Read Amnesia Online

Authors: G. H. Ephron

Amnesia

To Sue, Jerry, Naomi, and Molly
Special thanks to our agent, Louise Quayle; to Lorraine Bodger for editing and encouragement along the way; for their honest critique and suggestions, Alan Albert, Elenor Denker, Carolyn Ferrucci, Barbara Fournier, Michael Getz, Carolyn Heller, Joseph Kennedy, Patricia Kennedy, Rebecca Mayer, Josh Rosenthal, Donna Tramontozzi, and Lissa Weinstein; and to Delia Ephron for help finding the courage to get started and the backbone to stay with it.
HIS HAND rests gently on her thigh, warm through the thin cotton nightgown. His other hand, muscles and veins outlined in the moonlight, rides lightly on top of the steering wheel. She turns her head to study his calm profile. She wonders, why is he wearing combat fatigues? She shrugs and settles into the bucket seat, head back. The stars are bright in the clear, late winter sky, obscured now and then as trees fly past. She feels herself merging with the soft leather of the seat and melting through it.
From the backseat now, she sees the driver shrunken and hunched over the wheel, a glint of silver in one hand. The stars are gone, masked by trees and brush reaching for her, reaching for her car, scratching and scraping along the fenders and roof as the car slows and stops.
The driver turns, face in shadow. “Get out.”
She doesn't want to get out.
The door beside her jerks open. The face is his, but not his. Angry. Younger. “Get out of the car.”
She emerges into the cold. Her feet are bare. She wants to go home and get her boots and her down jacket.
“Open it,” he says, pointing to the trunk.
Slowly the trunk lid swings up. She doesn't want to look but she can't look away. Inside, shadowy darkness. Empty. No, not completely empty. A crumpled pillowcase with an eyelet border. Her pillowcase. Streaked with red.
She looks up. He stands beside her, his hulking torso shrouded in the bloody pillowcase, a belt anchoring his arms to his sides.
Nausea and fear rise in her throat. “Who did this to you?” she cries.
“Come,” he tells her. He walks toward a stone tower. As they reach its base, a massive wooden door swings open. Beyond, she sees her living room. She steps through. Shards of glass glitter on the floor. Pieces of the gold frame that once held the mirror lie scattered about. The blue-and-white sponge-printed walls are ruined, splattered and smeared with red.
Far away, she hears a dull thud followed by the rasping grunts of an animal caught in a trap. Again, a thud. Then pathetic whimpering sounds. And once again a thud, followed this time by sickening silence.
Terrified, she runs for the front door but trips over a body huddled on the floor, head covered with a bloody pillowcase, arms straining against their bonds. She tries to ask, “Who did this to you?” but the words stick in her throat.
Now a woman in white beckons to her from the staircase. She follows, longing for the safety of her bedroom. For her fleece bathrobe and fuzzy slippers. For him, warm and strong in bed. The woman is behind her now, the blade of a knife raised and gleaming. She scrabbles up the stairs to escape, stumbling in panic. The staircase turns and doubles back, again and again, soft carpeting giving way to cold, damp stone. The stairwell grows narrower and narrower, and at last she collapses, unable to push her way farther. She peers out through a slit in the wall.
Far below on a grassy hilltop, she sees herself. Her pale nightgown
is luminous in the car's headlights Her long hair whips around her head, dark strands lashing at her cheeks. The ground is icy and her eye sockets throb with a dull pain. She kneels. Waits. And then, an explosion.
Calm now, she watches, floating above as her body falls to the ground and the earth around it grows red and warm and then cools and darkens.
From beyond the headlights' glare, a shadowy figure emerges from the darkness. He grows larger and larger, stepping into the light. He looks up toward her perch and she feels sadness.
A light touch on her shoulder. She turns. Beside her on the stairs, the woman is holding flowers. Paper flowers. But the smell is sweet, funereal. The flowers fall from her hands and turn into butterflies that float away down the steep stairwell.
“Who did this?” she cries out, over and over, pleading for an answer.
“Sylvia,” the woman says gently.
Strong hands take hold of her shoulders and lift. She struggles against the pull. She wants to return to the slit in the wall. She wants to see, to be sure.
