Thought I Knew You (28 page)

Dr. Goodman answered, “Greg, you still need therapy six to eight hours a day. You can’t go home yet. I’m sorry.”

“Greg, tell me how you remembered,” I said. Dr. Goodman had said that talking about remembering would help him remember more. He’d had no one to spoon-feed him memories, which were just foundations for more memories, so in his situation, it was a wonder he ever remembered anything at all.

“I had a card that had your name on it.”

I nodded, encouraging him.

“I stared at it, trying to figure out why that card meant so much to me. And then I remembered you. What you looked like. You were playing in the leaves with a little girl who had blond hair in a ponytail and wore a blue coat.”

“Hannah had a blue coat, light blue. It’s Leah’s now.”

“Who’s Leah?” he asked. He looked at Dr. Goodman, who jumped in again to explain that Leah was his daughter, the child I was pregnant with in his memory.

I tried not to scream. Instead, I said, “Tell me more.”

“And then I just knew. I knew you were Claire, and I was Greg. It took me a few hours, but then I remembered the little girl was Hannah. And Cody, our dog! How’s Cody?”

“Cody ran away. Actually the same day you… disappeared. Do you remember your accident?” I asked cautiously.

“No. I don’t remember anything. The last thing I remember is you being pregnant, I think, because I don’t remember the baby.”

“Leah,” I said, forcefully.

“Right. Leah.” He smiled innocently. “I’m glad you came, Claire.”

“I’m glad I came, too, Greg,” I lied.

That night, I paced my hotel room. I couldn’t relax. I was so incredibly tired, but I could not stop thinking. I called Drew, both dreading and desperately needing the call.

“Are you okay?” he asked immediately.

“Yes and… no.” I didn’t know how to answer the question, how to convey my emotions. I needed to hear his voice. I wished he was next to me. Then, I felt guilty.
Drew is
not
your husband
.
How and when should I tell Greg that he’s not my husband any longer either?
I sobbed then, the tears coming for the first time in torrents, soaking the sleeve of my hand holding the phone. My nose ran, and I let out a loud, blubbery cry like one of Leah’s.
Oh, Leah, how will you deal with this when I can’t?
After a few minutes, my crying subsided.

“Do you want me to come there?” Drew asked hesitantly.

I shook my head, but then realized he couldn’t see me. “No, please don’t come here. I don’t know what to do, how this is going to work.” I meant Greg, but I realized Drew would think I meant him. I was too tired to explain. All I could do was tell Drew the truth. “I love you. Don’t worry about that, okay?” Guilt sneaked back in, but I quelled it. Loving Drew was the one thing I was sure of, guilt or no.

“I love you, too, Claire. Of course I worry, especially right now, but I don’t want you to think about that, okay?”

We fell silent then, so much to say, to ask, the weight of words between us.

“Did you see Greg?” he finally asked.

I pictured Greg, small and childlike looking out the window, his back toward the door. Then I remembered the expression on his face when he turned. “Yes, I saw him. It’s definitely Greg. I… I don’t know what I thought. I guess I thought I’d come here, and it would be a mistake, that it wouldn’t be him.” I thought of Greg’s first words to me:
I’m glad you came. I wasn’t sure you would.
“Drew…” I had to get off the phone, but I owed Drew some kind of explanation. One I didn’t have. “I don’t want you to worry. I love you. That’s the only thing I know right now. But I have to go. I have to sleep.”

“Of course. I love you, too. Call me tomorrow.”

We hung up, and I lay down in the bed, fully clothed. Sleep would not come. I replayed every minute of the meeting with Greg, a dubbed tape on repeat.

Chapter 34

I
got out of bed on
Sunday, my eyes burning and my head pounding. I had resolved in the middle of the night to no longer be a victim of circumstance, to take charge of my life. I could not go back down the rabbit hole of grief. The children couldn’t go through that again.

I called Matt Reynolds, who had rented a room next door to mine. “Hi, Matt. I’m sorry to bother you so early. Do you know if Dr. Goodman will be at the rehab center today? Can I talk to her again?”

Matt said he didn’t know, but he’d find out and call me back. I hung up and waited. He called back a couple of minutes later and said that if we left immediately, she could meet with us.

I checked the clock: nine fifteen. I threw on clothes without showering and was outside my door in five minutes.

When Matt dropped me off at the Toronto Rehabilitation Center, I said, “Matt, I want to talk to Dr. Goodman, and then I’ll get back to you, okay? We can leave today, I think, but I want to make sure. And… thank you. For everything.” I hugged him. “I don’t know what I would do without you here.”

He hugged me back awkwardly. I realized then that I knew almost nothing about his life. I told him I’d call him on his cell when I was ready to leave.

I met Dr. Goodman in the same conference room. She motioned for me to sit at any one of the chairs around the table.

“How are you doing today?” she asked, not unkindly, but professionally. Her lack of humanity grated on me, but it seemed I’d have to learn to live with it.

“I’m as well as you could expect under the circumstances. I’m better than yesterday. I wanted to meet with you to discuss Greg’s treatment and my part in it. There are things you need to know, as his therapist.” I took a deep breath. “We are no longer legally married.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Oh?”

“I divorced him. We tried for two years to find him; he had vanished without a trace. It’s not a neat, clean story, and I will tell you, not because I’m justifying myself, but because it may help you with his treatment to know as much about his previous life as possible. I believe he had an affair right before he disappeared. I didn’t even know that he was in Toronto. He had left on a business trip to Rochester. I found out later that there were a number of things he lied about. I used to be angry, but I’m not anymore. I’ve moved on with my life. However, that being said, Greg is the father of my children. It’s important to me that he become well again, as long as that takes. I may not be married to him, but I will be committed to his recovery. I just need to have a plan for how that will work.”

