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“Oh thank the heavens!” Amir wept out. He was literally sobbing. I guess it was from fear of losing me.
It was then I noticed I was wet, and I finally extrapolated I’d fallen in. I looked up to meet Amir’s extremely concerned expression. I also noticed his hair was wet and he was dripping, although he was just as naked as I was. I croaked out, “Did you save me? What happened?”
He pushed damp hair off my face and helped me to a sitting position. He looked over my head and shouted, “She is okay. Please confirm the chopper is on the way.” He refocused on me as I gripped at my head. “Just stay still, love. We will get you to a hospital soon.”
I winced when I tried to talk, “Did I hit my head? It hurts so bad. I really need to lay down.”
“No, sweetheart—no, you have to stay awake. Yes, you hit your head on the way over. Hard! You hit it really hard—that is what woke me.”
I swayed and fell into his arms. “I need to sleep.” I closed my eyes and let him hold me, and I gave into the darkness beckoning me.
The helicopter roused me, but only enough to notice Amir carrying me. I was dressed now, or in a robe or something soft was wrapped around me. His strong arms gave me a sense of safety, and I curled int
o his chest. “Don’t leave me.” I think I said it. I know I thought it.
“I won’t, baby. Never leave you. Can you stay awake for me? Please?”
I tried, just for him I did try. It was impossible.
The next thing I remember were the lights overhead as I was being wheeled through a hospital corridor. The doctor forced open my eyelids and pierced my skull with a laser beam. I know I screamed in agony at that point. I heard myself and try as I may, I couldn’t stop. I heard the words, “Yeah, it’s bad.” Once again time drifted at a strange pace, and I don’t remember anything except the pain. My head felt as if someone was hitting it repeatedly with a hammer, and I wanted to scream or die—or both.
I don’t know if I dreamt it, but Amir told me about a baby boy named Amsi, who supposedly missed me. I couldn’t remember anything though, and accessing information made my head hurt even more, so I gave up. When my thoughts drifted, I wondered who the boy was and why I was being told about him.
Everything began to blur. All my thoughts swirled and then seemed to evaporate entirely. I could only remember being a child myself. Playing on the farm that my grandparents owned. Rocking in the porch swing on my grandmother’s lap. The way her homemade gingerbread men tasted. My present became my past, and I forgot who I was as an adult. A calming male voice told me he loved me. This same disembodied voice must have belonged to the hand that held mine, but I didn’t know who he was, or why he loved me.
I’ve heard we forget pain once it’s left us. I, for one, will remember this span of days for the rest of my life. The pain inside my skull—in my brain—was so intense I ached to die. I would have sold my soul to make it stop. I suffered through it though, the sensation that my brain had swelled and my skull was too small to hold it. That feeling as if it would just explode—anything to relieve the pressurewould have been okay with me. I felt as if I’d been sleeping for a very long time—like maybe weeks had passed, but I wasn’t certain.
I felt the doctor’s hands on me before I heard his voice, “Mrs. Rashid? Julie? Can you hear me?”
I could hear him, but it felt as if it would take an unbelievable amount of effort to answer him. I tried by lifting my eyelids. That was difficult, but I did it, and then I tried to focus my blurry vision. I saw the doctor first, and he nodded at me, repeating his earlier question. I fluttered my lids as response. He nodded again. He asked, although it wasn’t really a question, “I am going to check your pupils.” I winced. I remember the last time he used the laser beam on me.
“I don’t think it will hurt as much now,” he offered and then loomed over me. He spoke quietly, and not as if he were speaking to me, maybe just reminding himself. “The swelling has gone down considerably. Now the question is if you remember anything. Amnesia is often a consequence of such a bad concussion.”
So I’d had a concussion? It felt more like Goliath had used my head for a game of croquet—but whatever.
The doctor pulled back and asked, “What is your name? Do you know what year it is?”
I wrinkled my forehead, thinking. The room seemed to take a collective breath and hold it. I darted a glance to the man standing next to the doctor, and my heart skipped a beat—you could hear it on the monitor. The doctor moved quickly to pick up my wrist to check my blood pressure. He obscured the view of Amir’s very worried countenance. I had no voice, but I breathed out, “Julie. My name is Julie.”
The doctor scribbled on his pad. “That’s wonderful, but I gave that away in the beginning.” He slid to the side and there was Amir. The heart monitor did its strange fluctuation again. This time the doctor grinned.
“Amir. He is my husband,” I croaked.
The doctor nodded and scribbled, “Excellent, Julie.” Amir gave me a strained grin and blink of encouragement. The doctor asked again, “Do you know what year it is?”
I didn’t. I opened my mouth to speak, but I didn’t have an answer. Amsi cried and the heart monitor jumped all over the place. “Amsi! My baby! I remember my baby.” I stretched my arms out, reaching for him. The nanny came to me and settled him in my arms. I cooed to him in Arabic, “Such a good little prince. I missed you.”
“Well, she remembers the language and the two of you, but apparently not much else. This is normal, however. Give her a few more weeks and it should all start to siphon back in.” The doctor slid my chart into the end of the bed and left the room.
Amir shuffled off the nanny and the nurse until it was just the three of us. Amsi was cuddled against my chest, and I was petting him and kissing his head over and over. Amir crawled up next to us and pulled me against his side. He didn’t say much, but he didn’t need to. I knew exactly what he was feeling and the wordless relief now saturating both of us was enough. We both knew I was going to be okay.
Chapter Twelve
I stayed in the hospital another week and then was sent home. We’d been in the same, uber nice hospital where Amir had done most of his recovery from the car accident. The same one with our now famous romp in the arboretum. Today was supposed to be my last night, and then tomorrow I would go to our estate in Abu Dhabi. Amir was taking me to the inner gardens right this second. He leaned over my shoulder as he wheeled me through the lavish hospital—the walls covered in magnificent artwork.
“You have no idea how relieved I am,” he said quietly. “I once again feared losing you.”
I was still sketchy on all the minute details of life, like dates and times and years. Nothing that would alter how I functioned as a mother and wife, but it certainly was going to take me a while to get back all the mental capabilities I once had. Although, I kinda didn’t care. I was happy to be with Amir again, and to me it felt as if we’d been apart for eons, not just the week they said I was in the coma. My sense of humor was still intact, thankfully, and I quipped, “If I’d just stayed in your arms none of this would have happened.”
