The Man Next Door
(Part 26)
Selene had gotten past the initial shock of being in the hospital and not knowing why. She had even come to grips with her injuries but what she could not figure out was who she was and who the man sleeping in the chair beside the bed was. She stared at Micky from the bed for a long time trying to figure out who he was or if his presence offered any clues to who she was or why she was there. She knew that it was awful of her to think but she was worried about whether or not she'd have to go home with the man next to her. She couldn't fathom in her current state of mind that she'd have anything to do with someone his age. He looked considerably older than her. The thought of him being her father had crossed her mind but he looked nothing like her and just didn't have a fatherly quality about him.
She spotted the papers lying on the table near the bed. They were the papers Micky had signed last night in the ER and brought back to the room with him. He hadn't bothered to read them too carefully up to that point and they had landed on the table to be picked up later.
Selene picked them up although reaching for them was painful. On the first sheet, she saw the patient sheet detailing injuries and treatment.
"A gunshot wound and a broken arm. My God, who am I and what in the world was I doing!" Selene thought to herself.
"Selene McHannoy-Dolenz" She pondered as she read the name on the paper under "patient." The injuries matched so the name had to match. She continued reading through the papers until she found another name. "George M. Dolenz." And a California address. Something about this didn't add up. The hospital address was an Arizona address but her home address was listed as California and to top it all off, this "George M. Dolenz" who was listed as the insurance policy holder was also the person who had signed off on the bottom of the paper. Selene couldn't fathom that she had married the much older man who was still sleeping in the chair beside her. She then noticed a wedding band on his left hand. Whenever she looked at her own left hand, she was at first relieved that there was no wedding band but she saw the tan line where a ring had been on her left hand. She knew then that she was probably married to the man in the chair. Her last name matched his, there were wedding rings and he was still there. She wondered what in the world she had done with her life up to this point and sank back down into the bed to think about it. Nearly a half hour had passed. Selene found herself getting more uncomfortable by the minute and having to move the bed into a sitting position. The bed its self was uncomfortable along with the pain that she'd been experiencing from the knocks she'd taken the night before back at the hotel.
Micky was awakened by the sound of the bed moving up into a sitting position. Out of instinct that he hadn't had in a while, he tried to rise from the chair by default and walk toward Selene's bed but quickly realized that his legs wouldn't work and that he'd have to transfer into the wheelchair in order to get closer.
"I'm coming, honey." Micky said sweetly to her as he pulled the wheelchair into the proper position to transfer into it.
'Stay there." She said calmly but bluntly to him from the bed. "Please." She added.
This caught him as kind of odd but he obliged without question with the knowledge that the medication she was given the night before could be having some lingering adverse effects on her mood.
"What happened?" She asked him ever so calmly, trying to not let him know that she had seemingly lost her memory for the moment.
"Selene, honey, some bad things happened last night but you'll be alright now. Trevor's been taken into custody and you're safe.
"I know that, George, now tell me about this." She said indicating her broken left arm.
"George?" He thought to himself. "What the heck?" he almost said aloud but then continued without missing a beat.
"Well, we were looking at this house down here in Phoenix and I had met the Realtor at the hotel. While I was gone, Trevor came, held you hostage, broke your arm and then I shot him. A bullet grazed your other arm and that's how you got here. They loaded you up on some high powered dope last night and that brings us up to now." He said, still thinking about the "George" remark.
Selene listened intently on what he had to say comparing every bit of it with her injuries to make sure everything added up. She also then realized that not only did she marry someone much older than her but that her husband apparently needed the assistance of a wheelchair to get around and she wondered even more what she had done before this accident and particularly how she could be happy with this since she would probably be going home with this man.
"Are you alright, love?" Micky said, noticing that she had temporarily zoned out.
"Yeah, just thinking about some food." She said through a fake little smile. She really was not feeling like eating at all and really didn't know why she said that.
"You don't have any eating restrictions. I'll go find you a cheeseburger and onion rings and a Coke." Micky told her as he moved toward the bed, scooped up her right hand and kissed it.
"Oh, and here are these, baby." He said as he pulled her wedding rings out of his pocket and handed them to her.
"Be back later, love ya." He said as he left the room.
"Well, he seems nice enough." She said to herself after he was gone. A little hyped up but sweet. Almost in a way that was wrong for his age. He was like a younger person trapped in an older person's broken body. He couldn't have always been this way. She just knew that she had known him prior to whatever had left him in this state of being and perhaps before he grew out that awful mop of hair that was frizzing everywhere and looked so frightful.
