The Stories We Tell by Patti Callahan Henry Page B

the unknowing. Instead, I wave my hand over my shoulder. “Go to work.”
    I open a file for my meeting with a caterer later in the week. She’s sent some of her recipes and menus so we can get a sense of her style. Outside the studio, the wind picks up and rattles the barn door against the track. Thunder echoes far away and my phone buzzes. It’s Savannah Memorial, and Willa is asking for me.
    I put the caterer’s folder aside and stand. “I’m going to see Willa,” I announce, and my voice cracks.
    â€œOh.” Francie spins around in her chair. “Want me to go with you?”
    â€œNo,” I say. “I got this.”
    *   *   *
    Willa’s room is crowded with the paraphernalia of hospitalization: balloons, cards, and flowers. There’s a tray with uneaten food—a yellow mess that must have been scrambled eggs hours earlier, and an unpeeled orange. Her bed is cluttered with blankets, as if Willa kept asking for more and the hospital staff just heaped them on one after the other. Her guitar is propped against the bed rails. Willa sits, but her eyes are closed. The TV is on with a Friday Nights Light rerun, where Coach Taylor is hollering at a hungover Tim Riggins.
    I stare at her and then touch her shoulder. Her eyes are open, green and clouded with sleep. She smiles. “Hey, sis,” she says. Her gaze is slow and lazy, wandering up. “Damn, how does a girl sleep through Tim Riggins?”
    â€œCodeine, most likely,” I say. “Can’t really see any other way to ignore him.”
    She laughs, and the sound, though weak, is lovely, like one of her softer songs. I sit on the chair next to her bed and move the guitar over. “Who brought this?”
    â€œBenson dropped it by,” she says, rearranging her body on the bed, twisting her head to one side to look at me.
    â€œYou planning on entertaining the troops in Savannah Memorial?” I ask.
    â€œYep. Me and Bob Hope.”
    â€œFor sure you were hit on the head. This is 2014. I’m sorry to tell you that Bob Hope is dead.”
    She smiles, but no laughter. “No, Benson brought it because he said I’d left it that night.” Willa exhales. “I’ve been trying so hard to remember, Eve—everything—but I can’t. My mind is empty, like nothing happened between Wednesday morning and Friday morning. I can’t find anything.”
    â€œAnything? Getting dressed that night? Being at the bar?”
    She shakes her head and closes her eyes tightly. “Benson said he asked everyone at the bar if they saw me leave or get upset or anything. One bartender said it was my turn to sing, but I walked toward a corner booth. Then I was gone.”
    This was Cooper’s story, minus the drunk wobbling.
    â€œBut Margot said I hadn’t had a single drink. She’d know.”
    â€œWho’s Margot?”
    â€œThe bartender.”
    â€œWell, we already know you didn’t. Your blood was clear.”
    Willa stares at me for such a long while that I think she’s lost her train of thought, wandering off into some other land. The neuro practitioner has warned me of possible TBI symptoms—agitation, combativeness, slurred speech, loss of coordination, and, worst of all, convulsions. I watch her so closely. Is she combative? Is her speech sloppy? I’m alert and on edge, as if I’m the one with side effects from the accident.
    Then she speaks. “I do remember something, though.”
    â€œWhat?” I ask, moving closer with anxious curiosity.
    â€œI thought I’d died,” she says simply.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThat’s all I remember.”
    â€œTell me.”
    She speaks in the quietest whisper, so I lean in to hear her. “I thought the streets would be gold, but they weren’t; they were made of South Carolina mud, thick and wet, no different from the path to the river, really. I was