The Other Mr. Bax (7 page)

Cool air worked its way into his chest, chilling the blood pumping from his heart. He filled his lungs, then pushed the bad air out with a noisy huff. He recalled the panic from the night before—completely consumed by it—the whole world, out of control. The memory blended with the present moment—darkening it with its similarities.
Staring at his brother, he took a slow deliberate breath, again filling his lungs—his heart, hammering away. “Something’s wrong,” he said.

“It’s…” Brian shook his head. “No, it—”

“It doesn’t make sense.”

“It’s okay. It’s just a memory thing. Nothing’s wrong. You’re confused, that’s all. It’ll clear up. It will.”

Roland squeezed his eyes shut. “Dana? That’s wrong?”

“It’s temporary. It’ll come to you.”

He brought his hands to his head and groaned. “I’m confused.”

“I know. So am I.”

“About what?”

“A lot. I mean, like, why are you here in New York?”

“Uh… because I live here?”

“You don’t remember?”

“Jesus, Brian, you’ve been to our house. Several times.”

Brian scrunched up his brow and massaged his chin. “Forget it. It doesn’t really matter.”

“Well, you
have
. About two months ago. We all went to the—”

“This is the first time I’ve been here.”

“You think I’m making this up? My imagination?”

“I don’t know what it is.”

“I bumped my head. People bump their heads all the time.
Their
wives don’t change their names. A bump on the head?” He again turned toward his reflection in the window—a wide, flesh-colored band of fabric was wrapped around his head, just above his ears. He glanced toward his younger brother’s reflection. There were a number of similarities between himself and Brian, same oval face, slightly bulbous nose, round chin, same hazel eyes. Brian’s face was perhaps a little fleshier than his, his cheeks slightly higher. Roland twisted back around. “You’re here… and Kate. But not Dana… or Joyce.”

“Roland, it just…” Again Brian shook his head. “You really don’t remember Joyce?”

“Joyce?” He had only recently heard the name, or perhaps met someone, but now couldn’t place when or where. His shoulders slumped as he surrendered to yet another sigh. “This is weird.” His eyes drifted about the room before returning to his brother. “I keep forgetting where I am. I look around… Oh yeah, the hospital. My head. I have to keep reminding myself.”

Brian regarded their surroundings as though trying to see things from his brother’s perspective. “Like amnesia. Some kind of amnesia.”

Roland reached up and scratched the back of his head. “I don’t get it.”

“The nurse told us you were found on someone’s porch. Do you remember that?”

“No.”

“Apparently you’d wandered into somebody’s home in some little town near here.”

A vague memory skipped along the edge of his mind—a house, his house, but with something missing. The details flitted about beneath a collage of conflicting ideas and images. “Wasn’t there a…?” His brow contracted. “That was my house.”

“Your house?”

Roland raised a hand to his head and lightly pressed his palm to the pinkish bandage. “This… Wasn’t there an accident? A car?”

“I haven’t heard anything about an accident.”

“I was crossing the street. And a car… a blue car—”

“I was told you fell from a porch.”

“No. It really wasn’t an accident, but... What was I doing?” He squeezed his eyes shut.

“Roland, just try to relax.”

“My wife… Joyce? Why isn’t
she
here? Why would I forget her name, just hers, and no one else’s?”

“She is though. She’s with Kate.” Brian nodded toward the door. “I believe that was her I just heard… a few minutes ago.”

Roland glanced toward the door, then turned back with a blank expression. His brother’s eyes dropped to his lap, the floor, then his shoes—searching. Roland said, “How is it that you and Kate got here before her? You had five hundred miles to drive.”

“I’m sure she took the first flight she could get.”

“From where?”

“Phoenix.”

“Arizona?” He pointed at the door. “Joyce?”

Brian’s eyes shifted toward the door. He said nothing in reply.

“Dana.” Roland spoke her name just loud enough that he could hear himself say it.

“Roland, remember when we were kids? Places we lived?”

When we were kids
… Scenes from his childhood played in his head like old black and white snap shots—sparsely furnished rooms, curious perspectives, the fifties, the sixties. He nodded.

“Remember the elementary school you went to?”

“Selma?”

“How ‘bout the high school?”

“Chrysler.”

Brian cocked his head. “So you do remember.”

