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Finally recovered enough to be discharged from the hospital, Matt was moved to a rehabilitation center outside of Cardigan. The semi-private room was on the first floor of the center with access to the veranda. Through the open door, Matt could smell the damp earth and hear voices from outside. Flowers were beginning to bud along a well-tended pathway that led to a circular stone patio, where there were benches that held the old and the young, patients and caregivers alike, absorbing as much of the warm healing sunlight as their bodies could retain.
Farther out, away from the protective buildings, toward the sea, there was a grove of small fruit trees, hunched over and gnarled, their twisted branches showed the swellings of spring, while their tenacious roots clawed sustenance from the rocky ground. Matt’s nurse, Maya, bent his ear on more than one occasion about the stark beauty of the landscape around Cardigan Bay and the bluffs where she was born and raised. Although they were several miles from the ocean, Matt could see sea terns and kites slowly dip below his horizon, and at night he was sure he could hear the waves upon the rocky crags, which jutted out far below Maya’s bluffs.
Matt’s condition slowly improved, and Elizabeth’s visits continued. They formed a friendship of sorts. He was often scared, but more often angry about everything around him. Only when Elizabeth was present did he make an effort to be calm, holding himself in check until she was gone.
Continuously frustrated without his identity or how he ended up in Wales, Matt paced the small room he was assigned, rarely giving any notice to the fragile old gentleman who shared the space. Severe headaches continued to plague him, and the drugs they prescribed gave him weird dreams, a lot of dreams. Dreams that seemed to involve this lovely woman, but she was different. Dreams that confused him and made him wake up in cold sweats. He was sure he knew her in the past but chided himself over and over for the absurdness of it all. The doctors told him he showed signs of previous head injury and his nocturnal visions were only a result of the drugs and the current trauma, which perhaps inflamed an old injury site.
It was half-past ten in the morning, and sunlight poured in through the window like liquid gold, flooding the room in streaks of color, and yet he slept. Lost to the world around him, Matt was running, no, that wasn’t quite right. He was moving, but not of his own accord. He was floating or being carried over the ground. He passed rows of white tombstones, and their names flashed before his eyes; Ensign, Reamer, Gilhardy, Johnson. Names as unfamiliar to him as were their faces which swept past his line of vision, gently bobbing like corks in the water. An old man, a young man, two women, a child. Somewhere in his dream state, he wondered who they were, and did he know them? He could almost reach out and touch their wispy clothes. Their eyes were on him, urging him to remember. Charging him with a duty. “Remember,” they whispered, “Remember.”
The subtlety of the dream changed and what filled his head was hot, black, and terrifying. He was suffocating; he couldn’t breathe. The room was so dark, only a crack of light shone high above his head. His head, oh how it throbbed. Not like his usual headache, with pain from the inside, this was different, painful from the outside, too sore to even touch the scalp above his ear. He wasn’t alone, but he couldn’t see who was with him. He wanted to yell out, but fear held him back. Tossing in his bed, Matt awoke with a start when a hand in the dark reached over and touched his leg. A voice next to him in the blackness said, “Kate is that you? Are you alright?”
***
THE LOCAL POLICE TRIED, but they too were unable to find an identity for the young man involved in the accident. There were no missing person reports or any way of knowing if he had relatives in the area. No one recognized him, and although he could be a resident, they assumed he was probably a visitor and slowly began to check the hotels. The area was a frequent spot for Britons to spend their holiday, and the marketplace in town drew people from all over Wales. He could have come from anywhere. It was a busy time of year.
Days went by before they eventually hit on the right place. The Red Lion Hotel on High Street reported a young man named Matt Errington had stayed with them the week before. The man was to check out the next day, but after breakfast, he left the hotel and was not seen again. They assumed he conducted his business and returned from whence he came. They thought it was unusual he did not return for his few belongings, but since the bill was paid when he arrived, they packed up his things and forgot all about him. The police were given his small bundle and a heavy brass key. A railroad stub indicated he arrived from London. But London was a big place, and the key could have come from anywhere, and it would be difficult to match to a lock. Spring was a busy time in their city, and the small police force was limited to tracking down the stranger’s past in their spare time. Weeks went by before they were able to trace him and the brass key back to the Royal Arms.
Mr. Gillian was not surprised when the police from Aberystwyth contacted them about Matt Errington. He had been informed from the day manager, who was told by the chambermaids, the gentleman in room 782 had not slept in his room for several nights. When Matt’s reservation was up, they boxed up his things and stored them in the hotel vault. Although he wished he could be of more help, Mr. Gillian could not offer the police much beyond his assumptions of why Matt went to Wales and gave them the briefest of summaries about Matt and his background. He related the tale Matt shared with him of being from a laboratory in the states seeking information on diabetic patients and how he mentioned the sister of one such person, a Lauren Champion of Wales. The police were grateful for the information on the young man and promptly relayed it back to Matt’s doctors, who in turn, told Elizabeth what they learned.