Dr. Goodman appraised me with new eyes. Was there respect there? Or was it reproach? Some of each? I couldn’t tell.

“Well, Claire, thank you for telling me. I appreciate that. We do have to consider when to tell Greg that you are divorced. You have to understand, in his mind, you are not only married, you are happy. You were just pregnant. Telling him now might derail or at least set back his recovery. He’s just beginning to remember his old life. If we give him something that negative to think about, he might subconsciously choose not to remember it. Does that make sense?”

I nodded. “Yes, I think so.”

“As for a recovery plan and your involvement…” She sighed. “Generally, the family is
very
involved, almost a daily involvement at this stage. But I would have to strongly recommend against moving him closer to you at this point. His doctors and therapists are here. Right now, he’s comfortable here. Stress at this juncture is damning to recovery. I would plan on at least a month before he can be moved to New Jersey. Can you come on weekends? Or at least once a week for a month and we’ll see how he does?”

“Can I bring the kids?”

“Yes, without a doubt. Your visits, and especially with the children, will be instrumental in helping him regain his memory.” She paused. “Do they know?”

“No.” I felt the tears spring to my eyes, an automatic switch when I thought about the girls. I blinked to clear them. I needed solid strength. I stood. “Can I see him now?”

She nodded. “He will be here for about another two hours. Today is his half day. He’s been volunteering at the homeless shelter on Sundays, serving dinners.”

I was taken aback. The Greg I knew had never been particularly charitable.

“I assure you,” Dr. Goodman said, apparently catching my surprise, “your husband is a very different man from the one you knew.”

Greg sat at the table in the same room where we had met the previous day. Cards were laid out in front of him in a solitaire pattern.

He looked up ruefully. “I can’t remember the rules.” He waved his hands at the cards. “One of the nurses tried to teach me, but I can’t remember all the rules. I make up my own, I guess.” He pulled all the cards together before I could stop him, making a pile. Then, he shuffled them, dealer style.

I laughed. “That’s new,” I said, pointing at the cards. He looked confused. “You couldn’t do that. Before. Is that possible? Can you learn to shuffle cards in a coma?”

He shrugged, but grinned. “I don’t know. I wonder what else I can do now?” he shook his head, still shuffling the cards. “What could I do before?” He dealt four stacks of cards and then combined them, piling one on top of the other.
Pile, pile, pile, pile, stack, stack, stack, stack.
Over and over again.

I watched him, mesmerized by the rhythmic motion. “Oh. Greg,” I said after a few minutes, “you could do everything. I swear, it’s the truth. You were a corporate instructor. Did you know that? And just so great at it. You were so charismatic. You worked for Advent Pharmaceuticals. That’s how we met.” He nodded, but I couldn’t tell if he remembered, or if he was just listening. “What do you remember?” I asked
.

“I remember doing that. Teaching adults. I wasn’t sure what I was doing until you said that, but I remember Advent. We met in a class?” He raised his hand. “Wait. You brought a book. And you came early, but you wouldn’t speak to me. I thought you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. I could hardly talk. It was a few days, right?” I nodded, and he smiled, proud of his memory. “You still are. Beautiful.” He studied my face for so long that I shifted uncomfortably in my seat.

“Do you remember Sarah?”

He thought for a moment. “Yes! I do. She was with you the night we met. And she visits us sometimes. She’s fun, and a little crazy, right?”

I laughed and nodded. Yes, that summed up Sarah pretty well.

Dr. Goodman poked her head in and asked, “How are things going in here?”

Greg nodded enthusiastically. “I remembered how we met.”

“Good! That’s great. Claire, this is the kind of therapy a doctor or a therapist cannot provide. Specific experience memory is so tricky. With some patients, it takes years to come back, and with others, it’s like this.” She snapped her fingers. “Greg, we have to move on. Dr. Welk is only here for a bit, so we have to meet him when we can. Claire, can I have a quick word with you?”

We walked down the hall a bit, and she turned to face me. “He needs this. What is your plan, exactly?”

I had been thinking about it during my visit with Greg. “I’ll be back next weekend with the girls. And every weekend until he can come back to New Jersey. After that…?” I shrugged. “I haven’t figured it out yet, but we’ll take it one day at a time.”

Dr. Goodman squeezed my arm. Her hand was warm, and I was surprised; I expected ice. We walked back to the room so I could say goodbye to Greg.

“Will you come back?” he asked anxiously.

I hugged him. “I’ll always come back.”

Chapter 35

I
was never so happy to
be home. I hugged Drew with intensity.

“Well?” he asked.

“It’s going to be different.” I searched for words. I couldn’t say the thing I knew he needed to hear, that nothing would change. We both knew everything would change.

Drew and I sat on the couch, and I leaned into his arms, relaying every detail I could remember. I had battled guilt the entire ride home, and that war continued.
How can I lie here, so comfortable with Drew, while Greg is five hundred miles away?
I pushed the thoughts away. Being with Drew was as natural as breathing. The need to share my life, my past few days, overwhelmed me.

“Do you want me to go with you next weekend?” he asked.

“Would you want to?”

He shrugged. “I would if you wanted me to. But do you think it would be confusing? To Hannah and Leah?”

“I don’t know if it could possibly get more confusing. But no, they don’t think of you as my boyfriend. You are an integral part of their lives now. If you came, I would want you to stay at the hotel while we visited Greg. Could you do that?”

“I don’t think it could be any other way. Do you?”

I had no idea. There were no rules for our situation. “No, I doubt it.”

He hugged me. “I will do whatever you think is best. For you and the girls. How and when are you going to tell them?”

I had been thinking about little else. “I think maybe Friday after school. We’ll leave Saturday morning. That way there’s very little time between when I tell them and when they see him. And they won’t have to go to school with that in their minds. They’ll have a few days.”