Speechless
He should have known something was wrong when he couldn’t answer the barista’s simple question. ‘Large black coffee’ should have been on the tip of his tongue. The words had escaped him, slipping out of his grasp like the leash of an excited dog. And when he’d tried to snatch them back nothing had been there. So he just stared at her, silently struggling inside to make them come back.
So he’d patted himself down, pretending that he didn’t have his wallet. The woman had stared at him in annoyance until he turned and walked away.
This was how it had been when he’d woken in the hospital, concepts and ideas shorn away from the words that represented them. Only it had been worse, much worse. His own name had escaped him, his life, his family. Slowly it had all come back in sharp little flashes until he was full up with memories and pain.
He walked along the street, trying and failing to whisper sensical sentences under his breath. It was all nonsense, and when he looked up at the street signs to see where he was the text looked like a foreign language, The letters morphing into glyphs he didn’t recognize.
He pushed down the panic riding along the edge of his nerves, taking a deep breath. He had to get home, get out of the streets where people were beginning to look at him strangely. The words filling the air around him were beginning to lose their meaning as well, turning into a thick alphabet soup.
Then he began to notice the pain, a wave of tension pulsing across his frontal lobe. He’d ignored it for so long, a gentle ache coming and going when the weather changed. But this was different, a much larger magnitude. He nearly tripped and fell when the pain turned sharp, like a knife being driven through his gray matter. His vision blurred, an aura of fuzzy light occluding the sidewalk in front of him.
He was close now, his body instinctively pulling him toward the only safety it knew. Blindly he dragged himself up on the stoop, hands clinging desperately to the cold cement of the door facing. Another wave of debilitating pain shot through his skull, the intensity of it jerking him out of consciousness. His last thought was that of relief. Maybe it was finally over.
-
When Karen saw the man on her stoop, she was flooded with denial. She told herself it had to be one of the city’s homeless, that it couldn’t be Frank. He couldn’t be lying there helpless.
She knelt cautiously beside him, looking around to make sure no one else saw. It was early enough that not many people were put on the street, and the ones who were seemed to assume he was just a drunken vagrant.
Dipping down closer, she heard his breathing, shallow but consistent. The restriction squeezing the life out of her heart let up just a little. He was alive.
Tentatively, she dropped down on her knees, reaching forward to touch his face. There were bruises, of course, there always were, but his brow was knitted with pain, his breathing becoming something of a struggle.
His eyelids fluttered open, looking up at her through a glassy gaze. He reached for her, grabbing her shoulders and lifting himself to a sitting position. His lips parted, moving slightly as if he were talking. No sound came out, and Karen felt alarm creeping through her. “Frank? What’s wrong?”
He blinked, grunting in frustration. His jaw tensed, jaw clamping shut for a second before he tried again. “K-k…”
She swallowed her fear, putting on a facade of calm she didn’t feel. “Can you understand me? Just nod.”
He nodded, and she let out a deep breath. “Okay then. Do you think you can stand?”
He nodded again, holding her even tighter. She winced at the way his fingers dug into her arms, but ignored the pain, using all her body weight to lean back and lever him up off the steps.
She grunted from the effort, pulling him into a close embrace once they were both on their feet. “Come on, Frank. Everything’s gonna be fine.”
-
Karen whispered on the phone, looking over her shoulder to make sure Frank was still in her bathroom. “Listen, Claire, he seems fine now but… God, I was so scared. He couldn’t talk.”
“Well he’s not exactly loquacious during his best moments.”
Karen let out a brittle little laugh, her voice threatening to crumble into tears. “I know, I know… He was nearly paralyzed with pain. I thought he was having an aneurysm or something.”
Claire sighed. “You should bring your friend to the hospital. An aphasic event could be caused by a lot of different things. He needs to see a real live doctor, not talk to a nurse over the phone.”
“I can’t. He wouldn’t let me even if I could.”
Claire let out a deep sigh, exasperation coming clear through the speaker of Karen’s phone. “Okay, listen. It’s possible it was actually caused by a severe migraine.”
“A migraine?”
“Ask him about visual impairment, headache pain, sensitivity to light, et cetera. If he experienced a migraine aura … maybe that’s all it was.”
“Thank you.”
