Brain Child (27 page)

The walls—the whitewashed walls—were stained with crimson, and the bodies, crumpled and torn, lay still in the dust.

And then, as he moved around to the east, the images began to fade, and soon were gone altogether.

The images were gone, but the memories remained.

Finally he came back down into the village.

Lisa Cochran looked up when the bell on Jake’s door clattered noisily, and waved to Alex as he walked into the pizza parlor. He hesitated, then joined Lisa and Bob Carey at the table they were sharing.

“How come you weren’t in school this afternoon?”

“I went to the library,” Alex replied. “There was some stuff I wanted to look up.”

“So you just went?” Bob asked. “Jeez, Alex, didn’t you even ask anyone if it was all right? They’ll mark you down for a cut.”

Alex shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”

Lisa looked at Alex sharply. “Alex, is something wrong?”

Again Alex shrugged, then glanced from Lisa to Bob. “Can I … well, can I ask you guys a question without you thinking I’m nuts?”

Bob Carey rolled his eyes and stood up. “Ask Lisa,” he said. “I gotta get out of here—I promised Kate I’d come by on my way home and give her the homework assignments.”

“When’s she coming back to school?” Lisa asked.

“Search me,” Bob replied. Then he lowered his voice.
“Did you hear anything about her not coming back at all?”

Lisa shook her head. “Who’d you hear that from?”

“Carolyn Evans. She said she didn’t think Kate would come back to school until after they try her dad, and if he gets convicted, she doesn’t think Kate will come back at all.”

Lisa groaned. “And you believed her? Carolyn Evans? Oh, come on, Bob. Even if Mr. Lewis did do it, nobody’s going to hold it against Kate!”

“I don’t know,” Bob replied. “Sometimes people can get really weird.” Then, after shooting a meaningful look toward Alex, he left.

“I don’t believe it!” Lisa cried when he was gone. “I swear to God, Alex, sometimes people make me so mad. Carolyn Evans spreading gossip like that, and Bob looking at you like you’re some kind of nut—”

“Maybe I am,” Alex said, and Lisa, her mouth still open, stared at him for a moment.

“What?”

“I said, maybe I am a nut.”

“Oh, come on, Alex. You’re not crazy—you just don’t remember a lot of things.”

“I know,” Alex replied. “But I’m starting to remember some things, and they’re really strange. I mean, they’re things I couldn’t possibly remember, because they happened before I was even born.”

“Like what?” Lisa asked. She started to fidget with a straw that lay dripping Coke on the Formica tabletop. She wasn’t at all sure she wanted to know.

“I’m not sure,” Alex said. “It’s just images, and words, and things that don’t look quite right. But I don’t know what it all means.”

“Maybe it doesn’t mean anything. Maybe it’s just all in your brain. You know, from the accident?”

Alex hesitated, then nodded. “Maybe you’re right.” But in his own mind, he wasn’t so sure. The memories had seemed too real to be figments of his imagination.

Suddenly Lisa looked up at him. “Alex, do you think Mr. Lewis killed Mrs. Lewis?”

Alex hesitated, then shrugged. “How should I know?”

“Well, none of us
knows,”
Lisa replied. “But what do you think?”

Suddenly Alex remembered his dream from the night Kate’s mother had died.

“I don’t think he did it,” he said. “I think someone else did it.” He hesitated. “And I think it’s going to happen again.”

Lisa stared at him, then stood up. “That’s an awful thing to say,” she whispered, her eyes furious. “If you’re trying to convince me you’re nuts, you’ve just done it. Nobody but a crazy person would say something like that!” Picking up her books and her bag, she hurried out into the street, letting the door slam shut behind her.

Alex, his eyes empty, watched her go.

Ellen listened quietly as her husband once again recited the terms of the release they’d signed before Alex’s operation. Even after more than an hour’s discussion, she was still certain he was overreacting. “Marsh, you’re being absolutely paranoid,” she said when he at last fell silent. “I don’t care what you think Raymond Torres is up to, because you’re wrong. Raymond isn’t up to anything. He’s Alex’s doctor, and whatever he’s doing is in Alex’s best interests.”

“Then why won’t he let us see the records?” Marsh demanded, and Ellen could only shake her head wearily.

