Six Months Later (7 page)

“I’m hitting Rowdy’s anyway,” he says, and I smile.

Rowdy’s Roasters. Otherwise known as the best coffee along the coast of Lake Erie. A steamy café mocha sounds amazing. Or it does until I think about the way my stomach turned itself inside out at one whiff of the pot the other day.

But this is Rowdy’s. I can stomach that, right?

“Maybe you could grab me a mocha?”

He heads for the garage, eyeing me over his shoulder. “Thought you gave up the good stuff.”

“Call it a relapse.”

We climb into Dad’s pickup, settling into an easy silence. The hum of talk radio and rumble of the engine keep the quiet comfortable as we cut our way through town. It’s only a ten-minute drive to the office. If he doesn’t get on it, he’s not going to have any dirt for my mom.

Unless maybe this isn’t about me at all.

“You and mom aren’t fighting are you?” I ask.

He lifts his fingers from the steering wheel, halfheartedly waving that off. “No, Mom’s deep cleaning. I’m looking for excuses.”

He’s still a bad liar, but I didn’t expect anything about him would be different. It took him a year to get used to the idea of a weeping cherry tree in the front flower bed. The guy’s not big on change. He’s kind of like a glacier with hair. The steady, unflappable presence that keeps Mom from exploding and me from floating away on a whim.

He sighs, and I know he’s going to confess. “All right, she wanted me to talk to you.”

“Yeah, I figured.”

“She’s just scared, that’s all. Scared that you’re not telling us everything. Some of your stories don’t match up.”

I glance out the window, watch the town passing by in a blur of old houses and storefronts that need sprucing.

“Mom thinks maybe you’re afraid to talk to us,” he says.

“I’m not,” I say.

“Because you can tell us what’s going on. Even if you don’t think we’ll like it, we want to hear it.”

I turn to the window again. This time, the tears in my eyes blur the images I see. “I’m not crazy, Dad.”

Suddenly, I need him to believe it.

“Never thought you were.”

“But, Mom…”

“Mom worries, Chlo. It’s what she does.”

I laugh. “Yeah, she worries that I’ll let her down.”

“She wants you to be happy.”

“She wants me to make her proud, Dad. That’s not the same.”

He makes a face, and I think it’s because he wants to defend her. In the end, he doesn’t. He pulls up to the curb by my doctor’s office and puts the car in park. “
I
want you to be happy.”

I lean across the seat between us, squeezing him in a hug. I want to hold enough strength from his broad shoulders to make me believe things will work out fine, but when I pull back, it disappears. Steam vanishing into nothing.

Inside Dr. Kirkpatrick’s office, I mentally prepare while she pours me a glass of ice water. She offers me hot tea first, top-notch imported stuff, she assures me. In the end, I opt for low-rent tap water because I’m too scatterbrained to pick flavors and sip carefully.

“It’s hard to believe it’s been almost a week since we spoke,” Dr. Kirkpatrick says as she sets down my glass.

This is shrink speak for
Just
how
crazy
have
you
been
in
the
last
few
days?

And my answer would be
pretty freaking crazy
, but I’m not here to give answers. If I’m forced to sit in this stupid office, I’m going to pick her brain until I find something that will help me get my memories back.

“I’ve been busy,” I start. “But I think I’m starting to have things come back to me.”

Blatant lie. If you add my new vanishing computer files, my list of missing items is actually expanding.

“That’s terrific,” she says. “Would you like to talk about some of those things?”

I bite my lip and glance over at her bookshelves. It’s a calculated move. If I look too conflicted, she’ll know I’m faking, so I do it fast, hoping to sell it just enough.

“I’m not sure. I might not be ready yet. Is that okay?”

“Do you feel that you need my permission?” she asks me with a smile.

“It’s not that. It’s just…I don’t want to jinx it, you know? I want to be sure I’m really making progress.”

More importantly, I haven’t invented a memory to discuss today.

“All right, Chloe. Is there something else specific you’d like to talk about?”

And
that
is shrink speak for,
Obviously
there’s something specific you’d like to talk about.

I stand up and head over to her bookcase, scanning the shelves. “I want to talk about psychology. I don’t know if you remember, but I got really interested in it last year after that class I took.”

“I do. I believe I provided a list of recommended books and some additional elective courses that I thought would be beneficial.”

Okay, I didn’t take the courses. After months of panic attacks and therapy sessions, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to open that can of worms. No one needed another reminder of my Prozac Princess past, thanks.

I look down at my shoes and sigh. “I guess last year I was still tossing the idea around. Now, things are different. I’m a senior, and I’m applying to schools.”

“You worked very hard this summer,” she says, which almost makes me laugh. For all she probably knows, I spent my summer painting my toenails and watching
Tom
and
Jerry
reruns.

Still, I smile at her. “You’re right. And now that I feel like I have a real shot at a future in psychology, I think it changes things. I’m pretty committed to this.”