“Yeah.”

“Your first wife?”

“Nancy.”

Brian nodded. “And Florida… You remember meeting someone there?”

“I met a lot of people there.”

“Joyce?”

“Uh… I made a couple trips to Florida. The early eighties. I don’t recall a… There was a Joyce in high school.”

“No…”

“And the girl in second grade.”

Brian straightened. “Rubens.”

“How do you know that?”

Brian arched his brow. “They’re the same… the same person.”

“The same? Who?”

“The Joyce you don’t remember marrying… and the Joyce from Selma. The same person.”

His eyes locked onto his brother’s.
Joyce
… Throughout his life, her name had repeatedly surfaced, over and over. It dawned on him that she was on his mind just prior to this crazy ordeal, someone he rarely thought about. The bike path—he was thinking about her then. He was thinking about her as he arrived at the corner of Clinton and John Street.
Joyce Rubens
…
Selma Elementary
… He recalled, the day after she came up missing, his standing near her bus after school, hoping to spot her boarding. He’d thought maybe she was there at school, and for some reason was unable to go out for recess. He had waited outside her bus for as long as possible, risking missing his own. Nothing was more important than confirming that she was still within reach, that the connection was intact. He would somehow get her attention—she’d see him waiting there for her, and then smile at him, and everything would be right again.

R
oland lowered his face into his hands.
It had only just occurred to him that allowing this meeting may be a mistake. Perhaps seeing Joyce Rubens in the physical would burn the bridge to that other life, the life that had existed for him up to this moment, and still existed, most convincingly, in his head—his real life. The idea that this woman, who until now was hardly more than a childhood fantasy, was actually about to walk through the door—walking, talking, breathing—a woman with the intention of comforting her husband, felt unreal—a crazy, abstract concept, and a threat.

A knock came from the door. It was now too late to change his mind. The door eased open, and an unfamiliar face appeared. “Roland?” Her voice was gentle, like a mother waking a child, and for just a fleeting moment it seemed that that was what he was doing—waking. But then a surge of anger pushed the notion to side—anger for acting so impulsively, for inviting something he had no understanding of into his already mixed up world. He said, “Come in,” though the words felt cold—more like, “Go away.” He realized this, and wished he could draw them back, warm them, and offer them again.

She stepped into the doorway wearing a yellow blouse, dotted with little, pink, cartoon monkeys. Her light-brown hair, loosely pulled back and fastened behind her head, framed a face he could not recall seeing before. He’d expected someone else—a fabrication, based on an impossibly vague impression of the girl he once knew. The woman standing before him, however, was more mature than the one he had imagined. Roland studied her eyes as they seemed to study him, analyzing him. Was it calm showing in them, or were they possessed by the fatigue, which showed in her voice, though she had not yet said anything beyond his name? She had not, so far, moved beyond the doorway.

No, he’d not seen her before. He was certain of it, and wanted to reject the notion that she somehow knew him. “What is going on here?”

She stared at him, unmoving, studying him, her expression, a mix of confusion and wonder. “Whaddaya mean?”

“I mean, this.” He raised his hands, shaking them while panning the room as though seeking something new, something he’d missed before. “My being here. And you.”

“What?”

“Really, why are
you
here?”

The woman shook her head—her jaw hanging open, her brow bunched up into disbelief.

Roland sighed. “I just don’t understand what’s going on, why
I’m
here.” He blinked—“Yeah, this”—and gently patted the bandage wrapped around his head.

She glanced over her shoulder as though evaluating her options.

“All right.” He nodded. “Okay…”

She turned and stared at him.

“Do you want to come in and”—His chest rose—“and talk?”—then fell.

The woman’s eyes glistened with the onset of tears. With a quiver in her voice, she said, “You want to know why I’m here? Fuck you.” She took a step forward. “Do you have any idea what I’ve been through?” As her pink-rimmed eyes drilled into his, it began to sink in just how real she was. “No?” Her nostrils flared. “Not a fuckin’ clue, do you?”

It made sense, and it made absolutely no sense at all—this craziness, the hospital, the cops, and then Kate and Brian’s indifference, like it was no big deal, something he’d quickly get over. But this was more than just a mistake, a delusion, an idea, an absurd concept, or whatever—it was her, Joyce Rubens—solid, present, the little girl he was infatuated with nearly forty years earlier—now a confused, hurt, very angry woman.

