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“I think so, but I was still pretty messed up from the accident and all of the pain medicine. Now, I’m thinking much more clearly,” River replies, anxiously awaiting the rest of her exam.
He continues to poke and prod at her, bending her legs and extending them as he tests her feeling and pain levels. “You’re progressing remarkably quickly,” he says, scribbling down notes on his notepad and then turning to me. “You must be feeling very proud. Or maybe you’re scared that her tenacity will bleed into other areas of life!” he jokes.
“Well, you know, she always did have that fiery temper. That’ll go away with time too, right Doc?” I joke.
River shoots me a venomous look.
“If that part outlived the injury, that means that others likely have too. It’s all nothing but good if you look at it right,” the doctor replies in a tone that is far too jovial for my liking.
It’s not like he knows exactly why I would be so high-strung about River’s personality changes, but it still isn’t a good look for me to bethispreoccupied with them. At best, I seem over-eager and impatient for changes that will take an enormous amount of time to overcome. At worst, I seem like a complete fraud.
I want to be happy for River, but all I can think about is what her reaction will be the first time she’s outside of the estate, back out in the world where I found her. Since the incident with the music, I’ve been growing nervous that her responses will be completely random and unpredictable.
I wasn’t prepared for this, but I suppose that’s what I get for choosing to kidnap a woman from a car and making her believe she’s been married to me for five years. At this point in the development, I have no idea what I was thinking. I just wanted to make sure she didn’t suffer too much, and now she’s acting like I’ve completely ruined her life.
“When do you think I’ll be walking unassisted?” River asks, this being her favorite question to ask virtually any medical personnel that she encounters.
He momentarily glances up from his notes. “Well, it’s always hard to say, but with the way you’re progressing, I’m sure we’ll have a clearer answer for you in due time.”
Her face falls a bit, but she doesn’t stop smiling entirely. She knows she’s getting better, even impressing veteran neurologists with her persistence. I know they all hate to get patients who believe that they’ll be the one in a million who defies modern medicine, but they never complain when they find the one who does.
River turns to me, finally making eye contact after days of avoidance. “Maybe this means we can start going out again sooner. Where would you want to go first? Let’s go to the place where you proposed to me!”
I try as hard as I can not to let my face show the absolute terror at the question.
Of course, after days and days of stony, one-word responses, this is the topic that she wants to open back up about. Brilliant.
“We’ll see. It’s best to be realistic about these things,” I reply dismissively.
She scoffs softly to herself, taking her hand out of mine.
Feeling her snatch herself out of my grip feels like a personal insult. She hates my refusal to get her hopes upso muchthat she’s choosing instead to be hostile to me.
The doctor finishes his exam and completes his notes, scrawling god knows what kind of illegible shorthand nonsense.
“Hey, could I speak with you privately?” I ask the doctor, feeling both sets of eyes on me in an instant.
It’s clear in that moment that he’s curious about why I would be asking to speak with my wife’s doctor without her present, and for a second, I’m anticipating that he’ll ask me outright.
River is glaring at me from out of her periphery. It burns just as badly even with half the intensity.
The doctor shrugs and leads me outside the room, keeping his notebook close at hand lest River try and decrypt his writing and discover absolutely nothing new.
As soon as the door is closed behind us, I feel my heart racing. “So, I’m a little worried about her, uh, mental state. I tried playing some of her favorite music for her a couple of times now, and not only does she not remember it, she absolutely hates it. Could that be from the injury?”
He rubs his chin lightly. “Well, it’s not unheard of for a traumatic brain injury to kind of... reorganize things in the brain. Her brain has had a lot of healing to do, and I’m sure the finer points of her likes and dislikes weren’t a huge priority while she was going through the first stages of recovery. She might never be the person she once was,” he replies. “Even with her progress, she might not be able to walk unassisted for at least a few years.”
He coughs for a moment, and then he continues whilst putting his hand on my shoulder. “I know that’s not what you wanted to hear. I’m sorry, I don’t like mincing words with these things. I’ve had far too many patients return to me angry that I made them false promises when I did no such thing. People hear what they want and throw out the rest.”
I feel a slight flex inside my chest, likely the remnants of whatever moral compass I used to have. If I actually were River’s real husband, I would be devastated to learn that she might never return to being the woman I fell in love with.
In a way, I’m relieved. The less of her former self she remembers, the less likely it is that she’ll experience some kind of flashback that would completely discredit everything she thought she knew about me. She’d know that I was a liar, for starters. The legal implications I don’t even want to consider.
To know that she likely isn’t improving as quickly as she thought she was gives me hope about the situation, at least as far as my interests are concerned. However, I know she won’t have it. She’d probably call the police on me if I tried to keep her on the property for the foreseeable future.
Having illegally appointed myself as her Power of Attorney has put me into a comfortable position when it comes to working with doctors, but the police would have a fucking field day following the paper trail of breadcrumbs that I’d have left for them.
I might have to take her out just to keep her happy.
