Chapter 2 - JANE DOE 47
I drove like an idiot for six blocks.
Then pulled over because my hands were shaking too badly to hold the wheel.
Ruiz took my keys.
Good.
Melissa brought Eli.
I did not tell him:
Mom is alive.
I wanted to.
God, I wanted to.
But “an unidentified woman said your name” was not enough to put a miracle into an eight-year-old and then possibly take it back.
I said:
“There might have been a mistake.”
“What kind?”
“We’re going to the hospital.”
“Is Mom there?”
“I don’t know.”
He looked at me.
I hated the answer.
Still.
“I don’t know.”
There.
Uncertainty without filling it.
Melissa took Eli home while Ruiz drove me to Mercy Central.
I almost fought that.
Then stopped.
Eli did not need another adult problem placed in his lap because I wanted him nearby.
At the hospital, a neurologist named Dr. Samir Patel met us before the unit doors.
He did not smile.
That helped.
Hope delivered too enthusiastically can become another kind of cruelty.
“Mr. Brooks?”
“Yes.”
“We have a patient who may be your wife.”
“May.”
“Yes.”
“Can I see her?”
“First I need to explain her condition.”
I hated him for thirty seconds.
Then listened.
The woman had been brought in from the crash with:
A traumatic brain injury.
Multiple fractures.
A collapsed lung that had been treated.
Significant facial swelling.
No identification.
She had been sedated and ventilated.
Her neurological recovery was uncertain.
She had started following simple commands two days earlier.
Spoken several words that morning.
“Eli?”
Dr. Patel nodded.
“Yes.”
“Anything else?”
“Water. Home. And what sounded like ‘museum.’”
Anna worked at the museum.
I put one hand against the wall.
Ruiz said:
“Daniel.”
“I’m fine.”
I wasn’t.
Dr. Patel continued.
“We need a careful identification. You may see physical changes from the injuries.”
“Her left ear.”
He looked confused.
“It’s split.”
I touched my own earlobe.
“Small tear through the lower left lobe.”
Dr. Patel’s expression changed.
He did not answer.
That was enough.
“Take me in.”
The woman in the bed did not look like the woman in the coffin.
She barely looked like Anna either.
One side of her face was bruised and swollen.
Hair partly shaved near a healing scalp incision.
Machines.
Lines.
The kinds of things that make you look at equipment before you allow yourself to look at the person.
Then I saw her left ear.
Split.
I stopped at the foot of the bed.
“Anna.”
Her eyelids moved.
Not open.
I walked closer.
My legs felt disconnected from me.
“Anna.”
One eye opened.
Then the other.
Slowly.
She looked toward my voice.
No recognition.
That hurt.
Ridiculous.
She had a brain injury.
Still hurt.
I sat.
“Hey.”
Her eyes moved across my face.
I did not touch her.
“It's Daniel.”
Nothing.
Then:
“Eli?”
Barely air.
I started crying.
“Yeah.”
Her eyes closed.
“He’s okay.”
A tear slid from the corner of her eye.
I wanted to put my forehead against hers.
Hold her.
Tell her she was safe.
Tell her I loved her.
Tell her she was coming home.
Every instinct in me wanted to write the next five years in the first sixty seconds.
Instead I asked:
“Can I hold your hand?”
Her fingers moved.
Maybe yes.
Maybe reflex.
I looked at the nurse.
She nodded.
I placed my hand under Anna’s.
She did not squeeze.
I didn’t need her to.
Dr. Patel left us for three minutes.
Exactly three.
Then he returned.
“We need to let her rest.”
I stood.
My body objected to leaving.
I left anyway.
Outside, I put both hands over my face.
Ruiz waited.
“I told you she was dead.”
I looked at her.
She continued.
“I came to your house.”
“Yes.”
“I said we had a presumptive identification from the crash.”
“You said ‘we identified Anna.’”
Ruiz looked down.
There.
“I did.”
“Why?”
“Because her driver’s license was recovered with the deceased passenger, the rideshare was under her account, the age and physical description were close, and you identified her coat from the property photograph.”
There.
I remembered.
The photograph.
Charcoal wool coat.
Anna’s.
I had bought it for her two Christmases earlier.
I said:
“That’s Anna’s coat.”
Ruiz asked:
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
She never asked:
Could someone else have been wearing it?
Neither did I.
Ruiz continued.
“The medical examiner marked the identity provisional pending dental confirmation. Our death-notification system did not display that qualifier clearly.”
“You didn’t know?”
“I knew dental was pending.”
There.
That mattered.
“And you told me anyway.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
She took time.
“You had an eight-year-old standing behind you asking if his mother was coming home.”
My anger arrived instantly.
“So you gave him the wrong answer?”
“I wanted to give you an answer.”
There.
Human.
Wrong.
She did not defend it further.
“I’m sorry.”
I looked through the ICU doors.
My wife was alive.
Another family’s daughter was in a coffin under Anna’s flowers.
I could not decide what emotion I was allowed.
Relief felt obscene.
Grief had nowhere to go.
Ruiz’s phone rang.
She answered.
Listened.
Then looked at me.
“The tow yard found the rest of the property bag.”
“Rebecca’s?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“Her phone turns on.”
That mattered because it could tell them why two women were in the rideshare.
Then Ruiz said:
“There’s also something that belonged to Anna.”
“What?”
“A folder from the back seat.”
She handed me a clear police property sleeve.
Inside was a document.
Not medical.
Not work.
A furnished-apartment lease.
One month.
Beginning the Monday after the crash.
Tenant:
Anna Brooks.
I stared.
Address:
Four miles from our house.
I read the signature.
Anna’s.
Real.
Date:
Three days before the crash.
I looked at Ruiz.
“What is this?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
I did.
Not completely.
But enough.
Two weeks before the accident, Anna had told me:
“I need some space.”
I had answered:
“We’re not turning one bad year into a separation.”
She had said:
“I didn’t ask whether you liked the word.”
I had assumed the argument ended because she stopped bringing it up.
Apparently she had not stopped.
She had just stopped asking.
May you like
My wife was alive.
And before the crash, she had been preparing to live somewhere else.
