LITMIR.BIZ

      “You’re drunk,” Lizzie said, not happy about this at all. Well, maybe not downright drunk so much as a little tipsy. But it would be the same once Janis found out.

      After their wade in the ocean Mateo had decided to go back and join the partiers.

      “That’s why I’m taking you in the back door of Makalapua. Because if we go in the front, I’ll lose my job.”

      Actually, she wouldn’t. She was the primary care physician there and that brought some clout with it. And the patients weren’t prisoners. Doing what Mateo had done, while not advisable, wasn’t illegal, and in the hospital not even punishable. His condition wasn’t physical. He was on no medications that had any bearing on the beers he’d consumed. So nothing precluded alcohol.

      Lizzie recalled the evenings when her dad had been a patient here, and she’d taken him to The Shack for tropical drink. He’d loved that. When he was lucid, he’d claimed it made him feel normal. But he hadn’t been on the verge of being sent elsewhere, the way Mateo was.

      Still, there was no reason for Mateo to make a spectacle of himself—which he had done after three craft beers. He’d danced. On a table. With a waitress.

      She’d turned her back to order herself another lemonade, and when she’d turned around there he’d been, doing everything a head trauma patient shouldn’t do. And he’d refused to stop when she’d asked him to get off the table. It was almost like he was trying to get himself kicked out of his spot at the hospital.

      It had taken two strong wahines he’e nalu—surfer women—to pull him down for her, and by that time he’d been so unsteady he hadn’t even been able to take ten steps back without zigging and zagging. And there she’d been, looking like a total idiot, trying to get the man who’d become the life of the party to quit.

      Well, in another day she’d have two whole weeks to sleep, swim, and forget about her patients, her obligations…and Mateo. Except he worried her. After having such a nice chat with him… Well, she wasn’t sure what she’d hoped for, but this wasn’t it.

      “Not drunk. Just pleasantly mellow. And I’ll take responsibility for my actions,” he said, slumping in the wheelchair one of The Shack patrons had run back to the hospital and retrieved for her.

      “You bet you will—because what you did is way out of line and I’m not going to get myself into trouble because you can’t control yourself.”

      “Meaning you’re going to report me?

      “Meaning I’m going to make a note in your chart. You’re already close to the edge, Mateo, and you know that. Depending on what kind of mood Janis is in when she reads what I’m about to write, there’s a strong likelihood she’ll have you transferred. You know the policy.”

      “Yeah…one month to show I’m working, eight weeks to show progress. Well, isn’t dancing progress?”

      “I was trying to be nice by giving you a little time away from the hospital, but you turned it into a mess. And while dancing may show some sort of progress…on a table? With a waitress?”

      “You’re sounding a little jealous, Lizzie. I’d have asked you to dance, but, well…all work, no play. You’d have turned me down.”

      Yes, she would have. But was he right about her jealousy? Not over the other woman, but over taking the chance to have a little fun. She was all work, wasn’t she? Maybe all these years of no play had caught up to her and she didn’t know how to have fun. Or maybe “Daddy’s little soldier,” as he’d used to call her, had never known what fun was.

      Lizzie pushed Mateo’s wheelchair up a side hall, through the corridor behind the kitchen, then through the physical therapy storage area. Finally, when they came to the hall that led to his room, Lizzie stopped, looked around, then gave his chair a shove and stood there watching him roll away while she did nothing to stop him.

      It took Mateo several seconds to realize she wasn’t controlling him, and by the time he’d taken hold of the chair wheels he was sitting in the middle of the hall, too woozy to push himself past the two rooms before his.

      “Why are you doing this to me?” he asked, managing to move himself along, but very slowly.

      “That’s the same question I was asking just a little while ago,” she said, walking behind him. “Why are you putting me in this position?”

      “Maybe there’s something wrong with my amygdala or even my anterior cingulate cortex. You know—the areas that affect impulse control and decision-making.”

      “Your brain is fine. I’ve seen enough CTs of it to know there’s nothing wrong. The blood clot was removed successfully. No other bruising or swelling present. No tumors. No unexplained shadows. So you’ve got no physical excuse for the way you act.”

      When they came to the door to his room Mateo maneuvered to turn in, didn’t make it, backed away, and tried again, this time scraping the frame as he entered.

      “I wasn’t aware I was putting you in any kind of bad position,” he said, stopping short of the bed and not trying to get out of his chair.

      “Seriously? You don’t work, you don’t cooperate with the nurses, you refuse to go to your cognitive therapy sessions most of the time, and when you do go you don’t stay long. You’ve recovered from a traumatic brain injury and you’re battling retrograde amnesia, Mateo, in case you’ve forgotten. Then you get drunk and dance on a table. All that puts me in a very difficult position.”

      She had no idea if he was even listening to her. His eyes were staring out of the window and there was no expression on his face to tell her anything.

      “Look, I like you. And I know you’re in a tough spot—you look normal, but you’re not normal enough to get back to your old life.”

      “My old life?” he said finally, and his voice was starting to fill with anger. “You mean the one where I was a surgeon one minute and then, in the blink of an eye, a surgeon’s patient? Is that what you’re calling ‘a tough spot?’ And don’t tell me how I’m working my way through the five stages of grief and I’m stuck on anger, because I damn well know that. What I don’t know is what happened to me, or why, or what I was doing prior to the accident, or anything I did last year. And I’d say that’s a hell of a lot more than a tough spot.”

      He shook his head, but still didn’t turn to face her.

      “I’m sorry if I got you in trouble. That wasn’t my intention. Being a bad patient isn’t my intention either. But when you don’t know…” He swallowed hard. “When you don’t know who you are anymore, strange things happen in your mind. Maybe you were this…maybe you were that. Maybe you’re not even close to who you were. I have a lot of memories, Lizzie, and I’m thankful for that. But sometimes, when I’m confronted with something I should know, and it’s not there…”

      “It scares you?”

      “To death.”

      “My dad… I lived for three years with him, watching him go through that same tough spot and never returning from it. His life was taken from him in bits and pieces until there were more gaps than memories—and he knew that. At least until he didn’t know anything anymore. He didn’t have the option of moving on, starting over in a life that, while it wasn’t his, was still a good life. There’s going to come a time when you must move on with whatever you have left and be glad you have that option. Some people don’t.”

      She walked over to him, laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder,

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