Short Story / Why Have You Gone Where I Cannot Follow?

“Why have you gone where I cannot follow? What are you seeking there? And when will you return to me?”

I think things like this every moment of every day , but I still have no answers.  There are no reasons for anything, and nothing can stop the pain.  The doctors have told me to go home, and only the kind pity of the nurses have allowed me to stay here, sleeping on a cot near to him with flat hospital pillows to catch my tears..  Even his parents look at me with tired eyes, saying, “Sara, he’s not there anymore”. They have all stopped telling me to have hope.
Hope.  It is the only thing I have left in this dark world I live in now, and yet I am starting to forget the word.  I once lived for our hopes and dreams together, for we were young and in love and alive.  But a blind curve and a dark night have stolen our dreams, and left his body whole, but his mind broken.
I remember laughing when his mother told me; being so relieved that he was alive, yet so utterly baffled by what he had become.  It was comical to think that the man I had spent 4 years of my life with, a healthy and strong man of 22 now had the mind of a six year old.  No doctor could explain it, no website or book could help me get my mind around it.
It is two months since, and I have not left his side.  Nor am I any closer to understanding him.  Each day is the same, my hours bleed into each other and numbers on a calender mean nothing.  Doctors come and go, his mother and I help to bathe and dress him.  He sees our faces, and I yearn to see a spark of recognition in his eyes.  Know me! I say; Remember!.

“Good morning, Joey,” I say in my best playful voice.  He is sitting on the floor, playing with a firetruck and it takes him a moment to look up at me.
“Hi Miss Sarah”, he replies shyly.  In spite of my sadness, I smile at him.  Joseph was, and still is a tall man-six feet tall; though with a wiry, slim build.  Seeing him dressed in a green hospital gown, unshaven and shaggy haired, hunched over a flashing toy truck would make anyone laugh.
“Have you had breakfast yet?” I say, slipping behind him and sitting on the edge of his bed.
“Eggs and ketchup” he says.  I make a face, sticking my tongue out in mock disgust and he giggles.
Then he stands up, stretches, rubs his eyes and sits next to me cross legged.  I ask him if he would like to talk and he launches into a speech about the squirrel he saw on the window sill this morning.
The doctors have told me not to say anything that might upset him, including things about our past.  Any kind of stress could cause his blood pressure to rise and his brain to expand just as it did after the accident.   They told Joseph that I’m a teacher, and are kind enough to let me help him learn colors and shapes and counting again.

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