Memories

Chapter 3

By now, I've told this story to my oldest daughter at least a hundred times. She's twelve now; old enough to remember what her father used to be like, and old enough to feel the pain of him looking at her with a blank stare. Every night she asks me if he'll remember her in the morning—"Mama, will Daddy know who I am tomorrow? Will Daddy love me again?"

1987

"Why isn't your family here?" he asked. "Shouldn't you be with them? It's Christmas."

"Shouldn't you be with yours?" I raised an eyebrow.

He laughed. "All right, I guess we all have our secrets. Will you at least tell me your last name?"

"Taylor."

"Ms. Willa Taylor, snow angel extraordinaire."

I laughed and realized how chapped my lips were.

Eventually a nurse wearing themed scrubs came in carrying large red buckets of water.

"Hi, sweetie," she said. Her blonde hair was pulled into a messy bun—she looked like she had the night shift. "My name is Kristie. I'm just going to check out your heart real quick and make sure it's doing okay—you put it through quite the workout last night."

She removed her stethoscope and pressed it to my chest.

"You're sounding much better, hun. What we're going to do now is have you put your feet in these buckets of hot water. You've done some damage to your nerves and we want to get them warmed up as soon as possible and see if it's reversible. We're going to do the same with your hands later on. Can you scoot to the edge of the bed for me?"

I did as the said and got a glimpse of my feet for the first time. The entire top half of my feet—from my toes to the arches—were ice blue and swollen.

"Can you wiggle your toes at all?"

I couldn't. "Oh, God, am I going to lose my feet? Oh, God, oh, my God."

"It's going to be alright, sweetie, it'll be okay. There's no definite damage; we have no idea what we're dealing with here. Ideally you've just got some bad frostbite. Can you slowly put your feet into the water? I'm sorry, but it's going to hurt."

I complied, but a moment later pulled them back out in a hurry. Water splashed onto the gray tiled floor.

"Sweetie, I know it hurts, but you have to keep them in there. You'll be okay, just put them back in...that's a good girl."

I bit my lip as tears gathered in my eyes.

"What's your favorite movie?" Kristie asked, sitting down beside me.

"Huh?" I wiped my eyes as the tears fell down.

"Mine's Aladdin. I've got three young children at home, so I'm only watching Disney movies for quite a while."

I sniffed. "Harry Potter."

"Ah! Which is better—books or movies?"

"I think...movies, actually. Usually the movie representations are God awful but they really did it justice."

She smiled and nodded. "What's your name, hun?"

"Willa Taylor." I wiped my eyes again and looked down at my feet.

"That's a very pretty name. How old are you?"

"Nineteen. I'm a sophomore in college."

"What are you going for?"

"Teaching. I want to be an elementary school teacher."

"That sounds wonderful, Willa. Now, what was a bright girl like you doing out in the snow with no clothes on?"

"I was...drunk. My friend threw this...dumb party and it was really hot inside the frat house and I guess I just...didn't put any clothes on when I went outside."

"Alright, Willa. Do you want to know your blood alcohol level when they brought you in? It was .45, honey. Do you realize how dangerous that is? Thankfully, the hypothermia slowed your blood flow, resulting in the stoppage of alcohol poisoning."

I looked down at my feet and tried to stop shivering.

"Who are your parents, Willa? We need to contact them."

"I'm a legal adult," I argued. "I can take care of it myself."

She uncertainly backed off and asked me to try wiggling my toes again, to no avail.

"Alright, well I'm going to make a few of my rounds and be back in a bit. You just keep your feet in there and stay wrapped in those blankets. We'll turn up the heat some more in here."

She left and the room was quiet for a few moments. I almost forgot David was there.

"So," he said, startling me. "How would you like to go get coffee sometime?"