RENEWAL

PART TWO

by Karen

     He was floating in a gray fog. Voices from far away filtered into his mind. He had been in the fog for a long time; he wanted to get back to where he had been before, but he didn't know how to get there. Suddenly a white light pierced the gray and he squinted at the unexpected brightness. He heard a voice again, only this time the voice was clear and distinct.
     "Doctor, I have a response!" The feminine voice was at the same time concerned and excited. As if she was surprised that he responded to the light. Confusion plagued him. He wondered why she was surprised, and that led him to wonder why he needed a doctor.
     "Chris, this is Dr. Miller. Can you hear me?" Another voice, this time masculine. For some reason he was glad that his doctor wasn't a woman. He had a brief flash of a memory--a tall woman with dark hair--but he couldn't remember anything more than that.
     "Christopher, wake up." Another voice. This one sounded very familiar. It was his father. Why was his father here? The two almost never saw each other. It was hearing his father's voice that sent a sliver of fear ripping through the calm gray fog.
     "...dad..." Chris whispered. For some reason, his mouth didn't seem to work. His chest hurt, too. He felt like he couldn't breathe deeply enough to speak.
     "He's awake, folks!" It was Dr. Miller again. He sounded surprised, just like the nurse had been. Chris was confused again, but couldn't stay awake any longer. He fell into an exhausted sleep.
     Two days later, Chris had come fully out of the coma. He was lying in his hospital bed, which was slightly raised up to allow him to stare out the window at the bright sunny day. An unseasonably warm day for January, he thought. A nurse came in carrying a clipboard.
     "Chris..." she said, scanning the clipboard for his last name. "...Lorenzo."
     From the sound of her voice, Chris knew she had been the woman who called the doctor when he woke up. He didn't look at her; if she didn't have the decency to find out his name beforehand, he didn't have to have the decency to look at her when she spoke to him.
     "How are you feeling today, Mr. Lorenzo?" she said brightly. She was wearing a white nurse's dress and had a nametag that said 'Candi.'
     Chris rolled his eyes. "It's 'Sergeant'," he muttered.
     Candi either didn't hear him correct her or didn't understand what he said, because she smiled vacantly and said, "Still not quite back to normal, huh, Mr. Lorenzo?"
     Already, Chris couldn't stand Candi, but he had some questions he needed someone to answer, and he felt reasonably sure that even this airhead could get the answers right.
     "Where am I?"
     A concerned look swept across Candi's heavily made-up face. "You're in a hospital. You just came out of a coma," she said slowly and distinctly, as if he had brain damage and hadn't understood what she said.
     Impatiently, Chris said, "Candi, I KNOW I am in a hospital. What I want to know is what city this hospital is in. This isn't the hospital in Palm Beach."
     "Oh, okay. No, this is the new hospital in Boca Raton." "This is the one with the pediatric center and the mental health wing? I thought they were still building it."
     "Uh, no, they finished last month."
     "Last month?" Baffled, Chris stared at Candi. Oh, wait a minute, Chris thought. I've lost a month or two when I was in a coma. "Candi, what month is this?"
     Candi briefly glanced down at her clipboard again to check the date. Chris covered up his snort of laughter with a cough-- he couldn't believe she didn't even know today's date. She said, "April. Today is April 22."
     "APRIL!?" How could it be April? He didn't even remember Christmas. What in God's name had happened to him? This was too much for him to take. He had to think.
     "Candi, I don't mean to be rude, but I'd kind of like to be alone."
     She looked around the room. "But you are alone. You did have a roommate when you were unconscious, but she left before you woke up."
     Chris could not believe what a moron this woman was. "I meant for you to leave me alone. I want to be ALONE."
     Candi blinked and said, "Oh, of course. Now, if you need me for absolutely anything, just push this button right here." She leaned over him, reaching for the call button and giving Chris a glimpse down her dress. She smiled at him and left the room.
     Chris rolled his eyes again, closing them briefly. How had he lost three months out of his life? He thought back to the last thing he remembered.
     Jillian. Jillian was gone. He couldn't remember where or why she went, but the memory made him feel vaguely angry. He assumed they had had a fight and she went to her mother's house to cool off. Rita? Where was Rita? Why wasn't she with him? Surely she must know that he had been hurt. He wondered if she had been in to see him when he was unconscious, but there was no way in hell he would call for Candi to ask her if he'd had any visitors. She'd probably never go away if he did that. Chris felt sure that Rita would come to see him soon. What a surpise she would get when she saw that he was awake. From the reactions of the doctors and the nurses, he had guessed that no one really expected him to come out of the coma. Imagining the pain that both Rita and Jillian would be going through, Chris felt slightly guilty. Rita pretended to be strong, but she really was very fragile. If she had been going around thinking he might die, then she was feeling the exact same things he'd felt when he thought Rita was dead. That was the most horrible feeling of his life, and Chris definitely didn't want to put Rita through that. He decided to call her, and Jillian too, of course, but, after looking around for a telephone and not seeing one, he decided to just wait until they came to see him. Chris tried to think about what happened to him. He took stock of his injuries. His chest burned and he assumed he had been shot. But he had other injuries that he couldn't explain as easily. He had scars up and down his right arm, and the ring finger on his left hand had scratches and bruises where the finger met his hand. The ring that he always wore on his right hand was missing, and Chris reminded himself to ask the doctor for it.
