Pam (5 page)

My first day into the world consisted o
f stopping to see my new doctor
and getting to my apartment. It was a
good
starter place. At one time
it must have been a motel, because it looked it. Each apartment was small. One bedroom, a bath, and the living room was connected
to t
he
kitchen
.

I received a settlement from the state of Connecticut, but in order to use it I had to get a checking account and driver’s license
.
T
hat was day two.

Getting a bank account had
drastically
changed
since
I was in the wor
ld. They denied me at two banks
before the third gave me one. I felt bad for
Stephanie;
her whole day was spent running me around.

The state gave me an emergency food stamp card, not
much,
but enough to get some food.
On m
y third day, I bought a used car from one of those sleazy places. You know
,
the type your father warned you about. It would work, they helped me get insurance
,
and that took most of my day.

I spent the evening driving around the block, getting used to driving again. So much was different
that
I was still processing it.

I didn’t watch the
news;
I did
,
however
,
read the paper. By the fourth morning, a story about me had slipped to the back of the paper
,
was
no longer in the front. That was good. They hadn’t figured out where I was
,
and no one really recognized me.

I had gotten some clothes from the thrift store. Plain clothes and tee shirts.
I colored my hair with a box of dye I got from the drug store … those had changed as well. Things got quick in eighteen years. Twenty minutes to dye my hair seemed awfully fast. The whole world got fast. In two decades society found hundreds of ways to make life easier.

I found life easier and not such a need for all those pills.
Four pills
a day seemed way too much. I actually felt … okay. Weird but okay.

I left a little early in case I got lost on my way to Dr. Andrews’ office, I didn’t want to be late
.
He scheduled my appointments so I came in when no one else was around. I was fine with that
;
I didn’t
do
well with people. I hadn’t had much contact in nearly
two
decades.

Kept out of general population, my conversation
al
skills lacked.

Everything was an adjustment. I was showering without someone watching me. I walked from my home without restraints o
n my wrists. People spoke to me
though I didn’t answer properly. I know I didn’t
.
Simple yes and no answers. I wasn’t being rude, I was nervous.

Stepping into McDonald’s was an anxiety
-
inducing experience
,
s
o much so
that
I left and went through the drive thr
u
. That was easier.

My God how prices changed. The last
time
I got a Big Mac it was a little over a dollar.

I arrived at Dr. Andrews’ office building and parked in the lot. I estimated it would take two minutes to get out of the car and
in
to his office. So I waited.

Slouched down in my front seat, I watched people leave. Women in uniforms, chatting as they walked. They seemed happier than the nurses at the hospital.

At twelve minutes after five, I headed to the building. It was empty
,
and I felt overwhelmingly nervous about th
is
first appointment. I don’t know why. Lord knows I have spoken to enough psychiatrists. But there was something about Dr. Andrews. He was younger
than
I was
, not much
,
in his
late thirties and attractive. He looked rough, like maybe he had a lot of martinis after work. But the thing that stood out most to me was
that h
e didn’t just seem like a doctor, he seemed interested. He didn’t just nod and write
things
down, he paid attention and responded.

That early in seeing him, I didn’t know whether to trust that or be suspicious.

Time would tell.

Pam look
ed
different when she walked in. More refreshed,
but
still not happy. She added a hint of light lipstick to brighten her look
,
and she dyed her hair. I suppose
d
that
in her new world she would continue to change until she found herself.

I complimented her hair when I saw her, and
she
shied away from the comment, tucking her hair behind her ears
a
s she made her way into the office
.

She preferred I sit behind the desk
;
maybe
having
the object between us made her feel safe.

“Can I get you a coffee? Soda?” I asked.

“No. This world seems
obsessed
with coffee.”

I laughed. She didn’t. “We are. We build coffee houses that people are quite addicted to. You’ll have to try one.”

“Maybe.”

Her answers again were short and eye contact
minimal
. She didn’t fuss as much and I didn’t notice the twitching. “Th
ese
…” I pulled two stacks of folders toward me
,
“are
part of your records and treatment. There’s a lot here.”

“Did you read it all?”

“Most. But I’m goi
ng to use these only as a guide
and reference
. You’re here for treatment with me, based on now. Not then.”

“Some think it’s the same.”

“I’ll be the judge. What do you think?” I asked.

And they she spouted out an answer that showed me this was an intelligent woman before me. “I think they treated me back then based on what they
thought
I was
,
not what I actually was. They treated me like an criminally insane murderer.
The
diagnosis
was based on my conviction.”

“That makes perfect sense.”

“I had a lot of time to think.”

“
Is
there anything
particular
you want to talk about today?”

“No. No
,
that will come. I’m sure.”

“At anytime, if you want to
talk
about something specific, you do so. This is our first appointment, so let’s start from the beginning. Tell me about your childhood.”

She scoffed a laugh.

“Why is that
funny?
”

“I had a normal childhood. My mom stayed home, my father worked long hours
,
and I
got a
long with my sister. No one abused me. I was loved.”