“Wake up, Syl. You're safe now,” a woman in starched whiteness croons.
The stone stairway dissolves and in its place, the white and chrome of a hospital room.
“Did you have that dream again?”
Sylvia nods. “I'm afraid.”
“I know. I know. Tell me about the dream.”
“I keep seeing the same thing, over and over.”
“And what do you see?”
“I see a man. He's driving my car. The man has a gun.”
“Where are you?”
“In the back. He made me get into the backseat of the car.”
“Where's Tony?”
She sobs. “In the trunk. The man made him get into the trunk.”
“You say you keep seeing this?”
“Over and over. I don't want to believe.”
“Why?”
“Because of who I'm seeing.”
“Now do you know who did this to you?”
“Stuart.”
The woman in white straightens and nods in the direction of the dark-suited official in the shadow behind her. She sniffs at the flowers on the bedside table with their little white card, its inscription. “Please get well. I miss you so. All my love, Stuart.”
ANYONE WHO saw me that morning as I sprinted up the hill, hair longish and wet, coat frayed and flapping like the wings of a great bat, would have thought I was a patient. They would have been surprised when I hopped onto the porch, reached into my trousers, pulled out a key, and opened the back door of the Neuropsychiatric Unit.
I was late. That morning I'd pushed myself, slicing and pulling the oars through the quicksilver of the Charles, until there was only the physical pain — pain and peaceful oblivion. My racing shell was a sliver of white carbon fiber, the last gift from my wife, Kate.
The river had been exquisitely beautiful in the crisp fall stillness, free at last of the whining gnats and mosquitoes that torment rowers in the dead of summer. I knew it was getting late but I told myself just five minutes more, five more minutes of blessed mindlessness. Now I was paying. My muscles burned and I hoped no one would notice I wasn't wearing socks. In my rush to shower at the boathouse, get dressed, and get to morning meeting, I'd managed to misplace one of them.
My staff was waiting for me, packed in around a table in the narrow conference room.
“Don't ask.” I raised my hand as if to ward off the onslaught and, in the process, to wave away their anxious concern that hung like ozone in the air.
Dr. Kwan Liu watched me with a bemused expression. We've been friends and colleagues since Kwan was chief resident and I was an intern at the Pearce. Now that he was approaching the big 4-0, he'd stopped reminding me that he's two years older and presumably wiser. He never tires of disparaging my psychologist's shingle, junk metal compared to his fourteen-karat M.D. As always, he was impeccably turned out in a dark suit that looked custom made. He finds my clothing an acute source of embarrassment while I find his indifference to the nuance of wine incomprehensible. Also, as always, he was going to be a pain in the ass.
“My dear sir,” he intoned, “if we don't ask, then how will we unlock the secrets of the mind?”
I dropped my briefcase on the table. From the defunct hearth of an immense, ornately carved fireplace I hauled over a black Windsor chair whose chipped paint and missing spindles testified to years of abuse. The chair and the fireplace were remnants of bygone grandeur when this building and the others like it that stud the Olmsted-designed landscape of the Pearce Psychiatric Institute were a refuge for the very rich. Bloodied but not bowed before the steamroller of managed care, the place now had the air of an elegant hotel gone to seed.
“I'm late … again … sorry, everyone. I just lost track of time on the river this morning and now every muscle in my body feels like it's been mangled … .” I stopped when I caught Gloria Alspag, the nurse in charge of the ward, playing a phantom violin, her eyes sardonic behind the wire-rimmed glasses. She gave an imitation of Heifetz coaxing an
appassionata
from a Stradivarius. “Oh, give me a break,” I said, sighing. It was almost like old times.
I rummaged in my briefcase until I found a pen and my notebook. Then I sat down, pushed my glasses to their proper place on the bridge of my nose, and cleared my throat. Suddenly, everyone was all business. All eyes were on the white board that listed our eighteen patients and gave us an at-a-glance feel for what we were up against. Despite the easygoing good humor of the group, none of us took this job lightly. We were camped out together on the borderlands of psychiatry, at the boundary between brain damage and emotional illness.
