He Called My Brain Injury a Hunger Strike, So I Forgot Him novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: Fragment

The surgeon had kind hands and a bad sense of humor.

"I'm going to be honest with you, Mrs. Callison," she said, and clicked the scan up on the light board. "I can't take it out. Nobody can. It's too close."

"I know."

"But I can do something your old neurologist couldn't offer. There's a newer procedure. We go in, we map the tissue around the fragment, and we seal it where it sits. Most of the flares stop. Some of the gaps may close."

"Some."

"I won't promise more."

"What happens if I say no?"

"You go on as you are. Good days and bad days. The nausea and the dizzy spells, a few times a month."

"And if it goes wrong?"

She looked at me steadily.

"There's a small risk of a stroke. There's a smaller risk of losing more memory than you have. I've told you the numbers on paper."

I looked at the scan.

It was my own skull, gray and clear, and a tiny white speck in it.

Six months ago it had been the largest thing in my life.

"Can I think about it?"

"Take a week."

I took the folder home to the loft and set it on the planer.

Erik came in at six, covered in cedar dust, and found me at the plank table.

He read the pages without a word, twice, and set them down.

"Tell me what you think," I said.

"I think it's your door."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one I'll give you." He sat down across from me. "If you ask me whether I'd like you to have fewer bad days, I would. If you ask me whether I'd love you with all of them, I would. Those are separate."

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