Prologue

PROLOGUE

Once, I’ve heard someone saying that you know it’s cold when you see a lawyer with his hands in his own pockets. It’s colder than that now. My mouth is numb and every breath is like ice.

People are shouting and pointing torch lights in my eyes. In the meantime, I hugged this big wood like I’d die if I ever let go.

A guy with a really loud voice and garlic breath panted in my ear. He was very strong and tried to ease my grip on the wood. I was too cold to move.

He wrapped his arm around my chest and pulled me backwards through the water. More people that I couldn’t see, took hold of my arms, lifting me to the deck.

Darkness surrounded me, thick and endless. 

“My goodness, look at her stomach!” someone shouted.

“She's been shot in three different places!’

Who were they talking about?

People were shouting all over again, yelling for bandages and plasma. Then I felt someone slide a needle into my arm and put a bag over my face.

“someone get me blankets. We have to keep her warm.”

“Her pulse is very low.”

“That is not good. Any head injuries?”

“That’s negatives, just a few scratches on her face.”

The engine of a car roared and we were moving. I couldn’t feel my arm. I couldn’t feel anything, not even the cold anymore. 

“Ready?”

“yes.”

“One, two, three…..

“Watch the IV lines. Do not take your eyes off it.”

“I am on it”

The guy with the garlic breath puffed really hard, and I could hear him running alongside the gurney. His fist was in front of my face, pressing a bag to force air into my lungs. They lifted again and square lights passed over my head. I now had blurry visions. A siren wails in my head. Every time we slowed down, it got louder and closer. Someone was talking on the radio.

“ We've pumped two liters of fluid at the moment. She’s on her fifth unit of blood. She’s bleeding out seriously. Systolic pressure dropping.”

“She needs volume.”

“Squeeze in another bag of fluid.”

“She’s seizing.”

“She’s seizing. Can you see that?”

One of the machines had gone into a prolonged cry. Why wouldn’t they just turn it off? I hated the sound that it made. Garlic breaths ripped open the top of my gown and slapped two pads into my chest.

The pain almost blew the top of my skull off. If he tried that again I’d make sure I break his leg.

“Clear!”

I swear to God, I wanted nothing more than to kill him for every pain he made me go through. And his breath, oh, I hated it.

I am awake now. My eyelids fluttered like moths’ wings. I squeezed them shut and tried again, blinking into the darkness that surrounded me. I turned my head, and I could make out orange dials on the machine near my bed and green blip lights sliding across a liquid crystal display window like one of those stereo systems, with bouncing waves of coloured light.

Where was I?

Beside my bed is a chrome stand that catches stars on its curves. Suspended from a hook is a plastic satchel bulging with a clear liquid. The liquid trails down a pliable plastic tube and disappears under a wide strip of surgical tape wrapped around my left forearm.

I was clearly in a hospital room. There was a pad on the table, I tried to reach for it when I noticed the lump of gauze dressing on my finger. I stared at it idiotically, as though it was some sort of magic trick. When I and Julia were younger, we had a game where I pulled off my thumb and it would magically grow back if she sneezed. Julia used to laugh so hard she almost wet her pants. Fumbling for the pad, I read the letterhead: St. Joseph’s hospital, Savannah, USA. There was nothing else in the drawer except for a bible and a magazine.

I looked at a clipboard hanging at the end of the bed. Reaching down, I felt a sudden pain that exploded from my abdomen and shot out from the top of my head. Shit! I scolded myself. Curled up in a ball, I waited for the pain to go away. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. If I concentrated very hard on a particular point under my jawbone, I could actually feel the blood sliding back and forth beneath my skin.

I opened my eyes again. The world was still right there.

I took a deep breath and sat up. 

“Hello girls,” I whispered. Tentatively, I reached under my dress and cupped my left breast, fondling it slowly, it was my major source of comfort.

A nurse slipped silently through the curtains. Her voice startled me.

“Is this a private moment?”

“I was just checking.”

"Well, I get you." 

Her accent is British and her eyes are blue like the sky. She presses the call button above my head. "Thank goodness you're finally awake. We were worried you wouldn't make it." She tapped the bag of fluid and checked the flow control. Then she straightened my pillows.

