The jury unanimously found Darpan guilty of Taylor's murder. Serene's witness of Darpan's shared intimate moment with Taylor and his semen found in her body was a major deciding factor in the conclusion.
It was conceivable that Taylor pushing him away during their kiss had angered him into attacking her, the prosecutor had argued. And just because the intercourse Darpan had with Taylor didn't show signs of physical rape, didn't mean it wasn't rape. Darpan had once been a part of the dangerous cult, Shangri-La, the cult collapsing after some of its members committed suicide. He'd been a child at the time. Still, his mother's abandonment of him in lieu of cult doctrine, found to be dangerous and psychopathic, had a sociopathic effect on his development and many of the youth coming out of Shangri-La. The crimes later committed by said youth were numerous and of a serious nature. His mother had escaped with him prior to the suicides, however she'd been unfit to finish raising him. Darpan spent a summer with his grandparents, who described him as odd and lacking in common morality. He often stole, lied and lived in a strange fantasy world. After that summer, he was put into foster care. The polyfidelitous relationship between Darpan and Ramani and Aarav, who were also once Shangri-La community members, and the age difference between Ramani and Darpan, painted a disturbed and eccentric image of Darpan.
"I don't condone the fact that Darpan was having sex with Taylor, understand, but he didn't murder that girl. It wasn't Darpan's nature to be violent. He's now rotting in prison for a murder he didn't commit. A waste of a life." Ramani was quoted as saying.
When Barbara went to sleep, the events from the past plagued her dreams, playing out in a nightmarish configuration of random images: Aunt Carrie’s angry young face melding into Serene's melancholic deer-in-the-headlights eyes, and somehow Barbara found she was dating Enzo, sitting fat and pregnant at his kitchen table while he kept adding various entries to her plate. Spaghetti, globs of polenta with pesto, breaded veal, marinated beets. Stop. She picked up the beets to give them back, the red juice running down her hands, dribbling between her fingers. Bloody beets. Taylor curled on the sofa, eyes open, staring. Dead eyes. She's dead. Oh god, she's dead.
25
Steve - February 2020
* * *
Steve waited a full minute after ringing the bell before Erica answered the door. Her eyes were puffy, and she was still in pajamas, though it was eleven in the morning. Her face formed the question before she asked, "What are you doing here?"
"I'm here to see Dora."
Erica shook her head, running her hand over the shadow of curls that covered her scalp. "I might have to take her back to the clinic, she hasn't been doing well since I brought her home yesterday."
"Is it alright if I come in?"
Erica glanced over her shoulder and then stepped out, closing the door behind her, and folded her arms. "Let's talk out here."
He rubbed at the stubble on his cheek with the back of his hand. "Barbara tells me that she thinks there's more to Dora's condition than just the amnesia." Steve paused at the flicker in Erica's eyes. "Is there something that you're not telling me?"
Erica sighed. "Maybe we should have started with visits first. I think it's been too overwhelming for Dora, seeing the kids and the house and then sleeping here."
"It's been a month of Dora recovering, but this is not just about Dora and her needs. The kids have been affected too. Jesse told me last night that he didn't think she wanted them."
Erica did not respond; she kept her arms crossed, standing before the door like a guard. It was something Steve found particularly annoying about her, how she emotionally retreated from conflict, would get very quiet, go into observation mode. Conversation was like a jump rope and Erica had a habit of dropping her end.
"Dammit, Erica, I'm talking to you."
"What do you want from me?" She challenged.
"My kids are spending time with a mother who, by all appearances, is mentally unraveling. I'd like to know what we're dealing with."
When Erica spoke, her tone was calm, measured, her voice soft. It was how she controlled the conversation. Bring it down, bring the anger down. The more upset a person got, the calmer she became.
"It's a matter of confidentiality. Dora's confidentiality."
"So, there is something more? And while you're trying to protect Dora, what about the children's sanity? Their safety?"
