Her Last Memory

by C. A. Wittman

  "Who?"

  "Serene. Who else?"

  "What can't Serene handle?"

  "Things. Life."

  "And you can?"

  "Bettah than her."

  "Does Serene ever pretend to be you?"

  "Serene? Miss Lipstein, that's too funny."

  "Do you and Serene talk to each other?"

  "Nah. Serene's too wrapped up in herself to know she got a twin. I mean, she knows kinda, but she doesn't like it."

  "I see. And Dora––who is she in regard to Serene?"

  "Oh man, Miss Lipstein, Serene's got you fooled."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Serene is Dora."

  "Serene doesn't seem to think so."

  "Okay, it's like this. When Serene gets all overwhelmed like, she pretends to be badass Dora."

  "Badass Dora?"

  "Yeah, Miss, Dora is a badass. She gets things done. You know what I mean?"

  "Uh-huh. Sahana, what do you think of this feeling of time travel that Serene talks about. Do you have this sensation as well?"

  "It's not a sensation, Miss. She does time travel."

  "Can you explain that a little more to me?"

  "Well, like, I'm not a scientist and shit."

  "I'm only interested in the general sense of what Serene might mean."

  "Yeah. Oh, I got you. Like, well, it's like we're all in different time periods and we travel back and forth. It's fucking trippy. So, like, I'm here now, but mostly I'm not."

  "And what period do you usually reside in?"

  "I don't know."

  Note: Here the client's tone becomes soft.

  "It's just, the last thing I remember, I was sixteen and I was leaving my house."

  "Sahana?"

  "What?"

  “Am I speaking to Sahana?”

  "Sahana?"

  "Am I speaking to Serene now?"

  "What?"

  "Are you Serene?"

  "Yes?"

  "Does the name Sahana sound familiar to you?"

  "Why are you asking me that?"

  "Serene, can you tell me what you remember about our conversation over the last several minutes?"

  "You were talking about hypnosis and you asked me about time."

  * * *

  (P) This is the first revelation of a third personality. I think, as therapy progresses, more personalities may come forward. I will follow up with one on one treatment. At this point, family therapy is not recommended. I will follow up with Serene's family separately.

  When Serene came back to herself after her alternate, Sahana, faded, she seemed calmer. We have decided that she will try to make it through the end of this week and the weekend without therapy. Walking seems to help with her anxiety. I have suggested that she take three long walks a day, the first immediately in the morning, the second before or after lunch, and the third before or after dinner. I would like to try another session with hypnotherapy and see if we might reach Dora. I would also like to talk more with Serene about her children and work with her on finding connections with them. Also, we will continue to dig deeper into what she might be trying to avoid remembering.

  28

  Dora - February 2020

  * * *

  Dora smoothed down her hair before taking a seat in the waiting room at the clinic where Claudia had her office. Two other women sat in the comfortable cushy chairs of the carpeted neutral space, each engrossed in her phone. A wall mount filled with magazines remained untouched. A Scientific American issue with a feature on aging sat in the same slot it had been in last time Dora saw Claudia, and the time before that.

  She was waiting for Erica to pick her up because Dora didn't know how to drive or couldn't remember. The recent session with her therapist spread across Dora's thoughts like a slick of debris over a pool of water. A third personality? And there might be more? Dora shook her head at the thought. She'd left Claudia's office feeling more muddled than she had after seeing Steve that morning. Dora touched her lips at the thought of Steve, remembering the shock and relief of seeing him in this new world.

  But now there was more of herself to pick apart. Would it ever end? The third personality, Sahana––it was the name Ramani initially chose, although her parents had deferred to her biological father Jai, allowing him to give the name Serene. She had always thought Sahana was a nicer name and had passed it along to her pitbull. A chill swept over her flesh as she thought about the third personality who claimed to be her twin. Claudia had played the recording of her chat with Sahana for Dora. And there she was, talking, her voice a more-cocky version of herself, saying things she had no recollection of. The idea of other personalities inside herself––that creepy recording––was maddening and terrifying. Where did these parts of herself come from? Where did these personalities go when she was… what? When the real part of herself was in control. That was the thing though. How did she know if she was the real one––the real personality? A frown pulled at Dora's mouth, her thoughts swirling like a devil's wind of confusion through her head.

  The door to the waiting room opened and Erica poked her face through. When her eyes lit on Dora, she gave a little wave and Dora stood, joining her wife. They walked to the elevator and took it down to the lobby.

  "How did it go?" Erica asked.

  "Okay." Dora stopped at a vending machine on the way out and bought a 7UP.

