Page 91 of You Know Why

I fight back the tears as they leave. Margot is staring at me like she doesn’t know me anymore. I feel the same way. Something is wrong with me. I am broken inside. I know there’s something I’m missing, something major that will answer all of the lingering questions I have about my husband, about our life.

“That was . . . Are you okay, Brook? They’re the only family we have left who’s not bonkers.”

“You missed the fun part. They’re not our family. Bob and Dad aren’t related.”

Her mouth falls open. “I leave for five minutes . . . What the hell?”

I relay the conversation from the serenity garden, getting more and more angry by the second. I can’t help the tears. I am just so frustrated.

“This is just a lot. I want to get out of here. I want to go home. I need to go home, Margot. The answers are there. I know it.”

Eden brings me some water. “You will, soon enough.”

Now You See Him . . . Now You Don’t

Hospitals are not happy places. There are cries in the night. Constant beeping, alarms, overhead announcements. The lights are always on, disrupting natural circadian rhythms. Sleep is interrupted, powerful medications are started and stopped, new people come in and out of your room without warning, each with their own personalities and problems and attitudes. There are good days and bad. With all of these improper stimuli, it’s hard not to become disoriented. Add in a head injury, and things go awry. I’ve had some weird dreams since I’ve woken up, for sure. But nothing like what I experience tonight.

Soon after Margot and Eden leave, something strange happens.

My vision morphs, and dark things appear in the corner of the room. I feel a presence, looming over me. It is dark, wearing some sort of cloak. I can’t see its face; there is nothing but holes for eyes and no discernible features. Its mouth is open, a gaping maw. It’s come to kill me, I know this. My heart is racing, the monitors are going mad, and I scream in terror.

This brings in people, rushing, but I’m too caught up in trying to get away from the dark creature to recognize any of them. All of their faces morph into beasts, a Carnival of monsters. They dance around my bed, chanting and calling, and I squeeze my eyes shut, praying for them to leave me alone.

I feel a blissful dizziness and depart this plane.

When I wake again, it is with trepidation that I open my eyes. I can feel the presence of the creatures. They are still there, waiting for me. But this time, I see the concerned face of the resident charge nurse, a woman named Sandy.

“Make them go away,” I cry. “They’re everywhere.”

“They will, honey. They’ll be gone soon.” She gives me another injection into my IV, and darkness overtakes me.

Every time I wake, it feels like I’m living in a horror movie. That’s the only way to explain the things I’m seeing, the beasts that are lurking in the dark corners of the room. It’s not quiet enough to genuinely think, and the cacophonous thoughts grow and twist until I can’t tell what’s real, and what isn’t.

I go in and out of lucidity, and when I am myself and question what’s happening, the nurses assure me this is normal. Not normal, exactly, but understandable. “You’re hallucinating,” they tell me. “It’s not unusual given all the medications and the TBI.”

Not being able to tell what’s real from what’s imagined is awful. They tell me again and again that the sense of dislocation is magnified by the medications they give me to combat the TBI. The doctors flush my system with IV fluids, adjust my meds, work on my electrolytes, do scan after scan after scan, to no avail. If anything, by the next day, it’s worse. It is like a movie playing over top of the real world. Two images, one in 3D, one in 2D, and I can’t tell which is real and which is not. Multiple timelines exist. Sometimes I am clear as a bell, and others . . .

The things I remember are too fantastical to be real. The hallucinations have texture. Like dark ribbons dangling in front of my face. I can touch them. Worse, they can touch me.

The doctors recommend that the kids stay away because no one knows what I might say or do. Eden and Margot continue their shift visits like nothing is wrong. When I am myself, I start to think something is going on there, but I’m not sure what. Margot lights up when Eden enters the room. Eden seems . . . calculating. I don’t mind her, but I don’t trust her, either. But according to Margot, she’s an absolute godsend, and we need her help. The kids are hard to manage; there is danger for them with their father on the run; the extra eyes and hands help keep things running smoothly. They are on break now. The holidays are coming. They are adjusting to a life without regular access to their beloved parents. Without access to me, their mother, who is slowly, not so quietly, losing her mind.

I get worse and worse. Move in and out of reality.

I see people long dead—my mother sits on the side of my bed, often, and we converse with an ease that we didn’t have when she passed away. My grandparents visit. Once, a former dog, whom I spend a lovely few hours stroking, enjoying the heat of his body draped across my legs.

Monsters, faceless and rank, appear in the corners again, writhing in joy as I scream. They adjust my meds, again.

And then Alex comes to visit.

Curly blond hair. Ice-blue eyes. That divine accent.

We met in Paris, at a café near the Rue de Grenelle, and fell in love quickly. Alex was easy to love. He was open and charming and funny and life.

And he died six months before I met Trey.

Alex used to travel with me. He was a fantastic travel partner. When I had to take all of my equipment, he carried my bags and acted like an assistant. He brought me food and wine and massaged my shoulders after long shoots. He handled the travel arrangements. The hotels. And I let him because he was good at it, and it gave him joy. Every chance we had, we snuck away. We sat by rivers, we hiked through ruins, we ran marathons in the Alps. We ate, and we loved, and we planned a life together. Good things. Some bad, naturally, but mostly good.

And then he was gone.