The Memory Box (14 page)

Tessa is in a wheelchair in the pediatric ER being guided into a room. “Tessa!” As she turns the corner into the room, her head spins around, and I catch a glimpse of her frightened eyes. The rest of her face is concealed by a bloody, white cloth and what looks like an ice pack. I hurry down the hall.

“Mommy.” Her voice is muffled.

“It’s okay, Tessa. You’re going to be fine.” I take a peek under the ice pack and try to conceal the shock in my eyes. Her two top teeth severed the skin right below her bottom lip. It’s swollen and bloody. And alarming and gruesome. “Can you open your mouth and show me your teeth?” She attempts to open her mouth and winces. I find myself stroking my own, gliding my finger back and forth across my top teeth. “Okay, Tessa, you just rest. The doctor is coming right away. Before you know it, we’ll be home. Okay, sweetie?”

She shakes her head and clutches my fingers with her free hand.

“Mrs. Thompson? I’m Tina Wiggins.” A young girl who looks scarcely older than Tessa pops her head around from a conversation with a staffer.

“Oh, Tina,” I’m stunned by how young this girl looks. Should I call her Ms. Wiggins? “Thanks for taking care of Tessa.” Is this how school nurses dress these days?

My phone rings. “Excuse me.” I pinch it from the inside pocket of my handbag and pray no one else is hurt. Tessa grabs my hand again.

“Ms. Spencer?”

My head jerks up. I look around the room. Did anyone hear that? “
Who?
” I say without moving my mouth. I release Tessa’s hand and give her the “one minute” finger as I slip into the hall.

“Who
is
this?” My heart has just gone from zero to ninety. I keep my voice down so Tessa and Tina Wiggins don’t hear me. “Are you looking for JD? How did you get this number?” I focus on the caller’s number.

“No. I’m looking for Caroline Spencer. This is Dr. Sullivan’s office—she called here earlier today.”

Dr. Sullivan … “Oh—yes,” I pull the phone away from my mouth for a sec to slow my breathing, and say in a hushed tone, “This is Caroline Spencer. I’m sorry about the confusion.” I say to Dr. Sullivan’s assistant, “It’s just that I’m having about four conversations at once—I don’t know how in the world kids expect you to hear them when you’re talking to the gas station attendant and you’re on the phone at the same time.” I pull the phone away from my mouth again, and wag my finger at an invisible child, “Sweetie, I’m on the phone now—wait until I get off, and then we’ll call Delia for a playdate.” Tina Wiggins is standing in the doorway of Tessa’s room, looking at me.

“Everything okay?” Tina mouths.

“Oh, yes, with me? Fine. Sorry—had to take this. I’ll be right off.”

Tina points at her wrist, which doesn’t have a watch, and mouths that she’s leaving. I give her the okay sign.

Back to my call, “Sorry ’bout that.”

“Ms. Spencer, if this isn’t a good time, you can call me back—”

“No, no, this is a fine time, no, please—” I look into Tessa’s room and give her a big smile and a thumbs-up.

“Well, here it is. Dr. Sullivan reviewed his calls from this morning, and he was very surprised to see you called. Bottom line, he’s eager to see you. He’d like to make some time available right away. So you can scratch that date in October. He’s willing to stay after his appointments tonight or tomorrow night, or any evening that works best for you. That’s him talking, not me. I, of course, won’t be here. I clock out at five. You’ll have to let yourself in and sit in the waiting room until he comes out to get you. You know the drill, you’ve been here before.”

This is weird. Five hours ago I was the pursuer, now I’m the pursuee. Something about this feels bad.

“Ms. Spencer?”

“Yes…”

“Is there an evening that works for you?”

We agree on tomorrow. I slip the phone into my jeans and return to Tessa. I pull a chair next to the bed and hold her hand. We wait together silently for the doctor to come. It would be a good idea for me to relax and transfer a sense of calm to her. But my secrets are multiplying by the hour. The ones I uncover, and the ones I conceive. They’re like nesting dolls. Just as certain as one reveals itself, there’s another lurking not far behind.

A nurse arrives to clean the blood away from Tessa’s face. I’m preoccupied and don’t say a thing to the nurse. Wait. Tomorrow is Wednesday. I planned to go to New York to a bookstore where my writing professor is reading from his newly published memoir. I had it planned for weeks. Actually, that’s good. I already have Mrs. H booked to watch the girls (God help us all), and Andy expects me to be out. I won’t have to lie. Sort of. He might expect me to cancel now, in light of this week’s family injuries, but there’s no way he’ll remember, and I won’t remind him.

