Finding Athena

Part Four (END)

The next day I skipped my afternoon class and went to the hospital sooner. When I walked out from the elevator the nurses greeted me by name. When I slid the door open to her room, she was standing at the window looking out. She turned, smiling when she saw me.

“You came!” she chirped.

“As your best friend, I’m a little hurt that you thought I wouldn’t come today.” I dropped my backpack next to the chair. I walked over to her at the window.

“You’re right. I should have more faith in my best friend. I’m sorry.” She looked out the window again.

“Is it ok for you to be out of bed?” I asked. I looked out the window. It was a windy day and the palm trees swayed in the breeze.

“I’m feeling a lot better today.” She turned towards me and her face paled again, her body swaying like the palm trees outside. I reached out for her as she fell towards me.

“Are you ok?” I asked, holding her tightly in my arms. I moved her back towards the hospital bed.

“I’m sorry.” She climbed back onto the bed and laid her head on the pillow. “I guess I pushed myself too much.”

“I think I should get a nurse…” I said, turning for the door.

“No!” she exclaimed. “I have a checkup later today, so I’ll just tell them about the dizzy spell then.”

I paused for a moment, then sat down in the chair. I felt better knowing she was going to have a checkup later. She looked towards the window. There was a melancholy in her expression as she looked towards the sky.

“Something bothering you?” I asked her.

“They still haven’t figured out who I am. I’m not among the missing persons reports, my fingerprints brought up nothing and no one is looking for me.” She looked out the window. “I’m afraid of what happens next when I have to leave the hospital. Where do I go? What should I do?”

“You aren’t completely alone. You have your best friend. I don’t think my dad would mind you staying with us.”

“That’s so kind of you. I couldn’t impose on you like that. Besides, I'm an adult, or so they say, so I should be able to take care of myself.”

“It’s ok to ask for help. Especially with everything you’ve been through.” I smiled.

“You're so sweet. The perfect pick for a best friend. Sorry for the serious talk. I’ve been thinking too much and starting to lose it a little with all the free time here.”

“That reminds me. I brought you something.” I picked up my backpack and took out a book from it, handing it to her. “Something to read while you’re here.”

“Shadows of Forgotten Memories,” she read the title. “By Evelyn Rivers?”

“It’s a suspenseful mystery about a woman who loses her memory,” I said.

“That sounds interesting.” She smiled. “Thank you!”

“You’re welcome. I hope you like it and it doesn’t cause any problems.”

“Maybe that’s what I need to jump-start my memory again.”

I shook my head in awe.

“What is it?” she asked, frowning.

“I’m sorry. You speak so normally I forget that you have amnesia.”

“It’s the strangest thing, isn’t it? I know what the chicken in the hospital dinner I’m going to eat tastes like, but I have no memory of eating chicken before.”

“That must be hard,” I muttered, not sure what else to say.

“Sorry, more serious talk. I had a session with Dr. Ito a while ago. We started talking about what comes next, and how I feel about all this. It’s just a lot on my mind.”

“You can talk to me. Best friends are the best therapists, yeah?” I smiled. “If you can’t talk to your friend, are they really your friend?”

“You have a point.” She smiled. “Just voicing my worries as I did helped a lot. Thank you.”

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“I didn’t do anything,” I replied.

“You listened. Isn’t that enough?” Her eyes met mine.

I smiled and nodded. “Anytime.”

That afternoon we talked for hours. We talked about the trees swaying in the wind. We talked about going together to the beach to see the sunset after she was released. We talked about ways for her to make money, even writing her story into a book. We talked about how easy our friendship had come. We talked until it was time for them to run tests on her.

* * *

That night, I sat on the sofa in the living room and waited for my dad to come home.

“Dad!” I called as I heard the front door open.

“What’s up?” he replied, walking into the living room.

“Can I talk to you?”

“Sure, let me put this down.” He carried the bag of fast food that would be our dinner into the kitchen. He walked back into the room and sat down next to me. “What’s up?”

“Athena,” I said, not knowing where to start.

“Athena? The Greek goddess?” he asked, confused.

“The girl I pulled out of the water last week,” I replied.

“They identified her?”

“No, it’s what we all call her because of the bracelet she was wearing. It had Athena written on it,” I said.

“We call her?”

“Detective Nakamuro, the nurses at the hospital, and me.”

My dad looked at me as if I had grown a third eye.

“I went to see her, and we became friends. I visited her a few times,” I confessed.

He nodded. “Ok. What about her?”