She leans back, looking proud. “Well, I think it’s a terrific idea, Chloe. People are often called to help others who’ve experienced similar hardships to themselves.”

“Exactly. And I guess that’s what I want to talk about. I want to start with myself. I want to take control of my own recovery and be proactive.”

I stop there because I’m out of fifty-cent words that I’m hoping will appeal to her.

She tilts her head, her too-black hair sliding over one cheek. “You know, even trained psychologists still need outside help sometimes. Going it alone isn’t always possible or wise.”

I resist the urge to roll my eyes. Barely. “I’m not trying to get out of therapy. But you always told me I will get as much out of therapy as I put into it. And I want to put my mind to work. I feel like I need a better understanding of how memory works.”

She smiles, but it doesn’t erase the tension from her eyes. “I’m happy to see you tackle this head-on, Chloe.”

“Great.”

Dr. Kirkpatrick purses her lips, and I can tell that we’re not quite there yet. “But first, I’d like to talk here about memories. About what they are. These are fragile, subjective recordings of past events that change over time and evolve with your emotions.”

I nod, leaning forward in my seat, ready to skip to the part where she tells me exactly how I can get these fragile, subjective recordings back.

Dr. Kirkpatrick leans forward too. There’s something about the way she pauses that I’ve never seen. I can’t help thinking she’s rehearsing what she’s about to say. Or maybe just second-guessing herself. Whatever it is, it creates a long pause before she speaks again.

“Chloe, during our last session I sensed you were reluctant to share the details of your memory loss with me. You know that this is a safe place, and I want you to feel comfortable with what you share, but I also feel it’s important that I understand the extent of your impairment so we know how to proceed.”

I should have expected this. I should have known at some point she’d want to know how serious this is. And I can’t tell her. Something deep in my bones tells me to stay quiet.

It feels wrong, lying to her. Last year, when I could barely make it through a pep rally without feeling my throat close up, she’s the one who told me how to cope, the one who told me to never doubt my own strength. She never once told me I was weak or overly dramatic or crazy.

I trusted her once, but I don’t anymore.

“I guess I’m not sure how to answer that,” I say, twisting my fingers. My stomach is knitting itself into a series of knots, each one a little tighter than the last. “I’m forgetting lots of little things. Deadlines. Bits of conversations. I feel sort of tuned out.”

Dr. Kirkpatrick watches me very closely. I’m not sure if she believes me, so I focus on keeping my breathing even and my face serene. I force my hands to my knees and command them to stay loose and still. I take a breath since she is still silent. “Maybe it shouldn’t bother me so much, but it really does. I feel like I’m missing pieces of my life.”

Big, six-month-shaped pieces, but whatever.

“All right,” she says at length, and I can tell by her tone that she’s not buying this. She sits back in her chair anyway. “A good first step to reconnecting with the details of your life is to revisit recent events. Do you have any recent pictures?”

“My mom does,” I say.

Luckily, I know this for sure. My mother is a rabid scrapbooker. Which sounds really loving and sweet, but actually means every moment of my life has been documented in ridiculous detail. She pulls out the camera for a good batch of lasagna, so I guarantee there’s plenty of photographic evidence of the last six months.

And why in God’s name didn’t I think about this sooner? I probably could have filled myself in on all kinds of crap.

Dr. Kirkpatrick starts scribbling in her notebook as she talks. “I’d like you to look at some recent photographs and compare them to some of your older photographs.”

“Older ones?”

“Yes. It’s possible that revisiting an event you remember well will help you tap into more robust recollections of more recent events. Do you have any photographs from a school event? Prom maybe? Or a trip with friends?”

I nod, swallowing hard. “I have a scrapbook from art camp. A year and a half ago.”

Maggie and I went together. Not because I have an ounce of talent, mind you. I don’t. But Maggie
is
gifted. And I like to play with the pottery wheel. Plus, art camp has its share of good-looking boys—the kind with paint-spattered jeans and tortured souls.

Mom made me take her digital camera, demanding I take pictures of
everything
. We took this as literally as possible, snapping shots of the most inane details we could find. We had pictures of the bottom of people’s shoes and wads of gum stuck to the underside of the tables.

I thought it would make Mom crazy. Instead, she was so happy she cried. She made Maggie and me matching scrapbooks. Truthfully, I flipped through mine only once, but it was sweet. And I did remember
everything
about that weekend.

“Terrific. I want you to go back and revisit that book. And I want you to find a few photographs that were taken more recently. Not portraits in a studio. Snapshots. I don’t want you to just focus on what’s happening in the picture. I want you to look at the background. Have you ever heard the saying ‘The devil’s in the details’?”

“Sure.”

“I believe there’s something to that. Not that there’s evil in the details, but that they can sometimes be much more important pieces to the puzzle than we initially think. Consider the details in both photos. Write down some observations and see where that gets you.”

