02 Déjà vu

My quickening pulse throbbed in my ears as I lay completely still on my hospital bed, the only sound being that of my nervous breathing. Staring at the shadow cast by the external wardrobe in my darkened hospital room, I swallowed hard and asked in a whisper, "You are here, in my room; aren't you?"

Speaking in a gentle tone, the woman from the roof replied, "Yes."

I sat up to find the woman sitting in the guest's chair in the corner of the room, near the foot of my bed.

Highlighted by ambient lighting shining through my sole window, her solemn stare and glum facial features easily revealed a certain focus. Still appearing relaxed, she folded her hands in her lap above crossed legs and asked, "How are you?"

"Okay, I guess," I said, shrugging. "It's déjà vu for me since I've been admitted here once before. I can already say that I don't plan on visiting anymore rooftops in the future."

"Good."

"Are you a hallucination of my own creation?"

"Hallucination?" The woman uncrossed her legs and gently shoved my bed with her foot, which caused me to sway slightly. "Did you feel that? Or did you mind tell you that the bed moved?"

"If you are real, how did you evade security on the roof?"

The woman smiled. "I jumped."

"You jumped? Are you a cat, now with one less life?"

"Not exactly."

After long pause, I asked, "Are you an angel?"

"No." As the woman stared at me, her smile grew. "Are you?"

Ignoring her quip, I continued my questioning. "What do you want from me?"

"Nothing."

"Then why are you here?"

"Just to make sure you are safe."

"And why do you care? Who are you?"

The woman gnawed her lip, ignoring my questions and presenting her own. "Why do you live in the city?"

Turning to the closed door to my room, I wondered if the nurses at the monitoring station could hear me. I glanced at the security camera above the bathroom door before replying, "What do you mean?"

"I have never seen you smile when you are in the city. Why is that?"

My eyes narrowed with concern. "I sure hope you are a hallucination because that sounds like stalking."

The woman glanced out the window. "I only check on you from time to time, nothing more."

"So you're some sort of guardian angel?"

The woman reached into her blouse pocket and removed her pack of cigarettes. "We're not angels, though some theorize that we are somewhere in between them and humans." She swiftly lit a cigarette, dropping the spent match on the floor. Taking a deep drag, she blew the smoke in my direction. "Mind if I smoke?"

"Actually, yes." Rubbing my finger nails hard over my exposed skin, I contemplated if I was dreaming—if I could wake up. Recalling our encounter on the rooftop, I gestured towards her poised cigarette hand and asked, "I thought you didn't like those?"

"I don't." The woman took another drag on her cigarette, exhaling the smoke upward above her head. "When I come back here, these help me to reminisce."

"About what?"

"What it was like before your kind came and destroyed everything."

"My kind? Humans?"

The woman's brow furled as she took another drag and exhaled slowly. "Europeans."

Noticing how the glow of the cigarette reflected in her eyes, I asked, "Are you Native American?"

"Do you mean Indian?"

"Yes. Is there another politically correct way to say it?"

"How about Indian?"

Studying her dimly lit features, I took wild guess at her tribe, assuming it regional. "Chippewa?"

"Sioux."

"But..." Not wanting to anger her, I let the matter drop as I repositioned myself on the bed.

The woman took another drag before asking, "But what?" When I refused to continue, a faint smile formed on her lips. "You may find this hard to believe, but I like you. I'm here to help, so you can say anything to me. I won't be offended."

"Okay. You're a mix. I went to school with some Chippewa."

Flicking ash onto the floor, she smiled with a simple nod. "You are correct. My grandmother was once enamored with a trader when she was young."

"Stock trader?" I asked.

"Not quite," she continued. "You never answered my question."

"What question?"

"Why don't you ever smile in the city?"

Having never thought about with what facial expressions I wore, my gaze drifted down to my bed as I thought over her question. "Don't know. I grew up in the woods by a lake. It wasn't easy leaving the countryside."

"So why did you leave the woods?"

"Had to," I replied. "I wanted to find love, make money, explore and do things." Combing over my memories—the many things I never accomplished, I bowed my head and sighed. "Things just didn't work out as planned."

Without a care, the woman flicked more ash onto the floor and then took another drag. "Why don't you return to the forest?"