     Just then, a tall man with graying hair walked in the room. He wore a white lab coat and a stethoscope around his neck. Candi accompanied him, and Chris gave an inward groan. The man spoke first. "Sgt. Lorenzo, glad to see you're alive and awake. I'm Dr. Miller. How do you feel?"
     This was basically the same thing that Candi had said to him, but Chris appreciated the doctor's enthusiasm and his knowledge of Chris's job, and Chris reacted very differently to the doctor than he had reacted to Candi.
     "Doc, I feel fine; just a little confused," Chris said with a faint smile on his face. "Um, how exactly did I get here? And why the hell don't I REMEMBER how I got here?"
     Miller nodded and turned to Candi. "Thank you, Miss Dawes. That will be all."
     Candi tipped her head to the side, looking confused. Dr. Miller looked pointedly at the door of the hospital room and jerked his head with an exasperated gesture. Candi took one last look at Chris before turning on her heel and huffing out of the room.
     "I swear..." Miller muttered under his breath and shook his head. Chris grinned. Evidently he wasn't the only one who was irritated by Candi.
     "Sgt. Lorenzo..."
     "Chris, Doc, please."
     "Okay, Chris. I'm sorry to say that I cannot answer all of your questions. The simple explanation is that I just don't know all the answers. A few weeks ago I was on vacation in Key Largo with my wife. I left explicit instructions with my secretary not to beep me unless it was an incredible emergency. Well, right in the middle of dinner on our first day there, of course, I got a beep. Evidently, an anonymous tip had been called in to the hospital to tell one of my colleagues where to find a dead body. The only other thing the caller said was where the body was located; then he hung up."
     Chris felt the old curiosity come back and struggled into a sitting position. He started asking the doctor questions as if he were interviewing a witness to a murder. "Does your friend know who the caller was?"
     "No; I suppose that's why he said it was an anonymous caller," Miller said with a smile.
     "I suppose so. What happened after your friend got the call?"
     "He went to check it out, obviously. First he called an ambulance to go with him. It was an alley behind the gas station not too far from this hospital. He didn't see anyone except a man's body on the ground. It had nasty gunshots to the chest and abdomen. The EMTs put him on a stretcher and took him back to the hospital. On the way to the hospital, the 'corpse' took a breath and opened his eyes. Scared the bejesus out of everybody in the ambulance, including me. We got him stabilized and brought him into the ER. Luckily, he survived. Or, should I say, you survived."
     Chris leaned back on the pillows and let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. "So, the $64,000 question is...who was the mysterious caller?
     I live in Palm Beach. How the hell did I get here?"
     Suddenly, a voice sounded over the hospital's intercom system: "Paging Dr. Miller, Dr. Miller, please report to room 1743."
     Miller stood up. "Duty calls," he said, checking his watch. Chris didn't respond; he was lost in thought. "Is there anything I can get for you? Is there someone I can call for you?"
     "Yes, please." Chris gave Miller Rita's car phone number and Jillian's beeper number. "Oh, and I had a gold ring on. Do you guys have it?"
     "Yes, I believe I do. I'll get it for you. I'll be back soon. Shall I ring for Nurse Candi?" Miller said with an impish smile.
     "You ever hear of malpractice, doc?" Chris said, grinning. Four hours later, after a long nap interrupted twice by Candi, Miller walked into Chris's room, holding a baggie. "I didn't get an answer on the car phone, and I left my personal number on the beeper. Here are your rings," Miller said, dropping the baggie on Chris's lap. "I apologize for having to leave so soon, but I really must run. I'll look in on you soon."
     "Uh, thanks, Doc." Chris said as he opened the baggie. "Doc, wait up a sec," he said as he saw two rings in the baggie. He recognized the ring he always wore on his right hand and put that on. "I don't recognize this ring. It's not mine," Chris told Miller as he held it up to the light. It was a wide gold band.
     Miller looked at Chris with a strange expression. "It's your wedding ring, Chris. At least, I assumed it was a wedding ring. It was on your left hand. When you were brought in, you developed an infection and your arms and legs swelled up pretty badly. We had to work hard to get that ring off without cutting it off. Don't you remember it?"
     Chris stared at the ring. "But I'm not married."

PART THREE...

Questions? Comments? Criticisms? Smart remarks? Email me at kdl@gulf.net. Just write "Karen's Story" on the subject line. Oh, and by the way, if you really hated this story, don't bother to write and tell me. I'll probably just ignore you. Thanks.

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