The Art of Amnesia

In a rectangular chair with boxy wooden arms pressing uncomfortably into my ribcage, my entire body sinks with exhaustion. The room is flooded with aggressive fluorescent light and I rest my forehead in my palm to spare my eyes the relentless attack. I keep one leg crossed over the other so I can bounce one foot in the air; the only physical release of my frustration and concern.

Well, that’s not entirely true. An alarm sounds in a nearby room, jolting me out of my catatonia and alerting me to several points of pain throughout my body. I sit up to take stock and consider taking a walk to escape the nauseating scent of disinfectant. My right hand had been clenched in a fist and as I open it, my fingers ache, and there are tiny lines of blood in my palm from my fingernails. My left foot was very firmly planted on the floor, the ache in my knee and hip suggesting that if I eased up for even a moment I might just float away. There is pressure all over my face and head from grinding my teeth and pressing my temples repeatedly in useless attempts to ease the headache that was likely from dehydration.

Overwhelmed, I let myself deflate into the torture chamber of a chair again, my head hanging over the back this time. I half-watch the horrible television in the room, perpetually stuck on one news station. They have been prattling on for days about a local art museum; something to do with a missed acquisition or a big acquisition, something like that.

I hate the constant noise but I keep it on in case Abby can hear. She loves art so much that she recently left her teaching job and started working in a local gallery. I wanted to stay updated on her favorite news but I couldn’t focus on anything other than her.

With my eyes closed, I let my head roll to the left, slowly preparing myself for what I will see. I take in a shallow breath and hold it as I prepare to look at her.

Plush, white linen all around.

Gold and silver streams of sunlight gracing every surface.

Blonde hair shimmering as if made of the finest gold chains.

Hazel eye mosaic; a meadow overrun with clover, dandelions, and arnica flowers.

Oh, how I wish I did not have to open my eyes…

But my lungs are burning for release, so I exhale and look for the first time in days at the woman two feet away from me. The fine line of her nose is hidden under a thick layer of gauze. Purple bruises spill from underneath and spread nearly to her ears. The ends of her hair appear brassy in this lighting. A crown of gauze covers the top of her head. The linen around her now is baby blue, not as pretty or as soft as our bed at home. This scene is nearly impossible to take in but the tears come quickly enough that I don’t have to see it for long.

I move to her side and allow myself to touch her for the first time since she arrived here. I’ve always called her an angel but seeing how fractured and frail she is now, I’m terrified of how close she is to truly becoming one. I set my hand lightly atop hers and am instantly overcome. I want to fall forward into her, to feel her arms wrap around my head and shoulders, to hear her soothe me and promise me she will be alright. Instead, I hit my knees on the cold tile floor and let my tears pour onto the mattress.

“Abby… Please… You have to be okay… Please.”

Time has been irrelevant to me since the moment I received a call from Mission Hospital three days ago. I’ve only been able to count the passing days because each morning a new nurse comes in, head held straight, trying to appear pleasant and neutral, but with that look in their eyes. The look that says, “I know you’re waiting anxiously to see if the love of your life will live or die, but I need to update the board and look at the monitors. Don’t mind me.”

Something about that look brings me painfully to the present, no matter how I let my mind drift before or after. Because that look is full of truth. But while I am waiting anxiously to see if the love of my life will live or die, the last thing I want and the only thing I want, is the truth.

This scene plays out now, as I am kneeling beside the bed. I barely raise my eyes in acknowledgment of a polite male nurse, armed with the look, now at my side.

“Miss, you really should get something to eat. When was the last time you drank any water?” he asks gently.

I open my mouth slightly to reply but stop myself, realizing I don’t know the answer. He sees and understands. The look in his eyes now is of genuine concern and kindness.

“Listen,” he says, “You should go home. Take a shower, eat, drink water, the whole shebang. Then come back to spend the night. I will call you immediately if there is any change while you’re gone.”

After a few minutes of protest, expression of guilt at leaving, and searching for my two-days-past-dead cellphone, I am sitting in my car in the parking lot. This morning is not a silver and gold dream but rather a typical one hundred-degree day in southern California, with the sun shining so brightly my eyes actually hurt.

