FOUR

AT the hospital, the staff put me in a room with a single bed and dull pink walls the color of Pepto-Bismol. The only decoration was one of those pain charts with rows of cartoon faces expressing levels of discomfort.

It wasn’t long before I was visited by a smiling medical doctor. She asked me the same questions the nurse in the ER had asked, then the admitting physician—what day is it, what month, what year?

The only tough question was: “How did you end up on a bench in Washington Square Park?”

Yeah, right. Like I knew.

The smiling staffer gently suggested I might have been assaulted and could be suffering from physical trauma. A blow to the head might have induced “my confusion.”

She scared me enough to submit to a thorough examination. And, wow, did she mean thorough.

Three nurses and the doctor—all women, thankfully—took every stitch of clothing from me, along with my last shreds of dignity. They searched my naked body, took blood, and probed places I’d rather not speak about.

In the end, they found nothing more serious than a quarter-sized bruise on the back of my neck, caused by a tiny puncture wound, or so the doc speculated. She asked me how I’d gotten that injury, and I told her I wasn’t aware I had it, adding that it didn’t hurt.

Next, the medical staff sent me hither and yon for body and brain scans. After that, it was back to my Pepto room. Through it all, I continually asked about my little girl in New Jersey.

“Is Joy okay? Who’s taking care of her?”

The smiling nurse kept assuring me that my daughter was perfectly fine. Finally, she informed me that Joy was on her way to see me.

On her way? I thought. But she’s not old enough—unless my ex-husband is bringing her. Yes! That has to be it. Matt must be driving through the tunnel right now to pick her up . . .

For the first time since I was admitted to this hospital, I smiled, deciding Matt must have taken my lecture to heart—the one about neglecting his daughter. Joy would certainly be happy. She always loved her alone time with Daddy.

The cheerful nurse gave me something to eat—a liquid diet, unfortunately. The tray included tepid apple juice, a tolerable beef broth, and a cup of completely undrinkable decaffeinated tea.

While I focused on my “meal,” the nurse stepped out, leaving the door ajar while she spoke to someone in the hallway. I held my breath, cocked an ear, and listened as hard as I could. She muttered something about “a slow process of reality orientation to avoid emotional trauma” if the SPECT-CT scans “come up negative for injury or a disease of the brain.”

I pondered that while another staffer walked in and cleared my tray.

There was no television for me and nothing to read, so I stared out the window until I dozed off. I didn’t know how long I slept, but I sat up with eager hope when I heard someone come in.

I sank back again when I realized it wasn’t my daughter, or even my ex-husband. The two men who came in were total strangers.

Flashing their badges, they introduced themselves as police detectives. I barely paid attention to their names. I was too startled and agitated.

The older cop was tall and broad-shouldered with sandy hair and a sadly wrinkled suit. The younger one was more muscular and wore a black leather jacket. With his shaved head and grim expression, he came off a little scary.

The haggard-looking older detective . . . well, he had a nice enough face and polite manners, but the way his glacial blue eyes kept staring at me made me want to jump out the window just to get away from him. He was acting as if he expected me to say something!

Finally, I did. “Where is my daughter, Joy? I want to see her.”

“She’ll be here soon,” the sandy-haired detective promised.

His voice sounded hoarse, and those striking blue eyes never left me as he fumbled with a recorder. Something about his demeanor made me shy, and I pulled up the sheet to cover my skimpy hospital gown.

“Tell us, Ms. Cosi,” the intense cop asked. “What is the last thing you remember?”

“Today or yesterday?”

This time the wannabe gangbanger spoke, his voice a low rumble. “How about we start with today, from the moment you got outta bed?”

Once again, I told the story of how I woke, not in my bed, but on a park bench in strange clothes with no knowledge of how I got there and no wallet, keys, or ID. I explained how I walked to my old employer’s business to use the phone, and how two baristas I’d never met before acted as if they knew me.

“Then my ex-husband arrived, and I felt suddenly ill. An ambulance showed up, and here I am, in an ugly pink room being grilled by you, Detective—sorry. What was your name?”

“Sergeant Emmanuel Franco. You can call me Manny or Franco.”

His gruff voice was like a low, woody reverb from a bass guitar. But it was the intense detective who kept drawing my eye. Rubbing the brown stubble on his square chin, he asked me to describe what I had done yesterday.

An easy enough question, but I strained trying to remember—and came up blank. “I can’t recall,” I finally replied. “Most likely, I tested a few recipes and wrote my In the Kitchen with Clare column.”

“Do you remember talking to anyone? Or seeing anything that may have upset—?”

Before the intense detective could finish his question, a commotion broke out on the other side of the closed door.

“I need to see her!”

A young woman was arguing with others in the hallway. Her voice sounded frantic—and strangely familiar, though I couldn’t quite place it.

“Wait! Don’t go in there!” a man called. This voice I could place. My ex-husband had arrived.

“Stop her!” the doctor urged.

The door flew open and a woman in her twenties rushed into the room. She moved so fast, she eluded the grasp of the cheerful nurse and the young detective with the shaved head.

“Mom!” she cried, hurrying to my bedside. “I was so worried! You were gone for days!”

The young woman continued to speak, but nothing registered beyond her first word. Mom?!

I was about to tell this person that she’d made a terrible mistake. Then I blinked and stared. Those green eyes. That heart-shaped face and chestnut hair. How odd, I thought, this stranger looks just like my daughter, only all grown up.

“Joy!” The younger detective pulled her back. “This isn’t helping!”

Joy?

As I anxiously searched those familiar green eyes—now filling with tears and an almost heartbreaking expectation—understanding dawned.

But understanding and acceptance are two very different things.

How could this person be my darling eleven-year-old? How could my child become a fully grown woman in just one night?!

Gasping for breath, I felt the world begin to spin.

“Mom! Mom!” Joy cried, hope turning to alarm.

The cheerful nurse, no longer so cheerful, hurried to my side. As she took my pulse, I slumped backward and heard my ex-husband groan.

“Well, so much for that slow process of reality orientation to avoid emotional trauma.”

As I watched in dumbfounded confusion, the young cop with the shaved head put his arm around my impossibly full-grown daughter and guided her out of the room. Before they disappeared, the sandy-haired officer with the blue eyes called out to her.

“Don’t worry, Joy. A specialist is coming to examine your mother. Everyone says he’s one of the best. It may take time, but we’ll get our Clare back.”

As the Pepto walls burred and faded, I dizzily whispered—

“What do you mean, ‘our’ Clare?”