"They are safe, Steve. Whose house are the children at right now? Your house."
The door opened, startling both of them, and there she was. Dora. Like Erica, she still wore pajamas. Her straightened hair hung mussed and uncombed over her shoulders. She'd put on weight, mostly in her legs. They were a little thicker and her hips slightly wider. Dark half-moon shadows hollowed out her eyes and her brown skin held an unhealthy pallor, like greying beef. She stared at him blankly as if he were a stranger, and it suddenly dawned on him that Dora didn't recognize him. She had no idea who he was.
"Dora." Her name came out of him like an exhalation of breath.
Dora frowned and her eyes darted to Erica as if she were silently asking her wife to translate the role this strange man played in her life.
Erica uncrossed her arms, her expression softening. "Do you know who this is?" She asked, gesturing toward Steve.
Dora looked at him again, eyes large, luminous. Inside those eyes was someone else, someone he hadn't seen in a long time. She shrugged, a familiar gesture he'd witnessed thousands of times. It was how she lifted her shoulders that made his throat tighten. Shyness masked as quiet confidence.
"Do you remember Steve?" Erica asked.
He was not prepared for the look of shock that swept over Dora's features, her mouth opening, hands flying up to her hair, tucking the front locks behind both ears, once, twice, three times.
"Steve?" She asked in a voice that wasn't Dora's. A voice he hadn't heard in a long time.
His throat tightened. Dora glanced at Erica and then back at him, her eyes moistening into tears that pooled into a thin film and then fell in large drops, one splashing on her hand. A bubble of mucus expanded out of one nostril."
"Hey," Erica said softly, reaching over to hug or pat Dora, Steve wasn't sure. But Dora sidestepped her and moved closer to him, chest rising. Sharp little gasps of air. The tears so copious that her face within seconds had become a wet mess. Steve did something he hadn't done in years. He caressed her cheek, her twitching wet cheek, pushing down his own emotions as best he could. Grief that threatened to swallow him whole, grief he thought he'd annihilated when his marriage had gone up in smoke after Dora had taken over. Loud, laugh-in-your-face Dora. When he managed to tear his eyes away from Dora and focus back on Erica, she seemed to have visibly shrunken, to have become smaller in stature in a matter of mere seconds.
"May I come in?" He asked again.
Erica said nothing, but Dora nodded, clutching his hand. It was only when he and Dora had stepped inside that Erica seemed to come to life and followed them in.
Cuppa was making breakfast. When she saw them, she set down the carton of eggs she held in her hand.
"Oh dear, what do we have here?" She said, rushing to pull out a chair for Dora at the kitchen table, but Dora shook her head and pulled Steve after her, pulled him into her tiny little office that used to be her bedroom. He took in the futon still on the floor, and the desk and filing cabinet pushed to the side. She closed the door behind them and sank down to the futon. Pulled her legs up so that her knees rested against her chest. Grabbing the sheet's corner, she wiped her damp face dry, eyes puffy and red as she peered up at him. She twisted the end of the sheet, tighter and tighter until it came to a point and slowly unraveled.
When Dora spoke, Steve had to strain his ears to hear. He sank down next to her.
"I didn't know," she whispered.
She started twisting the corner of the sheet again.
Where to begin? Dora was looking at him like she was a desperate passenger on a sinking ship and he was the last lifeboat le
ft. Steve placed his hand over hers, carefully. Dora didn't pull away. Instead, she took a gulp of air, making a loud hiccup sound.
"What happened to us?" She asked.
Steve sighed and shut his eyes for a moment before he said, "We grew up. We got married. We had children. We built a life together."
She did not respond for the longest time and a static silence filled his ears. "I didn't know." Dora's voice was hushed, reverent and young. "Barbara told me you were their dad." She glanced at him again, her lips making a squiggly shape, something unfathomable in her eyes as she stared at him in quiet astonishment.
Her admission to such walloping ignorance was like a punch to the gut—their dad. Like the children had nothing to do with her, some kids who were part of a family Dora could no longer recollect.
