THE SMELL WAS THE first thing I remembered as I woke. Disinfectant. A salve of some kind. Mint? Softness pressing down on me. I tried to open my eyes. Too hard. Darkness.
I woke again to the same smell, only realizing that it was the second time because I remembered recognizing it before. Someone was prodding me with a needle. I tried to bat them away, but my arms felt as heavy as lead bars, as did my eyelids. Grey.
A hand shook me awake and a face that couldn’t be here swam into my vision.
“Papa?” I mumbled, trying to sit up and realizing I was in my toddler bed back in Toronto.
“Sleep, chérie,” he whispered. “It’s late. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
But I knew we wouldn’t talk tomorrow, or ever again. He would be critically wounded in a battle an ocean away from our little home and his loss would devastate my mother, my grandparents, and everyone who loved him.
Awake again. I strained my ears and heard nothing. The softness extended over my legs, but my feet felt cold. The smell was stronger now, closer. I faded out again with that thought in my head.
An explosion!
My eyes flew open this time, the lids feeling heavy and fixed after who knows how long of disuse.
Beside what I could now see was my hospital bed slept Annie Coleson and her twin brothers, their blonde heads on their chests, their breathing even.
I could barely turn my head to see them, and raising my hand painfully, I could feel why. The bandages all around my skull were thick and covered my forehead, ears, and back of my head.
I watched Annie’s chest rise and fall, noticing the dark skin under her eyes and wondering how long she had been sitting vigil at my bedside. The twins looked better, but I’m sure they would have been more comfortable in their own beds at home. A quick assessment of Annie’s clothes, her makeup, and the notepad beside her told me they had been here a few hours at least. I felt a rush of love for my friend and would have expressed it had the darkness not stolen over me again.
I woke to a dull thudding sound. No, not thudding, I corrected, but drumming? I struggled to open my eyes, wincing at how dry they felt.
Through slit eyes I could see Annie, without her brothers this time, her mouth moving in rhythm with the drumming sound. That was not drumming, I realized, painfully squinting at her mouth. That was the sound of her voice! It was slightly higher pitched than the sound coming from a nurse she was speaking to. I could discern no actual words from either of them. It was like listening to a conversation while underwater. How thick were these bandages around my head?
“Annie,” I tried to say, though it was hard to force my lips to move.
She heard me and gleefully pointed at me. She flew to my side, scooping up my hand and speaking rapid fire. At least, she seemed to be speaking quickly, judging from the movement of her lips; I still couldn’t hear a word she was saying.
The nurse, meanwhile, had come to my other side and was fiddling with my IV.
“Annie,” I said again, the fear starting to build in me as I wondered at my injuries. I couldn’t even hear the words I was saying. “Thirsty …”
She frowned, stopping her drumming sounds for a beat before she shook her head and said something to the nurse.
The nurse leaned over and spoke directly at me, her deep drumming a little louder but no clearer.
I tried to shake my head, but shooting pain arched between my brows and I bit my lip to keep from crying out.
Annie’s grip on my hand tightened and her mouth moved again, her eyes concerned. The nurse responded to whatever she said by taking my wrist in her hand again, her other hand holding a syringe.
I said, “No, please don’t. The pain is bearable.”
But though they both heard me (I could tell by the way they glanced at me and then each other) the drugs flowed unabated into my bloodstream. I fought against the fog and lost.
When I awoke this time it was morning — I could tell that even before I forced my eyelids open to see Brian at my bedside.
He smiled when I opened my eyes, his dimples reappearing as he called for someone over his shoulder. His voice was a slightly deeper drum sound than either Annie’s or the nurse’s.
Brian leaned over me holding a glass of water with a straw and I took a long thankful drink before speaking.
“Brian, it’s so good to see you,” I said as clearly as I could.
He got that confused look I was beginning to dread and grasped my hand, speaking urgently to me in that same dulled drum sound.
The fact that I couldn’t hear might mean I was speaking too quietly, so I repeated my earlier thanks, concentrating and trying to speak louder.