Thirty minutes later I am pulling up to Abby and I’s home in Monarch Beach. Abby’s grandparents loved her fiercely; their only grandchild and a brilliant young woman as well, they were endlessly proud of her. They were as loving to me as my own grandparents and were the first of Abby’s family to accept and embrace our relationship. They left this house to us when they passed and we knew instantly that we would never leave.

I sit in the driveway for a long while, wondering what would happen if I lost Abby. Would I stay here? I can’t bear the thought of this home, this sanctuary of love and happiness, without her in it. Living here without her seems impossible, but somehow so does the alternative.

Suddenly I notice Abby’s car parked on the street in front of the house. Or, what is left of it. I approach it slowly as if it could hurt me. I am also in awe. Most of the front end is gone. The windshield is still in place but is so shattered I can’t see through it. The roof is caved in so much that all of the doors sit slightly ajar, no windows left in them. The only part of the car that is almost entirely unscathed is the rear, from the gas tank to the trunk.

A police officer who met me at the hospital on the first day of this nightmare informed me that this was “such a blessing” because if the fuel tank had been punctured there likely would have been an explosion at the scene of the accident. I somehow failed to see the blessing in someone running a red light and nearly killing my wife, so when I didn’t thank him for his kind words he huffed a little and walked away, leaving me with a small bag of Abby’s things collected at the scene.

I turned around and looked at the house but couldn’t bring myself to go inside. Instead, I got back in my car and drove to a nearby coffee shop. I ordered coffee, water, as well as several pastries, and drove back to the hospital where I intended to nap so I could be close by if anything happened. I drank my coffee and ate my snacks in the parking garage. I could feel some energy building in me as I was sitting there. I remembered that my cellphone was dead. I thought maybe in the bag of Abby’s things I would find her phone or a charger, so I collected it from the trunk and settled back into my seat.

A grocery list, keys, and her purse were all I found initially. Pulling the purse out to look inside I noticed a little black book, the kind with a soft leather cover and an elastic band to secure it, fall to the bottom of the clear plastic bag. I picked it up and realized I had never seen it before. I opened the cover to see if it even belonged to Abby or if a policeman was missing it somewhere.

On the first page, the words “Vermeer- Mission Veijo- 10th of August- Collect 20” were written in what I recognized to be Abby’s handwriting but the note made no sense to me. I flipped page after page until I had flipped through the entire notebook. There were no other words written in the entire thing.

Something felt odd as I sat with this strange little book in my hands. The tenth of August? Why does that sound familiar? Oh! That was three days ago, that was the day of Abby’s accident.

And then in a rush, everything snapped into place in my brain.

Somewhere in my mind I must have been paying attention to that horrible television in Abby’s hospital room. The reporters had been talking about a big acquisition for the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego.

Did the sale fell apart? No-

The painting had been stolen.

I looked down at the little black book in my hands, shocked.

This is insane, Abby is not an art thief! I would know if my own wife was stealing huge, valuable paintings and hanging them up at home. Impossible!

I scoffed at myself for being so ridiculous and decided that a car nap would not be enough. I drove myself back home to get some proper rest instead. But on my way up the driveway, I turned and looked at the untouched trunk of Abby’s car.

There was no harm in looking in the trunk. I walk to the driver's side of the car and reach through the windowless door to press the trunk button, not entirely sure it will even open.

Pop.

I lift the lid of the trunk and see a carryon size suitcase. Without looking to see what is inside, I rush it into the house and dump the contents onto the floor…

It’s been six months since Abby was released from the hospital. She still goes back regularly to monitor some episodes of memory loss we’ve noticed since the accident. One thing she never seems to forget though is my hilarious trip into exhaustion and delusion that led me to momentarily believe she was an art thief.

In reality, what I sent tumbling all over the floor that day was not cold hard cash, but a collection of cards and letters from teachers and students alike, saying how much they would miss her at school and wishing her success in the art world.

We won our court case against the driver who hit Abby and were awarded twenty-thousand dollars. We donated half to the school Abby had left and put the other half into a fund for local artists.

Abby has no idea where the little black book came from or what the note means. Part of me chalks it up to memory loss. But only part of me...