Upon learning who Matt was, Elizabeth was ready to give him the information he had waited so long to hear, but she held off just a little longer. The doctors thought her decision odd but assumed she knew him since she visited him every day. Now that she finally knew the identity of this young man, she needed to make a call to the States and talk to Ben to find out what the connection was to Kate.
Considering Lauren’s murder, it was just too coincidental he had come from the Royal Arms looking for Lauren, and she wanted Ben’s advice to proceed. Walking into Matt’s room for a visit, she knew she would eventually tell him what she had learned, but before she did, she wanted to know more about him. Elizabeth was surprised to see him just awakening even though the sun was fully up, and noted it was a beautiful day outside.
“Well hello sleepyhead, glad to see you have decided to join us for the day.” Elizabeth greeted her friend. Carrying a small bunch of field flowers, she plopped them into an empty glass and filled it with water from his bedside table.
“You sure are quiet today,” she added, glancing over her shoulder where she finally noted the pallor of his face. Grey, completely ashen, Matt looked like death had already claimed him.
“I’m sorry, Elizabeth,” Matt barely spoke, the feeling from his dream lingered over him like the morning mists so common there.
“Are you alright?” Elizabeth was instantly concerned and was ready to run for a nurse when his hand stopped her flight.
“It was just a bad dream,” he mumbled. “I’ll be fine in a minute. It was so real, though, I was in danger, and my heart was going to explode. I’ll be fine,” he said again, reassuring the worried Elizabeth as she continued to fuss over him.
“Was this your same dream again?” she inquired. “Like you’ve been having?”
“No, no,” Matt said, “not at all the same. This was different. I couldn’t breathe, and it was so hot. I knew I was going to die, but the worst part was I don’t think I was alone. I’m sure there was someone with me, someone I cared about, but now I don’t know, I just don’t know. It was dark, confining ... and horrible. It was so real. Thank God it was only a dream.”
For Elizabeth, it was difficult to console this perplexing young man, a friend dropped into her life by strange circumstances. Matt accepted her in his life more readily than he accepted everything else that happened to him daily. With no background to gauge the present, the passing of time was marked by the rounds of the nurses, doctors, and therapists, his meals arrived as scheduled, and this lovely woman visited him as she would. He had no say, no agenda, and no plans. The days came and went, and he floated along with them. He knew this woman was important to him, but determining the reason was beyond his ability to divine, and any kind of deep thought made his head throb even more.
Elizabeth told him of the accident; told him how the motorcyclists struck him and how he ended up where he was. In spite of the questions from the police, from the doctors and hospital staff, and Elizabeth, he couldn’t remember where he was coming from or where he was headed. Witnesses described the events that day, and everyone remarked how surprised they were when he just stepped off the curb, without so much as a glance, right into the oncoming biker’s path.
She thought several times during the days of his confinement in the hospital, and again now as he sat on the edge of the bed holding his head between his hands and trembling, how awful this all must be for him. He deserved to know who he was. She hadn’t talked to Ben for several days, but she was positive he would be in touch with her by the evening. Elizabeth did not doubt that as soon as they discussed the situation, Ben would give her permission to share what she learned with Matt.
Even if she couldn’t give him his name and identity yet, perhaps she could share some good news with him. The rehab center doctors decided there was little more they could do for his recovery and suggested Matt would make better progress if he went home. But now knowing where his home was, Elizabeth wasn’t so sure it was a good idea to send him back to the States alone in his condition. In spite of his mood swings, she genuinely liked this pensive young man. The mother in Elizabeth trusted him implicitly, and convinced as she was that he was no danger, she wanted to ask him to accompany her to Gwelfor Cottage, her late sister-in-law’s place by the sea. There could be no better place to recuperate than on the bluffs of Wales, and once there, she and Franny could make him whole again.
“I don’t know what to say, Elizabeth. I can’t wait to get out of here that’s true, but I don’t want to be any additional burden to you. You’ve been so kind and like an anchor for me throughout this whole thing. You don’t even know me.”
“Well if you come back to the cottage with me we’ll have plenty of time to talk about anything you want. You can’t stay here forever ... and until you know where home is, where else are you going to go?” Her smile was kind and trusting, and her blue eyes crinkled up when she smiled.
Matt felt he had known her for years and wanted badly to accept her offer, but another problem occurred to him. He owned no clothes of his own since his were cut from him after the accident and the only things that remained in good condition were his shoes. “What will I have to wear once I’m out of these charming hospital gowns?”
“I can pick up a couple of pairs of trousers and a sweater in town. The mackintosh you were wearing when they brought you in will be fine after a good scrubbing, and there are some heavy work shirts at the cottage that will fit you well enough.” Elizabeth assured him.
“Alright,” Matt finally agreed, a bit relieved to be moving forward, “I will accept your generous offer but only if I can keep a record of all my debts and you will accept payment when all this is figured out.”