After dinner, Brenda played barber, trying to even out my hair. It would do until it grew back in.
Later, with Richard safely holed up in his study and Brenda off to her meditation class, I sat alone in the spacious, well-lit dining room. The large manila envelope Brenda had given me sat before me on the polished oak table. The return address read: Brain Injury Association of Buffalo. That in itself sounded life-altering. Swallowing my fear, I tore open the flap, spilling the contents across the table.
Most of the brochures heralded the virtues of long-term care for family members suffering severe head injuries or strokes. Only a family with Richard’s financial resources or fantastic insurance could afford those medical wonder-palaces.
Was Brenda trying to shame me into counting my blessings? No, she wasn’t petty. Besides, thoughts like that painted me as a prime example of the self-centered personality changes indicated in one of the booklets.
After skimming the material, I was grateful I’d emerged from the mugging mostly intact. Still, two punks had taken my life—maybe my independence—from me. So what if it wasn’t much of a life. It was a comfortable rut that, with the new job, just might’ve gotten better. The possibility that I might never again work in any kind of meaningful profession terrified me.
A little blue booklet caught my eye: a ‘How-to-Handle’ manual for families of the brain injured. As I skimmed it, the things that seemed to apply to me practically jumped off the page. Yes, I was irritable and overly emotional, as proved by my refusal to stay in the room Brenda had fixed for me. I was afraid of being permanently dependent on Richard. What if he tired of me? Where else could I go? How would I live until I could work again?
Sorting the pamphlets according to size, I set them in orderly piles and deposited them back in the envelope.
Aha, denial! Just as the manual predicted.
No, damn it. I had a choice—to just sit back and let life happen to me, or take my best shot at rebuilding a life. It would never be the same, but maybe that was for the best. The past five years held few memories worth taking out and polishing fondly anyway.
I stood too quickly, my vision suddenly dimming.
A spiraling abyss sucked me in—sickening me, shattering my new-found resolve.
The deer hung before my wide-awake eyes, swaying slightly in some unfelt breeze, its tawny hair catching the incandescent light from the lone bulb that lit the room. The cloying smell of sweet blood filled my nostrils. Then a voice in slow-mo repeated like a mantra, “Youprickyouprickyouprick—”
The chandelier’s bright light was back.
I swallowed, nearly falling into my chair again. The muscles in my arms quivered in reaction. Moon-shaped grooves marred my palms where my fingernails had dug in.
If the dream could overtake me during my waking hours, I could be doomed to a life in the places described in the pamphlets I’d so cavalierly discarded only moments before.