Page 22 of Brain Damage

Oh, so that’s why he looks familiar.

I look up at the handsome man again. Could he really be my husband? He’s certainly really attractive, but he seems much too old for me. He is probably at least forty. Except I keep forgetting that I’m not twenty years old. How old did Dr. Williams tell me I was? Fifty-seven, I think. So that means this man is much too young for me.

“I’d really prefer if you’d wait outside,” Amy says. “We’ll only be another fifteen minutes. I prefer not to distract the members of the group.”

“I wouldn’t distract anyone,” the man insists. Then, without being invited, he moves towards an empty chair in the corner of the room. “I’ll just sit right here.”

Amy doesn’t look happy, but she doesn’t say anything else to the man. But after that, it’s very hard for me to concentrate on the group. The man is mostly looking at his phone, but I can’t stop staring at him. As a result, I can’t answer most of the rest of the questions on the ball, and at one point, the ball hits me right in the nose. If it wasn’t made of plastic and filled with air, it could’ve seriously injured me.

When the group ends, usually Amy takes us back to our rooms one by one. But since the man (who is apparently my husband) is here, she says to him, “Would you mind taking Charly back to her room?”

The man blinks his eyes a few times. He has really nice eyes. They are blue like the hand soap. “Oh. I didn’t realize she could walk.”

“She can’t,” Amy says with a frown. “You’ll have to wheel her. She’s in Room 201, right by the nurses’ station.”

The man nods and steps behind me, seizing the handles of my wheelchair. He tries to push me around the table, then through the door to the room, but he misjudges the width of the doorway, and the footplate of the wheelchair bashes into the doorframe. “Sorry,” he says.

Okay, that really hurt. But I guess since he’s my husband, I’ll forgive him for being clumsy.

He pushes me down the hallway for a while in silence. When we get to the nurses’ station, he stops and comes around the side of my chair to face me. He smiles at me, which makes his dimples widen. Why am I married to such a handsome man? And why is this the first time I’m seeing him here?

“You know who I am, don’t you, Charlotte?” he asks.

I nod. “You’re my husband.”

I’m rewarded with an even wider smile. “Right. And what’s my name?”

His name? Doesn’t he realize that I was in that group because I barely know my own name?

Except then, all of a sudden, it comes to me. “Clark.”

He nods, still smiling, but somehow he doesn’t seem quite as happy anymore. Amy sometimes shows me drawings or photographs of faces with different emotions and tells me to identify them. If I had to identify this man’s emotions, I would say that he’s nervous.

“Listen, Charlotte,” he says. He rubs his palms together. “I’m sorry I haven’t visited more. I’ve just been really busy. With work and all.”

“It’s okay,” I say.

Except I’m not sure if it is okay. If he’s my husband, shouldn’t he be here all the time? I always see husbands and wives visiting other patients.

I just stare at him. I’m not really sure what to say. I know he’s supposed to be my husband, but he’s really handsome. It’s throwing me off. Actually, the whole thing is making me super nervous.

“Anyway,” he says. “You look great, Charlotte. Honestly.”

I smile at the compliment. Except when I smile, his eyes widen.

“What’s wrong?” I ask him.

“Your face…”

My face? What’s wrong with my face?

He continues, “It’s just… well, just a little bit lopsided. It’s not a big deal. Hardly even noticeable.”

My face is lopsided? What does that mean? I’ll have to try to remember to ask Dr. Williams in case it’s something important. Maybe it’s something we can fix.

My husband, Clark, glances down at his watch. “God,” he says, “I didn’t realize how late it was. I actually have to get going.”

Get going? Didn’t he just get here? I thought he canceled a whole meeting to come here. Maybe I’m confused though. Maybe he’s been here a long time and I didn’t realize. That happened to me before. Although usually it’s the opposite. I feel like I’ve been in therapy for hours and they tell me that I’ve only been there for like two minutes.