***

I’ll tell you where it’s getting me. Absofreakinglutely nowhere. Unless depressed is a destination. I might as well be watching a documentary of butterflies dying in the rain.

I flip back to the cover of the art camp scrapbook, the one my mom painstakingly put together. A close-up of Maggie and me. My dark hair curling next to Maggie’s fine, strawberry blond waves. Her eyes are brown and mine are pale, but our smiles are the same in this shot: wide and genuine.

The rest of the book is pretty standard scrapbook fodder. Me throwing clay. Maggie streaking dark ink across thick paper. Both of us offering gooey marshmallow smiles near a campfire.

I linger on that cover picture though, because I remember posing for this like it was yesterday. Every detail speaks to me. Maggie’s cheeks and nose are pink, sunburned from swimming earlier that day. I can see turquoise paint spatters on my shirt and the orange-brown remnants of clay beneath my fingernails. And we’re both wearing one of those ugly, hammered bracelets Maggie made.

Those things made their way straight to the metal box under the oak tree at the edge of Maggie’s property. We call it our Not Treasure Box because there’s no real reason to keep anything in it. It’s an oddball collection of our history. Buttons from our matching coats in the third grade. A photograph of Maggie kissing Daniel Marcum in the school play. Those hideous bracelets are in there too.

This photograph says a thousand things to me, but not one of them help a damn bit.

I push the scrapbook away and turn back to the recent photographs I found, the ones that might as well be pictures of another Chloe, one from a different dimension. I’m not too sure I want to go through these again. They creeped me out enough the first time.

I need to get over it. I need to suck it up, put on my big girl panties—whatever it takes.

One deep breath later, I spread them out on the table. Picnics and parties and a steak dinner that I’m pretty sure commemorates my seventeenth birthday. I remember none of it. I don’t remember having fried chicken and pink lemonade at a park. I don’t remember watching fireworks with half of the varsity lacrosse team, Blake’s arm curved around my waist like we were glued that way. I don’t remember playing softball
ever
, and certainly not with this group of girls, girls who I would never—wait a minute—

Is that Julien?

My finger traces over her image. Shiny blond hair, almond-shaped eyes in a plain but pretty face.

I still can’t imagine her gone. She was probably going to be principal someday. Hell, maybe the mayor. Even when we were little girls on the playground monkey bars, she used to talk about buying a house on Belmont, living right across the street from her mom and dad. She knew her future, and her future was Ridgeview.

Goose bumps rise on my arms, but no matter how hard I stare, the picture doesn’t reveal any more secrets. I shift it away, refocusing on the one of Blake and me. I know I should focus on the details, but the basics are eerie enough. The way our heads are mashed together, his golden hair starkly pale against mine. I stare hard at the picture, trying to imagine feeling comfortable like this. Trying to imagine a world where Blake’s arm around me would be easy and normal.

“You’re like a couple from a movie,” Mom says, announcing her entry into the kitchen. “Almost too beautiful to look at.”

“You’re delusional,” I tell her, but really she’s not. Not about Blake, at any rate. He does belong on a movie set. Blond hair, nice biceps, killer smile. And I’m…well, I’m me. I’ve got a great smile, but I’m not the kind of girl who makes homecoming queen. And I’m not the kind of girl who dates Blake.

“I just call it like I see it,” Mom says, pouring herself a cup of coffee.

I watch the steam rise from her cup and frown. I’d managed about a third of my mocha from Rowdy’s this morning, but it still tasted terrible to me.

“Mom?”

“Hmm?”

“Did you ever think it was weird that I had so many new friends?”

When she turns to look at me, I see the wariness in her eyes, like maybe she thinks this is the start of an I’m-too-depressed-and-damaged-for-friends speech.

“What do you mean?”

I bite my lip, thinking. “I mean, I’m practically a different person. The grades, the friends—everything, really. I just wondered if it surprised you.”

“Of course not.” She leans forward, putting her hand on mine. “Chloe, you have such a good head on your shoulders. Deep down, I always knew you’d do something with it. Once you joined the study group, you were surrounded by successful kids. It makes sense that you’d want to join in with that crowd.”

“When have I ever been a crowd joiner? Don’t you remember the fourth grade, when I refused to wear pink because all the girls in school said it was the thing to do?”

“But you’re not in the fourth grade anymore, are you? And you’re with Blake now. I guess I figured…”

She trails off with a shrug, and I feel a rush of irritation flood me. “You figured what? That I did this to become someone worthy of Blake?”

The shock registers on her face like a slap. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Isn’t it? I know this is going to come as a surprise, Mom, but I didn’t do any of this so I could be with Blake or so I could sit at the cool kids table in the cafeteria.”

“Okay, fine. Then why
did
you do it, Chloe?”

That stops me cold because I don’t have an answer. I was happy on the fringe. I wasn’t some school pariah with no social life and no prospects for the big dances. But I wasn’t popular either. And I was always fine with that.