More Than Memories (6 page)

“So what about now that I’m here?”

“I don’t know why he’s worried.” She pushed her
plate away and glanced at the bill, buying time. “He’ll come around.”

“We can be honest, right? I need that.” Molly knew
coming to Ridge City was the start of finding the truth, and she didn’t want any
kind of dishonesty.

Exhaling, Alicia took a drink of water before
saying, “He doesn’t think you should be able to jump right back in. But he
doesn’t understand, we were all friends, all the way through schoo
l, beyond.”

Molly gathered her things and thought David didn’t
want her pushing into his life, taking his wife’s tim
e,
and in a way, replacing him. The idea was silly, and she hoped he wouldn’t hold
onto it.

Outside she stopped abruptly, causing Alicia to
stop and look at her.

“I’m sorry I left,” Molly started. “I don’t know
why yet, but I’m sorry it caused so much pain.” Her friend stepped close and
wrapped her arms around her, unable to speak. Molly didn’t know what else to
add with words, so she let the moment linger.

“We’ll figure this out, okay?” Alicia said,
stepping back. Molly nodded before they started for the car.

As they walked to Alicia’s Mazda, Molly realized
she did plan on staying at least until she discovered a few answers, maybe
longer.

The sky outside only held a few white clouds and a
lot of people were taking advantage of the sunshine and rise in temperature.
They drove through town on the main road and turned right near the other end,
toward the edge of town.

“Here’s your old house.”

Molly felt dismayed as she saw the baby blue house
with white trim. The place looked so welcoming with the wide porch, the padded
wicker chairs, and flower pots.

“It’s quaint. A cute, country kind of quaint.”

“You say that like it’s weird,” Alicia said.

“Oh, no.” Molly corrected. “I wasn’t expecting it
to look like this, though. It’s so different from the house in California. Did
the house look so warm when my parents and I lived there?”

“You helped a lot. You planted the flower beds
because you loved growing things.”

Molly turned to look at Alicia now. “I did? I
didn’t know that.”

Next they drove thirty miles to the city and to a
mall where Alicia said they spent a lot of time at during high school. Inside,
Alicia took her to their favorite clothing store.

“This is so cute!” Molly looked through a rack of
shirts.

“You used to have more of a country style,” Alicia
told her. “More casual, too.”

“I wonder what happened to my clothes. I only had
a few outfits when I first, well, you know.” Why hadn’t she ever wondered about
that before?

“Weird.”

“Hey, I like this.” Molly pulled a baby blue shirt
from the rack and found a pair of jeans and a few other things she liked.

“That looks more like you. You came back to town
dressed like your mother.”

Molly glanced up to see her expression, then they
broke into giggles.
“Feel like a movie after
this?” Molly asked.

Trent drummed his fingers on his desk while
waiting for Molly’s friend to pick up the phone. He almost hung up as the fifth
ring started, realizing he wasn’t going to get an answering machine.

“Hello?” The voice sounded groggy.

“Oh, I woke you, I’m sorry.”

“Well, who is this?”

“I’m Detective Trent Williams calling from Ridge
City, Oregon. Molly Anderson gave me your number. Is this Karen?”

“Oh, yes. She called and told me about you, but I
didn’t expect you to call me.”

He felt bad, realizing she must either work nights
or be on her day off, but he’d already ruined her sleep. “I wanted to ask you
about when you first met Molly.”

“Okay…Her parents brought her to the hospital on
my shift, baffled by her behavior.”

“Was she scared?” Trent heard the rus
hed sound of h
is voice.

“No.” Karen paused, and Trent wondered if she
believed him about who he was. She finally
continued,
“S
he didn’t know where she was, or who was with her. They told her, she
seemed to understand, and then she’d forget again. At the end of the day, the
doctor believed she had PTA.”

Lost, Trent said, “That’s not Parent Teacher
Association?”

She laughed quickly but
returned
right
to business. “Post Traumatic Amnesia.”

“Okay, got that.” He jotted down the official name
of Molly’s condition and added, “I knew her before, but she didn’t recognize me
when she saw me.”

