Some indeterminate amount of time later, I was startled awake by a shrill, high-pitched noise.
“Oh, my Lord!” Evelyn wailed upon seeing me. I looked up from the couch through bleary eyes. She was standing at the foot of the sofa in a brightly-flowered dress, holding both hands to her mouth. Her hair – usually impeccably coiffed – was completely disheveled, thrown into a loose bun at the nape of her neck while unruly strands of silver hair framed her distraught face. Her eyes were wide and anxious as she knelt down beside me.
“Child, I have been worried sick,” she fussed as she brushed the hair from my face to get a better look at me. “I saw on the news that there was a motorcycle accident on the county road, but the motorcyclist fled before help could be called.” She deftly put her hand against my head and peered intently into each of my eyes as she spoke. “Obviously, my first thought was that it could have been you, so I rushed over here immediately, all the while telling myself that I was just being paranoid – only to find your back door unlocked, bloody clothes strewn all over the kitchen, and no answer when I called your name!” Her voice was becoming increasingly shrill as she spoke. “Thank God you aren’t dead! Good Lord above, why didn’t you come to me?”
I mumbled something incoherent in response. My head felt like it had been stuffed with sawdust.
She took a seat on the edge of the couch and carefully took my chin in her hands, surveying my bruised face with a worried frown. “We need to get you to the hospital, sweets.”
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” I slurred, struggling to sit up. The right side of my body spasmed in pain. I slumped over pathetically, trying to downplay the situation by shooting Evelyn what was supposed to be a winning smile. “It looks worse than it is. Really.”
She looked at me with frustration and pain in her eyes, knowing from experience that I’d never let her take me somewhere where they would ask for my ID. I never explained my situation to her in its entirety – after all, amnesiacs who harbor the distinctly paranoid and inexplicable instinct to avoid attracting attention often end up in group homes, or worse – but she’d gathered enough. Despite her inquisitive nature, in general she tried not to pry about these sensitive subjects, so we usually maintained a comfortable balance between carrying on a trusting friendship and upholding a tacit respect for certain boundaries.
This was not one of those days.
At that moment, I honestly wouldn’t have been surprised if she had attempted to pick me up and carry me to the doctor herself. I anchored myself a little more firmly to the couch, just in case. She sighed in exasperation.
“What time is it?” I asked groggily.
“Two in the afternoon,” she replied. “Friday,” she added, likely grasping my compromised state of mind.
My eyes bulged and I gasped, struggling to gather the towel closer around me so I could get off the couch. “Oh God, I’m late for work! Gina will kill me, I’ve gotta g—”
Evelyn placed a surprisingly firm hand against my shoulder, causing me to wince. “You will do no such thing!” she commanded, her grip unyielding. “You will remain on this couch while I get you a warm robe and some medicine. How you managed to make a fire is beyond me, but I will be the one to tend to that now.”
I glanced at the crackling fireplace, confused. When had I made a fire?
She continued without pausing. “I’ll call the restaurant from my house when I go back to get supplies and let Gina know you fell and sprained your wrist badly. Judging by the swelling,” she nodded to my wrist, “that’s not too far off.”
I started to protest but she shot me a look so frightening it would have put even Attila the Hun in his place.
“Yes, ma’am,” I mumbled.
She patted my arm gently. “Come now. Remember, I used to be a nurse. Let’s see how much of you we have to put back together.”
She carefully helped me off the couch, again surprising me with her fortitude, and slowly walked me to the bedroom where she fetched my green flannel robe from the bedpost and helped me into it. My muscles and joints had tightened badly since the accident and moving any part of my body felt excruciating.
Evelyn’s impromptu, yet thorough, medical examination yielded a minor concussion, bruised ribs on the right side, a sprained right wrist, road rash on the entire right side of my body including a deep laceration on my hip from an embedded chunk of gravel, a wide variety of cuts and scrapes, and an assortment of eggplant-purple bruises which blossomed across most of my torso and hip. She tsk-ed and muttered to herself every time she discovered a new trauma to my body. Most of it was about the various supplies she would need to retrieve, but I heard some choice words about truck drivers as well.
My throat suddenly felt tight. “Is he okay?” I asked.
“Who…? Oh, the idiot who nearly killed you? He’s fine. Was on the news this morning with a band-aid on his forehead. Spewing some nonsense about burnt-out brakes and a tornado that came out of nowhere, but no one in the nearby neighborhoods, including yours truly, experienced any wind gusts. Probably just drunk and making excuses, the no-good louse.”
I frowned, but as she started prodding at my ribs again, the pain distracted me from my wandering thoughts.
“You must have left the generator on all night,” she remarked, carefully inspecting my swollen wrist in her hands. “It was sputtering like the dickens when I pulled up so I shut it off. I’ll bring a few extra gallons of gasoline with me later today. Do you still keep the canisters behind the well?”
I nodded meekly.
After checking every inch of me twice for injuries and lecturing me three more times about why I really needed to see a doctor, Evelyn gently tucked me back in on the couch. She added two more logs to the fireplace, then left to get gauze, supplies, gas, and medicine, all the while “reassuring” me that she would let the restaurant know on my behalf that I wouldn’t be in for at least two weeks. She said that last part with an audible note of authority, underscored with a hint of well-intentioned menace. I knew better than to argue, but my heart sank.
How the hell am I supposed to go without income for that long? I fretted moments before settling into a deep sleep – one filled with various nightmares about tornadoes, haunted fireplaces, and one particularly aggravating, recurring dream about coconuts falling on my head, again and again and again…