It’s worrisome how easily lying comes to me these days. I’m sure I’d worry about that more if I had nothing else to worry about.

When all is said and done at the emergency room, Tessa gets thirty-nine stitches through three layers of tissue—muscle, nerves, and skin—done at the hand of a plastic surgeon who takes forever to arrive. Tessa is a true champ. Silent and stoic the whole way. Our fingers in a tight scrum for the duration. We get home after eight. Tessa barely gets down a bowl of frozen yogurt before going to bed and falling into a thick sleep. I wish I could say the same for myself.

By the time the morning arrives, I’m almost eager to get out of bed. Lilly goes to school with a neighbor, and Tessa keeps me company at home for the day, she convalescing, and I cooking, cleaning, and doing anything that keeps me busy and not thinking about my meeting with Dr. Sullivan, which is in a matter of hours. I want to stay positive. I try. But ultimately, common sense tells me I’m just leaving one haunted house for another.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Wednesday, September 27, 2006, 6:19 p.m.

D
r. Sullivan’s office is paneled in dark wood—reminiscent of the seventies, when Dr. Sullivan started practicing psychology. Let’s hope he’s had enough practice.

Framed photos line the paneled walls—pictures of him with his cronies, presumably, fishing mostly. There’s a plump, stuffed fish mounted on one of the walls. A trout, I think … or a bass. It might be a shark. The scales are an iridescent bluish-grey. Its eyes stare down at me. Moving to the couch to see if they’ll follow is probably an ill-advised idea moments before meeting with a psychologist.

But for the sign in the window, I’d think this was an old yacht club. If the office door opens and Gilligan appears—I won’t even flinch.

The waiting room smells like an empty refrigerator, and the ancient Glade air freshener is not fooling anyone—they stopped making that style years ago. A deep ochre glow is suffocated behind a heavy nubby burlap lampshade, and the couch is as cushy as sitting on burnt toast.

I don’t recall ever being here. And I’m getting used to that.

In the corner of the room, under a bulky wooden end table, is a white-noise machine impersonating the sound of soft rainfall. However, a muffled voice coming from behind the closed door is still audible.

Dr. Sullivan’s assistant has gone for the day, as she informed me she would. The room is very still, and I’m somewhat calm under the circumstances. I’m hugely relieved that I’m minutes away from confiding in someone. And by doing so, enlisting an ally. Someone who’ll help me bear the burden of these absurdities.

The array of magazines—
National Geographic
,
Outdoor Life
,
Sports Illustrated
—does nothing to arouse my curiosity. I wrestle with what I’m going to say to him. The sole reason I’m here, really, is for
him
to do the talking. There are blanks to be filled in. The fact that I’ve been here before is both frightening and fortuitous. There is nothing about this room or these photos that are familiar to me. But if I’ve been here before, he may have notes. I must be entitled to them. At the very least, he has to tell me what’s in them.

The door opens, and who—to my amazement—appears? The Skipper. A dead ringer, anyway. Sans the hat. His smile is sincere as he takes my hand with both of his. He stands so close to me that, for a second, I’m not sure if he’s expecting a hug. Making it more uncomfortable is that we’re practically the same height. He’s not short, but I, on the other hand, pack some longitude. A gift from my parents. His face looks somewhat familiar to me. But that may be because of the photos on the walls.

His hands are warm but not strong, more enveloping than anything. Padded.

“It’s good to see you, Caroline. You look wonderful.” He jerks his head back to get his overgrown bangs out of his eyes, and motions into the office. I look around for the other person with whom Dr. Sullivan was speaking, but the room appears empty.

“Likewise.” As soon as the word passes my lips, I realize it’s not my word. It belongs to my mother. I hate when I do this. When I’m feeling anxious I use words that don’t belong in my mouth. He can probably tell when someone is not being genuine.

Then I remind myself he’s not a psychic; he’s a psychologist. “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice,” I say, and sit down on a tweed chair with pale, wooden arms and coerce my throat to force down a wad of saliva. My calm must have stayed in the waiting room.

His face is kind, fleshy and round; his eyes sparkle with interest and warmth, though they’re tired; the whites are somewhat yellowed and his skin a bit dry. It’s hard not to notice his heavily veined nose—tiny burst blood vessels smother the entire thing. It’s unsightly, actually. All of those hours fishing in the hot sun with no sunscreen. All those happy hours. It’s a pity, really.

