Thankfully, Mia didn’t ask why I’d been looking him up. I couldn’t explain why I felt so invested in his story and helping him figure out his identity. Maybe it was simply because I’d spent so much time in the room with him that I’d developed a responsibility to him through osmosis. Like a positive version ofStockholm Syndrome. However, if I tried to put this into words, I’d probably just sound like a stalker, so I was glad Mia accepted my involvement in the mystery of his identity without question.
“I remember…” Mia trailed off as he thought. “Green hills.”
“Green hills? That sounds like a good memory.”
Good, but not helpful. There were so many places even just near this one city that would fit the definition of green hills that he might as well not have said anything at all, and there was no guarantee that he even came from Baton Rouge originally.
However, a moment later I had to retract my statement about it being a “good” memory when Mia shook his head.
“No. Not good. It was… It was a bad place. Painful place. Not good.”
Okay, okay,” I quickly agreed as it seemed he was getting worked up again. “It wasn’t a good place. So, let’s not think about it anymore. Are there any good things you remember?”
Without realizing, I grabbed Mia’s hand again, but he didn’t pull away. Rather, he returned my grip and held on even tighter.
“Eli. Eli was good. He helped me.”
Well, it was a name at least. Such a simple name probably wouldn’t turn up anything, but any good detective knew that the simplest bit of information could solve a case.
After a bit more poking and prodding, I couldn’t get many more specifics out of him, but I had a general idea of his situation. A troubled home life, and some nameless abuse he couldn’t seem to put into words, he’d ended up on the streets at a fairly young age. He’d survived, thanks to the help of this Eli person, buteventually the two of them had been separated. Mia couldn’t say why they’d separated and grew distressed whenever he tried to think about it too much, but he was certain that it had been his choice for some reason. That had led him to setting up camp in the abandoned warehouse where the fire had broken out. He also didn’t remember anything about the fire, but at that point the many burns and injuries on his body spelled out the rest of the story for him.
I stayed until visiting hours ended and I had no choice but to leave. Mia grew distressed as soon as he realized he would be alone again and didn’t calm down until I promised to return as soon as possible.
After that, I made sure to explain to the nurses about Mia’s issue with drugs and impressed upon them the importance that they do not give him any painkillers or sedatives unless absolutely necessary. The first nurse I talked to didn’t seem to take me seriously, not even writing anything down, but then I spotted Newt and hurried to repeat myself to the little redhead. From what I knew of him, he took his job very seriously. So, I wasn’t surprised when he immediately opened Mia’s medical file to write down instructions about Mia’s medication, and even put a reminder note on the door to Mia’s room.
Only then did I feel confident enough to leave. As promised, I would be back the next day after I got off work, and I had a feeling that I would be visiting every day for the foreseeable future.
CHAPTER 17
Mia
It tooktwo weeks before the nurses finally stopped asking me the same questions over and over. I still couldn’t tell them who I was, other than the fact that my name was Mia. I still barely remembered what had happened to me, other than the fact that there had been a fire. I still couldn’t explain why I didn’t want any drugs, other than a deep instinct that they were bad for me and had brought me bad things in the past.
The reading voice, Augustine Conway, or Auggie as I learned he preferred to be called, asked better questions. He visited almost every day and had a particular talent for picking out the smallest detail from my jumbled, fractured memories. I could only remember living in the abandoned warehouse. However, the warehouse hadn’t been abandoned and taken over by the homeless population until two years ago. Based on that, Auggie figured that I probably hadn’t lived in Baton Rouge very long. A couple years at most, and maybe not even that long.
It was more than I’d known about myself before, but it still didn’t help identify me. Knowing that I hadn’t always lived in this city still left an entire country worth of land where I could have come from.
Auggie focused on my hints of unpleasant memories. According to him, pleasant events rarely created much of an impact on the rest of the world, but unpleasant events were more likely to leave a trace. Like a surgeon picking at the scab of an infected wound, little by little, he opened up the few painful memories I could still recall and drew out the rot waiting there. Yet, with his guidance, I found the memories weren’t as painful as when I recalled them alone.
It turned out that Green Hills was the name of a place and not a description of a landscape. I still didn’t know what the place was, but just the sound of the name made my stomach roil and sent icy cold shivers of fear racing up my spine. I was certain that it was a very bad place, and that I’d lived there for what felt like a long time.
I also managed to recall another name. Tony Smith. The memory of that name didn’t inspire as much instinctual fear as the name Green Hills, but it was close. In a competition for the worst thing hiding in my brain, I was certain that name would take the silver medal.
After two weeks, that was all we’d managed to figure out. It was better than nothing, and Auggie assured me that we’d eventually figure out my identity, but it still felt pointless. I was no one.
What was even the point of figuring out my identity?
Before the fire, I’d apparently been living homeless on the street, and I didn’t expect that to have changed after being stuck ina coma for a while. A homeless man with an identity was no different than a homeless man without an identity. Knowing my full name would change nothing about my circumstances.
Over the course of those two weeks, I was so intent on paying attention only to Auggie and ignoring the nurses that I barely noticed the time passing or the state of my own injuries. The nurses mentioned things about burns and skin grafts and told me cheerfully that I didn’t need so many bandages anymore. However, I didn’t realize what that meant until someone mentioned the worddischarged.
“What?” I asked as I stared down at the stack of forms that had been pushed in front of me.
“These are your discharge papers,” the nurse repeated. “It has all the info you’ll need for your continued home recovery.”
“Home recovery?”
I was basically a human echo, repeating everything I heard. It didn’t make sense.