“I don’t know. But I’m sure there’s an explanation, and it seems to me the person you should be talking to is Raymond, not me.”

Marsh had been standing next to the fireplace, leaning on the mantel, but now he wheeled around to face his wife. He hadn’t gotten through to her at all. No matter what he told her—about the wall of secrecy Torres had erected around Alex’s case, about the terms
of the release, in which they’d given Torres full legal custody of Alex—she still remained steadfast in her defense of the man. To her, it came down to only one thing—Torres had saved Alex’s life.

“Besides, what does it matter?” he heard her asking. “Why are the records so important? The point is that whatever he did, it worked!” Suddenly the calm façade she had been maintaining slipped, and her voice took on a bitter edge. “I should think you’d be grateful! You always said Alex was brilliant—gifted, even—and now Raymond’s proved it.”

“But there’s more to it than that. For Christ’s sake, Ellen. Don’t you even
see
Alex anymore? He’s like a machine! He doesn’t feel anything. Not for
anyone
or
anything
. He’s … well, in some ways he’s just like your precious Raymond Torres. And it’s not changing.”

Ellen’s eyes flashed with sudden anger. Though she knew that what she was about to say would only widen the chasm between them, she didn’t try to hold the words back. “So that’s what it’s all about! I knew it! I knew when this whole thing started that it had nothing to do with the release. It’s Raymond, isn’t it? In the end, it all comes down to the same thing. You’re jealous, Marsh. He did what you couldn’t do, and you can’t stand it.”

Marsh stood silently for a moment, then nodded briefly. “It started out that way,” he admitted, moving away from the fireplace to flop into his favorite easy chair. “I’m not going to pretend it didn’t. But something’s wrong, Ellen. The more I think about it, the less I understand it. How is it possible that Alex could have made such a phenomenal recovery intellectually, and physically, and show no progress at all emotionally?”

“I’m sure there’s an explanation—” Ellen began.

“Oh, there is!” Marsh interrupted. He rose to his feet again and began nervously pacing the room. “And it’s all in the records that Torres won’t let us see.”

Ellen sighed and stood up. “This is getting us nowhere. All we’re doing is going in circles. I’m sure
Raymond has his reasons for keeping the records closed, and I’m sure they’re valid. As for the rest of it—the terms of the release …” She hesitated, then plunged on. “Well, I’m afraid that’s a problem you’re going to have to deal with yourself.”

“You mean you can accept those terms?” Marsh asked, his voice heavy with disbelief.

Ellen nodded. “I’m sure they’re there to protect Alex, and I’m sure Raymond will explain them to me. In fact, he started to the other day.”

“The other day?” Marsh asked. “What are you talking about?”

“I talked to him,” Ellen replied. “When you were going to pull Alex out of school and send him down to Stanford, I talked to Raymond about it. I was … well, I was afraid you might ignore his advice. At any rate, he assured me that I had nothing to worry about. He said … well, he said that if you tried to do something, he could deal with you.”

Marsh felt dazed.
“Deal
with me? He actually said that?”

Ellen nodded, but said nothing.

“And that didn’t faze you at all, that as far as he’s concerned, I’m simply someone to be
dealt
with?”

Ellen was silent for several long seconds. “No,” she said at last. “In fact, it made me feel relieved.”

The words struck Marsh with the force of a physical blow. He sank back into his chair as Ellen rose and quietly left the room.

Alex had long since stopped listening to the argument that was going on downstairs, tuning out his parents’ voices as he immersed himself in the book he’d picked up at the library after he left Jake’s.

When he’d come in for the second time, Arlette Pringle had immediately turned to the locked case, but Alex had stopped her.

“I need some medical books,” he’d told her.

“Medical books? But doesn’t your father have any?”

“I need new ones,” Alex went on. “I need something about the brain.”

“The human brain?”

Alex nodded. “Do you have anything?”

Arlette Pringle removed her glasses and thoughtfully chewed on an earpiece while she ran over the library’s medical collection in her mind. “Not much that’s really technical,” she said at last. “But there’s one new one we just got in.” She rose from her desk and went to the small shelf labeled “Current Nonfiction.”

“Here it is.
The Brain
. Think that’s specialized enough for you?”

Alex thumbed through the book, nodding. “I think so,” he replied. “I’ll tell you tomorrow. Can I check this out?”

