the Gaslight Journal (2010) by Rene Carla

Author:Rene, Carla [Carla, Rene,]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Feedbooks
Published: 2010-06-11T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

Was It All A Dream?

Was it All a Dream? (Chapter Sixteen)

Three days later, Lilly awoke in a hospital bed surrounded by a doctor and several nurses. It was the doctor who spoke first.

“Well. There you are. Welcome back. I was beginning to wonder if you were going to just snooze until Christmas.”

Lilly, still bleary from the Laudanum they were giving her for pain, could not figure out why everyone in the room was chuckling. Had she missed something? Very hoarse from the medications, she could hear herself say she was hungry, but she was not even sure it was her doing the talking. She felt very disconnected from herself, and truly could not even remember what had happened or how she got there.

“Being hungry is a good sign,” said her most handsome doctor. “But I would rather you wait a few more hours, to see if you can keep simple liquids down. Will you do that for me, please?”

Lilly nodded.

The doctor smiled at her, nodded to the nurses, and began to leave the room.

Lilly stopped him. “Doctor Davis, will you tell me how I got here?”

He swung back around to face her. “You mean you do not remember at all?”

She shook her head. “Should I be concerned?”

“Not at all. Sometimes with traumatic events, the person will block it out and not remember anything about it until their bodies are ready to remember, and then when it is time, the memory returns on its own.”

“But will you tell me, doctor?”

He hesitated. “Are you not sure that you want to just wait and remember when you are meant to?”

“No, I am fairly certain I want to know now. Do you know what happened to me?”

“Mrs. Audley, yes, I was informed when they brought you in, but as your doctor, I do not think it prudent to push the memory of such a traumatic event before you are physically and emotionally capable of handling it. You are a smart enough nurse to know that it was obviously some kind of trauma that put you here.”

Lilly did know this much. But she was trying so hard to grasp that illusive shadow of something tragic, just out of her reach, and getting frustrated each time she was unable to see it.

Dr. Davis saw her duress and said, “Mrs. Audley, trust me. You will remember when you are meant to. But right now, I need you not to push yourself and rest. Rest is the best thing for you. Let your body recover, all right?”

Lilly nodded, and as the medical team left her room, one of the nurses, an old colleague of Lilly’s, stayed behind and brought Lilly a pitcher of cool water. “I want you to sip this very slowly, and let one of us know if you feel as if you are going to be ill. I will return in a bit to check on you. Rest.”

Lilly was glad of the water to sip, but she could not quiet the growling of her empty stomach.

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