Brain Damage

During occupational therapy, Charly’s confusion is obvious when she tries to comb her hair with a toothbrush. Dr. Greenberg confirms her diagnosis of left neglect. Her therapist, Valerie, jokes about amputating Charly’s unresponsive limb, which frightens Charly until the doctor reassures her and suggests electrical stimulation therapy. Later, during a demonstration of the device on what Charly is told is her own left arm, she feels a buzzing sensation and sees her fingers open, but she can’t voluntarily make a fist.

In the dining area, Jamie, whose mood has improved with medication, gets Charly’s attention by again calling her “Helmet Girl.” They talk, and Charly explains that she wears the helmet because a piece of her skull was removed after she was shot. Curious, Jamie asks to see her head. Charly removes her helmet, and he gently places his fingers on the soft, indented area of her scalp. A nurse scolds Charly for removing the helmet, but Jamie defends her, saying it was his fault.

In the Walking Group room, Jamie, noticing that Charly is discouraged about her slow recovery, opens up to her. He explains that his motivation for getting better is his six-year-old son, Sam, and reveals that his injury was from falling down stairs at the bar he and his brother own. When Charly asks to meet his son, he withdraws. Sensing her discouragement, her therapist, Natalie, encourages her to try a hemi-walker. Charly is terrified at first, but the entire group, including Jamie and Angela, begins chanting her name, bolstering her confidence. She agrees to try and successfully walks across the room for the first time.

In her hospital room, Charly watches a TV show that triggers her recurring dream of being shot while a voice whispers, “You deserve this” (155). She asks her mother about the police investigation, but her mother reports only that the police suspect a burglar and quickly changes the subject. Dr. Greenberg arrives with the good news that he can remove Charly’s feeding tube. She’s excited and insists that he do it immediately. Though the procedure is intensely painful, Dr. Greenberg triumphantly declares her officially tube-free.

Jamie’s father brings his son, Sam, for a surprise visit. Though Jamie didn’t want his son to see him yet, thinking it would scare him, he’s overjoyed. The reunion is happy, and Jamie introduces Charly to Sam. However, Jamie’s happiness sours when his father mentions that Sam’s mother, Karen (who struggles with substance use), has been in contact and wants to discuss joint custody. Jamie becomes enraged and declares that for her get custody, “She’ll have to kill me first” (166).

During a session on wheelchair mobility, Charly’s left-side neglect causes her to grab her therapist’s arm instead of her own and later to crash into a wall. The word “race” triggers a memory of running marathons, and she asks her therapist, Natalie, if she’ll ever run again. Natalie’s evasive answer solidifies for Charly the permanent reality of her injuries.

Charly feels extremely ill and refuses therapy. Jamie alerts Dr. Greenberg, who confirms that she has a fever and sends her to her room. While sleeping, she has a vivid dream that feels like a memory. In it, she enters her apartment, sees a gun, and finds herself paralyzed on the floor after an explosion. She senses a person in her left blind spot lean in and whisper, “You deserve this” (175). Charly wakes with a start, drenched in sweat.

Flashing back to the “before” timeline, Charly is on her honeymoon when she learns that Clark extended their vacation by a week and quit his job a month before the wedding without telling her. She confronts him, and he claims that he quit to start his own practice but admits that he has no clients and planned to use her savings. He apologizes for his secrecy. Though they reconcile, Charly feels a flicker of doubt about their chemistry for the first time.

Charly is now paying for Clark’s office rental. She sees Stan Leroy “everywhere,” yet, checking his chart, notes that his residence isn’t near hers. At a restaurant, a former colleague of Clark’s reveals that he was fired from his law firm more than a year ago. Furious, she confronts him. He confesses that he was fired for incompetence and then “blackballed,” hiding the truth out of shame and fear that she would leave him.

In the “after” timeline, Charly is back in the hospital hallway after a three-day confinement for a urinary tract infection. She discovers that many patients she knew have been discharged. Jamie appears, confessing that he was worried about her, and they share a brief moment holding hands. A nearby patient recognizes Charly as the doctor who performed his hair transplant. After he leaves, Jamie points to a small pile of feces on the floor where the man had been standing.

Charly’s cognitive function improves enough for her to graduate to the Thinking Skills Group. The other patients in the group include her friend Angela, a woman named Helga, and a former psychiatrist named Dr. Vincent. The group discusses Jamie’s crush on Charly before Dr. Vincent bluntly states that her husband shot her. Later, Charly has her recurring dream of the shooting, but this time she remembers greeting a neighbor right before going into her apartment. The dream ends as always, with an unseen figure whispering, “You deserve this” (205).