“Uh… you believe that… that we’re… No, I didn’t… I wasn’t—”

“
What
is wrong with you?” she snapped.

“Please.” He nodded toward the empty chair to his right. “I need someone to listen to me.”

Joyce raised a hand to her cheek and wiped away a tear. She turned her head toward the hallway behind her, then stood there as if reconsidering the world she had just come from—so close to escape. It seemed she was about to walk away, on the edge of being done with him, but then she turned. Another muddled silence hung in the air. Roland wanted to say something. But what? The right words, a place to start… in such a delicate tangle. Finally Joyce stepped forward and pushed the door shut behind her.

“How did they find you?” he said.

She stood there, her back to him, unmoving, her hand yet on the door handle.

“Brian and Kate, I mean.”

She turned, glared at Roland, her chest heaving. She clasped her hands together to stop their trembling.

“I’m confused,” Roland continued.

“Stop it!” She let out a huff.

The low hum of a fan came from somewhere nearby, and then the faint rumble of a vehicle, perhaps a motorcycle going up the road outside the hospital.

“You’re confused? I hate this,” she said. “I don’t… It scares me.”

Roland drew in a deep breath. “Do you want to just sit for a minute?” He pointed to the chair. “Please.”

She gazed toward the chair. The fire that was in her eyes the moment before seemed to die down, if only a little. She stepped over to the chair, dropped down onto its seat, then, still struggling to control her trembling, she folded her arms across her chest, lowered her eyes, and said, “I thought something really awful had happened to you.”

The loose end of logic seemed to twist back on itself. This flood of emotion was too intimate, clearly intended for someone else—her husband, not him. He felt like an imposter, a voyeur, like he had unwittingly tricked her simply by looking like someone she knew.

She lifted her head—her eyes examining his, his face, his neck, his ears. Her chin quivered. “Oh, Roland”—her anguish tugged at his—“why’d you do this?”

There was something strangely pleasant about being so close to someone else’s suffering. Perhaps it was her apparent trust. It amazed him and frightened him at the same time. It was flattering and wrong. “I don’t know.” He shook his head. “Brian and Kate thought I should see you—that it’d… I guess I was hoping all this might finally make sense. That you were… I know I’m not making sense.”

“Kate told me you don’t remember me. You don’t remember being at home yesterday? The soup and roll-ups?” Her eyes pleaded. She sniffled. “The hike?”

Roland let his shoulders fall, his eyes apologizing for him.

“Twin Peaks. The cactus. You don’t—”

A knock came from the door. A nurse stuck her head in. “Mrs. Bax? I’m sorry, but there’s a policeman out here asking to see you. Says you were expecting him?”

Mrs. Bax?
Roland peered into Joyce’s eyes, trying to, wanting to remember, recognize, or realize something—anything.

She remained seated, facing him, her back turned slightly toward the door. She wiped her eyes and cheeks with both hands—a single, synchronized stroke. “A policeman?” she said, without turning.

The nurse glanced back over her shoulder.

“Could you please tell him I’ll be a minute?”

“No problem. Sorry to interrupt.”

The door eased shut. Roland reached over, grabbed a box of tissues from the bed stand and offered them to Joyce. She pulled out several, wiped her eyes, and blew her nose.

“What’s going on?” he said.

“The cop who called me last night… about you being here. I promised I’d call him after seeing you.” She turned and looked toward the door. “I wasn’t expecting this though.” She let out a huff. “I’ll be right back.” She straightened her clothes and left the room.

Mrs. Bax?
The logistics behind a hoax of such scale were beyond him, but even more perplexing, was the motive. He considered the possibility that he had suffered some freak brain anomaly, the result of the accident, for which he yet had only the sketchiest memory of.
Is this real
…
Joyce Rubens
? Roland attempted to place her in the role Dana had held for the past seventeen years. She didn’t fit.

Again, someone tapped on the door. Kate and Brian entered.

“Hey, it’s after nine,” Kate said. “We’re going out for some dinner, then to bed. We’re tired. Is everything okay, I mean with Joyce?”

Roland searched for an answer.

“Stupid question,” Kate said. “Is there anything we can bring you? Contraband?”

