Page 24 of Exposed

I think back. When I woke up, I was unresponsive. Awake, but not all there. It took time before I could even focus my eyes. Longer still before I could understand questions, or respond. I couldn’t speak. Whether it was a cognitive problem or physical, doctors weren’t sure. But as Caleb spent more time with me, I started to speak. Mimicking words, showing comprehension. I have no memory, however, of being told how long I was in a coma for. All of this that I know, I only know because Caleb told me. My actual memories of the time immediately after I woke up are extremely hazy.

I shake my head. “I—I don’t know, no. I—Caleb never told me. I never thought to ask.”

He just nods. “None of the coma patients I found out about fit your description, even physically speaking, symptoms or whatever else aside.” A sip of coffee. “So I went back farther. Year by year, searching for coma patients who were admitted with no identification. A ‘Jane Doe,’ they call them. I spoke to hundreds of doctors and nurses, and no one knew anything.”

“You did all this? The searching?”

He shrugs. “I told you I’d find proof. I’m still working on it, but it takes time. Maybe I should sell my businesses and become a private investigator, you know? I’ve got a knack for it, I think.” A wave of his hand. “Point is, yes. I’ve spent every waking moment, and most of the hours I should have been sleeping,looking for information on you. I went back three years before I found anything.”

He pauses, I don’t know why. I am frustrated, curious, fearful. “And? What did you discover?”

“In 2006, there was a car accident. Three passengers. Mom, dad, a teenaged girl.”

“A car accident?” It is hard to swallow. “In 2006?Nineyears ago?”

He nods. His voice is tender, hesitant. “Details are sketchy. The mother and father were killed instantly. The young girl was in the backseat; somehow she survived. She was brought to the hospital, but again, the details on how she got there are murky at best. I spoke to a nurse who was working the ER that night, and she remembers only that the call came in, a sixteen-year-old girl with severe cranial injury, unconscious. That’s all she knew. She worked on the girl. They were able to save the girl’s life, but she didn’t wake up, and was transferred to a different floor of the hospital. The nurse lost track after that, because shit, ER nurses in Manhattan... they see dozens, hundreds of patients every day. Can’t keep track of ’em, you know?”

“A car accident?” I’m dizzy. “Not a mugging?”

“The nurse described you exactly, just younger. Dark skin, black hair. Beautiful. Latin, Mexican or Spanish or something. She described your injuries. Where you’ve got your scars.” He touches his hip, where I have a scar. His head, where I have another, beneath my hair. “And that person, if it’s you, was in a car accident. No question about that part.”

“So... if the hospital couldn’t identify me, how could you?”

“The city, the hospital, the police, they’re swamped, you know? Like, they’ve got thousands of cases, thousands of missing persons and mistaken identities and unsolved deaths and Jane or John Does. So, I’m not excusing the fact that they gave up the search, just putting some perspective on it. Theyput some effort into it, but without a good reason they just can’t keep spending the manpower on something forever. It wasn’t a crime that landed you in the coma, just a car accident. Not an unsolved murder, or something like that. So they gave up. You were in a coma. Things get glossed over, forgotten about.” He lifts a shoulder. “Whereas I have the resources, the time. And I have the motive to keep looking. So I did.”

“You found me.”

He nods. “I found you. Or rather, first, I was able to track down the car. Every car has a unique number—a vehicle identification number, what they call a VIN—and when the police show up on the scene, they record that number, and when the wreckers take a trashed vehicle to a yard, they record that number, and the salvage yard where the car ends up reports that number... everyone involved with disposing of a wrecked vehicle has that VIN. That car is kept track of scrupulously. It’s kind of weird, actually, considering how easily people can be lost. But anyway, I was able to get access to that police record, find the VIN. This is basic shit, okay? There’s no reason they couldn’t have done this, but they didn’t. What I found out is the car was a rental. That was part of the problem, what makes it tricky, because not all rental companies keep the best records. Like, the big-box rental places like Avis or Budget or whatever, they keep extensive records, but smaller places don’t, necessarily.” He waves a hand. “So I traced the car to the rental service, and convinced them to help me find the original paperwork. Took some convincing, because this rental service was kind of sketchy. They didn’t take a lot of information, didn’t ask a lot of questions, right? Just took a big cash deposit, and a name and driver’s license. Even then, I don’t think they’d object too hard if someone only had, say, a Spanish license but not an American one, you know?” The waitress comes by, refills Logan’s coffee. He sips, continues. “So I offered the guy runningthe rental service enough cash that he was willing to dig up his old paperwork. The car was rented to Luis de la Vega. Cash deposit, rented for a week. No other info. Just the name, and a photocopy of a Spanish passport. Luis Garcia de la Vega Reyes. With that name, that passport picture, I had more to go on. Such as INS records.”

