I had been out of the hospital for exactly two hours. They only kept me there for a couple days of observation, wanting to make sure my body got rid of all the excess adrenaline and that there weren't any other complications caused by either the hormone, the injury to my side from falling out of the chair, or the exertion of pulling myself up the stairs.
I had to take their word for it—I didn't remember a thing.
It was weird. Dissociative amnesia, the doctors called it. I remembered going into Dad's study, finding the letter from Thomas Gardner, and Nicole being in the ambulance with me and playing with my hair as we left my house and headed for the hospital. Everything in the middle was a total blank.
Apparently, that was a good thing.
Considering I had spent a good chunk of my life remembering each and every detail of each and every day, it was strange to know I had completely lost a good twelve hours.
Reverend Walsh read from the Bible as those in attendance bowed their heads. He recited a little prayer, said amen, and that was the end of Doctor Lou Malone.
Anticlimactic, to say the least.
Then again, I wasn't so sure that he deserved much more.
Nicole moved
me backwards, out from under the little tent that was positioned over the gravesite, and into the drizzle. Greg was walking behind us, holding an umbrella and being all somber. We stopped on the walkway as a bunch of people gathered around to come up and pay their respects to me. I knew the faces, remembered most of the names, but everything was still a blur as they went by in droves. Teachers, people from the hospital, guys on my soccer team, Clint…
As Jeremy gripped my shoulder affectionately and Rachel kissed my cheek, Clint stood behind them, kicking at the ground. When the other two walked away, he took a timid step forward, and I raised my eyes to look at him.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey,” he replied.
He kicked the ground some more.
“Come here,” I finally said with a sigh and held my hand out to him. He took it, and I pulled him to me, wrapped an arm around his shoulders and hugged him. “We're good. I know it sounds totally fucked up, but I'm kind of grateful.”
I let go, and he pulled back, looking at me quizzically.
“Yeah,” he said, “that does sound fucked up.”
He finally smiled back and promised to bring me a copy of Shaolin Soccer on DVD for us to watch some time. The rain stopped as he walked away, and I shook hands and nodded a dozen times as people told me how sorry they were and offered to bring food over to the house for me. After a few minutes, almost everyone was gone from the cemetery. There were just a few still remaining, mingling about in groups of two or three.
Justin and Danielle came up to me as the crowd dispersed.
“I'll call you, and we'll meet to talk about your PT going forward, okay?” Danielle asked. I just nodded.
“I'd like to talk to you, too, Thomas,” Justin said, “if that's okay.”
“Yeah,” I said, “it is.”
Nicole put her hand on my shoulder, and I looked up into her concerned eyes.
“Tell him everything, Thomas,” she said softly.
I dropped my eyes to my lap and nodded. My pair of therapists—one for my broken body, one for my broken mind—walked off toward the parking lot.
“Thomas?” Greg said from off to my side. He hadn't spoken a word to me since we got to the cemetery. “I don't know what your plans are short term, but I want you coming back home with me and Nicole for now.”
Honestly, I hadn't thought about it much at all. I had kind of assumed I would just go home, but even the thought of going back there made me feel a little sick.
“I can't do that, Greg,” I heard myself say. “I can't impose like that.”
“Bull,” he replied. “You can and you will. We need to have a service come and…and clean up over there before you go back at all. Even if that weren’t the case, I don't want you going to that house by yourself. No way in hell. I'm not taking no for an answer, son.”
I looked up to his stern face and twitchy moustache and smiled a bit. Going home with them did sound like about the best situation I could conjure up, except…except…how would I even get in the house?