"Cheeseburgers, onion rings and Coke?" She repeated aloud twice and then looked at herself wondering if these were her favorites, how she maintained such a slim figure. She then realized that those items did sound extremely appealing to her. "Ok, he knows just what I like." She said.
And then there were the wedding rings she was still holding in her hand from when he put them there. She took them out of the bag and looked at them. They were beautiful. "He paid a bundle for these. Either that or he stole it." She said, somewhat smirking at that thought. After examining the rings it became obvious to her that she may have only married him for his money rather than love. She was so confused about this whole thing.
"I suppose the only thing to do is talk with him or the nurse or somebody about it." She thought to herself as she rolled the wedding rings around in her hand.
She attempted to slip the ring on her left hand to see whether or not the ring fit as if perhaps it wasn't really her ring if it did not fit but she then quickly realized that her fingers were swelled to the point that they looked like little sausages sticking out of the cast. The portion of her hand that she could see looked awful. She set the extraordinary rings aside on the table beside the bed along with the papers that she had been looking at and switched on the television to a cartoon channel. King Of The Hill was on.
Micky returned to the hospital but instead of going directly back to Selene's room, he made a trip to the nurse's station to speak with the head RN.
"My wife, Selene is behaving strangely." Micky explained.
"What sort of strange?" The nurse asked him as she pulled up some papers from a file she had at her desk on Selene.
"Well, she acts kind of confused. She was surprised to see me this morning and she called me George." He told the nurse with some obvious concern.
"Well, looking at the papers it would appear that George is your name." The nurse said looking up at him over her reading glasses and placing emphasis on "is" whenever she spoke.
"Yes, I know what my name is on that paper but I don't usually use that name except for official stuff. She always used to call me Micky." He explained. "Never anything but Micky."
"Well, she did have a bump on her head and she was placed under observation for her head injury for 24 hours." The nurse indicated. "I could order an MRI and let the doctor come by a little later today but that's gonna push it over the limitation that your insurance will pay for." She said.
"That's fine, where are the papers. I'll pay out of pocket." He said as he sat the greasy paper bag that was filled with a burger and onion rings along with the 2 liter bottle of Coke on the nurse's station counter so that he could sign papers.
"That won't be necessary." The nurse told him. "We'll just bill you for it." She said as she eyeballed the greasy bag.
"I'm back, sweetheart!" Micky said as he entered the room. He found Selene watching television.
"Hey." She said calmly to him as he rolled around to the side of her bed and pushed the rolling hospital table in a position where she could access it.
"I got you a cheeseburger." He said as he took it out and sat it on the table along with the onion rings and then the big bottle of Coke. He poured some of the Coke into an insulated cup that the hospital had placed in Selene's room.
"Thanks." She said as she picked up the cheeseburger and somewhat reluctantly took a bite of it. It was the best thing she had tasted even though she still wasn't feeling hungry.
"Umm, George…" Selene started.
Micky interrupted. "Honey, why are you calling me George?" He asked.
She kept talking as though he hadn't even said anything. "When are they gonna let me go home?" She asked.
"Soon, love, very soon." He said to her placing his hand on her left shoulder. "And I'm going to take very good care of you until you're better." He added.
Selene had heard the "George" question but skipped over it intentionally. She had then realized that perhaps she might have been married to this guy and his name may in fact be George but that wasn't what he was used to her calling him. She couldn't remember anything about what she called him. She did notice that whenever he had returned to the room, that he had fixed his hair nicely. It was now slicked back into a neat, well kept pony tail. After seeing him fixed up, she didn't find him nearly so frightening. In fact, there was a certain charm left in him.
Micky sat with her while she ate some of the food. After a while, whenever she was finished he excused himself from the room telling her that he would return shortly.
What he really needed was some time to think about things and figure things out. He already realized that Selene must have sustained enough of a knock on the head to have resulted in some sort of memory loss. Hopefully temporary. He would have to discuss this with the doctor. Nothing had been mentioned of a head injury the previous night. If it was, perhaps he had missed it in the hustle and bustle of it all. He had managed to find a place alone in the back corner of a lounge at the end of the hallway to do this thinking and sorting.
As he sat there alone thinking about the present situation, he came to the harsh realization that Selene not only forgot who he was but she had probably forgotten her past life, everything they'd been through, all of the romance and happy times and probably their future plans not to mention her family and her life before him. He didn't know a whole lot about it but he didn't want her to be missing a chunk of her life if she wasn't able to fully regain her memory. His greatest fear was that she wouldn't be able to remember him and that she would no longer be in love with him. He couldn't bear the thought of not having his Selene back in her full mental capacity. "I've got to do what I can to help her get it all back." Micky said to himself while fighting the sting of tears.