“INS?”

“Immigration and Naturalization Service. They keep track of people immigrating to the States,” Logan explains. “Luis de la Vega, Camila de la Vega, and Isabel de la Vega immigrated to the United States of America from Spain in April 2004.”

“Isabel de la Vega.” I repeat the name, hoping some kind of epiphany will strike me. “Wouldn’t it be Isabel Reyes, if my father’s name was Luis Reyes?”

He shakes his head. “I did a brief search on Spanish naming customs, not sure why. One of those Google search rabbit trails, I guess. But apparently in Spain, you’re given a Christian name, sometimes a middle one but not always, and then you have two surnames, your father’s surname first and your mother’s second, but when you introduce yourself in casual, informal settings, you use your Christian name and your father’s surname, the first one. So your full name, Isabel Maria de la Vega Navarro, that comes from your father being Luis Garcia de la Vega Reyes and your mother being Camila Maria de la Vega Navarro. So according to that custom, you’d be Isabel de la Vega.”

I try to formulate a relevant thought, a coherent question. “Did you find anything about my parents or me before the accident?”

“Your father was a skilled metalsmith, specializing in fine gold jewelry. He brought you guys over here because of an opportunity to work for a custom jewelry shop here in the city. He’d worked for himself up until 2004, but then somehow he got in touch with a guy here and decided to move.” Logan twists themug in circles on the Formica tabletop. “It really wasn’t hard to find your father. I had his passport ID, so I was able to find him pretty easily. Talked to some people back in Barcelona where you’re originally from. Your father’s business was suffering, I guess, through no fault of his own. So when he got the opportunity to come here, he did. You were fourteen when you came to the States, sixteen when the accident happened.”

I try to find something more to say, something intelligent, but I am numb and reeling and shocked and unable to think or process or feel. “So you were able to discover all this just... by making some phone calls?”

He shrugged. “Essentially. I mean, I guess I’m downplaying it all a bit. It was a lot of work. I must have made two or three hundred phone calls over the last few days, chased down hundreds of dead ends looking for someone with concrete information on you and your family. And even then, once you guys made it here, the trail sort of goes cold. Your father worked his ass off, seventy and eighty hours a week, and your mom was a maid in a hotel, worked similar hours. Quite a step down for you guys from the life you lived in Spain, is the impression I get. You went to a public high school, but I couldn’t track down anyone who actually knew you personally. A couple teachers who taught you, but again this is New York, and the classes are huge and it’s hard—if not impossible—for a teacher to recall any particular student, especially one from over ten years ago. You were quiet, kept to yourself, spoke fluent but accented English. Did your work, didn’t really stand out in any way. Decent grades, but not great. You were adjusting, I guess. No close friends.”

“Do I...” I have to pause to breathe and start over. “Do I have any family? In Spain, I mean.”

Logan shakes his head, his eyes sad. “No, I’m sorry. Your parents were both only children, and their parents died when you were young, when you guys still lived in Spain. I eventracked down where you guys lived here in the city, but the apartment building where you lived didn’t keep your stuff after your parents died. I mean, no one told them, right? So they put your stuff in storage for a while in case you came back, but your folks were dead and you were in a coma, and then you woke up not knowing who you were. So eventually they sold it or trashed it.”

“So really, I’m back to where I started. No family, no real identity. No belongings of my own.”

Logan sighs. “I guess so. I guess all that information doesn’t really do you any good, does it?” He sounds bitter.

I realize I’m being incredibly ungrateful. “Logan, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to make light of what you’ve given me. I have my name. I know my parents’ names. That is a gift I shall never be able to repay.” I place my hands over his, around the coffee mug.

He shrugs, a gesture of dismissal. “No big deal.”

“It is, though, isn’t it? To have my name?”