Forget-Me-Not: Chapter Four
Finally the doctor decided that he was in passable health and left him alone for the time being. The nurses all departed, as well, blessed be.
Finally, he was left alone with his wife.
She pulled up the visitor’s chair beside his bed once more and sat. Her long sheets of auburn hair swung forward as she did so and he noticed that the ends were perfectly curled.
He noticed other bits of her outfit, as well; her blue shirt beneath the white crop jacket. And when she folded her hands nervously in her lap, he noticed that she was wearing a wedding band; gold, and a giant diamond engagement ring to match.
Those were his rings, on her finger.
He gulped.
“Hey, stranger.” He murmured huskily. He realized how stupid he sounded the minute he said it, but he honestly couldn’t think of anything else to say. He supposed he had the excuse of being recently brain damaged.
The beautiful redheaded angel that was his wife gave him a thin smile as a reward. “Hey, honey. How you feelin’?”
He cleared his throat, then coughed weakly before he was even able to answer.
She immediately got up and went over to the little sink in the room to fetch him a glass of water.
He watched her with keen interest. She returned to sit on the edge of his bed now and she cradled the back of his head to support it as she helped him sip the cool water. His throat was incredibly parched and that was something that the IV drip pumping fluids into him couldn’t help with.
“Thank you.” He murmured, and she gave him another one of her small, sad little smiles as she set the water aside.
“So...how long have we been married?” He asked her in his helplessly raspy voice.
This got the smile that flickered across her face to hold some genuine warmth within it now. “Almost four years. And-and we’ve only known each other...for about as long.” She blushed a little when she admitted this and the rosy blush that brightened her porcelain cheeks only made her appear all the prettier to him.
So they were a fairly young couple.
Though four years seemed like a long time to him, at least to be in a relationship. And it certainly compounded into a lot of memories that were no longer his.
He blinked hard as a wave of dizziness rolled over him.
A look of concern crossed her face then and she leaned forward to place her hand gently on his shoulder, one of the few uninjured spots on his body.
“Are you okay? Sorry, I didn’t mean to overwhelm you. I-I should let you rest.” She murmured in her sweet little voice.
He blinked again and his vision cleared, though strangely he now found himself slightly out of breath.
“Yeah, no, I’m fine. Mina.” He said her name deliberately because he was already starting to slip up on it a little in his mind - Maria? Nina?
“Please...don’t go. Stay with me?”
She gulped audibly and then nodded with such earnestness that he felt a little bad for her and he didn’t even understand why. She shifted over to resume sitting in the chair beside his bed and he smiled when he realized that she was still holding his hand.