She's Not There Read Free

name?”
    She closed her eyes in exhaustion. “I don’t know.”
    The doctor was holding a small manila envelope. “I have your ring,” she said. “Normally, you’d have to sign a form for this, but that can wait until you remember your name.” The doctor shook the ring into her palm and held it out.
    She took the ring. It was a large square-cut diamond. She had been expecting a wedding band and looked up at the doctor. “You’re sure this is mine?”
    “You don’t recognize it?” The doctor sounded disappointed.
    “No.” She put it on her finger. It fit perfectly.
    A nurse interrupted them. “Dr. Haskins, they’re still waiting for you down in neurology.”
    “All right, I’m on my way.” The doctor turned back to the bed. “I’ll put in the order for something for your headache. And something to help you sleep.”
    She looked up at the doctor. “I don’t want to sleep.”
    “Why not?”
    What could she tell her? That she was afraid that if she slept the man’s face would be there in her dreams?
    She brought up her hand to look at the ring again, and that was when she noticed the white hospital band around her wrist. She turned it so she could read the writing. Some numbers, one set that looked like a date, and above that, J ANE D OE .
    From somewhere deep in her head, she heard a violin playing. Vivaldi,it was Vivaldi’s “Winter.” How did she know that? Then she could feel someone’s hand holding hers, feel the hand slipping the ring on her finger and she could hear the words . . .
    I take thee, Amelia.
    Her eyes flew up to the doctor.
    “Amelia,” she said. “My name is Amelia.”

CHAPTER TWO
    He came to an abrupt stop just inside the doorway and stared at the woman in the bed. She was covered in a white sheet and was lying so still that for a moment he thought she was dead. But then he saw the steady blip of her pulse on the monitor. His eyes took it all in, even as he could feel his mind racing to make sense of what he was seeing. Her swollen face, turned slightly toward him, a gauze square on her chin standing out stark white against the ugly splash of purple and yellow bruises on her cheeks. Her hair like wet rope against the pillow. Her lips, fat and tender looking. One nostril crusted with dried dark blood.
    He brought up a shaky hand and ran it over his face. Was it her? She looked so shattered, so different, he wasn’t even sure.
    As he moved closer to the bed, his eyes locked on the tubes snaking down from the plastic bags above, down to her thin bruised left arm, then to her hand and the diamond ring.
    He carefully picked up her hand. It was warm. He pressed it between his own and closed his eyes.
    “Sir?”
    He turned. A nurse was standing there, holding a plastic bag of clear liquid.
    “No one is supposed to be in here,” she said.
    “I’m Alex Tobias. She’s my wife.”
    The nurse’s face softened.
    “I just got a call from the police. They said she was in some kind of accident. Is she . . . in a coma?”
    “Coma? Oh, no, she’s just asleep. I just gave her a pill.”
    “Do you know what happened to her?”
    “No, I just came on duty. I’m sorry, sir, but you’ll have to move aside. I have to change her IV.”
    Alex set his wife’s hand on the sheet and stepped back to the corner, focusing on the smiling cat faces on the nurse’s bright blue scrubs, watching her pink hands flutter like fish over his wife’s body. His head was pounding, and there was a hard nub of something he imagined as gray stone forming in his chest.
    “Are you all right?”
    He looked into the nurse’s chubby face.
    “What?”
    “Do you need to sit down, sir?”
    “No, no. I need . . . where is the doctor? I need to talk to a doctor.”
    “Dr. Haskins is on her rounds right now. I’m sure she—”
    “Can you call her? I need to talk to someone.”
    “She’ll be back up here soon, Mr. Tobias.”
    The nurse was checking a chart, and when he started to move back toward the