Lenny awoke. He was not sure how long he slept, but he knew that his time for sleeping was now over. His throat felt better if still a little raw, like something had raked across his esophagus and larynx, or at least that is what Lenny thought was hidden down his throat. Now that he could think about it, he was not so sure of all the organs in his throat or in his body. He would just have to accept that his throat felt raw and not try to think of what caused it. His tiredness did not vanish, but he was able to put it to one side to concentrate on where he was and what he was doing there.

The memories came back slowly. He checked his clothing and saw that he was only wearing a hospital gown. He felt the warm sheets on his naked buttocks. He put aside the thoughts of how he relieved himself the past few—again, he ran into a roadblock when he tried to figure out how many days he slept. Whatever it was, it had been too long. He remembered visitors, he remembered Samantha’s sweet voice, Jake’s grouchy, smoky voice, his aunt’s aged but still melodious voice. All of the voices seemed to merge in his memory into single deep voice that whispered things in his ear. He tried to remember what was whispered, but nothing came back.

Samantha peeked her head into the room. Lenny tried to lift his hand to wave at her to come in, but he could not get his hand from under the sheets. When did hospitals start using metal-grade sheets? Samantha did not need to see his gesture. She looked happy and pushed the door wide open and walked in. She wore a cotton white dress that hung on her frame. She looked thinner than he remembered, but her face was still had the happy expression that he first fell in love with. “I’m glad that you’re awake now,” Samantha said. She sat next to the bed on a chair Lenny did not at first notice. It was difficult for him to move his head. He spun his eyes as far in his sockets as they would go to watch Samantha.

“Don’t try to talk, Lenny. It’s been a rough week for you. The doctors think you had some sort of stroke, but they’re not sure. They’re still running tests. Your brain is working fine now, but they were concerned. I was really concerned about you, Lenny. You have to promise to never do this to me again,” Samantha said.

Lenny tried to talk but he found his mouth too dry to say anything. His cheeks felt like cardboard when he rubbed his tongue along them. He cleared his throat and felt phlegm building in his chest. He tried to pull up the phlegm, but he did not have the strength. Samantha reached over to help Lenny turn on his side so he could cough more easily.

“I’ll get some water,” Samantha said. She returned a few minutes later with a cup and straw. She elevated the head of his bed with a button that Lenny could not see and he drank from the cup. The cold liquid hurt his mouth. His teeth ached and he felt skin peeling upward as the water lubricated the skin in his mouth. The pain was horrible, but he fought through it and swallowed. The water in his mouth was bad, but the water in his throat was worse. He searched and found blackness instead of facing it.

***

The sun shone through the hospital window when Lenny woke up. His body still felt weak, but he was able to swallow and breathe more normally. Samantha was sitting on the chair next to his bed reading a book.

“Samantha,” Lenny said. His voice sounded strange to him, almost like a sound he had not heard in a while. He laughed at the thought and surprised himself with the strength of his laugh. It felt good to bring the sound from deep within him to the surface again.

“Oh, you’re awake again, Lenny. This time you should try to stay awake for at least fifteen minutes. I thought you were going to join the conscious crowd yesterday when you woke up then, but I can wait another day. How are you feeling?” Samantha said.

“Better, Samantha. I feel a little of my strength returning. What happened?” Lenny said.

“That’s the million dollar question. We’re not sure. You sort of freaked out on us and the cops found you passed out in front of a movie theater. We were hoping you’d have a better idea of what happened. The doctor said he was going to stop by to discuss it later,” Samantha said.

Lenny thought about the sweater. This all had something to do with the sweater. He squinted his eyes to see Samantha better—she was fuzzy without his glasses—but could not make anything out. He was not sure why he was even looking at her or what he hoped to see. “The sweater?” Lenny said. He needed to know.

“Which sweater?” Samantha said. He was not sure, but Lenny thought she looked a little puzzled by his question. Surely she could not forget the last few weeks. The memories were slowly trickling into his mind, but first and foremost, he remembered everything the sweater had given him and who tried to take it away. He knew Samantha was one of those, but he decided to put aside the thought. He knew when you were sick, sometimes the brain played tricks on you. Lenny decided to wait until he had a chance to do some serious thinking before he could decide whether Samantha had been after the sweater.

“You should get some rest,” Samantha said.

“Tell me. What happened to the sweater I was wearing,” Lenny said.

“Oh, that old thing? I tossed it when the paramedics gave me all of your old clothes. They had to cut it open to get the electrodes on your chest. They feared your heart would give out. Your aunt was okay with me throwing it away. She said she could make you another one, although with her disability after her sickness, I’m not sure she’ll be knitting anytime soon. We’ll go shopping when you get better. Had I known you liked pink so much, I would have bought you many more pink clothing before,” Samantha said.

