System Malfunction

I’m back from another march around the rehab room and contemplating a shower when Mother and Father and Little Man show up. I know right away that something is different. There’s a stiffness in the way they walk. After polite hellos, Father announces that Dr. Lavoie wants to talk to them about the results of the CT scan.

“I’m coming too,” I say. Mother and Father share a look that says, Oh no—is this going to set her off?

I soften my voice, trying to show them I can be reasonable. “Please,” I say, putting my head on Father’s shoulder. “I promise to be good.”

Mother sighs. “I’ll go ask.” When she’s gone, I go into the bathroom and have a brief staring contest with the Girl in the Mirror. I win. There’s a knock on the door, and Mother tells me from the other side that Dr. Lavoie has said it’s all right, but Stephen has to stay in my room.

I open the door and blow Mother a kiss. “You rock,” I say, and she blushes.

Super Doc’s office is perfectly organized. The files on his cherrywood desk are stacked up neatly in the corner.

“Thank you for coming,” he says, like he’s hosting a dinner party. “Make yourself comfortable.” Mother, Father and I sit stiffly on the orange chairs and look at him.

“I’ve got some good news,” he says. Mother reaches over and grips Father’s hand. She reaches for my hand too, but I pretend not to notice and keep my fingers intertwined.

Super Doc smiles that relaxed grin of his, and we all take a breath. “I’ll get right to the point,” he continues. “Jessica, I’ve carefully studied your file and I think you are ready to go home.”

Mother lets out a little gasp—of happiness, I think—and Father nods slowly. “Wow. That’s great, just fabulous,” he says.

“I thought you’d be happy,” Super Doc says. “It’s a big step for sure. Jessica’s rehabilitation has gone so well, I don’t think staying here is in her best interest anymore. She’s healing up nicely, and her motor skills are nearly back to normal.” He leans forward and nods in my direction. “Of course, you will continue seeing Dr. Kirschbaum, to help with the transition.”

Mother lets go of Father’s hand. “So the CT scan results were good then?”

Super Doc leans back again, running his hands through his hair. And that’s when I know. Here comes the bad news. He flips open the file in front of him and glances down. “It was difficult to say earlier, because of all the swelling. But now we know. Unfortunately, the scan showed that there appears to be some residual damage to the medial frontal lobe, and potentially a bilateral hippocampal lesion.”

“Didn’t you say you were going to get right to the point?” I say.

Mother doesn’t even flinch at my rudeness. Her shoulders sag suddenly, like the air has been let out of her.

“Well,” Super Doc says, unfazed, “it means that the memory loss you are experiencing is not only a result of emotional trauma. It likely has a physical cause. The brain is a very delicate, complex organ and nearly impossible to predict. The damage may repair itself slowly over time. But we have to consider all the possibilities.”

“So I might stay this way forever,” I say.

Super Doc looks directly into my eyes. Although he’s calm, I see a shimmer of a struggle there. Being a doctor must suck sometimes. “Maybe. To be honest, your situation is extremely unusual. Most patients with a traumatic brain injury have other serious cognitive issues as well, like an inability to speak clearly. The rarity of your situation makes it impossible for me to predict the outcome. We’ll continue to monitor things with tests, and therapy will help with the anger and memory loss. But other than that, as hard as this is to hear, all we can do is wait and see. I’m sorry. I really am.”

A slight buzzing begins in my head. I get to go home. But there is something seriously wrong with me, something that won’t go away by sheer will and determination. Even Super Doc can’t save me this time. I should be angry at God and the universe for cursing me this way, maybe grab a picture frame from the desk and smash it against the wall. But, surprisingly, this news doesn’t piss me off. In a strange way, I feel a sort of release.

A physical problem. It’s not my fault I can’t remember things. I can’t just snap out of it by trying a little harder.

Mother sits up tall. “But,” she says, “why would you send her home when she’s not ready? Why does she remember how to walk and talk and the names of famous people, but she doesn’t remember her life? It doesn’t make sense!” Her voice grows louder. “She needs your help, isn’t that obvious?”

I realize then, looking at this woman, that she has been strong, taking care of her family and her banged-up daughter, struggling to keep all these questions inside. Putting her trust in the experts. And now what Super Doc is saying is not fitting into her plan of how things should turn out. I close my eyes as I listen to him try to explain in his usual patient tone about procedural memory, which is how to do things, and how it’s different from declarative memory, which is recalling past events. Everyday things like walking and eating and even the taste of foods, he says, are familiar to me. But the events of my life are not, because they are stored in a different part of my brain.

When I open my eyes again, I can see it in Mother’s face: she feels ripped off. My thoughts spin so fast—going home, physical cause, extremely unusual—that I can’t decide how to feel. The Girl, wherever she’s hiding inside my mind, must be celebrating. Home at last! Out of this cold and impersonal place! But, as usual, she’s not communicating.

We wrap up the meeting and walk in silence back to my room, where Mother sits in the armchair and gazes out the window. Stephen tells Father and me knock-knock jokes. Who’s there? Orange. Orange who? Orange you going to let me in? Mother pops up from the chair and mutters something about the washroom as she scurries out the door.

Father fiddles with a strand of my hair. “I’m sorry,” he says, his voice husky, “that your mother is acting like this. She’s not herself these days. She just—” He clears his throat. “All she wants is for things to go back to normal.”

“I understand,” I say.

He lets my hair fall and gives me weak smile. Stephen says, “Hey, did you hear the one about the lion and the monkey?”

Stephen goes on telling his jokes, and Father and I give our courtesy laughs.

Mother wants normal. If only I knew what that was.