We had a new admission. “Jack O'Flanagan,” Gloria said. “Seventy years old. The police found him wandering in the Forest Hills train yard. Told them he was an MBTA motorman. Couldn't produce an ID, so they arrested him. Turns out he
was
a motorman. Retired more than ten years ago.”
“They brought him to the Carney,” Kwan picked up the story. “They checked him out. There's nothing wrong with him, physically. But there are clear psychiatric problems. They called his family. Turns out his wife died suddenly a few weeks ago. His daughter was relieved that we'd Section-Twelved him. He's here for evaluation.”
“He doesn't seem a bit bothered about being committed,” Gloria commented.
A beeper went off. Like a synchronized swim team, all of us reached for our belts to see whose it was. It was mine. An unfamiliar number blinked on the readout. I let it wait because I knew our meeting wouldn't last long. The room's antiquated heating system had only two settings: hot and stifling. Soon the room would become unbearable and we'd break for walk rounds.
When we did, Kwan and I collided heading for the phone in the corner of the conference room. He pursed his lips and said sympathetically, “You've been having such a difficult day, Doctor. You go first.”
“Thank you so much, Dr. Liu,” I answered with a little bow.
I dialed. After one ring, someone picked up: “Massachusetts
Public Defender's Office.” I froze and turned to face the wall. I felt as if I'd been punched in the gut. I could barely hear the voice on the other end of the line. “Massachusetts Public Defender's office … Hello? Is anyone there?”
“This is Dr. Peter Zak. Someone there just beeped me.” The calm, professional voice turned out to be mine.
“Can you hold a minute?”
I stood there, paralyzed. In my head, I was banging down the receiver, slamming the door on the past. But a moment later, I was still holding when a familiar voice came on the line. “Peter? This is Chip.”
I suppose I could have hung up then. But that would have taken action, and at the moment, anything resembling energy had been sucked out of me. I'd last seen Chip at my wife's funeral. I squeezed my eyes shut to blot out the memory, but it wouldn't go away. I could feel my clenched fist connect with Chip's jaw. I could see his shocked, hurt expression as he staggered backwards against the next person in the receiving line. Someone must have helped him up. All I remember is the silence that followed, the kind of big echoey silence you get when a throng of people suddenly turns still. And how after that, everyone acted as if nothing had happened.
“Hey, Chip. Long time no see,” I managed to say. But it came out sounding like an accusation. And that wouldn't have been fair. After the funeral he'd called many times, tried to keep in touch. But I was avoiding all contact with humanity. I didn't return anyone's phone calls. I wanted to forget. After a few months, he must have stopped calling.
“I was thinking the same thing,” he said. “Too long, in fact. How've you been?”
“Keeping busy, I guess. And you?”
“Same old same old,” he said. There was an awkward pause. Once it had been easy to fill silences with empty words. “Actually, I've got a case I wanted to get your opinion about.”
Was this how I'd gotten involved in the murder trial of Ralston
Bridges? A beep? A phone call? I'd probably been intrigued, eager to help in the defense of an accused man whom I naively stereotyped as a poor schnook who deserved the same expert defense as the Von Bülows of the world. But all that had changed. Murder was no longer something that happened to strangers.
“You know I don't do that kind of work anymore,” I told Chip.
“I know. But I was hoping —”
“Not a chance …”
“This one's right up your alley.”
“That alley's been shut down.”
“Just hear me out. All I'm asking for is a consult.”
“I just don't think it's a good idea. You've been getting along without me … .”
“And it hasn't been easy. Usually we can find someone who can give us what we need. But this case — it needs your expertise. Tell you what, just give me an hour to get your take on this and then I'll leave you alone. An hour, that's all.” When I didn't cut him off, he rushed on. “You see, this case turns on the memory of the surviving victim. She was shot in the head. Suffered severe brain trauma. Unresponsive for weeks in a coma. Now, she claims she remembers who did it.” I couldn't stop myself. Already I was wondering, how many weeks in a coma? How did the bullet track? It would all depend on the extent of the damage the bullet left in its wake. Head wounds are quirky. Slight deviations, fractions of an inch one way or another can make a huge difference in their aftereffects. “We're defending the woman's ex-husband. He tried to commit suicide after he was arrested. They're holding him at Bridgewater for observation.”
