Finding Home: A Novella

May

"-police found anything on her yet?"

"Nothing. There haven't been any missing person reports matching her description."

"Think she's an orphan?"

"I don't know."

My head throbbed, my entire body hurt, and yet, I didn't care about any of that. I had bigger things to worry about.

"I have two questions," I croaked, startling the two men on the other side of the room. "Where am I? And who am I?"

_____________________________________

Both men stood there and stared, surprised by my sudden alertness until the older man finally said, "You see, we were hoping you'd be able to answer that question yourself. I'm Sheriff Samuels. You were hit by a car this morning and have been passed out since. You have no idea how lucky you are not to have broken anything. Though we may have a different problem if you lost your memory." The man was tall and slender and looked to be about sixty. He was wearing a cowboy hat and a tan shirt with a small black name tag with 'Samuels' etched in white attached. "Don't you remember anything at all? A name? A place? Anything?"

I tried to remember, to picture a face, hear a voice. "I- I can't. I'm sorry." Nothing.

"No need to apologize. I believe you may have a form of dissociative amnesia. Your memory should come back soon enough. My name is Dr. Carlson," said a man wearing a doctor's coat. He had short blonde hair and wore glasses. He didn't look much older than me but I assumed he was at least in his late twenties.

"Should?" Should didn't sound very promising.

"Cases like these aren't easy to predict. Dissociative amnesia is not very common and without any information about your family or your medical history, we can't gi-"

"Wait. Are you saying my family has no idea I'm here?"

Dr. Carlson opened his mouth, then closed it with a sigh. "As far as we know, they don't. There is usually some sort of Missing Persons report, but as far as we know there haven't been any reports matching your description."

"What?" It's bad enough that I have no idea who I am, but the reality of no one knowing who I am, that's too much. "So no one even knows what my name is?"

The sheriff stepped in then. "Actually, we got lucky there. You had this book with you when we got to you." He handed me a copy of Little Women with an inscription on the inside that said 'Happy Birthday, Madison!'.

"Madison," I read aloud. I thought doing so would jog my memory, but nothing happened. The word sounded foreign on my tongue. "How did I get here?"

"I hate to tell you, but I don't know any more than you do, kid," the sheriff replied regretfully. "I promise the moment we get word on anything, we will let you know. In the meantime, get some rest. Doc, can I have a word?"

After giving me a cup of water and getting a nurse to keep an eye on me, the two men exited the room. I stared at the blank white wall that looked even whiter under the fluorescent lights of the hospital. With the shock of waking up without any semblance of a memory, I hadn't had any time to allow the reason for my being in the hospital affect me. The moment I calmed down enough to feel it, my entire body began to ache. I felt bruises covering my eye and cheek. My lower lip was busted and swollen, stinging from the cracked skin on it. My legs were scraped and dirty.

Dr. Carlson walked back in and walked over to the medical bed I was laying on. "Besides the emotional trauma, how are you feeling? Any physical pain?"

He knows I just got hit by a car right? You don't have to be a doctor to figure out that's gonna cause some 'physical pain.' I bit back my annoyance and simply replied, "Yeah, there is. It's mostly just soreness."