“Your
sister
… Anne Marie. She was the one that contacted Freedom Project? Did you speak to her prior to this?”

Pam paused. She paused long
,
and her lack of eye contact was more predomina
nt
.

“Pam?”

“I wrote her a letter. I wrote several letters. When she came to see me at the hospital I was always drugged and not able to talk.”

The letters. The charts had mentioned she wrote her sister letters. It also mentioned that her letters had to be approved before being mailed. Most of them, the doctors noted, were hard to interpret, held scattered ramblings and made no sense. A lot of the letters were never
mailed;
they were shown to the sister upon
her visits
.

“Do you think your letters prompted her to help get
you
out?
”

“I
don’t
know.” She
rubbed
her
eyes and seemed strained. She looked down at her hands.

“So you had your sister, parents, any friends?”

“Some. One close friend. Sharon.”

Sharon was a name I recognized from her history. I grabbed the folder where my post
-it
marked early childhood. “Sharon, yes.”
I f
ound one of several references to her. “She came into your life quite young.”

“And we were friends ever since
.
She was always with me. We’d get into trouble a lot.”

“
How so?” I asked.

“Like all best friends. We’d talk each other into doing things. Nothing really bad. Just normal teenage mischievous stuff. I think
it’s
that
way with every
pair
off.”

“I had a friend like that, too
.
Always getting me in
trouble
.”

“That was Sharon. But she was fun. Kind of the wild person,
outgoing
. I was the shy one.” She nodded, peered up briefly
,
and looked back down. “But I don’t want to talk about Sharon anymore. Not today. Not yet. Maybe another time.”

“Can I ask why?”

After a hesitation, Pam answered. “Because she is avoiding me.”

“How so?”

“I asked Freedom Project to get in touch with her.”

“Freedom
P
roject contacted her?”

“They tried.” She exhaled. “Left messages. I know she doesn’t want to face me.”

“
Do you want
to face Sharon because you miss her and she’s been your lifelong friend, or is there another reason
?
”

“I need to know why she
lied.
”

“
Sharon
lied
?
W
hen?” I asked.

“At the trial. She saw me after three. But she said on the stand it was before three. You
won’t
find that in the court
records, though
,” she said. “Her testimony was
stricken
from the record. But I heard it.”

“I don’t have the court
records;
I have to go by what you tell me. And that is what I care about. Okay?” I leaned into the desk.
“What are you going to say to Sharon if you find her?”

“I want to know why she lied. I should have opened my mouth at the trial. But I didn’t. I didn’t say anything. But she knows something.”

“About your children?”

“Yes. I know she does. My visit
to the bank
wasn’t friendly, that’s why I know she had to remember me
being
there. For about three months, we were barely
talking
. We fought a lot.
She
and Richie were at each other’s throat always. She got strange. Times I thought she was jealous. There was something I suspected that happened and …. Let’s just say the story goes deeper.”

“Tell me about it.”

She shook her head. “Not now. Maybe another time, when I find her.”

“Did it
cross
your mind that she doesn’t want to see
you?
Maybe she
wants
to stay away
,
and maybe it’s best to leave her in the past with everything else
?
”

“No. The past is unresolved. I need to resolve it. I need to find out who killed my family. The answer is there. No one looked because everyone looked at me and nowhere else.
I’ll
find out
. I will.”

“Do you know how?”

“Going back to Willow Brook.”

I exhaled. “You realize you can bring back a lot of painful
memories
. I think, before you do
go back
, we need to discuss that day. Not now. But before you go back to Willow Brook.”

Pam nodded and then out of the blue her eyes got wide. “There is
something
I want to talk about.”

“Sure.”

“I was pregnant during
the trial.
I gave birth in the hospital
,
and they took the child. My ex
-
husband raised the child
;
it
was
his. Stephanie told me the boy wants to talk to me. Meet me.”

I was well
aware
of this, not because of Stephanie or reports, but because it was all over the news and on morning talk shows. “I saw that on Good Morning Hartford. You don’t want to meet your son
?
”

“I don’t know
. I do but I don’t think I should
. His life is different. Better without me. I’m scared of why he wants to see me.”

“Maybe because you are his mother,” I suggested.

“Come on
.
” She shook her head and released an airy
laugh
. “I’ve
been
in a
mental
institute.”

“Tell you what. How about I meet with the boy first, see if I can figure out his
true
intentions, and
if
I
think they are pure and good
,
w
e meet here.”

She fiddled with her hands. “That could work. I would like to see him. I just don’t want to hurt him by not being what he expects. I lost everything.” She puckered her lips
,
and I saw her eyes gloss over. “To find out I still have him
s
eems too good to be true. Like there’s a catch.”

“Then we’ll find out.” I pulled my notes
and a pen
forward. Since she
did
n’t want to talk about that fateful day, her past
,
or Sharon, I stayed on the subject of her son. To me it was a positive subject and a good start for a first
full
session.