My Life, Deleted by Scott Bolzan Read Free Book Online Page B

completely on my own. I felt they would be not only crucial to retrieving my identity, but key to my very survival.
    A couple of hours later Joan suggested I call my parents, whom she’d been keeping abreast of my progress in the hospital. Because the doctors said I only had a bad concussion and my memory should return within a couple of weeks, my parents saw no need to rush to my bedside. Joan told me they lived in Chicago, and I had no idea how far away that was, but they weren’t a priority for me at that point. It was all I could do to deal with the people right in front of me—Joan, Taylor, and sometimes Grant—but I sensed they were important, so my plan was to put them at ease and get off the phone as quickly as possible. My head was killing me.
    Wanting a point of reference, I went into my office and picked up an eight-by-ten-inch portrait of them. The tan frame was embossed with the word “Grandparents,” and although they were strangers to me, at least I could put a voice to each of their faces. They looked very happy, smiling and leaning in toward each other at a restaurant table in front of a fireplace. I could see some wrapped gifts, which Joan said were to celebrate my father’s seventieth birthday.
    â€œHow are you feeling?” my mother asked.
    As we chatted on the phone, I stared at the dark-haired woman wearing a purple and black pantsuit and the gray-haired man in his beige sport coat and burgundy shirt, but I felt no emotional tug whatsoever.
    I didn’t want to alarm her, so I kept it simple, not mentioning that I had no recollection of them. “I had an accident,” I said. “My head hurts.”
    I asked them to help Joan if she needed anything because, obviously, I couldn’t. The call didn’t last more than five minutes, but it felt like five hours. By the time I hung up, I was completely exhausted.
    When Joan said my sister Candi was on the phone a little while later, I didn’t have the energy to go through that again. I tried to wave Joan away, but she covered the mouthpiece and gave me a quick lesson in manners before placing the receiver in my hand.
    â€œHon, she just wants to hear from you that you’re okay,” she said.
    I reluctantly agreed to talk to Candi, but if it had been up to me, I wouldn’t have spoken to anyone else. Afterward, I figured that if Grant had a sister and Taylor had a brother, I might have more of each and needed to prepare myself to speak to them too.
    â€œDo I have more sisters or brothers calling?” I asked Joan.
    Joan explained that I was the youngest of three children and that I had another sister, Bonnie, but no brothers. That meant I had one more call to go, which was both a pain and a relief that this one would be the last.

Chapter 4
    I ’D BEEN HOME from the hospital for two days when Joan and I debated whether to cancel our traditional extended family Christmas dinner. Typically we’d always had everyone over to our house because our long dining table could accommodate all eleven of us, including Joan’s parents, my niece Jamie, her husband, Kevin, and my two young, rambunctious nephews, Noah and Aden.
    â€œMaybe it’s best we not do a big family get-together,” Joan said. “Maybe it should just be us this year.”
    In spite of my incessant headaches, I still felt the need to see and do the same activities as everyone else in the world, partly so I could understand what “normal” was, but also to observe and participate in an important holiday with the family I was struggling to get to know.
    â€œDon’t change things just because of me,” I said.
    Joan said she was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to take the boisterous running around that my two- and six-year-old nephews were apt to do, but I told her I could handle it.
    â€œHow much more can my head hurt?” I joked.
    So Joan gave in. “Well, if you need to go lie down, you