I still couldn’t discern my own words. He jumped in response and I gripped Brian’s hand, noticing that his left hand was bandaged. Surely he hadn’t been caught in the explosion as well!
“What happened to your hand, Brian?” I asked, carefully lifting the hand that was holding mine.
Brian grimaced, looking from his hand to mine, still not understanding my words, but gently speaking in a softer drumming tone. I shook my head, the pain diminishing in direct opposition to my growing panic. Why couldn’t we understand one another? How badly were my ears damaged? Had my vocal cords been hurt as well? I pulled at the bandages around my ears — how thick were they?
Brian grasped my hands to prevent me from pulling off the bandages and a doctor arrived carrying a dreaded hypodermic needle. I struggled against Brian even more. No! I needed to stay awake to figure out what was happening to me. It was my right!
“Stop!” I yelled as loud as I could, kicking the blankets off the bed. But even though I could tell they heard me by the surprise on their faces, the doctor pressed on, grabbing for my arm even as I fought.
Suddenly everyone stopped moving, their attention on the door. I only noticed because Brian’s hand suddenly released mine, and I was struggling against nothing.
There in the doorway stood my grandmother, Irene Adler. I had never been so happy to see her.
She glanced at the men in the room, her drumming sound melodic to me even in my current state, but her eyes shot ice at the doctor. Whatever she said to him, he flushed and dropped my arm.
She waved my boyfriend out of the room with her cane, Brian’s gaze lingering on me before he allowed himself to be driven out.
I would have asked him to stay had he been able to understand me, but I was proud of the way he met my grandmother’s gaze defiantly before he nodded to her and left. Most people withered under her gaze.
“Thank God you’re here,” said I.
Her blue eyes widened at my words. She spoke back to me, causing me to shake my head, still not understanding a word and obviously not being understood.
The doctor, however, got a triumphant look on his narrow face, pointing at me like I was a defective lab rat and speaking to my grandmother as she stepped to my bed, putting her hand protectively on my bare ankle. The doctor was a gambler who frequented Bethnal Green, if his boxing chit was any indication, and I tried to dismiss him from my case on those grounds, but again, no one understood me.
They continued to speak to each other, all but ignoring me, and as angry as I was, I felt my mind refocus. Something had happened to my hearing, that much was very clear. Hopefully the damage was not permanent, but what could have happened to my speech? I could feel words coming out of my mouth, my tongue seemed functional, and I was able to make sound — that much was also clear by the reactions of the people around me. I ran my hands over my throat and found no bandages or injuries, and then did a visual assessment of my body now that it was no longer covered by blankets.
My hands and my head were bandaged, as was my right knee, but in bending it, I could tell it was not serious. I smelled singed hair, which made sense since I had been in an explosion, and that also probably accounted for the smell of salve coming from the bandages on my hands.
On the bed, the doctor had put down his clipboard and I eagerly scooped it up to read my health chart. They had diagnosed a concussion. Not severe, but enough of a blow to account for rendering me unconscious. My burns were very minor and they had not operated. They did not believe I had internal bleeding, but there had been swelling in my ear canals from the explosion. The last line of the diagnosis speculated about hearing loss, but nowhere on the page did it say anything that would explain the speech issues I was experiencing.
Flipping the chart over to a blank sheet, I carefully wrote a message, hoping that the fact that I could read also meant that I could still write. The brain was, after all, a curious organ that medical science did not fully understand. It was possible that hearing was connected to speech and that to lose one through physical damage affected the other. As far as I knew, though, an inability to communicate orally would not be connected to the ability to write.
I tugged on my grandmother’s sleeve, interrupting what had become an escalating drumming sound that signalled a heated argument between her and the doctor.
Her eyes flew over the message I had written, “I cannot hear any of you. All I hear is a dull drumming sound, like a piano being played with the damper pedal pressed down.”
Her eyes met mine and she nodded just once, decisively.