“She’s doing good and they’re talking about what happens next.” I paused. “When she’s released and still hasn’t been identified.”

He looked at me, seeming to know where this was going.

“Could she possibly stay with us for a while?” I blurted out quickly.

“Kalani!” I knew that tone in my dad’s voice—he thought I was crazy.

“If she doesn’t have a place to go then she will have to go to a homeless shelter.” I countered.

“Kalani. You do realize what you’re asking, right?”

“We have the space. We can put a bed in the office.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about. You’re asking to take in a person who currently doesn’t have a name or social security number so she can’t work.”

“She’ll have it a lot harder if she has no one to turn to.”

“Kalani!” he exclaimed, a master at only using my name as a counter argument.

“Mom always said to help those in need. To show them kindness and compassion.”

My dad opened his mouth to reply but froze. I saw the signs that tears were working their way to his eyes. I didn’t want to bring up mom, but she had always wanted us to help where we could.

“At the very least she can stay with us as she looks for a place to go,” he conceded.

I wrapped my arms around him. “Thank you!”

“You have to take care of her though. Ready her bed and everything.”

“She’s not a pet!” I chuckled.

My dad’s face filled with a chilly seriousness. “No, she isn’t. She’s a human being.”

I nodded. “I’ll make sure she has everything.”

* * *

The next day I was strangely focused and filled with a new purpose. I paid attention to the lectures in my classes and instead of skipping my afternoon class again I went despite how excited I was to offer Athena a place to stay when she left the hospital.

Just like the times before, I hurried to the hospital as soon as I finished my classes. I hurried up to her floor and walked to the nurse’s station. As I walked up the nurse's eyes opened wide in surprise and she frowned.

“I’m sorry, I can’t sign you in,” the nurse said. “She’s not here. She was discharged this morning.”

I blinked at her, running what she had said through my head multiple times. I couldn’t have heard what she said correctly.

“She got all the help we could give her,” the nurse said sadly. “She doesn’t have insurance or even an identity. It’s been a week, and she’s stable.”

I stared at her. “You kicked her out with no warning?”

“She was told about it a couple days ago.” The nurse said quietly. “She didn’t tell you?”

I remembered the melancholy look on her face as she looked out the window yesterday. There was fear in her eyes. I hadn’t noticed it. Why didn’t she tell me?

“No, she didn’t tell me.” I felt all happiness leave my body.

“She left you something. She asked the nurses here to help her with it.” The nurse picked up a paper gift bag with a sparrow standing on a tree branch. She held out the two handles for me to take.

I looked inside and saw there was what looked like a children's book inside. I pulled the book out and let out a gasp. It was a copy of ‘The Crane Wife’, the Japanese story about the crane I had told her about. There was an envelope sticking out about halfway through the book. I pulled it out and saw my name was written on it. I pulled out the letter inside.

> Kalani,

>

> Thank you so much for being my best friend. I wanted to give this to you as thanks for everything you did for me. Before you ask what you did, you know what you did. You pulled me out of the water that day and you pulled me out of the darkness I found myself in after.

>

> I wanted to give back the book you lent me but I started reading it and want to find out what happens to Susan in the end. I thought this would be better to give you. Nurse Darling was wonderful and picked up the book I wanted.

>

> I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was leaving the hospital. When you brought up thinking about taking me in, I knew I couldn’t trouble you anymore. I decided to leave it to fate, and I hope we might meet again. I promise I will continue to be who I want to be.

>

> Aloha,

>

> Athena Doe

As I read the letter again, a tear from my eye dropped onto the paper. I quickly took a breath and wiped my eyes.

“There’s no contact information for her?” I asked the nurse, letting myself feel a little hope. “A way to get a message to her?”

The nurse, who was wearing a name tag, Grace Darling, shook her head. “Are you going to be ok?”

“Yes, thank you,” I said. “Would it be ok to leave my contact information? Just in case she comes back or asks.”

The nurse smiled at me. “Of course.”

After leaving my phone number, I left the hospital and found myself walking down the beach where I had found her a week ago. The sun was setting and the sky was filled with purple, pink, and golden colors. It was an especially gorgeous sunset tonight as there was just the right amount of clouds in the sky to showcase the colors.

As the wind blew past me, I could have sworn I heard someone say my name. The voice sounded like hers. I turned around quickly, but there was no one there.

I turned back to the sunset, feeling she was somewhere on the island looking at this same sunset. I smiled. I realized that she had not said goodbye in her letter, but said aloha. It was a hello and a goodbye. We’d find each other again.

The End