Page 44 of Brain Damage

I look over at Angela. She still has the device on her arm, and her fingers are spreading apart. But she’s been listening in on the conversation, and she says, “It is your arm, Charly, sweetie.”

I frown, and look down at the arm again. Maybe it is mine. I follow it up, from the hands, to the elbow, to see if it is attached to my body. It’s really hard to see things on the left side. I keep trying to use Amy’s tricks, scan left, scan left.

Oh well. I guess if they tell me it’s my arm, it probably is.

Valerie flips on the control. Despite feeling skeptical about this being my arm, I definitely notice a weird sensation as soon as the control turns on. Sort of like a buzzing, like an insect is loose in my body. I watch the fingers on the arm spread apart.

“Okay, Charly,” Valerie says, “now I want you to try to make a fist.”

I try to make a fist. I really do. I try to send signals down from my brain to my fingers, but it’s very hard to make a fist with a hand that you can’t really feel, that you’re not even entirely sure belongs to you.

My fingers don’t budge. Not even one millimeter.

31

BEFORE

It’s been a month since I got back from my honeymoon, and I’m slowly adjusting to married life. Clark may have a lot of good qualities, but now that we’re living together and married, I’m definitely becoming aware of some of his bad qualities. For example, his laundry never makes it into the laundry basket. He can drop his laundry on our bed, the bathroom, our sofa, or even in our kitchen, for God’s sake, but not once in the laundry basket. One time I found a dirty sock next to the laundry basket, nearly touching it, and I applauded him for getting it that close.

Another bad quality of his is that he’s lazy. God, is he lazy. Soon after we got back from our honeymoon, I asked Clark when he was going about renting some office space. He didn’t take it well.

I just got back from a trip, Charlotte, he said.

You just got back from a vacation, I pointed out. In the Bahamas.

So I ended up going online and looking up office space listings. Everything in Manhattan was out of control expensive, but Brooklyn wasn’t too bad, so I printed out some of the more reasonable listings. And a few days ago, Clark proudly informed me that he had found a space to rent out in Brooklyn Heights, in a slightly decrepit brown building that doesn’t look like anywhere I’d like to be late at night.

Right now, I’m picking up food from a Chinese restaurant to bring home for dinner, and while I’m waiting in line, thinking about a desk I’m going to surprise Clark with for his office, the guy behind me in line keeps staring at me in a really unnerving way.

This may sound strange, but ever since I got back from my honeymoon, I feel like I’ve been being watched.

Of course, who would be watching me? If someone were watching me, I’d feel sorry for them, because my life is so painfully dull. But it’s happened on multiple occasions, and every time I turn around, I catch a glimpse of a man who looks an awful lot like Stan Leroy.

I don’t actually think Stan Leroy is watching me though. I even went into our patient records and looked up his address, and he doesn’t live anywhere near me. Yet I did see him at that diner, so maybe he knows someone around here. And he was at that resort in the Bahamas, which was flat out strange.

Anyway, the man in this line is most definitely staring at me. It’s upsetting. I keep stumbling over my order of chicken with broccoli for me and moo shu pork for Clark, and have to ask the cashier to keep repeating what he was saying.

“Okay, what’s the name on that order?” the cashier asks me.

“McKenna,” I say.

No, I haven’t changed my name since getting married. I’ve been Charlotte McKenna for thirty-six years. My medical license is under that name. Changing my name would be like changing my entire identity at this point. It’s just not worth it.

I step aside to wait for my order, when the guy who’s been staring at me finally says: “Charlotte, is it?”

I whirl around to study my would-be stalker. He’s maybe in his forties, dressed in a suit and tie like he just came from the office. To be honest, he doesn’t look all that frightening. My first guess is that he must be a patient. I can’t tell you how many times I run into patients in public, and they expect me to remember them. As if that mole check was so incredibly memorable. Usually, I have to fake it.

When he notices the look on my face, the man puts out his hand for me to shake. “Kenneth Landers,” he says. “I used to work with Clark at Gregory and Patterson. You guys recently got married, didn’t you? I heard about it on Facebook.”

Oh my gosh, it’s one of Clark’s colleagues. That is so much better than a patient. I’ve hardly met any of Clark’s friends, and I’m not sure if I’ve met even one person he worked with before.

“That’s right,” I say, taking his outstretched hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Likewise,” Landers says. “Don’t worry, I’m not offended you didn’t invite me to the wedding.”

I blush. “It was a really small ceremony. Just the two of us in City Hall.”

“And you were okay with that?” Landers raises an eyebrow. “Wow, Clark really is a lucky man.”