Life as I Know It Read Free

cream straight from the carton.
    Cool fingers stroked my forehead. The sensation was somehow familiar, yet I couldn’t recall anyone ever doing that to me before.
    “Lauren? Lauren, sweetheart, are you awake?”
    Clenching my eyelids tightly together, I remained obstinately silent. If this was a husband, father to those children, I wanted none of it.
    Another voice filled the room, an Indian accent, firm and in control.
    “Mr. Richardson, if you would excuse me for just one moment. I need a few words with your wife.”
    The fingers found my hand and squeezed it. “I’ll be right outside the door, sweetheart.”
    I waited until the door clicked shut before opening my eyes. A tall Asian doctor was gazing down at me, a reassuring smile on his friendly face. “Good morning, Mrs. Richardson.” His eyes flicked down to the notes in his hand. “Er—Lauren. The nurse tells me you are experiencing some memory loss?”
    “My memory is fine,” I answered somewhat belligerently. “It’s just that you’ve got me mixed up with someone else.”
    The doctor shook his head, still smiling. “I know this must be upsetting for you, Lauren, but I’m afraid that is not the case. There is a good man out there who assures me that you are his wife, and four young children who have been waiting since yesterday for you to wake up. In some cases a high-voltage injurycan cause clouded mental status. It’s known medically as the Pat Effect, but don’t worry, it’s usually temporary.”
    He perched on the edge of the bed and looked at me with dark eyes full of sympathy, and something else I couldn’t quite detect.
    “Lightning is a formidable force, Lauren, and you are on strong painkillers, which could be causing some of your confusion.”
    I watched apprehensively as he opened a notebook and scanned its pages. His obvious belief that I was this Lauren Richardson person had me wondering what else he was going to tell me.
    “When you were brought in yesterday with burns to your back, shoulder, and the top of your scalp, I did a little research on the effects of lightning strikes. Yours is the first case I’ve seen personally.”
    He glanced at me for approval to continue and I nodded, realizing that the underlying gleam in his eyes was professional curiosity.
    “Apparently, lightning travels at astonishing speeds of between one hundred and sixty and sixteen hundred kilometers per second on its downward track to the ground. Or, in your case, on its way to you, Lauren,” he told me with undisguised awe. “On its return stroke it can reach an amazing hundred and forty thousand kilometers per second, and the enormous spark heats the surrounding air explosively, creating the sonic boom we hear as thunder.”
    I found myself thinking that he must have made an exceptional—if rather geeky—medical student with his enthusiasm for knowledge, but the facts were sobering when I remembered that the lightning had actually hit
me
at those speeds.
    “In some cases this spark can generate a temperature of thirty thousand degrees centigrade, Lauren—about six times hotter than the surface of the sun!” He finished with a flourish.
    The look he then bestowed on me was one of thinly disguised fascination, as if, after discovering and recounting how powerful lightning was, he was surprised to find I was still breathing.
    “So, you’re telling me I’m lucky to be alive,” I commented quietly, watching his eyes for confirmation.
    Dr. Shakir inclined his head with a small dip that I took to be affirmative.
    “Although the scorching to your head appears superficial and the burns to your back and shoulder will heal without skin grafts, we must be careful about infection, which is why you have an antibiotic dressing on your shoulder,” he explained. Pulling his notes together he raised his eyes briefly to mine.
    I looked at him suspiciously. “What are you trying to tell me?”
    “The shock of the lightning bolt stopped your heart for a while.