“How’s Lilly?” he asks as earnestly as an uncle, while clasping his hands. The pained look on my face forces him to ask a quick follow-up, “She’s okay, isn’t she?”

Again that feeling of being in the dark. It’s so frightening. Not to know people who know me. About me. I have no idea how much he knows. Suffice it to say, it’s more than I do.

I came here for help. It’s time to shed the armor.

“Dr. Sullivan, I don’t know exactly how to say this. How to explain what’s going on with me.” Any amount of preparation was a big waste of time; nothing could prepare me for how stripped I feel. “I need to tell you something before we begin.” I grip the arms of the chair and squeeze, like I do when I’m about to get a root canal. “I don’t recall ever coming here. I don’t remember you being my therapist or ever meeting you.”

He listens without interruption. Without even blinking. A long moment of silence transpires. I think about saying more, to help him, but I have nothing more. I need for him to take the ball. “I see.” He shifts in his seat. The crunch of the naugahyde under his large frame is the only sound in the room. He rests his head back and lifts his chin slightly. “Hmm,” he says, though I think it’s meant only for him. The twinkle in his eyes is gone. It’s been replaced with something else.

“Why don’t you just forget about that for a bit, Caroline. Why don’t you just catch me up on the last few years—how long has it been?” He forces a smile and looks down at the manila folder with a pink sticker on the tab, color-coded, no doubt, for “nuts.”

“Oh, my, it’s been six years? Can you believe that—I wouldn’t have guessed that long. Well then, catch me up on six years. Give me some of the highlights. They’ve been happy, mostly?”

“Yes, they have been.” It’s good to realize this.

At the end of my account of the last six years—my parents passing away, marrying Andy, et cetera—I matter-of-factly tell him that I’ve discovered through “various sources” that there are pieces of my past—memories of important, sometimes upsetting, even tragic life events—that I don’t recall.

“How did you first come upon these memory lapses, Caroline?”

I think about that for a second. This is embarrassing.

Screw the embarrassment. I’ve got real problems here. And if I’m not gonna tell Andy or Meg, I’ve got to tell someone. Someone who can’t tell anyone. The ultimate secret keeper, right? That’s the guy sitting across from me right now. He can’t divorce me or gossip about me to all the women in town. That’s why I’m here. Because I can be vulnerable with no consequences.

“I Googled myself.”

At first our conversation, his and mine, is all very matter-of-fact, levelheaded, no emotion. Then the probing begins. Questions for which I don’t have answers. He offers me a box of tissues, and I attempt to gather myself. I want to continue. He asks me about my relationship with Andy, a typical day, my physical health.

We decide the best way to proceed will be to review some of the pertinent old taped transcripts. Hearing there are
audio
tapes is incredible. I was expecting something written. Actually, I was praying there’d be anything at all, knowing that some psychologists will just sit there with you, not a pen or pad in sight, nothing to record the sessions beyond their own memory. No paper trail. I’m relieved he’s not one of them or the note-taker type, either, for that matter. Audio tapes are an unbiased portal to the past.

He’ll need some time to collect them and review their contents to determine whether or not I’m emotionally ready for them. What on earth does that mean?

It feels like he’s ending the session, but I just got here. “What about tonight, Doctor, isn’t there anything we could start with … I …” My voice cracks.

He searches my face for something. What is it? His head cocks to one side and then the other, like a chicken. He flips through some papers in my file—which is rather thin. I convince myself that that’s a good sign.

Dr. Sullivan closes the folder, smooths his sandy-colored bangs off his forehead, then clasps his hands on top of the file and looks at me. His tired, gentle eyes, along with his pudgy jowls, give him the appearance of a pug.

“Caroline, as we go forward with our sessions together, I want you to keep in mind that at times, listening to some of these transcripts won’t be easy. By that, I mean the events of your past, they were … trying times. You may have difficulty listening to … the contents. Your demeanor, even. It was quite different from the way you appear today. I’m so pleased to see you now, much calmer and less … well … I’ll be interested to see how you’d describe your old self. It’s your well-being I’m concerned about.”

What the
heck?!
Okay, so he says this all without a hint of condescension or disapproval. But come on, I sound like a lunatic. A long, controlled exhale seeps out of my mouth. This doesn’t feel good. Like when the music changes in a horror movie. Something’s coming. Only it’s not a movie, it’s real life. Mine.

This could get a lot worse before it gets better.

Somehow, though, I’m confident it was the right decision to come here. I trust this guy. I don’t know why, but I do.

Who else do I have?