“Guys, swear to me that this is not…”

His siblings both frowned with concern. “Jesus, Roland…” Brian looked at his brother. “I swear to you, we’re not fucking with you.”

“I just can’t figure it out. None of it.”

Two tired faces gazed in his direction. “She’s your wife,” Kate said.

“My wife…” Roland tried, but something persistently prevented him from seeing what he assumed should be obvious.

“We’ll see you tomorrow,” Brian said, “sometime before noon, all right?”

Joyce appeared at the door as his siblings were leaving the room. They chatted for a minute or two, sounding every bit like long-acquainted in-laws dragging out routine good-byes. Once Brian and Kate left, the door closed. Joyce stood there, leaning against it, her back to it, her arms across her chest. Roland gazed into her eyes, searching for the connection he knew should exist between two people who have shared the years of ups and downs as he and Dana had done. It was a “feeling” he was looking for, perhaps spiritual, a sixth sense kind of thing, which didn’t manifest. Joyce however possessed a quality that seemed somehow unaffected by the circumstances. It came from her entire being, from everywhere—innocent and confident, emanating from her features—soft, sincere, open-eyed. Roland again tried to picture the two of them together, tried to imagine knowing her, but found not even the vaguest of memories. He dropped his gaze to the hands resting across his belly, and attempted to pull up an image of her as a child. But that too eluded him, as it had for so long. He looked at her, standing there, guilty of the same, studying him. The expression on her face revealed nothing he could be certain of. But then a smile crept onto her lips, stopping there—a sad, tired, and possibly reluctant, smile.

Her smile, he realized, revealed
too
much—too much trust, too much history, and too much love. He tried to reciprocate, but what he managed did not feel at all like a smile. “What’d the cop want?” he said.

“He has your wallet, your ID. He wants to meet with me, about that… and some other stuff.” She glanced off to the side, then back. “Roland”—she sighed—“he told me they’re all fake.”

Roland pushed himself up into a sitting position, and tugged at the shoulder of his twisted hospital gown.

“They’re investigating us.”

“Investigating what?”

“You, mostly.” Her eyes briefly connected with his before shifting away.

The interrogation, from the night before—at the time, the questions made no sense, but now they were beginning to. He considered saying something in defense of himself, but instead said, “Before you left the room, you’d said something about me being with you yesterday. I don’t have any memory of that. The truth is… this might sound crazy, but I can’t remember ever being with you.” The gown again slipped down his shoulder. He tugged at it, then tipped his head toward the chair near the bed. “Will you have a seat? Please?”

She stood before the door, staring blankly toward the bed. In a near whisper, she said, “You say hurtful things.”

Roland drew in a deep breath, then let it go with a soft moan.

Joyce’s eyes drifted to the chair. A long, awkward moment passed, before she finally stepped up, dragged it away from the bed and, once more, sat with her arms folded across her chest.

He studied her eyes, again searching for something—an insight perhaps, anything familiar. He’d been so preoccupied with the outrageousness of the past hours that he had completely failed to consider the strange relationship he shared with this woman. It had always existed as a distant memory—a memory that continually surfaced, if only on occasion, but consistently, year after year. As his eyes met her lips, a tingle spread from the back of his head, up over his crown, crawling across his forehead in an epiphany so subtle and so complex that he lost it before he could say what it was.

“Roland…”

He focused his attention on the space from where it originated.

“You don’t know me.”

He blinked—looked at Joyce. The tiredness in her eyes revealed a disregard for impressions, a kind of “Fuck it, we’ve seen it all” openness that only years of living together can produce. “I said ‘ever,’ didn’t I? That’s not entirely true. I remember you, from the second grade—Selma.”

She lifted her eyes.

“I can’t remember what you looked like, but I do remember you.”

“The concussion—how’d that happen?”

He shrugged. “I’m not sure.”

Joyce lifted the blanket hanging over the edge of the bed, near her knees, and played with the fabric. “I’m beat.”

“I hate these stupid things. It’s come untied at the top.” He pulled the shoulder of his flimsy gown up. “I don’t know how you’re supposed to do this without pulling the whole thing off.”

“Here, let me,” Joyce said.

Roland leaned forward and twisted his back toward her. Joyce got up and moved closer. She reached for the loose lace dangling down his back, her fingertips brushing his skin.