“Well, we were wrong.”

“Wrong?” Trent didn’t understand how it could be
anything else. Would Molly lie to him? He couldn’t believe that, wouldn’t
believe it.

“You see, PTA traps someone in the present, unable
to make short term memories. They live minute to minute, after a brain injury,
and it usually doesn’t last over a month.”

“I’ve never heard of that,” he admitted, while
thinking Molly didn’t have that problem. Trent hoped Karen could give him
information on how to jump start Molly’s memory, if that’s what she needed to
move on.

“There are around two million head injuries each
year, seven hundred thousand need hospitalization, and only about seventy
percent of those get PTA.”

“And Molly seemed to have this?”

“Several doctors agreed it looked likely, but they
agreed it was a tough diagnosis. Her symptoms weren’t consistent. So they
decided to wait a month, believing the condition would improve.”

He wrote
Symptoms?
on the top of a new
page. “Do you remember the cause of her injury?”

“She fell, they said. She couldn’t remember. I
think they said from a ladder several feet up onto pavement.”

“So what happened?”

“She went home. I checked on her daily. Frankly, I
was worried about her. She wasn’t afraid at the hospital, just confused, but as
she kept re-experiencing the confusion of not knowing who or where she was, she
started to panic.”

Trent held his breath so his emotion wouldn’t come
through in his breathing.
How horrifying
. His poor Molly. He chewed his
lip, a bad habit that surfaced when he was having trouble holding in his
emotions.

After the stretched pause, Karen continued, “She
did improve, but the strange part was her memory before the accident never came
back. I don’t think she has a clear memory of that month, either.”

“But you said PTA lasts for about a month?”

“Yes, only a third of cases usually go past that.
But she exhibited symptoms of retrograde amnesia, where she couldn’t remember
her past before the accident.”

“So her case is unusual?”

“To say the least. I asked the doctors a lot of
questions, researched myself, but science doesn’t have every answer. And all
these numbers haven’t helped Molly.” Karen paused this time before she asked,
“Am I speaking to a friend? A friend to Molly?”

“Yes.”

“I believed you right away because Molly told me
about how you’re helping her. So I’ll tell you what I really think. But this is
something I haven’t shared with Molly.”

“Yes?” He felt sweat beads on his forehead.

“This seems more like a case of not wanting to
talk.”

“Excuse me?” Trent again told himself Molly
wouldn’t lie to him. “Why do you think she’s hiding something?”

“Oh, no, not like that. Have you ever heard of
someone who wouldn’t speak after a traumatic incidence?”

“Yes, in movies.”

“I think Molly wants to regain her memory more
than anything, but she’s terrified of what she’ll find. I think part of her is
blocking her memory. You see, there wasn’t enough damage to her brain to
permanently erase her long term memory.”

“Okay.” He digested her theory. “So, with support,
you think she’ll remember everything?”

“Maybe, when, if, her mind decides she can handle
the event that made her want to forget.” When Trent didn’t comment, Karen added,
“This is, of course, my personal opinion, apart from medical science. I am just
a nurse. I’m not supposed to diagnose these kinds of things. But I’ve spent a
lot of time with Molly, and some time with her parents before they died, and I
think something awful did this to her.”

Trent still couldn’t speak.

“You’ll help her?” Karen asked.

“Yes.” He swallowed. “I’m going to get to the
bottom of this. For Molly.” And for them, but he didn’t add that part out loud.

Later Molly and Alicia headed back to Alicia
’s house la
ughing about the movie and how they
spilled popcorn everywhere. Alicia had even thrown a few pieces back at a pesky
kid in front of them. Molly noticed popcorn stuck in Alicia’s hair and pulled
it out, holding it up for her to see and causing more laughter.

“I want to show you one more place.” Alicia drove
into Ridge City and up a street Molly hadn’t seen yet, since she’d returned. A
few blocks up the road, Alicia said quietly, “That’s his house.”