"I cannot. I need the money."

"For what?"

"I have to pay child support; I have a daughter."

The woman froze, staring at me as if surprised by the news. "Daughter? Where is she now?"

"With her mother...in the Philippines." The proceeding silent glance from this woman told me that she had left the door open for me to expand. "Her mother quickly became bored of me. She grew to hate me and decided to return to her home country. We were able to keep this out of the courts when I promised to send her money every month."

"When did they leave?"

"A year ago, just after my daughter's eighth birthday."

"Do you miss her?"

With a weakened voice, I answered, "Yes."

With narrowing eyes, the woman pointed at me with her cigarette hand. "You hesitated with your answer."

Swallowing hard, I cleared my throat and confessed, "I don't miss the stress of being around her mother."

"And...?"

"My daughter cannot speak. The doctors called her spectrum or something, diagnosing her with an acute speech delay. Her mother blames me since it is assumed that my daughter inherited this from my side of the family." Perplexed by my own divulgence, I numbly watched the ash from the woman's cigarette fall onto the floor. "It is impossible to teach my daughter anything when there is no communication. Things were so difficult that I began to wish that she had been born without legs instead of lacking the ability to communicate. We couldn't even teach her to sign." My hand fiddled with the loose bedding over my legs, gripping bunches of fabric as my emotions surged. "I thought life would be unbearable if my wife ever took my daughter away. And the first couple of weeks were unbearable, but..."

"You adapted," said the woman, correctly. "You became accustomed to the separation."

Wiping a tear from my cheek, my face burned with shame. "I failed her. I should not be okay with her being on the other side of the world, but I am. What does that make me?" I began to sob.

The woman calmly stood from her chair and circled around my bed to stand before me. Taking a last puff, she dropped her cigarette onto the floor and stepped it out. She bent over and lifted my chin with her finger. When our eyes met, she released a slow, reverberating hush that seemed to wash over me, inexplicably calming me as my sobs subsided. The woman then said something in a foreign language unknown to me before switching back to English. "It's not your fault. You did the best you could."

"But I abandoned her."

"No, your wife took her. Those early years are the most important and you passed on your patience and kindness. She will remember that. It will be okay."

Inexplicably, I believed this stranger. Staring into this woman's brown eyes, I thought her irises glowed ever so faintly.

Her stare then shifted to the side, as if listening to something in the distance. Releasing my chin, she straightened as she reached into her blouse pocket and removed her pack of cigarettes, dropping them on the bed with the book of matches. "I have to go."

Wiping my cheeks dry, I stopped myself from reaching for the woman's hand as she stepped backward. "Will I see you again?"

The woman continued backwards, stepping towards the corner of the room closest to the door. "Yes. If you want."

"I do."

"Then we will see each other again." The woman calmly positioned herself into the corner, her arms calmly at her sides.

"How do I get a hold of you? How will I find you?"

"I'll be around."

The door to my room swung open, blocking my view of the woman as two nurses entered. My assigned nurse sniffed the air before focusing on the pack of cigarettes on my bed. "There is no smoking in the hospital." The perturbed nurse huffed before flipping on the lights to my room.

As the other nurse closed the door to my room, I peered around my nurse to discover that the mysterious woman had vanished. With the bathroom door closed and locked, I quickly scanned the room.

"Did you hear me, Mr. Clarkson?" The nurse snapped up the pack of cigarettes and matches from my bead. "I'm confiscating these. If the doctor permits it, we will escort you outside if you need a smoke break."

Perhaps, since I had never smoked a cigarette in my life, or how animated the nurses had become, a smile stretched across my face. You see; those were not my cigarettes, which meant that I had never hallucinated. Something unexplainable may have just happened, but something did occur. Relieved, I now felt certain that I was not going mad.

My nurse crossed her arms as she glared at me. "I'm glad that you are finding this amusing, but I will have to report this."

Though I could not explain my recent encounter—nor did I have any desire in mentioning it to the staff, the recent event felt therapeutic, exciting even. Most importantly, I now understood that I need not be afraid, and so my smile grew further.

"Mr. Clarkson, you are not helping the situation."

"Sorry," I said. "I'm really trying to quit smoking." With that lie, I chuckled unabashedly.

