There was nothing to do but try to remember. The patient could have watched the slow steady drip of some type of moisture running down the stained cinderblock on the wall. She could have tried to listen more closely to the agonized screams echoing down the corridor behind her door. But she used her ample time in better ways…and it worked. She reclaimed some of her memories that morning. Why shouldn’t she? When she found herself awake, there was nothing but time to do so. Hour after hour laying in that uncomfortable bed thinking, straining, to recall her life finally ended her perpetual amnesia.

It was all coming back to her and she was remembering home. Home. The smell, the sounds, the faces. It became her focus and her strength to endure that horrible place, for she knew what was awaiting her…if she could just get out. But how? She could barely move, much less get out of her bed. She was so tired, so lethargic. Why wasn’t she beyond this? Why did it seem she was regressing instead of progressing? Though her nurse had come back again several times that day, she was beginning to think of the nurse more as a warden checking on a prisoner, than a caregiver.

The nurse was silent as she came into the room this time. Holding a small brown box in her hand as she came into the room, she walked to the little metal cabinet on the blank wall facing the bed. She began restocking supplies. Tubes, wires, stained white towels that could have been any number of years old. As the nurse closed the cabinet door and the scratchy metal sound of the latch screeched, she finally faced her patient with that same grim expression on her face. One of disinterest or perhaps one of hatred, it was hard to tell.

“H-h-h-ho-me,” stuttered the patient with much effort.

The nurse took an aggressive step forward towards the bed. Her furious eyes widened as her cheeks reddened. “I have told you repeatedly not to attempt speaking. We must take things as they come.”

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“Wh-who a-a-are y-you?”

“Do you not hear a word I say!” the nurse scolded. “Your throat is not yet ready for speech. It will be painful until we exercise it with various sounds first.”

The nurse was right. Her throat did hurt. Every time she attempted to speak it only felt worse. It had been so many years without a sound from it, but all she wanted was a simple name. A name to connect with this stern woman’s face. If she could only know her name, she might not feel so alone.

“W-who…”

“I have told you before, you just don’t remember.” The nurse said. “I am Cassie. I take care of you.”

“H-ho-home.”

“You are home Nacaria.” Cassie explained. “This is home now. This is your home until we can get you back on your feet. Your spirit may have been back at home with your family all these years, but your physical form has been here. It takes some time for your body and your soul to reconnect after being parted so long. You have not spoken, eaten, or walked for two decades. Just be happy your curse has been lifted and be patient while we get you ready to go home.”

Home, Nacaria thought. Home with her children. With her mother and sisters. Salem and Seth needed their mother. They were so little, so helpless. No, they are grown now. I remember. I watched them grow up from the walls. The haze of the life she remembered being a part of mixed with the life she had merely witnessed go by from her time in the shadows. Nacaria was not sure anymore what was real, what was imagined. She tried to force her mind to reconcile her past—to make sense of her fractured life. But as always when she tried to remember it was cut short by the nurse.

The nurse removed a needle from her skirt pocket. Nacaria vaguely remembered she had seen her do this before, maybe every day. She could not remember. But she recognized the sting in her veins as the serum was injected into her bloodstream. Within minutes Nacaria could not utter a sound, she could not think. She only laid there, half lifeless, until she felt fingertips on her eyelids, closing them. For a moment she thought she heard another voice. It was distant, miles away it seemed. Someone asking about her condition maybe. Unchanged, she thought she heard Cassie report. But she couldn’t be sure. She was so tired now. Then the blackness came back, and she did not exist again.