Chapter 1: Frank?
"Who am I? Where am I…"
A white man in his sixties or seventies, with bandages wrapped around his head and an IV drip in his arm, slowly opened his eyes as he lay on a hospital bed.
"Ow… my head hurts. I feel completely drained…" he muttered, frowning deeply from the pain.
He looked around and realized he was indeed in a hospital room. Medical staff bustled back and forth, busy with their tasks.
"English? Since when did my English get this good?" he thought in confusion, noticing that everyone around him was speaking English, and all the writing on the nearby equipment was in English too—yet he could understand it all perfectly.
"Doctor, he's awake!" a nurse called out, noticing the man had regained consciousness.
Not long after, a bearded doctor in a white coat approached with a thick medical file in his hands.
"Hey, look who finally woke up! I thought you might not make it this time. How are you feeling, Frank?" the doctor said in a familiar tone, as if they were old acquaintances.
Frank stared at him blankly, completely lost.
"Huh? Hey!" The doctor waved his hand in front of Frank's eyes, then pulled a small flashlight from his pocket and aimed it at Frank's eyes.
"What are you doing?" Frank finally came to his senses and swatted the doctor's hand away.
"How are you feeling?" the doctor asked, putting the flashlight away.
"I feel terrible. Do I know you?" Frank replied, glancing at the doctor's name tag—it read Dr. Zabor.
Then it hit him—he was speaking in English. Conversing fluently.
"Of course you know me. We're old pals," Dr. Zabor said with a chuckle. "According to your extensive medical history, this is the 43rd time you've been here. You're a legend around this hospital, Frank."
"Frank? My name is Frank? That can't be right… I could've sworn my name was…" Frank's thoughts trailed off.
"You overdosed again and hit your head on the stairs," Dr. Zabor explained, flipping through the thick file. "You were lucky this time—just a gash on your head and no internal bleeding. The coma was more from the amount of alcohol and drugs in your system than from the injury."
"But man, your body's a tank. Anyone else would've suffered brain damage from that kind of binge. If you'd died, the hospital's finance department might've even rewarded me," the doctor joked, clearly familiar with Frank.
"There's never enough drugs, only more highs," Frank muttered reflexively. "I feel like crap. Got anything to help? Morphine, Vicodin, Fentanyl, maybe some Hydromorphone…"
Halfway through, Frank suddenly caught himself and fell silent.
"Frank, you think I'm actually going to give you that stuff?" Dr. Zabor said, shaking his head. "Now that you're awake, you're being discharged soon. Our finance department isn't exactly fond of you."
"Doctor, there's a patient looking for you," a nurse called from the side.
Without noticing Frank's strange behavior, Dr. Zabor nodded to the nurse and walked off with her.
"My name's Frank?" Frank lay there in thought. "I'm speaking English..."
As he reflected, his consciousness faded, and he drifted back into sleep, vague memories surfacing in his dreams.
---
"Frank! Frank!!"
He hadn't slept for long before someone forcefully woke him up.
Opening his eyes, he saw Dr. Zabor again—and a young woman standing by his bed.
She looked to be in her early twenties, very pretty by both Eastern and Western standards. Her black curly hair framed a pale face with heavy dark circles and weary, emotionless eyes.
"Frank, your daughter's here to see you," Dr. Zabor said.
"My… daughter?"
The words hit him like a thunderclap. He was stunned—but strangely, an overwhelming joy surged up from within him for no apparent reason.
"Frank, today's the last Friday of the month," the girl said, looking at him with a complicated expression.
"My daughter… I have a daughter…" Frank muttered to himself, still unable to process it all.
"Hey, Frank?" the girl called, clearly puzzled by his dazed reaction.
It was the last Friday of the month—she had even said so—yet Frank still showed no reaction.
"My daughter... come here. Let me see my daughter," Frank said emotionally, reaching out to grab the girl.
"Doctor, what's wrong with Frank?" the girl asked, clearly startled, turning to Dr. Zabor.
"Frank," the doctor said, "do you know your daughter's name?"
"My daughter's name?" Frank repeated, confused.
"Do you know your name?" Dr. Zabor asked, now finally picking up on the strangeness of Frank's behavior.
"My name… is Frank," Frank replied, hesitating mid-sentence.
"So you remember your own name, but not your daughter's?"
"You were the one who told me my name is Frank," Frank pointed out.
"Then do you know where you are right now?"
"A hospital."
"Which hospital?"
Frank fell silent, caught off guard. He had no idea.
"Do you remember your other children? Do you know their names?" the doctor continued.
"I have other children? How many!?" Frank asked in surprise, almost delighted.
"Doctor…" the girl said quietly, clearly disturbed by what she was witnessing.
"Looks like your father has amnesia," Dr. Zabor told her.
"Amnesia? But he's had worse before and was always fine," she said with a frown.
"I'm not entirely sure. It could be from excessive drug use that caused brain damage—or from hitting his head on the stairs. Either could've triggered the memory loss," Zabor explained.
"Can it be cured?" she asked.
"It depends. If it's from drug-related brain damage, it might be permanent and irreversible. If it's from the trauma to his head, then it might just be temporary. But we'd need to run detailed tests to know for sure—and the cost…" Dr. Zabor trailed off.
"I understand," the girl said before he could finish.
"In some ways, maybe losing his memory is a good thing," Zabor muttered as he stood. "Well, I won't keep you two any longer."
"Thank you, doctor. I'll take him home," she replied.
After giving a few parting instructions, Dr. Zabor left to attend to his other patients—patients who had insurance and actually paid. He didn't have time to waste on someone like Frank, who freeloaded on the system.
"Hey, Frank. We're in Chicago," the girl said as she sat by the bed. "I'm your daughter. My name is Fiona."