Arlette led him back to the desk and showed him the process of checking out a book. “If this doesn’t seem familiar,” she said dryly, “I can tell you why. You were never much of a one for books.”

“Then I guess that’s something different about me, too,” Alex replied, thinking: And maybe the reason why is in here.

Since dinner, while his parents had been arguing, he’d scanned the entire book, and reread Chapter 7, the chapter dealing with learning and memory, two more times. And the more he read, the more puzzled he became.

From what he’d read, what was happening to him seemed to be impossible.

He was about to begin the chapter for the third time, sure that he must have missed something, when there was a soft tap at the door. A second later his mother stuck her head in.

“Hi.”

“Hi, Mom.” He glanced up from the book. “You and Dad still fighting?”

Ellen studied her son carefully, searching for any sign that the angry words she and Marsh had just exchanged might have upset Alex, but his expression was as bland as always, and his question had been asked
in the same tone he might have used had he been interested in the time of day. “No,” she said. “But it wasn’t really a fight, honey. We were just discussing Dr. Torres, that’s all.”

Alex frowned thoughtfully; then: “Dad doesn’t like him, does he?”

“No,” Ellen agreed, “he doesn’t. But it doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is that you keep getting better.”

“But what if I’m not getting better?”

Ellen stepped into the room and closed Alex’s door behind her, then came to sit on the end of the bed. “But you are getting better.”

“Am I?”

“Of course you are. You’re starting to remember things, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know,” Alex replied. “Sometimes I think I am, but the memories don’t always make sense. It’s like … I remember things that I couldn’t possibly remember.”

“What do you mean?”

Alex tried to explain some of the things that had happened, but carefully made no mention of the voices that sometimes whispered inside his head. He wouldn’t mention those until he understood them. Ellen listened carefully as he talked, and when he was done, she smiled reassuringly.

“But it’s all very simple. Obviously you saw the book before.”

“Miss Pringle says I didn’t.”

“Arlette Pringle’s memory isn’t as good as she likes people to think it is,” Ellen replied. “And anyway, even if you didn’t ever see that copy of the book, you certainly might have seen it somewhere else. At your grandparents’, for instance.”

“My grandparents? But I don’t even remember them. How could I remember something I saw at their house, without remembering them or their house either?”

“We’ll ask Dr. Torres. But it seems to me that your
memory must be coming back, even if it’s just scraps. Instead of worrying about what you’re remembering, I think you ought to be trying to remember more.” For the first time her eyes fell on the book Alex had been reading, and she picked it up, studying the immensely enlarged brain cell on the cover for a moment. “Why are you reading this?”

“I thought maybe if I knew more about the brain, I might be able to figure out what’s happening to me,” Alex replied.

“And are you?”

“I don’t know yet. I’m going to have to do a lot more studying.”

Ellen put the book down and took Alex’s hands. Though he made no response, neither did he immediately draw away from her. “Honey, the only thing that matters is that you’re getting better. It doesn’t matter why or how. Don’t you see that?”

Alex shook his head. “The thing is, I’m not sure I
am
getting better, and I want to know. It just seems … well, I just think it’s important that I know what’s happening in my brain.”

Ellen squeezed his hands, then let them go and stood up. “Well, I’m not going to tell you not to study, and Lord knows your father won’t either. But don’t stay up all night, okay?” Alex nodded and picked up his-book. When Ellen leaned down to kiss him good night, he returned the gesture.

But as his mother left the room, Alex wondered why she always kissed him, and what she felt when she did. For his own part, he felt nothing.…

Marsh was still in his easy chair, staring morosely into the cold fireplace, when Alex came into the living room an hour later. “Dad?”

Marsh looked up, blinking tiredly. “I thought you’d gone to bed.”

“I’ve been studying, but I need to talk to you. I’ve
been reading about the brain,” Alex began, “and there’s some things I don’t understand.”

“So you thought you’d ask the family doctor?” He gestured toward the sofa. “I’m not sure I can help you, but I’ll try. What’s the problem?”

“I need to know how bad the damage was to my brain,” Alex said. Then he shook his head. “No, that’s not really it. I guess what I need to know is how deep the damage went. I’m not too worried about the cortex itself. I think that’s all right.”