My nurse planted her hands upon on her hips as glared at me. "Your blood work tested negative for drugs, but perhaps I should have them test you again. Do you have any other contraband?"

The thought of another needle stick did lesson my smile. "No ma'am." I turned on my bed to let my legs dangle off the side, folding my hands politely in my lap. "I'm sorry. The cigarettes are not even mine. Someone gave them to me."

"Who?"

"A woman. I think she was visiting someone here; I'm not sure whom. She passed them to me before she left."

My nurse sighed heavily as she exchange doubter's looks with her coworker. The nurse then returned her perturbed gaze to me. "The stench has reached the hall and is upsetting the other patients."

"I'm sorry," I said. "You can open the window in my room if that will help." I glanced at my one window in the room and immediately remembered from my last visit that the windows could be opened. Realizing my misstatement, I again chuckled loudly.

Probably out of spite, my nurse did take another blood sample in search contraband substances that I may have ingested, and after a quick search of my room, they eventually left me to my own. This time, with more pleasant thoughts of the woman with golden brown eyes, I promptly fell into a deep slumber.

During the next couple of days, I cooperated with the medical staff to such a degree that the doctor asked if I had a history of bipolar in my family. Remaining cynical, my nurse kept a close eye on me since one of the elements tested in my blood, nicotine, returned negative. Despite her distrust, I always presented a smile towards her and went to all my therapy sessions—though I barely paid attention. I answered every question posed to me and became the model patient, I probably could have been discharged prior to my 72 hours, but that would have meant returning to work, which in its own way, surrounded me with just as much mental illness—no offense intended towards my office mates.

Discharged late Thursday afternoon, I returned to my empty house only to speculate if the mysterious woman would appear. I stood on my back deck, still littered by a few of my daughter's toys, and waited for the woman to appear. At one point, I called out, Hello? The forthcoming response came in the form of a questioning look from my neighbor cooking before his outdoor grill.

Returning inside, I stood in my daughter's room and stared at her toys collecting dust on the closet floor, lying as they did when her mother left one year ago. This time, the melancholy feeling did not crush me as it once would.

When I returned to work Friday morning, my boss welcomed me back as she returned my identification card—my door access privileges now severely restricted.

When I sat at my desk, I found recalling what I was doing before my hospitalization difficult, but thankfully, my friend Dee came to check up on me. I smiled at seeing her, for she was my only friend, and not just at work—perhaps a moniker unbeknownst to her.

"How are you feeling?" she asked.

"Better than last time." Recalling my prior hospitalization, I smiled. "Actually, I feel great compared to last time."

"Really?" Dee borrowed an office chair and rolled up next to my desk. "I don't recall you wandering onto a tall rooftop last time."

"Oh." My smile wavered. "True. Um, I just needed the fresh air, to see the world from a new perspective. Haven't you ever wanted to check out the view?"

"Not really."

"How many years have we worked here and never checked out the view?"

Dee hemmed, unfooled by my malarkey,

"Besides," I continued, "I wouldn't have met that woman if I had not wandered out onto the roof."

A passionate romantic at heart, Dee's voice rose with curiosity, asking, "What woman?"

"Oh...um, some patient followed me onto the roof."

Dee gave me her signature skeptic look—-a look most likely reserved for me. "From the employee stairwell?"

"Um...I don't know. She was lost."

"And what happened on the roof?"

"Nothing. We just talked. Well...she did all the talking. Actually, she..." I then realized what had she had actually done. "She was very mean to me. She even encouraged me to jump."

"What?" Dee stared at me with mouth agape, stunned by my news.

I looked into my friend's eyes and smiled assuredly. "She wanted to make me cry. She saved my life."

"That's preposterous."

"No. I was dead inside. I could have easily stepped off the roof without a second thought. She woke me up. She knew that all I needed was a good cry; she made me stop and think."

Bewildered by it all, Dee continued to stare at me.

"I owe her my life."

"Did you tell the doctor about this woman?"

"It didn't come up." Gnawing my lip, I decided to keep the woman's second visit, and how she slipped out of my room, to myself.

"Well, I guess you should thank her." Dee stood and returned the borrowed office chair to its desk.

Looking at the clock on the wall, I counted the hours until lunch. "If I ever see her again, I most certainly will."