There is a women in Elliot’s dank room when he wakes up. She’s crying completely without reservation, as if it could somehow make her feel better. Elliot looks around, confused. He pieces together that he’s in a hospital pretty quickly, as any mentally stable adult would. Where else would the flimsy paper of a sheet be considered a wall or the rhythmic beeping of an EKG considered easy listening music? Besides coming up with where he is, Elliot is completely in the dark about his circumstances. He looks at the crying women, and notes that her tears make little rivers in her heavy face makeup. He wonders if she’s his mother.
“Elliot?” she asks. He opens both eyes. The waterworks begin again, but quieter and more in control. Elliot thinks that if cries were instruments, her’s would be a trombone. Or a french horn. Definitely not the ideal harp or flute. Elliot wonders why he knows so much about band instruments. Of course, you and I know that it’s because he was a music teacher at a small, local middle school before his accident. Elliot doesn’t remember that, or it’s buried so deep in his subconscious that he wouldn’t be able to access it without dozens of those prompting questions therapists lust over.
While Elliot mulls over his seemingly irrelevant knowledge of music, the women in the room, who is most definitely not his mother, presses the little red button near the foot of his bed.
Callie is glad that her pager beeped, interrupting her fight with her fiance. He wants kids, she doesn’t. She really really doesn’t. And this seems like it will be a big enough deal to call it quits, but they won’t, not yet. Seven years and zero kids later, Callie will leave Joseph to live with her sister, in San Antonio. But neither of them know that yet, although I think that they both have an inkling that their marriage will end in an anticlimactic poof, a sort of bomb with not enough explosive.
Callie checks her pager. It’s room 205. Her hopes soar. She wonders if he’s awake again. She walks into the room Elliot shares with the old man who snores too loudly. She notes that he’s awake once again. Dazed and confused, but awake. It goes just like the last time and the time before that. Callie brings him water, which he guzzles.
“Why am I here?” Elliot asks. His voice sounds weird to him. Older. He resolves that it’s because he just woke up. We know that it’s because he really is older, around 13 years older than he remembers.
Callie looks over at the women to Elliot’s side. She’s a beautiful, middle aged women who is always here, always waiting for a good day. She feels sorry for her. Callie doesn’t think that she would stay faithful to a man who couldn’t remember her. The woman’s smile is plastered on fakely, but her eyes look weary and tired. Callie wonders if her days are really better when Elliot is awake. She looks so exhausted.
Elliot thinks that his question must have dissolved into thin air. The nurse isn’t answering him. His mother (?) isn’t answering him. They seem to be engaged in an intense staring competition or something. Finally, the nurse sighs and tells Elliot, “This is going to be shocking to you.” Elliot rubs his eyes and sits up. He thinks about the book he just finished a month ago ( well, around thirteen years and four month ago) about how cancer is on the rise, and related to a bunch of weird stuff, like fish consumption.
“Is it cancer?” Elliot asks. He loves salmon.
“No,” replies Callie. She looks at Elliot’s wife, who begins her well rehearsed speech. Because, why change it? It’s not like Elliot will remember it.
She takes a deep breath. “Elliot, this is going to be hard for you to hear.” She knows this because she’s told him upward of a hundred times. “Thirteen years, three months and five days ago, we got into a car accident. A truck rear-ended us. I broke three of my ribs and my collarbone, and I got part of my left leg amputated.” She lifts up the hem of her loose, tailored pants and reveals her prosthetic. “And, um, you went into a coma. You didn’t wake up for around a year and a half, but then, one day, you did. I was ecstatic. But then, three days later, you went back into the coma. And three months later, you woke up for a couple of hours… but you always go back down.”
“What?” Asks Elliot, his voice barely a whisper. Callie has to look away. His face is so devastated, so crushed. His wife’s face isn’t any better.
“Oh, my God. Oh my God!” His face crumples in recognition. “Julie?”
His wife nods.
“And you just… stay here? To wait for me to wake up?” Elliot isn’t sure if he’s more upset about his condition or that Julie’s life has been paused for thirteen years. Thirteen years!
“No,” Julie whispers. “I mean, I come by everyday after work and on the weekends, but I don’t spend all of my time here.”
“Jules,” Elliot says, a tear running down his face, “When was the last time you went out?”
Julie wipes a renegade tear off her cheek. ” Lauren’s wedding. Three years ago.”
“Lauren got married?” Elliot asks, his voice hollow. The last memory he has of Lauren is helping her with her PreCalc homework junior year.
“Jack’s a great guy. ” Julie assures him. “You met him and absolutely loved him.” Elliot takes a shallow breath. Julie knows what’s coming next. It’s the most heartbreaking part.
“You have to leave me, Julie. You need to make your own life. “
“I… I can’t!”
“Yes, you can. You need to leave me, right now. I love you, but you need to create your own life.”
Julie nods. “Just one last visit?” She asks. He nods, and they play cards and talk and cry and four hours, seventeen minutes later, Elliot starts to feel drowsy.
“Do you promise, Julie?” He asks with his last ounce of energy. She nods, unable to make a promise she won’t keep. As he drifts off to sleep, she presses the paging button, and Callie comes back in. She left before they talked, like normal. She smiles at Elliot’s wife, who is a puddle of tears, just like every other time.
“Did he ask again?” Callie asks. His wife nods.
“Why don’t you ever take him up on it?” She shrugs.
Three weeks, two days and nine hours later, Elliot wakes up. And he sees an older women in his room, crying.