While I was being told about my condition, with my brother and Nina looking on, the only thing I could concentrate on was the clicking inside my head. That wasn’t unusual in cases such as mine, the doctor assured me when he heard my complaint. Neither was my nausea or the pain in my neck or the swelling in my face or the fact that my fingers were numb. But look at all I’d escaped! Pulmonary edema, tympanic membrane rupture — deafness brought on by sound and shock — thermal burns from ignited clothing, serious vascular effects, heart attack, cataracts, lesions on the brain, the eye, the skin.
I had been unconscious for thirty-two hours, hence the IV in my arm. Naturally things were fuzzy. Of course, my brother and Nina looked concerned. And so I didn’t mention anything when the nurse came in with a dinner tray. I didn’t say a word when I noticed that the Jell-O I was being offered was the color of stones. The nurse herself, not more than twenty-five, appeared to have long white hair. The flowers my brother and his wife had brought me seemed dusted with snow. I understood then. I had completely lost the color red. Whatever had once been red was now cloudy and pale. All I saw was ice; all I felt was the cold of my own ruined self. Perhaps I had an ocular reaction to the heat of the strike — vitreous hemorrhage was one of the many potential effects on the eye, along with corneal scratches and cataracts. Why the absence of a color would affect me so deeply, I had no idea, but I suddenly felt completely bereft. I had lost something before I’d known its worth, and now it was too late.
I stayed in the hospital for nearly two weeks. I didn’t see much of my brother, but Nina went daily to my house to feed Giselle. When I was finally allowed out, still using a walker because of the weakness on my left side, Nina picked me up and drove me home. I saw that my sister-in-law had also stocked my refrigerator. I think she may have vacuumed. I understood why my brother had been drawn to her. Nina was logical, a great believer in order, and like my brother, she was not a fan of emotions. She stood there and wrung her hands while I sat on the couch and wept.