Me & Her

Me

The Doctor tells me I have a mother. I don't remember having one, but if I'm honest, I don't remember much at all. Just that room. The white room in my head. I'm out of that room now and I'm here. In the real world. If anything is truly real at all.

When the Doctor – Dr. Steele with a metallic stare - told me about my coma, I'd asked him one question: how? But thousands of them clamoured to be answered. Why? What happened? Who was I? Did I deserve it? Was it an accident? All he said was that I'd had a fit. He could have spared me the white lie - I already know about the 'fit'. About what happened that day. It was her. Whatever happened is all her fault. Which means I deserve much worse. My stomach cramps again, although the Nurse says it's because I'm hungry and they've taken me off my drips, which have kept me alive and fed and watered and—

Why did I have to wake up? There's no point asking that now, is there? I'm already here.

By the time the Nurse brings me some food – I think it's pudding – I've lost my appetite. I set the plastic bowl to one side in disgust, feeling around the closet of my mind for her voice. Her knife-blade tongue. If I could have prayed to God, I would have. She is silent. The echo of her voice is probably just a memory. But I swear I had heard it a moment before.

'I'm here,' it had screamed. Or maybe spending so many years only hearing her voice has warped my senses. I can't hear her now.

When the Doctor remerges, he is holding a chart. He looks like an extra from one of those medical dramas. A fragmented image chases me: on a dirtied carpet, watching a nurse slapping his fiancé in the ER on TV. I shake the memory.

Steele's white coat blends into the walls, the floor, casting him as almost part of the building. Just another mechanism. Softly, he approaches my bedside.

"You have a visitor," he begins. When I don't reply – I don't feel as if I can – he continues.

"It's your mum. Would you like to see her?" If I remembered her, maybe. But I don't, and I fear that seeing her might strike open the hole in my heart that has spent three years healing over. Instead, I whisper,

"Yes. Please". Using my voice after so long feels like learning a foreign language. My tongue is a lead weight in my mouth and my lips are in overdrive. For some reason, I expected to be in a better condition having slept for three years. Three years. Thirty-sixth months. One-thousand and ninety-five days. All that time: gone in an instant.

Smiling, the Doctor vanishes from the room, leaving me the tender face of the Nurse as she re-adjusts my bed clothes. I have a mother. The knowledge rings true in my mind as would a bell, yet I do not remember her. Maybe all I have to do is see her.

The woman I am faced with has tear tracks marking thin cheekbones and a tallowed smile. Her eyes are puffy, but... Something isn't right. I don't remember her at all.

"Honey? Honey!" Is that my name? No. My name is two names. My name is sealed until my mind manages to overcome whatever happened three years ago. Somehow, I don't think it ever will.

The woman runs to embrace me, but the Doctor warns her to be gentle. Our hug is loose, lacking in any true emotional connection. But I don't mind. It's the first connection I have felt since waking up in this place. Something other than the cold stroke of the bedsheets.

"I thought I'd lost you. I kept coming back in the hope that you'd wake up..." My apparent mother trails off, wiping her eyes with a tissue.

"I am awake," I say, only because I know nothing else is true. Why don't I remember her? Her face haunts me, in the back of my mind, but without context. It's like reading a book with the chapters in the wrong order. Looking in a mirror with someone else's face.

"How are you feeling? Doctor Steele says he'll need to keep you here for a few more days for observation," she cries. Why here? Why can't I go home? Wherever home is. Turns out, I don't remember that either.

"It's just a precaution, I assure you Ms.". I cut out the last name, afraid if I hear it, she will her it too. Her. She must be here by now. Listening out for her, my hands tremble. My mother makes the mistake of thinking I'm cold and holds me tighter. Somehow, that helps to chase the darkness away.

"I've kept your room how you like it, all ready for when you come home". She smiles, turning to the Doctor. "Can I stay here with her tonight?"

"If your daughter thinks it's best". I can almost feel her glaring at him, perhaps with that motherly love I've dreamt so much about. It feels more like spite. She turns to me, eyes pleading. I can't say no, even if I want to. 

I can't bring myself to tell her that her real daughter, the one she loves, still lies in a coma.