Better Late Than Never: Chapter 6
'Snap out of it,' Sydney told herself. 'Gage needs you, even if he can't remember why.' She sniffed back her tears, straightened her spine and announced to anyone who cared to listen: "I'm going to see Gage. Now."
"Come with me, Ranger Cooke. I'll take you to him," Dr. Clark said.
Just as they stepped through the double swinging doors into the emergency room treatment area, a man with long, shaggy brown hair and a beard stepped through the curtain surrounding Gage's bed and held out his hand to Sydney.
"Hello, I'm Dr. Ainsley, chief of neurology. You must be Ranger Cooke, Ranger Gage's partner."
Sydney nodded and shook his hand, thinking that, if it weren't for the stethoscope and white coat, he'd look more like a surfer than a neurosurgeon. He was only an inch or two taller than her and he had brown eyes and a nice smile.
'Wonder if anybody calls him 'Shorty'?' she thought to herself, before focusing once again on Gage.
"What did you find out? How much of his memory has he lost?" she asked, looking Dr. Ainsley straight in the eye.
"First, let me explain how retrograde amnesia works, or at least how we think it works. Memories are stored in the brain in much the same way that images are stored in a digital camera or video recorder. When we want to recall something, we hit 'play' and the brain calls up the requested material and we see, or hear, or smell it all over again."
Dr. Ainsley paused. "Are you with me so far?"
"Yes. Go on."
"In layman's terms, the blow Ranger Gage suffered damaged the 'playback' button in his brain. Current research suggests that the memories are still there, but he has lost the ability to retrieve them at will."
"Could it come back after the injury heals? Are there any treatment options? Therapy? Hypnosis?" Sydney asked. The look on Dr. Ainsley's face told her that she was grabbing at straws.
"There have been a few isolated cases of people with total recall written up in the medical journals. One young man lost his entire past following a high-speed crash. A month later, while playing tennis, he realized he was making the same mistake in his game that he had made years before and his entire memory came flooding back," he said, reluctantly. The hope shining in her eyes worried him. "But, please understand, Ranger Cooke. That happens in the movies a lot more than in the real world. Most people with retrograde amnesia never regain what was lost."
"Dr. Ainsley, you need to understand that Gage isn't most people. And neither am I," Sydney declared.
"I hope for both your sakes that you're right, Ranger Cooke."
"Were you able to determine Ranger Gage's missing time frame?" asked Dr. Clark.
"We think we've narrowed it down to the past four to six months. The fact that he recognized you and remembers needing surgery to repair his eardrums puts the far boundary around the time of the surgery. So far, he hasn't been able to recall anything between that hospital stay and this one, but his memory prior to his hearing loss appears to be still intact."
Sydney's own mind raced back to before the night of Gage's high school reunion. What had happened between them? Where had their feelings for each other stood then? Her pulse quickened as she recalled kissing him the night of Walker and Alex's wedding, but then stalled again as she remembered the time in the Sage City gym when he had given her an opportunity to kiss him again, but like an idiot she'd kicked him in the head instead.
"Hey, Syd, is that you? I can hear you, you know," Gage called from behind the curtain.
As she stepped through the curtain, Gage held out his arms to hug her and she practically threw herself on him, holding him as close as the bed and IV tube would allow.
"Uh, Syd, I can't breathe," he said, only half joking.
"Oh, sorry, I'm just so glad you're OK," Sydney said, releasing him reluctantly. She was unable to hold back the tears of relief at finally being able to see for herself that he was all right, at least physically.
"Syd, these doctors are telling me I have amnesia, but I don't understand them. I know who I am and who you are and Walker and Alex and everybody."
"But they said you don't remember how you got here tonight."
"Sure I do. I came here for the surgery to repair my eardrums. You drove me here."
"No, Gage, you're here because you were attacked by someone robbing the Golden Moon restaurant."
"What was I doing there? A robbery? Are Mr. Chen and Mai Lee all right?"
Dr. Ainsley made eye contact with Sydney from across the room, shook his head and mouthed the words, "Not now."
"They were both hurt, Gage. In fact, they are here in the hospital, too. How about if I go and check on them and then I'll come back and let you know what I find out, OK?"
"OK. I'm kind of sleepy from all the meds. Promise you'll wake me up when you get back? I want to know how they both are doing."
"I promise. You rest now," she said and leaned over to kiss him on the forehead.
"Hey, Syd?" Gage called out, his eyes drifting shut.
"Yeah, partner?"
"That was nice," he said, just as he dozed off.
-----
When they were back in the hallway, Sydney pounced on Dr. Ainsley.
"Why didn't you want me to answer Gage's questions? How is he supposed to remember if we don't tell him what happened?" she demanded.
"Ranger Cooke, in your work, how do you determine whether a witness is credible or not?" Dr. Ainsley said, answering a question with a question.