It took Lenny many more months of rehabilitation to get back his physical senses. He knew he had not lost them, just that they had been partially blocked during his weeks of inactivity. He quietly asked everyone questions about what happened during the last few weeks, but none of the answers matched his recollections. He began thinking that perhaps everyone else’s version of the truth was the true record of what happened.

Lenny knocked on his aunt’s door and her caretaker answered. He was a tall man and dressed up for his role. Most nurses Lenny had seen dressed in scrubs or casual clothing. Only this man, his aunt called him Todd, dressed in a three-piece suit. Todd stood aside and let Lenny enter. He did not greet him or ask him how his day was. He was European, and small talk seemed lost on him. He always looked as if he had more important things to do or more important places to go. Lenny was never sure which one.

He found his aunt sitting on a rocking chair in the living room facing through her porch doors to the ocean. She held a cup of tea in her ruined hands and rocked softly back and forth. Her feet were bare and she wore a thick, linen bathrobe that covered up whatever clothes she wore underneath. Lenny heard her hum, but could not make out the tune.

“Aunt Elaine, how are you doing today?” Lenny said. He waited in the doorway for her to acknowledge him. Todd slithered passed Lenny, seemingly growing thinner to fit between Lenny and the doorframe. Todd took a seat on the leather recliner in the corner. He lifted a book and looked away from both Lenny and his aunt.

“Eh? Oh, Lenny, it’s you. I am doing well, thank you very much. I was just drinking my tea and trying to reconcile my childhood. It’s hard to remember things as well as I used to, and I have so many stories I wanted to tell my grandchildren before I forgot them. It is getting late,” his aunt said.

“You don’t have grandchildren, Aunt Elaine. Just your ungrateful nieces and nephews,” Lenny said. The deterioration in his aunt’s mind astonished Lenny. He knew his own mind had not come back fully yet, but to watch her struggle with even the most basic of memories brought a great sadness to Lenny. Her stories were always something he looked forward to. It was not her storytelling that he loved so much, it was, instead, the lessons she learned from her own stories. She would discuss the moral implications of her decisions or her family’s decision and how she had grown (or not grown) as a result of what happened. Lenny’s moral guidance and character grew with each tale, and he believed that at least half of his desire to improve himself came form his aunt’s teaching.

“Oh yes, kiddo. I meant nephews and nieces, of course. It’s sometimes hard to recall the difference. But don’t listen to me—it’s hard to put all the pieces together, if you know what I mean. Humpty-dumpty and all of his walls,” his aunt said.

“You told me you were going to knit a new sweater. Have you gotten around to that? I really loved the other sweater you made for me,” Lenny said. Lenny watched for the reaction of the caretaker, but there was no reaction. He remained seated and reading a hardcover book. Lenny could not make out the title on the cover, but he would swear that the man was not reading. He did not turn the page and his head did not move. He wore dark glasses, and Lenny was not able to judge his eye movements, but either way, the man looked like he was paying very close concentration to their conversation.

“A new sweater? Heavens no, kiddo. I never learned to knit. Or did I? It’s so hard to remember all the details. It just doesn’t sound much like me, this knitting thing,” Aunt Elaine said.

“It’s okay, Aunt Elaine. I understand. Why don’t you tell me another story about your family. I love hearing those,” Lenny said.

“Oh my. I’d like that, but I’m not sure I can,” Aunt Elaine said. She stopped rocking in the chair and brought her hands up to her head. She tried to rub her eyes, but she could not position her hands in a good position. She settled for rubbing her eyes with her wrist.

“What if I tell you one, Aunt Elaine. I remember many stories you told me during my childhood,” Lenny said.

“That would be lovely,” his aunt said. She stopped rubbing and starting rocking again, still staring out her window toward the setting sun.

“In a village in a different town, in a different country, in a different part of the world, there lived a young woman named Yeanda. If we went back far enough in your family, we would find that she was related as a great aunt many times removed. She grew up a normal woman for those parts, which meant obeying her parents and learning the trades necessary to be a good wife, cooking, mending, skinning. Her family loved her and the townspeople and the children of the town found her insights into their world exceptionally charming, especially for on as young as her,” Lenny said.

“That charm, however, did not last as Yeanda grew older. On her thirteenth birthday, Yeanda predicted the death of the family’s young cow,” Lenny said.

Word count: 2,015

Words left: 2,005

Caffeination: tall (milk) mocha

Feeling: Relaxed and excited about my future prospects, like my fortune in a cookie that I think belongs to only to me, but is found on thousands of tables