Once composed, he searched out the doctor on call and discussed his wife's condition. It was determined that she had sustained enough of a knock on the head to result in amnesia but the doctor assured Micky that his wife would most likely make a full recovery and that everything would most likely come back to her.
"You've just got to take her back to her normal every day life and get her back into her normal every day routine. That's what makes people remember things and get past the mental block that amnesia creates." The doctor explained. This coming after an MRI.
"But what if she won't go home with me or something like that?" Micky asked, wanting to know about every possible outcome and welcoming any suggestion that might help.
"Well, she's your wife and the hospital can release her into your custody but that's about it. You will have to do the rest. We can recommend therapy and such but you really have your work cut out for you."
"Ok, thank you. Do you know when she can return home?" Micky asked.
"She should be discharged this afternoon." He replied.
Micky returned to Selene's hospital room where he found a nurse with discharge papers waiting for him.
"Mr. Dolenz?" She asked.
"Yes?"
"We're going to need your signature on these papers so that we can discharge your wife." She informed.
Micky complied, once again signing "George M. Dolenz" on the paper instead of "Micky" as Selene watched.
"Just so you understand, we're releasing her into your custody because of her mental condition. You're responsible for her." The nurse indicated to Micky. He nodded and handed back the paperwork.
"Ok, you're done. You can go home now." The nurse said as she exited the room.
"What did that mean?" Selene asked. "Released in your custody?" She questioned.
"Honey, they said you have temporary amnesia…since you can't remember anything, they told me to take you home, put you in your usual environment and let it all come back to you gradually." He said to her, realizing that she wasn't even sure that It was ok to go home with him and added "And everything will be ok."
Selene didn't say much on the car ride to the hotel. Micky had called ahead and made arrangements for their stuff to be taken to another room while the room they had previously been in was being cleaned up. He certainly didn't want to have to go back in there and get everything with Selene and possibly cause her to have some sort of mental breakdown before she had a chance to recover. He had seen her the night before and was just coming to grips with her mental state. It was almost as though he had watched her each and every memory drip out of her head as the events unfolded the night before. One traumatic event after the other until she was emptied of emotion and memories and a brain block went up blocking out everything.
"Why are we at a hotel? Please tell me we don't live here." Selene protested upon the cab's arrival.
"No sweety, we don't live here. In fact, I just purchased a house for us and we will be moving into it soon—or rather we will have our things moved into it." He explained to her.
"What kind of a house is it?" She asked him, seeming a little more interested in the idea of the house.
"Well, it's a nice southwestern style house here in Arizona, fully accessible and we bought it so that I could try and recover from this." He said indicating his legs and the wheelchair.
Selene looked at him oddly.
"What is it honey?" He asked.
"Could you…could you tell me what happened to you?" she asked and continued "I know I should remember it but I've been thinking about it and I don't remember you or a house or anything of the sort!" She said in near hysteria and near tears.
Micky gave her his immediate attention. That was one thing about him that she had noticed—he was very attentive to her. She liked that aspect of whatever kind of relationship they had. "Honey, it's alright. It's going to be alright. Everything will be ok." He said as he brushed a tear from her face with his thumb the same way he had done the night before. She reached up and took his hand in hers. "I'm sorry, George." She said looking down at his hand.
"You never called me George." He said then looked up at her with a smirk. "It's Micky." He told her. She looked a little shocked.
"Micky." She repeated. "I like it. Micky it is." She said as she got out of the cab and waited for Micky to get out of the cab. The two of them made their way up to their newly assigned hotel suite where they found their stuff. Selene was amazed all over again with the room and its extravagance. Once again the thought of her marriage to this man she now knew as "Micky" came to mind. Perhaps she had married better than she had first thought. He was sweet, he seemed to be in love with her and he had money but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't find it in her heart to love him back the way he loved her. She wondered if she seriously had married him for the money or if she had somehow taken advantage of his man with her young body and looks and managed to hook him.
"I'm not that kind of a person." She told herself.
"Please sit down." Micky said to her indicating the couch in the room.
Selene sat down, Micky followed and transferred out of the chair onto the couch so that he could sit with her. He took her right hand in his own hands.
"Ok, you asked what happened to me earlier. Here goes. Just bear in mind that this is difficult for me to talk about. You once knew how difficult it was, you helped me get through it the first time but explaining it might end up being like going through it all over again so just bear with me on this one. Ok?" He said.
