Page 21 of Brain Damage

Unfortunately, it’s still very challenging.

There are four of us in the group. It’s me, a girl who is about twenty, and then two older people, a man and a woman. We get pushed into a small room in our wheelchairs, and then sit in the circle around a small wooden square table.

The two other women in the group don’t talk much. Amy, who runs the group, usually has to ask them questions several times before they answer. The younger woman often falls asleep during the group. The man, on the other hand, talks way too much. Amy has to tell him to be quiet a lot.

I secretly think of myself as the only normal person in the group. But I’m concerned that Amy doesn’t see things that way. She’s always telling me I need to talk more.

Today we are playing a game that I really hate. It involves a beach ball on which Amy had written about a dozen questions. We toss the beach ball around between us, and when it’s our turn, we have to answer one of the questions on the ball.

I don’t like this game for many reasons. First of all, I’m not very good at catching the ball. I can’t seem to use my left hand very well, so I have to catch it one-handed. It is not easy to catch a beach ball with one hand. The other reason I don’t like the game is that I can’t read very well right now. I’m not sure exactly why, but when I look at a page of words and read them out loud, they don’t make sense to me. Amy says it’s because I’m not reading all the words. When she asked me if I know why I’m not reading all the words, I quickly tell her it’s because I’m not looking to the left. I’m totally on top of my issues with the left side. If only I could fix them.

When it’s my turn to catch the beach ball, Amy helps me. Otherwise, it would almost definitely end up on the floor. She helps me steady the ball in my right hand, and points to one of the questions she’s written.

“Read the question, Charly,” she says.

I look at the question she’s pointing to. I read, “What does the president ate?”

What? What the hell is that supposed to mean?

“How are we supposed to know what the president eats?” the old man speaks up. “Probably lobster. Or steak.”

Amy smiles patiently. “Charly, you didn’t read the entire question.”

I suppose that’s possible. I look back down at the ball. I see the words “What”, “president”, and “ates”. Amy reaches into her pocket and pulls out the red pen. She’s done this before, so I know before she does it that she’s going to put the pen just to the left of the question. That way, I can look for the pen to know where to start reading.

“What is the name of the President of the United States?” I read carefully.

Before I can answer, the old man quickly pipes in with, “His name is Dave.”

I frown at him. I don’t think the president’s name is Dave. I can’t remember his name though. I think it might be Alabama.

“Well,” the old man says, “that’s not the real president’s name. That’s just the guy who is pretending to be the president because the president had a stroke and is sick. So Dave steps in and everybody thinks he’s the president. Except his wife, who is that woman who sort of looks like a man. She knows the truth because Dave looked at her leg and her husband never looked at her leg anymore.”

“Um,” Amy says, “I think that was all from a movie called Dave.”

“Of course it was a movie,” the old man snorts. “Dave was just pretending to be the president, but then the president had a stroke and he had to step in and be the real president. And his wife was played by that actress, the one who looks like a man. You know who I mean. Anyway, he looked at her leg. When they were in the car. And that was how she knew that he was Dave and not really her husband. And…”

Oh God, the old man is still talking. How does he talk so much?

I try to listen, but I get distracted by a face peering into the small window on the door to the room. It’s a man who looks incredibly familiar to me. He’s very handsome. Like, just so incredibly handsome. He looks like a movie star or something. He has perfect hair, the color of chestnuts, and a powerful jaw. My heart leaps when he raps on the window.

Amy holds up a finger so that the old man will stop talking, but it doesn’t work. Surprise, surprise. He’s still babbling about Dave when she goes to open the door.

“I’m sorry,” she says to the man. “We’re in the middle of doing the orientation group.”

The man smiles and dimples pop up on his cheeks. Wow, he’s handsome. My heart flutters in my chest.

“I’m here to see Charlotte,” he says.

Me?

“I understand,” Amy says, “but we’re right in the middle of group. Do you think you could wait fifteen minutes?”

“I cancelled an important meeting to see my wife,” the man says. “Are you really going to make me sit out here and wait?”

My wife.

He called me his wife.