"And if you had known I was their father?"
Her eyes slid in his direction. He could see confusion but also something else, a faint pulse of a deeper emotion that was still alive under all the fear and uncertainty. She rested her temple against her kneecap. "I would have asked for you when I was at the clinic," she said. "It's just," she looked up at him again, this time her eyes roving over his features, the uncertainty growing. "It's just so weird that you're old and I'm old, and we have these kids, and I'm with… with a gay woman."
"Typically, it takes both people of a same-sex couple to be gay," Steve said, a smile twitching at his lips.
Dora gazed at him. "I'm not gay," she said flatly. "Dora's gay. But I'm not."
"What?"
She sniffed and looked away.
"You talk about yourself as if you're two different people." He tried to find a smile, some humor in the remark.
"I am. That's what the therapist told me at the clinic. That I have something called dissociative identity disorder."
"So not amnesia?"
She met his gaze again. "I have that, too. But," Dora pulled her hand away and flexed her fingers. "I don't know her."
"Who?"
"Dora."
Steve straightened his posture, Barbara's words swirled around in his mind. Mom has gone away. Inside she's sixteen. The thought that came next was so jolting that Steve felt stupefied at the epiphany. It is not Dora who is sixteen again because Dora did not exist when he and Serene were teenagers. And if Serene is not Dora, then who is Dora exactly? And where has Serene been hiding?
26
Serene - March 1990
* * *
Ahe was big for his age. His name meant soft breeze, but he was more like a hurricane. At ten, he looked twelve, maybe even thirteen. He was one of the cousins come to stay at Kanani's for an indefinite duration of time. His mother, according to Kanani, was a crackhead. The first time Ahe gave Cedar a hard time, Kanani, her brothers and Serene set him straight, let him know that he was Serene's little brother, so hands off. Cedar suffered from asthma and was bony, his shoulder blades winging out from his narrow back. His skin was too white––it burned in the sun rather than browned, his small upturned nose scarred and perpetually peeling from constant sunburns. Ramani and Aarav didn't believe in using “toxic” sunscreen, so Serene had found an old Oakland A’s baseball cap at the thrift store one day and bought it for Cedar as a form of protection from the elements. It sat like a bowl on his head, too big, but he loved the cap and wore it all the time.
* * *
Serene found Ahe assaulting her brother near a patch of blackberry bramble by the gulch that led to an open field. Kids often played by the gulch, and it was also where small-time drug deals sometimes went down. She noticed the hat lying on the ground before she caught sight of the boys. Cedar, forced to his knees, pinned by Ahe's hand on his neck. Cedar's friend, Jake pulling at Ahe's arm. The smaller boy was no match for Ahe's thick stout frame. He stood over Cedar, forcing his face inch by inch toward the ground. No one was around to stop the bully. Kanani's brothers weren't home. Jake's mom, oblivious to the fact that the boys were no longer under her roof, was busy watering her vegetable beds at the back of her large backyard.
"Ey, Ahe!" Serene yelled, catching his attention. He grinned and gave Cedar's butt a swift hard kick, sending him pitching forward, skimming the dirt with his face.
She found a stone without really looking, it seemed, and sent it flying fast and hard at Ahe's face, catching him in the mouth. Before he could think to do anything about the rock suddenly whizzing at his head like a bullet, it split both top and bottom lips open. It took out one of his front teeth, sending a spurt of blood shooting out and down his chin and neck. His eyes widened as he brought his hands to his face, a look of momentary confusion at the blood and then fear as he saw Serene bearing down on him. He only managed to clear a yard in his flimsy slippers, no match for the speed she had with bare feet. Serene flew at him and he punched her in the jaw, squealing with fright as she jumped him, grabbing a fistful of his thick black hair and pulling him with such force that he toppled back onto the pebbly dirt. Serene thrust herself astride his wobbly belly, delivering punches. Hearing Ahe's screams, Kanani's mom came running out of her house and fought Serene's violent body off of her nephew.
