Amnesia (13 page)

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Authors: G. H. Ephron

BOOK: Amnesia
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Annie had followed me in and was looking back and forth from my face to the pot, as if trying to solve a puzzle. She followed me to a more private corner of the store, out of the dealer's earshot. “You seem excited,” she said.
“I hoped it wasn't that obvious. This is the kind of pot Kate collected. They've become so desirable, they're hard to find in places like this anymore.” Annie looked at it doubtfully. “I know, I didn't appreciate them much at first, either.” I handed Annie the pot and stood behind her as she held it under the light cast by a black panther lamp. Annie ran her long, slender fingers gently over its surface.
“Feel the shape,” I told her, just as Kate had once instructed me to do. I touched Annie's fingers and guided them from the narrow opening and tapered neck across the swell of the center. Annie held her breath. “See how the designs, here, cut into the surface of the pot, are like scar tissue?” We traced one of the vertical grooves in the green surface. I whispered, “The glaze. It's the genius of the artist. See how the glaze makes it feel so organic? He does it with the textures. Here, how the green varies from a light feathery covering” — I moved Annie's hand gently from one part of its surface to another — “to this scaly, almost elephant skin texture.”
“I see what you mean,” Annie murmured. “It's … incredible.”
“Anything I can help you with?” The spell was broken. It was the proprietor, now up and smiling benignly at us.
“Just curious, how much are you asking for this?” I asked with what I hoped was a disinterested tone.
“It's a very fine piece, don't you think?” he said, sizing me up as he rocked gently forward and back, his hands folded placidly across his rotund middle. “Just came in. Haven't even priced it yet. Let's see,” he held out his hand and reluctantly I handed over the vase. He turned it over carefully. “Nice condition.”
He fished a small magnifying lens out of his pocket and examined the bottom. I knew there was nothing there to see, except the telltale marks of a hand-thrown pot. “I could let it go for a hundred” — I reached for my wallet — “and ninety-five dollars.”
I quickly paid him in cash and tried not to gloat. He wrapped the pot in newspaper and put the bundle into a wrinkled plastic bag.
Annie was outside, waiting for me. “Well, you certainly look like the cat that ate the canary,” she said.
“Tasty canary,” I said, grinning.
When we reached the bakery, a half-block away, Annie's cell phone rang. I checked out the goodies in the window while she took the call. When she pocketed the phone, she looked pleased.
I brushed my fingers across my lips. “Canary feathers,” I said. “Now you've got them.”
“Just thought I'd check on whether anyone connected to the Jackson case owns a motorboat.”
“And someone does?”
Was it going to be that simple?
Cherchez
the boat and we'd find the person who had, not to put too fine a point on it, tried to murder me? Syl had said an old boyfriend used to take her out on the river. I wondered, for the umpteenth time, if Sergeant MacRae had any relationship with Sylvia Jackson that we didn't know about.
“Someone did,” Annie said.
“But doesn't own it anymore?”
“Can't own anything because he's deceased.”
“No.”
“Yes. Tony Ruggiero's motorboat fits the description of the one that hassled you.” It and about half of the other boats owned by half of the other idiots who like to zoom up and down the Charles. “Kept it over in Marina Bay.”
“Is that where it is now?” I asked.
“Nope. Now it's gone missing. Someone helped themselves to it in the last week and hasn't put it back.”
“That's very interesting,” I said. Just about anyone with access to Tony Ruggiero's belongings could have borrowed that boat. And where was it now?
“Food for thought,” Annie said. Then she closed her eyes and sniffed. “Speaking of which, smell that chocolate.” Annie looked at her watch. “Damn, no time to indulge. They've got this incredible brownie. It's called chocolate orgasm.” Annie winked. “Check it out!”
I did. Then I bought a second one, intending to bring it to Kwan. But it didn't make it back to the hospital.
I WAS working on the unit that afternoon when Chip called. He'd arranged for me to see Stuart Jackson the next morning.
After I finished the call, I went to get myself a cup of coffee. The normally locked kitchen door was ajar. I groaned inwardly as I hurried forward. Inside, Maria Whitson was standing by the counter. She was wadding up piece after piece of bread and, without pausing to chew or swallow, cramming them into her mouth. An empty cookie bag sat on the counter. Four banana peels were all that remained of a bowl of fruit.
“Ms. Whitson,” I called out. But she didn't react. She was like a machine, stuffing handful after handful of food into her mouth, her face expressionless concentration.