“He still needs to see a doctor.”
“I know.”
“Bye, Karen. Try to stay out of trouble.”
Karen hung up the phone, feeling somewhat relieved. Frank had made his way up to her apartment with little trouble, hissing occasionally at the sudden stabs of pain shooting through his brain. But the second he had laid down on her couch, he’d let the pain he was fighting wash over him.
He’d curled up into the fetal position, hands covering his ears, eyes squeezed shut, unable to answer her questions. Did he want water? A cool cloth? Pain medication? She had no idea. He couldn’t respond with anything other than the painfully eked out first syllable of a mystery word.
Hours went by and finally it seemed like the pain had stopped, and he’d drifted into a fitful sleep, jerking awake every ten minutes or so. Finally she’d sunk down beside him, pulling his head into her lap, imploring him to please sleep. “It’s okay, Frank. You’re safe, just sleep.”
The first word he’d said in hours had been her name, “Karen,” falling softly from his lips before he relaxed and fell unconscious.
And she’d fallen asleep too, stroking his hair gently and humming to herself, a shaky relief seeping into her.
When she woke, it was dark in her apartment and the soft weight of Frank’s weight in her lap was gone. In fact, she hadn’t even been snoozing on the couch any longer, but curled softly around the pillows on her twin bed. He must have been so gentle when he moved her, she hadn’t even stirred.
The sound of the shower running was a relief. Too many times he’d left without a word, and she wasn’t about to let him go again without giving him a good once over.
The call to Claire had been a last ditch effort at calming her anxiety. It had worked, to some degree and she had a list of questions waiting for Frank when he exited we bathroom, hair still damp, skin still glistening. Somewhere in the back of her mind she lamented the fact that he’d already donned his clothes once again.
“You’re not leaving yet. I need to make sure you’re okay.”
He froze, looking at her from across the room. “I’m fine.” He growled the words, biting them off.
Karen refused to be intimidated, closing the space between them. “You’re not fine.” She waved away his rebuttal. “Just answer my questions and you can go.”
“Ask away.”
“Does this happen a lot?”
“No… the last time was right after…” Frank shifted uncomfortably, running his hands through his hair and sighing. “It was a long time ago.”
“I talked to a nurse and she thinks it might be caused by a migraine. Did you have an aura? Pain? Sensitivity to light?”
Surprise flits across his face, followed closely by a strange mixture of relief and disappointment. “Yea… all of that.”
“Why do you seem disappointed?”
He looked away from her, fingering the collar of the jacket in his hands. “I, uh… I thought it was something a lot worse. When the words started to go… and the pain got bad….”
“Are you kidding me? You wanted it to be something worse? Why?” Anger zipped through Karen, but she wasn’t sure exactly what it was aimed at, only that she couldn’t accept a world where Frank wasn’t the Frank she knew… she won’t accept it.
“Look, ma’am. Don’t get all self-righteous on me.” He stepped closer to her, a grimace twisting his features. “Sometimes it just seems like it would be easier that way, easier for everyone.” He cleared his throat, looking away again. This time his eyes traveled to her window, focusing on the yellow beams of light pouring through. “A moment of weakness.”
She almost didn’t hear the last words, spoken on a whisper intended for someone other than herself. Grateful that he wasn’t looking at her, she swiped at the tears pooling in the corners of her eyes and stomped toward her bag.
Rummaging through it, she snagged what she was looking for. The object was cold and chunky in her hand, a cheap burner cell. She always kept one handy to give to shady sources. Sidling up beside him, she ran the fingers of her free hand along his arm, brushing the skin of his palm before tugging at his hand.
She thrust the phone into his grasp. “Listen, if you feel this ever start to happen again, call me. I’ll come find you.”
The tiniest ghost of a smile pulled at the corner of his mouth, and something let go inside of Karen, some awful dread floating away into the night.
He pocketed the phone, donning his jacket and turning toward the door. “It won’t happen again, ma'am.”
“Frank.” That was all she could muster, just his name, in the most chastising tone possible.
“But if it does, I’ll call.”
She nodded, watching him close the door gently. For the first time in a while she actually hoped she wouldn’t hear from Frank, at least not if it meant she’d have to see him helpless and lost.