After My Husband Left Me Alone with a Brain Injury I Stopped Waiting for Him to Come Back Chapter 09

After My Husband Left Me Alone with a Brain Injury I Stopped Waiting for Him to Come Back Chapter 09

During one brief lucid spell, when some of my memories returned, I left behind a recording.

I made it secretly at the rehabilitation centre.

At the time, I still couldn’t speak in complete sentences, so a nurse helped me turn on the voice recorder on

my phone.

I spoke into it.

“I don’t know what I was like before. I only know Kevin doesn’t like me trying to remember. Every time I ask

him about the crash, he tells me not to think about it.”

“I asked him why Erin kept coming to see me. He said she was my sister. But my sister shouldn’t have been

holding my husband’s hand in my hospital room. And she shouldn’t have asked him to go outside and stay with her after I fell asleep.”

My voice in the recording was slow.

Every word came slowly, but my meaning was clear enough.

I continued.

“I want to leave here. If I remember everything one day, I want to leave Kevin. I don’t want to be anyone’s wife.

I don’t want to be anyone’s burden. And I don’t want anyone to put their life on hold because of me.”

The nurse handed the recording over to the police.

It didn’t change the outcome of the case.

But it made everyone understand that I knew far more than they had assumed.

My memory was damaged.

My judgement might have been slower.

But I could still feel pain.

I could still tell when I was being treated differently.

And I could still remember who turned away when I asked for help.

After Kevin listened to the recording, he sat alone in the living room.

He opened my wardrobe.

The red dress was still there.

Before the crash, I’d worn it to a friend’s wedding.