From behind me I heard a little gasp, “What the … ?” Gloria had come in. Ever practical, Gloria promptly put the bread out of reach. Then she took hold of Maria's hands. Maria, never taking her eyes off the bread, struggled to wiggle free.
I came around in front of her. “Ms. Whitson, can you tell me what you're doing?” A wave of rage washed over her face. Together, Gloria and I hustled her out into the dining room, making sure that this time the kitchen door was closed and
locked. We sat her down at the table and I tried again.
“Ms. Whitson, can you stop and talk about what's happening here?” She wouldn't respond. She just glared at me. She was still chewing and soggy bits of bread dribbled from her mouth.
“Ms. Whitson,” I said, and put my face close to hers. “Do you realize what you're doing?”
The rage drained from her face. Lines of tension around her mouth and eyes eased as her muscles went limp. She started to cry.
I repeated the question more gently. “Are you aware of what you were doing?”
She swallowed once, and again. Then she frowned. She looked at me, confused. “It's like I'm doing — and I'm watching at the same time,” she said, her voice sounding far away and tremulous.
“You're aware and you're not aware.”
“And the part of me that's watching isn't connected to the part that's doing.”
I was encouraged. This was the longest, unbroken, meaningful conversation we'd had since she arrived. And she was demonstrating a surprising degree of self-awareness and intelligence, despite the depersonalization that she was describing.
“Doctor?” Gloria said.
I answered her unasked question. “Go ahead.” Gloria left us alone.
“How long has this been going on for you?” I asked.
“Since the accident,” she said, her voice turned flat, without emotion.
“The accident?”
She looked down into her lap and started to twist the silver pinkie ring. “Two years ago. My husband was driving my car and he hit me.”
“It was an accident?” I asked.
“That's what he said,” she mumbled, her mouth barely moving, her face without expression.
“Two years is a very long time to feel out of control. You've been seeing a doctor for this?”
She nodded again.
“Does this have anything to do with why you're here?”
I waited for affirmation. When none came, I pressed on. “I know this is hard for you, but I need to find out more about why you're here. I need to ask you some questions.”
Maria stared vacantly at her hands. She seemed numb, unreadable.
I tried again. “Ms. Whitson, I know you're here because you tried to commit suicide. Why was that?”
Then her eyes flickered and she seemed to snap back into herself. She pushed her greasy hair back from her forehead. “Look at me,” she spit out the words. “Just look at me. I'm a fat slob. I'm ugly. I'm stupid. No one can stand me. I'm too disgusting to even touch. I can't control my compulsion to eat.”
Self-loathing feeds on itself and serves no useful purpose. I wanted to move her beyond it, get her to a place where she could use her intellect to get some perspective. “I see. Was there anything in particular that happened at the time that you tried to kill yourself?”
She started to answer and stopped. Started, and stopped again. At last, she folded her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes at me. “They're all out to get me and I thought I would just save them the trouble.”
“Everybody?” I asked, trying to keep my voice neutral.
Her lower lip quivered. “I have nobody in the world who cares about me,” she declared. She hooked a piece of hair and started to twirl it, shifting her gaze to her lap.
“And you've been seeing a therapist to help you deal with these feelings?” I could have guessed the answer to this even if I hadn't seen Maria's file. Very few people use a term like “compulsion to eat” if they haven't been through talk therapy.
“Since the accident I've been seeing Dr. Baldridge. Right away, he suspected that I'd been sexually abused.” It often took
patients years of therapy, repeatedly describing the pain and humiliation of sexual abuse, before they could nonchalantly toss off the words. Only the hair, twirling now like a miniature propeller, gave any indication of the inner turmoil she must have felt.
I asked gently, “I'd like to call Dr. Baldridge and get his insights into your treatment. With your permission, of course.”
She nodded.
“There's something else, too. We need to set up a meeting with the people who will be there to provide a support system for you when you leave us. Friends? Relatives?”
“There's no one,” Maria said, her voice flat.
“Your father was the one who brought you in,” I suggested.
The hair stopped and her hand hung in midair. “No. I don't want my father to come here.”
“Perhaps your father and your mother both? You know they've been asking to see you.”
“I don't want to see any of my family. Dr. Baldridge says it's because of them. Because of what they all did to me. He helped me remember.”
I didn't say anything. We needed a plan for moving forward. But I had no intention of forcing a pain-filled family reunion. To the contrary, we might need a plan that protected her from her family.
