, and then after he gets shot, he becomes really nice. So I guess the moral is that it’s good to get shot in the head if you are a bad person.

Except I don’t really think I was a bad person.

Maybe I was though. After all, hardly anyone aside from my mother comes to visit me. And she sort of has to visit me because she’s my mother. I asked my mother about that, and she said it was because they all visited me right after I got hurt, and now it’s been a long time. Also, a lot of them are really busy with work like I used to be.

I keep trying to remember things that happened before. The memories are still there but covered by a hazy cloak. It’s like waking up from a dream and trying to remember what happened during the dream. I remember things like having dinner in a restaurant with Clark, or putting these long dangling earrings in my ears, or trying to hail a taxi in the rain. But if I try to grab any piece of it, it’s not quite there.

I do know one thing:

Somebody shot me in the head and nothing was ever the same after that.

What I don’t know is why.

26

BEFORE

When I was younger, I really never gave much thought to getting married.