Every New Year by Brenda L. Thomas

Author:Brenda L. Thomas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pocket Star Books

CHAPTER 6

Stroke of Midnight

New Year’s Eve

I still didn’t have a working television but Nurse Rita had placed a clock radio in my room. When I woke up, the voice of the woman discussing relationships sounded familiar, so I figured this must be a station that I listen to regularly. Then I remembered the tape recorder and nearly fell out of the bed reaching for it.

I also remembered that sometime during the night I’d woken up from a nightmare of being caught in a shooting. In the dream there was blood dripping from my face and I could see the window of a Dollar Tree store. There had also been a bedroom, possibly my bedroom, but when I’d opened my eyes it had been unclear as to where I was. Where were my magazines and my scrubs that usually littered the chair in my room? And where was the man whose hat sat on my dresser? But what part of this nightmare was reality and what part was a dream? Confused, I’d drifted back to sleep.

Before I could listen to the tape, Nurse Rita came in with my late breakfast tray. She asked me if I wanted to listen to what was on the tape but I pulled it from her hands. I wanted to be the first one to listen to whatever I’d said overnight because right now I was caught up in who I’d been and who I was right now.

All day I held on to the tape, afraid to listen. The only thing that kept me sane was the sweet humming of Nurse Rita in the hallway. I’d become accustomed to it. The peculiar thing, though, was that I hadn’t seen Dr. Strohmile all day. When I’d asked Nurse Rita where he was, she’d said he’d taken the day off to celebrate. That left me feeling more empty than I already was. Where was I supposed to have been on New Year’s Eve? I had had somewhere to go, which was probably why I had a driver. But I didn’t know what that destination had been or whom it had been with. What if someone was somewhere waiting for me?

Finally, I decided to listen to the tape. But there was nothing there—at least nothing I could make any sense of. A lot of mumbo jumbo about patients and penises.

I hadn’t eaten much during the day, and just as I began to fall back off to sleep, I smelled a man enter my room. I turned over, anticipating Dr. Strohmile, and there he was wearing a tux underneath his lab coat.

“I wanted to come check on you to see if you’d made any progress with the tape.”

I wanted to tell him that I’d begun to remember some things. But I wasn’t sure if that meant he’d leave or he’d stay, and I wanted him to stay so very badly.

“No, nothing. So you can leave and bring in your New Year’s with whoever is waiting for you.”

“I see you’re not in a good mood tonight.

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