“They're in denial.” She'd gone back to the hair again, now spinning it quickly, around and around as her breath quickened and her eyes brightened. “Dr. Baldridge says that means they're dangerous.”
“Are you still seeing Dr. Baldridge?”
Maria shook her head hard, once left and once right. The twirling slowed and she took in a huge breath of air, exhaling with a heavy sigh.
“Do you have a job?”
She dropped the hair. “Real estate. I sell houses.”
“Do you enjoy that?”
“Yes,” she said thoughtfully, “I really do. I like matching people up to the right house.” She bit her lip, brought her pale eyebrows together, and concentrated on me. “Contemporary. I bet you go for real modern. Clean. Am I right?” She didn't wait for me to answer. She was stargazing at the ceiling. “You'd have loved this condo we had in … in …” Slowly her smile dissolved and her face collapsed. Two big tears oozed from her eyes. “Oh, God! I can't remember where it was.”
Maria started to rock back and forth.
“Ms. Whitson, does the eating help?” I asked.
She stopped her rocking, apparently surprised by the question. “Uh — I guess it does.” She paused and thought about that. “It helps me forget. When I'm eating, I'm not flooded with images.”
Flooded with images. Sounded like Baldridge. “What kind of images?”
“Flashbacks. They're awful,” Maria whispered. When she started talking again, the words came slowly. “When I eat, there's nothing. Nothing else but the eating. I eat —” Maria's mouth continued moving but there was no voice. She tried again. “I eat —” Again the voice faded. Her eyes became unfocused, the lids fluttering open and shut.
“Ms. Whitson? You eat and what happens?”
But it was no use. Maria's head wobbled forward, jerked back, then fell forward again. She was snoring gently.
I had to give up, but I felt satisfied. It was a good beginning.
Late that afternoon, I took refuge in the conference room to scribble the main points of my encounter with Maria Whitson into her chart while they were still fresh in my mind. I had nearly finished when I heard a light knock. I looked up. Gloria was standing in the doorway, resting heavily against the jamb.
“Long day?” I asked.
“Is there any other kind?” she groaned. She came in and collapsed in the chair next to me. She took off her glasses and ran her hands back and forth through her short hair until it
stood straight up on its own. She'd probably been on her feet most of the day.
“I was just writing up my notes on Maria Whitson.”
“How'd it go after I left?” Gloria asked as she massaged her temple.
“Reasonably well. She started out flat, depersonalized, and then she became surprisingly self-reflective about what's going on with her. In fact, we had quite a coherent conversation. She seemed to make a good connection until she fell asleep in the middle of a thought. Either she shut herself down because it was too much, or else she's still getting the meds out of her system. She's an odd one. Not quite the textbook case she appears to be at first glance.”
Gloria stopped rubbing her head. “Which reminds me, something odd I didn't mention. When I looked in on her the day after we admitted her, she was still out of it, but somehow she'd managed to fold her underwear. And her own comb and toothbrush found their way into the bathroom.”
“That is odd,” I said. Maria Whitson's hair hadn't looked like she'd run a comb through it in days. “Habit?” Sometimes lifelong habits kick in, even through the most debilitating mental illness. “Or maybe she's having occasionally lucid moments, tucked in among the hours of delirium. She told me it all started with a car accident two years ago.”
“Two years ago? I'd have thought it started before that.”
“No doubt. But it wasn't until she hurt her head in a car accident two years ago that she realized she'd been sexually abused.”
“Poor thing. Did she say who did it?”
I shook my head. “Blames her family. Refuses to see any of them.”
We sat quietly for a few minutes. I finished my notes and Gloria rested her head back and shut her eyes.
“That's good,” Gloria said. “She's following the protocol. Experts
say it's best to cut off contact until you're strong enough to confront your abuser.”
“So you assume it's a family member.”
Gloria opened her eyes and sat forward. “Usually is. Someone close. But right now she's dealing with a lot more pressing business — delirium, depression.”
“Possibly related to brain damage she sustained in the car accident, not to mention all the medication she's been on.”
“I'm concerned she might try to harm herself again. I've got the other nurses on alert.” Gloria stifled a yawn. “I know what she's going through.”
I didn't say anything. I didn't want to pry. This wasn't something Gloria and I had ever talked about. Or if we had, it hadn't been quite so head-on and personal. I knew Gloria would tell me, if and when she felt like sharing whatever the bond was that she shared with Maria Whitson.

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