Jack fell down and broke his crown
and Jill came tumbling after.
Why, of all the nursery rhymes in this book, did he picked that one? Jack sat on the edge of the bed and looked at his son lying underneath fresh green sheets, half in, half out, of sleep. There's something on his mind, Jack thought. The boy's eyes twitched and his lips pursed. Why this silly rhyme?
Jack knew that these rhymes historically parodied Royal political events, but this one made a mockery of of something much more real.
Jack and Gillian went up the hill to start a life together
, Jack got t-boned on his Harley and broke his crown; both legs; three ribs; and punctured a lung, but Gill did not come tumbling after. She ran with his unborn son as fast as her legs could carry.
He obviously still had a lot of rage, hidden deep, inside him, and this stupid little nursery rhyme had brought it all back to the surface.
Jack realized that there must have been an enormous amount of pressure on her, but still.... He had been in a coma for six months and when he woke up he was alone. He knew nothing about his past. Lost at sea… surrounded by the man eating-sharks in white coats, who wanted to get paid for services... no that wasn't exactly true because the Doctors and Nurses were wonderful, it was the hospital administration that wanted to know if he had any insurance to cover a couple hundred thousand dollars of medical fees.
Then came the real sharks. The lawyers, hired by his insurance company, that wanted to sue somebody on his behalf, to pay for damages, pain and suffering. The irony being that it was some Doctor driving under the influence that hit him. He left them to fight amongst each other, because he had enough problems trying to fit together the jumbled pieces of his puzzled life.
By that time he had found out his name and age from his drivers license in the drawer by his bed. It was a nurse that told him that he had a wife. She came everyday for a month. She rarely left your side until one day she got up and left never to return.
Months later, after many hours of rehab, he was wheeled out of the hospital’s front doors with little to show for the experience, except a slight limp in his left leg and a steel plate in his head. The young nurse handed him a sealed envelope before he got into the taxi to take him away to his new life.
The note informed him that a phone call was received at the nurse’s station some months back from Tacoma Washington. It was a woman inquiring into his status but she would not leave her name. The Doctors on duty decided that it might be detrimental to your recovery to inform you and we were not permitted to pass this information on to you.
The note then went on to plead for him to understand what a great pressure his wife was under, not knowing if he would ever recover and with medical bills increasing daily she probably ran away out of fear. She should have stayed out of love.
Jack had hated his wife with all his being. She had left him broken and alone, to wake up and not have any idea who he was or what he had been before the accident. He wanted to punish her for what she did even though he couldn't remember what she looked like or what their life was like. Not a trace of his previous life remained, not even her maiden name.
Jack became obsessed with finding her until one day he stopped in the middle of a shopping mall and realized that he needed professional help. He couldn't keep wandering around looking at every woman that passed, hoping for a flicker of recognition. It took three years of therapy and most of the money he had left from the lawsuit, after the sharks were fed, to finally come to terms with his anger, in the end he no longer wanted revenge but he would like to have closure. He just wanted to know why.
Someone at a local TV station found out about Jacks amnesia and thought that it would be an interesting story for Tacoma's breakfast television. Jack went on the show and told his story in the three minutes allotted but he left out the part about a missing wife.
A young woman sat at her kitchen table sobbing into her coffee. Her past had caught up to her. "What's the matter mommy? Why are you crying?" asked the little boy at her side. He wasn't afraid because mommy cried a lot. "Mommy's just being silly" she said; "Silly, silly, mommy."
She managed to keep it together until she dropped him off at kindergarten, then she returned home and collapsed on the bed and all her years of guilt and shame came pouring out from deep within her soul. What was she to do now? The father of her son was living in Tacoma. What was she to do?
A week after the show Jack got a call from the TV station saying that someone from his past had called the station and left a phone number. It took a few days for Jack to call because he no longer was sure if he wanted to re-open the past.
It didn't happen all at once but little by little he got to know the son he didn't know he had. He no longer had any feeling for his wife. If once there was love, it was no longer there. Hate had disappeared along with love, and indifference had taken their place.
This weekend was his son's first sleep over and they had plans to go and see 'Shrek 2' at the local theatre.
Jack lifted his son's head and removed the extra pillow. He stood above the bed and looked down upon him, searching for something that he could say was inherited from him but everything about him was his mother's.
He's the only thing that kept me sane, she had told him. He is my sun; my moon; and my stars. If it wasn't for him I think I would have killed myself. Jack found himself squeezing the pillow to his face, suffocating back the tears. Jack and Gill went up the hill, Jack fell down and broke his crown and Gill ran away with the Sun.
"Daddy, do you think Jack got better?" mumbled his son.
"I don't know Jack," she had named him Jack, "What do you think?"
"I think Jack got better, married Jill and had a son just like me."
Jack smiled and said; "Daddy is going to take his pillow and sleep on the couch in the living room." He dimmed the light and left the room. Tomorrow you and I are going to the book store and purchasing a copy of 'The Little Prince'. No more stupid nursery rhymes in this house.