"You don't really have to tell me what happened if it's that bad. It's ok, I was being rude by asking." Selene said, looking him in the eye.
The thought of his own wife thinking her questioning about her life was rude was absurd to him. "No, it's really alright love. You see, you're the reason I'm still here. I wouldn't have had the will to live if it wasn't for you being with me, taking care of me." He said with a very loving and sincere look on his face.
"Let me continue." He requested.
"I moved into the house next door to yours in California. I met you whenever you had a problem with your car. I fixed it for you, we talked and that was that. There were a few other times and you made me dinner, that kind of thing. Just kind neighborly stuff and then I realized that I wanted to see more of you. I hadn't known you too long prior to the accident." He paused.
"What kind of accident." Selene questioned.
"It was a car accident." Micky said recalling what he now remembered about his own ordeal which was much more than he cared to remember about it.
"A car accident caused this?" She asked indicating his present condition of paralysis.
"Yes." He said somberly. Remembering the days prior whenever his legs worked properly and would have allowed him to date Selene and pursue her the way a gentleman should pursue a lady...and do things to her that he could only now imagine.
"Ok, so the car rolled, I was thrown from it and ended up getting some pretty nasty spinal injuries that caused me to be paralyzed. I spent a couple of months in the hospital. You apparently heard the news on the radio about the accident and decided that you wanted to check up on me because I had made enough of an impression on you to care.
Selene listened to his story intently.
"Things got fuzzy for the next little while but I know you stayed at he hospital with me and only left to return to your house and mind to pay bills and bring me some of my stuff that I needed. You done everything for me while you were there. Took great care of me and then even brought me home after I was released."
"And then?" She asked, still listening intently and wondering how their relationship had developed.
"And then I returned home to my house beside yours. You had managed to take care of my house, take care of my bills, buy groceries and once I was home, you done everything you could to make the house accessible to me. It's a two story house and there were a few things that needed to be brought downstairs. You took care of that for me. You also prepared all of my meals for me, helped me buy a new car and really helped me get back on track emotionally. This thing took a huge emotional toll on me and it's still taking its toll. It's just been a lot easier since I met you."
"Where was your family?" She asked, realizing that not once had he mentioned anyone else in his life.
"My family doesn't live nearby. My ex was contacted but I'm told that she didn't even respond other than to say that she hoped it killed me. I lived alone in a big old house as a bachelor until you came along."
"I see. So when did we get serious?" Selene asked
"Whenever you started coming over to take care of me. I don't know what happened. I was attracted to you and didn't tell you, you were attracted to me and neither one of us wanted to tell the other one about our secret attraction until one day it just came out and we've been deeply in love with each other ever since and had lots of good times." Micky told her, this time smiling as he talked. She could see that he was sincerely happy about this part of his life.
"And we got married?" She said as more of a statement.
"Yes, back in the summer. I asked you to marry me in Pennsylvania whenever we went to visit David, Peter and Mike for a week." He replied.
"I don't mean to sound like such a bother or be so inquisitive about things but could you tell me about that?" She asked, somewhat embarrassed that she couldn't even remember how they got engaged.
"We went horseback riding with the guys and then we made you think that you were going out to some fancy place for dinner the night I proposed to you. David, Peter and Mike helped me make things work properly." He said, once again indicating his legs and the wheelchair. "And so we set you up to get in David's carriage with me at the reigns. I took you up to a lovely pond that was set ablaze by a fiery sunset where I parked the carriage after a nice ride through the Pennsylvania countryside and then managed to serenade you a little bit after which point, I managed to get down on one knee and asked you to be my wife. You accepted the proposal on the spot and we returned to David's house where we celebrated the event.
"That sounds so romantic." She said as she watched his expression as he re-lived the event.
"Selene, darling—it was the happiest day of my life next to the day we were married." He told her
"Tell me about our wedding." She requested, this time smiling as she asked and beginning to feel a bit more comfortable in the company of this older man.
"Well, we didn't exactly have a wedding my dear. We got married alone on a beach while we were on a vacation get away. You thought it would be a good idea to take a trip to the beach, I was still getting adjusted to being a half a man and was pretty depressed about it all and so we went to the beach. We had a wonderful time at the beach and I had this dream about where our wedding would be. As it turned out, there was an identical place at the beach and I just knew it was right. I arranged for a minister to marry us there, You were gorgeous, I was standing. You cried and nearly knocked me down whenever you saw me and we had a couple of pictures made and agreed that we'd have a public wedding at a later date whenever I could give you the wedding you really deserve. Big church, pretty dress, anything you want. Anything at all." He said.