"Get up!" The woman yelled, digging her long nails into the skin of her nephew's arm. She yanked him off the road, her eyes taking in Jake Kuwahara bent over Cedar's prone bony frame, trying to help his friend up. "What the fuck you do now, Ahe?!" Kanani's mom screamed at the wailing boy and sucked in her breath when she got a good look at his face.
Serene lunged at him again, but Aunty Sharon held Serene back by planting her large palm up against the girl's chest.
"Go home, Jake," she ordered. Jake ducked his head and scurried home without a backward glance. "Serene, get your brother and you go on home, too. I'll deal with him." She pushed Ahe none too gently toward their house, followed by a hard smack upside his head. "Stupid little fucker."
Serene helped Cedar to a standing position, brushing the dirt off his face and knees, the anger draining away almost as fast as it came.
Two days later, Cedar was dead, and a week after that, Ahe showed up at her front door, a rainbow of bruises under his eyes, lips scabbed. He held in his arms a grey and white blue nose pitbull.
"She get ten weeks," he said. "Her name's Kai, but you can call her whatevas." His dark eyes met hers and she took the dog gently, hugging her warmth to her chest, inhaling her puppy breath. Ahe turned to leave.
"Ahe," she called out to the boy.
"Yeah?"
Their eyes met again. Serene wanted to say mahalo. She wanted to say she was sorry. She wanted to say that nothing felt real anymore.
He gave a little nod after some seconds. "K den."
She said nothing.
The puppy she named Sahana.
27
Counselor: Claudia Lipstein, Session Date: February 19, 2020
Time: 2:00 PM, Session #26
Client Name: Dora Jones/Serene Hokulani
* * *
(D) The client was especially agitated when she arrived for her session. The agitation stemmed from seeing her children and returning to a house she no longer recognizes. Early in the session, Serene expressed shock at learning that her children's father is her high school friend, Steve Bates. She also expressed some anger toward Erica for not telling her. I pointed out that Erica had mentioned this aspect of her relationship with him and I reminded her that we had discussed her surprise at Steve being the father of her children in past sessions. Serene appeared stunned when I told her this. She has no recollection of these conversations. I found this very curious. However, I would soon find out why. This is the first session where Serene had an alternate personality openly come out to talk with me, but she wasn't Dora.
* * *
(A) When Serene speaks of her family, it is either in the abstract or third person. Her children, she calls them. Serene spent much of the session venting her anger about her alternate personality, Dora, and the feeling that her life was stolen from her. She expressed no concern about her children's wellbeing and only
brought them up in very oblique ways. I do not think Serene has wholly assimilated the idea yet that the children indeed belong to her. As Serene spoke, she grew more and more agitated. I suggested hypnosis thirty minutes into the session. I felt her strong emotion might be a catalyst for reaching Dora. Serene became very quiet when I made that suggestion, and her left eye began to twitch. At the same time, she massaged her left temple with her fingertips. I asked the client if she was okay. The client lowered her head, but I could see a smile forming on her lips. When she looked up, her eyes had a different look.
* * *
Below is a transcript of our recorded conversation.
* * *
"Are you still Serene?"
"No."
"Are you Dora?"
"No."
Note: smile was cocky and a bit cold.
"What is your name?"
"Sahana."
"Sahana, it's nice to meet you. My name is Claudia Lipstein. I'm Serene's psychotherapist."
"I know who you are."
"And what is your relationship to Serene?"
"I'm her twin, can't you tell? We're identical."
"I see. Sahana, what brings you here this afternoon?"
"I'm real good at pretending to be Serene. No one's ever been able to tell."
"And why do you like to pretend to be Serene?"
"Who says I like it?"
"Why do you pretend to be Serene?"
"Why do you think?"
"I'm not sure, Sahana, that's why I'm asking you."
"She can't handle it."
Her Last Memory Page 13