"We see if their story matches that of other witnesses," she said, his point finally dawning on her, "without telling them anything the first witness said. I get it. If I fill in all the blanks, we'll never know if he is actually remembering what happened or just accepting my story as the truth."
"Exactly," Dr. Ainsley said, smiling. "You will need to let him know things relating to his job, of course. I don't see any reason he can't return to work as soon as he feels physically fit enough to do so, but he will need to be brought up to speed on any recent cases."
"I can do that."
"There is one issue that has to be addressed sooner rather than later, however," Dr. Ainsley said. "He must be convinced that he has, in fact, lost the last several months. Unless he is cognizant of that fact, it will be like running into the same wall over and over again, every time he encounters something he should remember, but doesn't."
Dr. Clark touched Sydney's shoulder and she turned to look at him. "If there were something that happened within the memory loss time frame, something that he couldn't deny the truth of…"
"Angela!" Sydney shouted. The two doctors looked at her questioningly.
"Ranger Walker's wife had a baby girl three months ago. At the time of Gage's hearing loss, Alex was still pregnant. If he sees Alex and Angela together that might convince him, right?"
"Yes, I should think it would," Dr. Ainsley agreed.
Sydney came through the swinging doors looking like a woman on a mission. Approaching Alex, she said, "You and Angela have to come with me. Walker, you need to come, too."
"How is he, Sydney?" Alex asked as she picked up the sleeping baby from her car seat.
"He looks fine, but he really doesn't believe he's lost his memory. We need for him to see Angela, so that he will understand that a lot of time has passed since the last thing he remembers."
Sydney ushered the Walker family back to Gage's bedside. He was still sleeping, but as she had promised, Sydney gently shook his shoulder to wake him.
He awoke with a start and grabbed Sydney's hand, surprising everyone. Alex jumped, which startled Angela, who began to cry loudly.
Gage blinked a few times and stared at the wailing infant in Alex's arms. Then he looked at Alex's flat stomach and finally at his boss.
"Gage, I'd like you to meet my daughter, Angela. She was born three months ago tomorrow," Walker said, softly stroking his little girl's cheek in an effort to soothe her.
"Three months?" Gage said, the wheels beginning to turn in his head. The reality of it hit him like a ton of bricks. "Oh, dear God! What's happened to me?"
Still holding Sydney's hand, he looked from her to Walker to Angela. This couldn't be happening. Six months had gone by and he didn't remember any of it? It wasn't possible. He closed his eyes, squeezed them shut and then opened them, hoping that the world would be right again. Nope. He was still somewhere over the rainbow.
Seeing the pain and confusion in Gage's eyes was killing Sydney. She felt utterly helpless, which she guessed was nothing compared to how lost Gage must be feeling. There had to be something she could do.
For a moment, she considered administering a passionate kiss right there in the hospital in the hope that it would awaken even a flicker of the heat they'd generated in each other only a few short hours ago. Or maybe a subsequent knock on the head would jar things back into place? If kissing him didn't work, she could always kick him in the face again.
At last, Gage spoke. "Dr. Ainsley?"
"Yes, Ranger Gage?"
"How do I get it back? The chunk of my life that's missing, how do I get it back?"
Sydney was encouraged by the determination in his voice. Her man wasn't beaten yet.
"It may not ever come back. In the few cases of retrograde amnesia I've personally seen in my career, none of them has ever recovered more than bits and pieces of what was lost. And even that may be more a case of hearing the stories over and over again so that they think they remember the actual event when in fact they only remember what they were told."
Alex had succeeded in calming Angela down and she had an idea.
"Gage, I know you don't remember her, but you and this little one have a very special bond. Do you think you would like to hold her?"
"I don't know, Alex, I'm still kind of woozy. I wouldn't want to drop her."
"I doubt that will happen while you're sitting in a hospital bed. I'm OK with it if you are," Alex insisted.
"OK, if you're sure. I'd love to hold her," Gage said, his eyes misting as Alex carefully laid the little pink bundle in his arms. "Hello, Angela. You are so beautiful, just like your mom," he said softly in the singsong voice people use when they talk to babies. He stared at her intently, searching her face for any hint of familiarity. When he saw none, he held her gently against his chest and whispered, "I'm sorry I don't remember you, little darlin'."
Watching the tender moment from the other side of the bed, Sydney prayed that Angela would be the key to unlocking Gage's mind, but after several minutes it was plain to see that although he was falling head over heels for the tiny girl, it wasn't because he remembered her at all. It was simply because she had won him over with her adoring eyes and toothless grin.
Well, if a three-month-old baby can get him to fall in love with her again, then so can I, Sydney thought. She smiled at the prospect of winning Gage's heart a second time, even though at the moment she had no idea how to go about it.
End Chapter 6.