"Wow. We had a private wedding and we're going to have a public one?" She said.
"Yes, that's right." He said, not wanting to tell her the straight of it all, that he was a celebrity and that there had already been tabloid publications about their life, his injuries and a few other things. He didn't think she was stable enough to handle it. Besides, he thought he had managed to tell her enough of the good stuff to make her trust him so that he could take her home. He wasn't sure how that was going to go since he was incapable of driving the car for long distances and he didn't want to ask her to drive unless she absolutely felt like doing it.
"So then after we returned from vacation, we decided to look for a house that was fully accessible, you sold your house next door to mine and moved in with me for the time being and that brings us to now. We had left California to look at this house that I ended up buying for us so we're going to be going back to California and then moving back to Phoenix once I hire the movers to do it." Micky explained.
"But what happened to me here? Who was the person who done this to me?" She asked.
"Selene, I really don't think we should get into that right now. I will tell you all about it whenever you've had time to settle down a little bit from the excitement. I don't want you to end up having some sort of a mental break down or something." He explained.
Selene's expression changed slightly. "A mental break down? I need to know these things!" She said, nearly beginning to cry. Her emotional state was not great at the moment. In fact, it was showing to be quite fragile.
Micky had planned on packing them up the next morning and going back to their home in California for a while even though he had taken care of the purchase of the home in Arizona. He could put off his own need to recuperate and rehabilitate for a while. It wasn't like anything was going to be lost. He had already made enough progress without all of the equipment that came with the house and he had decided that Selene's presence in his life was of more importance than his being able to walk again. With those thoughts, Micky moved closer to Selene placing his hand on the side of her cheek briefly.
"Selene" He paused and sighed. "You had a really traumatic experience and I just need to know that you're going to be alright when I do tell you about it." He said.
"You're right." She said.
Selene appeared tired and was starting to experience some pain from her broken arm again. Without having to be told, Micky brought her one of his Ibuprofen, not the Percocet that had been prescribed. She took it, thanked him and fell asleep on the couch.
Micky watched her sleep for a while. He was content to do that. He found a blanket from the suite guest room and put over her. The air conditioning in the room had made her skin feel cold to the touch. She looked like an angel sleeping. "My angel." He said not above a whisper then left the room to ready himself for bed. He had already decided that he would try sleeping in the chair that was adjacent to the couch so that if she needed anything, he'd be close and be able to attend to whatever the need was quickly. He also hadn't forgotten the times that he had woken up in the middle of the night and wondered if she would still be there only to find that she was somewhere else in the house doing some little thing to take care of him. He loved that about her. He wanted to do the same thing for her on some level where he was able.
Micky took another blanket from the bedroom but rather than moving out of his wheelchair to another chair in the room, he decided that he would just sleep in the wheelchair. He done just that. His sleep was peppered with vile dreams of the past events and woke him at least twice during the night. After the second time, he decided that sleeping was pointless so he made his way to the kitchen. It was already 5:45 AM anyway, he'd be awake soon enough anyway. He cracked open the fridge to see what was there. It had been stocked with various food items. This was a complimentary package offered by the hotel whenever you rented a suite. Micky ended up preparing a breakfast of eggs, tea and toast. It was small but he knew that Selene would appreciate it.
He approached Selene quietly and gently stroked her cheek. She had rolled over so that her back was facing him. When he saw her stir, he spoke into her ear.
"Good morning, sunshine!" and placed his hand on her left arm touching the tips of her fingers with his and loosely holding her hand.
She rolled over and opened her eyes. He hadn't bothered to turn on any of the lights in the room. Bright lights in the morning were something that he really despised. Especially upon first waking up.
"Hey." She said sleepily to him as she rolled over and sat up, wrapping herself in the blanket that he had put over her the night before.
"I have breakfast whenever you're ready for it." Micky said.
"I am kind of hungry." She said upon hearing her stomach growl loudly.
"Do you want be to bring the food to you or do you want to come to the food?" He asked with a smile on his face.
"I'll have it in the kitchen." She said slowly getting up off the couch, obviously still experiencing some pain. She followed him into the kitchen area and at the other end of the kitchen was a small square dining table. The food was out, the tea was hot and Micky was pleased as punch with his accomplishment. Micky moved ahead and pulled the chair out for her so that she could be seated.
"Thank you." Selene said as she looked at him a bit oddly for pulling the chair out. She couldn't remember a thing about their life together but she was starting to see based on his stories from the previous evening and his current actions that she had managed to marry what seemed like a very sweet man. She sat down and they both enjoyed breakfast.