  Outside, a mesh of grey clouds covered the sky like papier mache. It was cold enough for a jacket.

  Erica beeped the Audi open and the two climbed in wordlessly.

  "How did we meet?" Dora asked as they pulled onto Westwood and into a tangle of traffic.

  Erica glanced at her brows furrowed. "I thought you knew."

  Dora rolled the bottle of 7UP between her palms. "Knew? Why would I know?"

  "Because you remember Steve and Carrie. I thought you remembered me." Erica's voice grew husky. “From when we were younger,” she added.

  "From when we were younger?" Dora echoed.

  Erica blinked and sighed at the crush of cars they'd wedged into. "My sister, Lanesha––she used to braid your hair."

  A flash of a small girl wearing glasses too big for her face.

  Always reading.

  Always quiet.

  Teased by Lanesha and her friends.

  Girl's a walkin’ encyclopedia.

  “Go on then with your little studious self,” Sweetness from down the street liked to say.

  “Op, op, we got a genius in the house,” Baby Sweetness, Sweetness’ sidekick, would joke.

  "Erica?" Dora whispered.

  Her wife turned to meet her gaze. Vulnerable eyes. The same eyes that used to track her movements when she visited Lanesha's. Erica, following her around the house, asking questions.

  I think you got a shadow, Serene. Girl's obsessed.

  Erica, what's wrong with you?

  Practically walking on Serene's heels. I hope you not gettin’ pervy, girl. Un-huh.

  "Oh." Dora said.

  She'd married Lanesha's little sister. It wasn't right. She was the pervert.

  Fizzy hot liquid shot up her throat and into her mouth. The cars began to move and they inched forward.

  "We ran into each other at an art show in Studio City,” Erica said. “You were glad to get out of the house. I think Jesse was one at the time. I hadn't seen you in years and you were so much more confident. When we were kids, I remember you were on the shyer side."

  "And I-I don't…” Dora stuttered, trying to put it all together, figure out how the events of the past made sense. “Why did I leave Steve?"

  "We fell in love." Erica's lips pinched together, and she gave a little shake of her head.

  Dora blanched, head nodding woodenly. Nothing felt real anymore. It was as if she were taking a tour of someone else's life while in a dream.

  29

  Barbara - February 2020

  * * *

  “I just put this together,” Ramani said. She held a pitcher
of what looked like red punch with chunky ice cubes, wedges of oranges and apples and a handful of blueberries floating in it. She poured some into a jelly glass and handed it to Barbara.

  “What is it?” Barbara asked, swirling the contents around. You never knew with Ramani.

  Her grandmother picked up her vape pen and inhaled a deep lungful of berry flavor cannabis, letting it exit her mouth in a steamy white cloud. She expertly sucked the vapor back up and let it leak through her nostrils, grinning indulgently at Barbara.

  “Sangria,” she said. “I think it's my best batch yet, don't you think, John?” She called out to her husband, who was in the bedroom of their tiny one-bedroom condo.

  John emerged, looking slightly distracted. He was shirtless, his chest sagging in soft wrinkles, wearing only boxers and tube socks. “I don't have any bottoms. What have you done with all my pants and shorts?” He caught sight of Barbara and absently waved hello.

  “I'm doing a deep clean, sweetie. I've put everything in the wash.” Ramani rubbed absently at her round middle and swiveled her hips to a tune in her head, sucking her pen and expelling another impressive cloud of the candy smelling vapor.

  “Well, that's just great,” John said, throwing up his hands. “I have nothing to wear and I'm supposed to meet Richard for lunch in half an hour.

  “Oh,” Ramani set down her pen on the kitchen counter. “Let's see. Do you want to wear something of mine?”

  Her husband looked at her dubiously. She was double his size. Barbara let out a snort of laughter and then took a sip of the sangria when Ramani and John glanced at her. It was good. Sweet and slightly tangy.

  “I've got some sweatpants that might fit you.” Ramani headed for their bedroom.

  “When will the wash be done?” John asked, following her.

  “Oh, not for over an hour. Everything is in the wash cycle right now.”

  There was the sound of a drawer being opened from their room and Barbara guzzled half of her drink down and replenished it from the pitcher Ramani left sitting out.

  “These are too big,” John said.

  “You have to pull the string. There, like that. Now tie it.”