“Chip —” I protested. But even to me it sounded feeble.
“You're the expert in this area, Peter. There's no one better.” Pause. “What do you say? Just an hour's meeting? It'll be painless, I promise. You won't even have to leave your office. Annie and I come by, we pick your brain. That's it. No muss, no fuss. No strings attached. Believe me, nothing like old times.”
We'd been a team, defenders of the downtrodden — Chip Ferguson attorney, Annie Squires chief investigator, and Peter Zak expert witness. Was the funeral the last time I'd seen Annie Squires, too? I couldn't remember. “You and Annie still working together?”
“Annie's my right arm. When she packs it in, I'll have to pack it in, too. Annie's the one who urged me to call you.”
“Just a consult.”
“An hour. Nothing more. How's five o'clock?”
I mumbled something incoherent.
“Great! And Peter, thanks.”
As I hung up the phone, I was already having second thoughts. How could I still be interested when I knew where this could lead? My shirt felt damp and sticky under my jacket. I caught my reflection in the mirror over the fireplace. I barely recognized the person who stared back, tired dark eyes beneath a tumult of black eyebrow hair flecked here and there with white. Lines etched my forehead. I straightened my tie. How long had that spot of grease just below the knot been there? It didn't occur to me to wonder when I'd last looked at myself in the mirror and noticed.
Kwan was watching from the doorway. His nonchalant pose, arms folded in front of him, didn't fool me a bit. “You okay?” he asked. I shrugged. Then he grinned, held his hand alongside his mouth, and stage-whispered, “Forget something?”
“Pray, enlighten me.”
“You seem to have neglected to indulge in socks.”
I looked down at my naked feet, very preppy, shoved in oxblood penny loafers. I told him, “You couldn't just pretend not to notice, could you?” To everyone else I said, “How about we start walk rounds with Mr. O'Flanagan?”
I led the way down the hall, with its pink walls, tall windows, and gray industrial carpeting, past the brightly lit dining room where the patients took their meals.
From a doorway came a screechy voice, “Hello there!”
I turned to see a small, gray-haired woman in a blue nightgown and kneesocks, heaped into a large wheelchair. “Cataldo!” she sang out in a shrill soprano, waving an index finger in the air.
“Hello, Mrs. Blum,” I called, resisting the impulse to bellow back something equally bizarre like “Geronimo!” We all waved and nodded.
“Who's Cataldo?” Suzanne Waters, our intern, asked. “Her doctor?”
“Not quite, but good guess. Cataldo is the name of an ambulance company,” I said.
Gloria elaborated, “For Mrs. Blum, it's like standing on a street corner and yelling, ‘
Taxi!
'”
A few patients sat in the common area, a big living room with more pink walls, some plastic and metal chairs, and a pair of brown sofas. In a walkout bay surrounded by floor-to-ceiling windows stood a grand piano. An ugly fluorescent light fixture hung from the center of an elaborate plaster ceiling medallion. Jack O'Flanagan, thin and insubstantial, bald except for the puffs of gray down flanking his ears, sat hunched in a chair near the hall, his face a few inches from a dark television.
I walked over and put my hand on his shoulder. He didn't budge. I squatted so our faces were level. “Good morning,” I said. He swam over to me through watery eyes. “What are you doing?”
“Doing?” he asked. He looked around and his attention snagged on the television. “Oh, I'm waiting for the damned TV to warm up.”
“I'm Dr. Peter Zak,” I offered my hand. Reluctantly he looked at the hand, and then shook it. “Do you mind if I sit with you and ask you a few questions?”
“Questions?” He shrugged. “Be my guest.”
“What's your name?”
“John Patrick O'Flanagan. Same as my dad's.”
I could feel myself relaxing as this familiar routine kicked in.
Work had become my salvation. “Do you know where you are right now?”
“Well, I'm … I'm …” he stammered, looking around as if seeing the place for the first time, “I'm in the Forest Hills ready room waiting for my train to be called.”
“Do you know what day this is?”
“It's Tuesday,” he said, sure of himself. Actually, it was Monday. He glanced outside. “April …” It wasn't a bad guess. April looks a lot like September in New England.

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