After a long driveway, a wide brick house sat
surrounded by rose bushes. Molly pictured them in bloom, thinking maybe they
were red because that would set off the reds and oranges in the bricks. The
lawn between the house and link fence didn’t have a single weed, and looked  so
perfectly thick and good for lying on.
Under a starlit sky on a warm summer
night, crickets chirping, his arm under her head, talking about their dreams.

A car behind them honked and Alicia waved them by.
After the distraction, Molly tried to recapture the feeling that had just hit
her, but it was a blurry thought about laying on that perfectly kept lawn. The
car sat in neutral as Molly took in the house. Her eyes moved to the mailbox
and the sign swinging under it that read
Williams
.

“He’s been here a while?” she asked, wondering
about a single man who hangs a sign like that on his mailbox. She thought of
him watching her leave earlier that day, and how she felt when he looked at
her.

“And plans to stay a while, too,” Alicia answered.
“There’s a five acre backyard. I love his house, it has a wide fireplace, open
layout, but it’s still cozy.”

“Hmm. It sounds really nice.” Molly wanted to go i
nside and see it for herself. She ask
ed, “Why didn’t
he bring me here?”

“Oh.” A long pause. “Maybe he doesn’t think you’re
ready.”

Ready? Would she ever be ready? Her next question
popped into her head and out her mouth. “Has he dated?”

Wow she didn’t really want to know.

“Since?” Alicia almost snorted. “Of course not. He
was in love with you since kindergarten. We’ve always teased him because he’s
so practical and analytical about everything but loving you.”

Loving you
. Molly didn’t turn to look at
her friend as the words echoed over and over in her head.
Loving you.
Molly added patience to Alicia’s list about Trent, because what kind of man
waited around for a woman for so long?

Alicia put the car in gear and drove back to her
house where they had lunch with David. He was polite enough not to ask if Molly
remembered anything that day, but his pointed look at his wife caused her to
say, “No, not a thing.”

They were eating salad, beer bread, and homemade
clam chowd
er. It w
as so delicious Molly
refused to let her stomach wince in frustration. After only a day with Alicia,
she trusted her. Molly spoke up and said, “I want my memory back, but even more
I want to uncover why I took off, if I did, that is.”

“It is strange,” David murmured, and Alicia shot
him a look.

“I agree, it is,” Molly said in David’s defense
though she wondered at Alicia’s
c
oncerned
look. Her friend seemed to tell things like she saw them. “I was with my
parents, who knew all of you were here looking for me, but they didn’t call
anyone.”

“I wonder what they were running from.”

The thought had been teasing the back of Molly’s
mind, but she still jumped when she heard it said out loud. “I want to find
that out, too. I want to know all of it, and why they were keeping it from me.”

“Are you sure they were?” her friend asked. Molly
admitted she couldn’t be sure of anything, but she had a gut feeling
that something had forced them into leaving quickly. T
he
phone rang and David rose to answer it, letting the women continue the
conversation. A minute later, he told Molly that Trent wanted to take her out
for dinner that evening.

“Dinner?” What would she wear? Maybe she wasn’t
ready for dinner out with him. Her face flushed before Molly realized it was
probably more about getting down to business and solving all of this than . . .
dinner.
He needed to gather more information and get to the bottom of
this mess. That mess didn’t necessarily include her feelings for him, if she
had feelings, that is. She cleared her throat and tried to look normal, which
was a bit tough with Alicia grinning at her.

Clouds hung lazily above, separating the blue sky
into patches, while Trent walked up a familiar hill to an apple tree. Leaves
decorated the tree now that spring was in full force, and he spotted several
white blossoms opening. He’d come here weekly during the last four years. On
sunny days he remembered picnics with Molly and kissing under the tree. Their
special picnic when he proposed. On sad, rainy days, he remembered intimate
moments inside the house, by the fire or in bed. On those days, he looked up to
Heaven and asked why. He’d lost his life when Molly disappeared, but he had no
choice but to keep living. Going on alone wasn’t easy. Everything felt wrong.

Now she walked right back into his life, which
didn’t make sense either. Did he really care why though? Molly was back.

Today he looked up to Heaven and said, “Thank
you.”