"What happened? How did I get here?"

"You were shot!"

"Who shot me?"

She laughed, and then she stopped when she saw I was dead serious about the question. "Oh don't ask me, nobody ever tells me things like that in this hospital."

"But I don't seem to remember anything....my legs...my hands."

"The doctor will be here soon, you don't need to worry."

She doesn't seem to be listening. I reached out and grabbed her arm. She tried to pull away, suddenly frightened of me.

"You don't understand! I don't remember anything. I don't know how I got here. I only remember Julia, my little sister. Where is she? Where is Julia?"

She glanced at the emergency button. "They found you floating in the river. That's what I heard them say. No one seems to know anything about you in this town."

"How long have I been here?"

"One month.....you were in a coma. I thought you might be coming out yesterday. You were talking to yourself."

"What did I say?"

"You kept begging someone."

"Who was that?"

"You didn't say. Please let go of my arm. You're hurting me."

My fingers opened and she stepped well away, rubbing her forearm. She won't come close again.

My heart won't slow down. It was pounding away, getting faster and faster like circus drums. How could I have been here for a month?"

"Did you give me drugs? What have you done to me?"

She stammered. "You're on morphine for the pains."

"What else? What have you given to me!"

"Nothing." She glanced again at the emergency button. "The doctor is on his way, try to stay calm or he will have to sedate you."

She stormed out through the door. I slumped back in bed, smelling bandage and dried blood. Holding up my hand I looked at the gauze bandage, I tried to wriggle my injured arm. How could I not remember?

For me there has never been such a thing as forgetting; nothing is hazy or vague or frayed at the edges. I hoard memories like a miser counts his gold. Every scrap of a moment is kept as long as it has some value. I don't see anything photographically. Instead I make connections, spinning them together like a spider weaving a web, threading one strand into the next. 

Now, for the first time, I've forgotten something truly important. I can't remember what happened and how I finished up here. There's a black hole in my mind like a dark shadow on a chest X-ray. I've seen those shadows. I lost my father to cancer. Black holes suck everything into them. Not even light can escape.

Thirty minutes went by and then the doctor swept through the curtains. He wore jeans and a bow tie under is white coat.

"Pretty miss nobody, welcome back into the land of the living and high taxation." He said casually and pointed a pen touch in my eyes.

"Can you move your legs?" He asked.

"Yes "

He pulled back the bedclothes and scraped a key along the sole of my right foot. "Can you feel this?"

"Yes."

"Excellent." He blurted out.

"But I can't remember anything." I said immediately.

"About the accident?"

"Was it an accident?" I shot back.

"I have no idea. You were shot. One bullet entered just above your gracilis muscle on your right leg leaving a quarter-inch hole. And the other two bullets went straight into your abdomen." He whistled, impressed through his teeth. "You had a pulse but no measurable blood pressure when they found you. Then you stopped breathing. You were dead, but we brought you back, which was strange because in all my years as a doctor, such a thing has not occurred.

He held his thumb and forefinger. "The bullet missed your femoral artery by this far." I could barely see a gap between them. "Otherwise you would have bled to death in three minutes. Apart from the bullets, we have to deal with infection. Your wedding gown was filthy. Only God knows what was in that water. We've been pumping you full of antibiotics. You're just lucky."

Is he kidding me? How much luck does it take to get shot and almost killed?

"You said something about a wedding gown?" I asked just to make sure I heard him correctly.

"Yes. When they found you, you were in a wedding gown that was soaked in your blood. From the look of things, you were getting married that day."

"What day was that?"

"June 12." And without another word, he was gone too.

Some bastard shot me on what was supposed to be my wedding day! It should be etched in my memory. I should be able to relive it over and over again like those victims who will stop at nothing to get their revenge. Instead, I remembered nothing. And no matter how many times I squeezed my eyes shut and banged my fists on my forehead it didn't change. Of course this could have been a near death experience. I was given a glimpseof hell and it was full of surgeons.

I used to say I would pay good money to forget most of my life. Now I want the memories back. I need to know who wants me dead!