“On that note, I’ll require you be examined by a medical doctor. We need to get to the bottom of the memory loss, first by ruling out physical maladies. Once you have a physical work-up, I’ll consult with your physician—so I’ll need his or her contact information.” He jots something down.

“Well, I
have
been checked by a doctor. A CT scan was taken of my head.” He looks at me curiously. “Last week, in fact. I had this breathing thing, and an accident with the kitchen stool. They checked everything. A CT scan for internal bleeding and trauma, and an EKG. All that stuff. Everything’s clean.” I throw my hands up in the air like a magician.

“I see. That must have been quite a fall. That’s good news. I’d like a copy of that report, Caroline. Could you have that sent to me?” He jots something in my file. “Looks like you bruised your face as well?” He lifts his head for a second and peers over his reading glasses, “Something here …” he points to his own forehead, and then head down again to make note. With his eyes fixed to my file, he continues, “So you’ve discussed the memory loss with your physician, then?”

“Well …
yes
. She recommended I see a psychologist.” I completely forgot about Dr. Kriete.

“Did she recommend you see a neurologist?”

“For the pregnancy?”

“You’re pregnant?” He removes his glasses.

“Oh, the memory loss! No, she didn’t.” My cheeks burn with embarrassment. I look at the floor. I need a flow chart. Literally. When I get home, I need to draw up a chart to sort my doctors, symptoms, diagnoses. A separate one for lies.

“Caroline, do you think you’re pregnant?”

“Who me? No.” I shake my head a few dozen times.

He slips his glasses back on and writes a few things I never want to read. “I would definitely suggest a neurologist. Do you have one?”

My head and my foot shake in unison.

“Don’t worry,” a reassuring smile brings pause, “as soon as that’s done—”

“
But—wait, I—
”

He puts his pen down and sits back, pulls his glasses off. “I understand your eagerness, Caroline, I do. However, I need time to review your file and tapes. Which I’m happy to do right away. In fact, tonight after you leave I’ll have a little time to go through some.”

My clasped hands rest in my lap, and I sit up tall in my seat. “Please understand how grateful I am—you must know that—that after all this time you would see me on such short notice—not to mention even remember me—and I’m sure you have a procedure that you follow when old patients—a system—”

“Caroline—”

“—
many
of your patients are suffering—of course I know that, you have other patients with problems, and believe me, I would never minimize their distress, but I—I—” I slide forward and sit at the edge of my seat and take a deep breath—it gets caught for a second in my throat.

“Caroline—”

“I—I—don’t want preferential treatment, Doctor, that’s not what I’m suggesting—I would never suggest that. I just—I just—” My shoulders slump forward. “I can’t go
home
—” It’s like I’m punched in the stomach by my own thoughts. The severity cuts me in the middle; any façade of strength I had crumbles.

I reach out and grab the edge of his desk; he jerks back in his chair. “I can’t go back there—I can’t look at my husband—or my girls. I just can’t pretend anymore—”

“Caroline, please—” He puts his hand up to silence me.

My eyes avert his. “I’m, I’m falling apart. I’m completely falling apart, and I don’t know what to—” My face drops into my hands.

“Please, Caroline, please, just give me a minute to—
please
.”

He looks down again into the folder and slides his finger across the page, squinting. Without looking, he feels around the desk for his glasses, puts them on, and reads some more. He stands up slowly, pushing his chair away with his foot, then he hunches over the desk, leaning on it with his two hands. I can’t tell if he’s reading or thinking. He stretches back upright and places one hand on the round of his stomach, as if he’s waiting for the kick of a fetus.

I grab a magazine from the side table and embrace it,
Bait and Tackle
, crisscrossing my arms around it to muffle my heartbeat.

Still immersed in his thoughts, Dr. Sullivan walks toward the door and tilts his head in my direction while keeping his eyes on the hallway outside. “Cold?”

Another door closes. Until tiny white dots appear in front of my eyes, I don’t notice I’m holding my breath. The other door opens and shuts, and he returns with something in his hand, which I can’t make out because his fingers are curled around it. Back at his desk, he pulls something out of a top draw. A mini-tape recorder.

I close my eyes and sit on my hands, aiming to center myself. He’s changed his mind. He’s going to play one of the tapes.

“Caroline, I’m willing to try something,” he says with trepidation. “During the course of your visits, I asked your mother and father to come in for a session, one at a time, with your approval, of course. You and I had already met several times. I explained to you that it would be helpful to your treatment if I were able to piece together some family background from the perspective of other family members. Your mother came in for one visit, but unfortunately I never met your father.”