  Barbara wandered into the living room, which was filled with plants. Too many. The room was like a nursery, the faint odor of earthy dampness emanating from the carpet. Most everything was draped with vibrant, colorful sarongs. Sarongs on the windows, sarongs over the furniture, sarongs hanging on the walls and around Ramani's hips. It was all she wore around the house. On the northern wall hung her latest creation of paintings: a series of pastel-colored fairies with giant genitalia, making merry in fields, aflutter with vaginal butterflies and phallic caterpillars inching along tree branches. On the opposite wall, the TV played on mute. CNN. A scene of passengers at an airport in China wearing face masks, waiting in line to have their temperatures taken.

  Barbara drank more of the sangria and took a seat on the vibrant red Arabic style floor sofa. Crossing her legs, she flipped through a black and white photography art book of women of all ages in various states of undress.

  John reemerged this time in a polo shirt and a pair of eye-catching orange sweatpants two sizes too big on him. The fabric puddled around his ankles, threatening to swallow up his white tennis shoes.

  “It's fine,” Ramani said, coming up behind him and waving him on.

  “I don't think you have my best intentions in mind,” he said and bent to pick up a bag near the front door. The pants slid half off his butt, and he stood, pulling them up. “You see? They're too big.”

  “It's what we've got at the moment. Or you could postpone until the laundry's done.”

  “Uh-huh.” John peered at Ramani over his glasses before sighing and placing his bag under his arm. “See you, Barb.”

  “Bye.”

  He pulled up his slipping pants again before walking out. Ramani went into the kitchen to retrieve her own glass of sangria. When she came back, her eyes wandered toward the TV and she made a sucking noise through her teeth.

  “It's only a matter of time.”

  “What?” Barbara followed her gaze to the images playing out on the screen, patients in hospital beds and then a cut to the news anchor, Wolf Blitzer.

  “That virus out of Wuhan. Have you been following that?”

  Barbara shook her head. She'd caught snatches here and there but wasn't necessarily paying attention.

  Ramani shrugged. “We won't be prepared.”

  Barbara ignored the comment. Her grandmother was always full of conspiracies and generally carried an overly pessimistic outlook on the future.

  “What do you think?” Ramani asked, holding up her glass. She sat on a mustard yellow floor sofa opposite Barbara.

  “It's delicious.”

  Ramani smiled, her thin brown-hennaed curls forming a halo of wispiness around her fleshy dimpled features. She drank heartily from her glass and Barbara watched the ribbons of skin gather at her throat as she gulped down her drink.

  “So,” she said, lowering her glass. “Dora. You're here to talk about Dora.”

  Barbara nodded and sipped more of her drink. Her muscles started to relax, a feeling of languid wellbeing enveloping her body.

  “More sangria?” Ramani was already getting up again.

  Barbara held out her glass. “Sure. Why not?”

  “Does she want to see me yet?” Ramani called out from the kitchen.

  Barbara stiffened. “She's still really confused.”

  Ramani returned, her smile gone. She handed Barbara her topped off drink and took her seat back on the yellow sofa.

  “Ramani?” Barbara ventured.

  Her grandmother's brown eyes snapped with interest. She brought her legs up in a very limber way for a woman in her early seventies. The soles of her feet, toes splayed open, rested on the cushion, her knees hugged up against her chest. Under her sarong she wore spandex shorts.

  “What do you know about dissociative identity disorder?” Barbara knew she was wading into murky subject matter and grimaced inwardly, wondering how Ramani would take the question.

  Her grandmother brought her glass up to her lips, staring over the rim at Barbara as she drank. She set the glass down and straightened her legs out in front of her. “Why?”

  Barbara took a breath. It was a risk coming to Ramani, but instinctively she felt she'd get no answers from her dad, Erica or Cuppa. “I think maybe––well, no one's said, but I think my mom might have it.”

  Ramani smoothed her hair back with her large hands, but the curls sprang back from under her thick fingers and now stuck up unflatteringly on her head.

  “Oh, yeah.” She nodded. “Mm-hmm. Yes. Dora. She's been pretending to be Dora for years now.”

  Barbara felt the blood drain from her face, shaking her head. “I don't––what do you mean?”

  Ramani shut her eyes and pressed her fingertips into her forehead. “It was after Cedar fell.” She kept her eyes closed and lapsed into silence.

  “Ramani?”

  Her grandmother opened her eyes, and in their depths, Barbara sensed something stark and bleak.

  “She'd played at Dora before, but after Cedar she started asking to be called Dora all the time. She went by Dora for a good two years, and then the name disappeared until recently.”

  “But I thought she changed her name six years ago.”

  “Oh no, no, no, your mother's been Dora off and on since she was a tiny little thing. I always knew when she was pretending to be Dora. This Dora character was loud, brash, overconfident.” Ramani paused, thinking.

  “I don't understand. Why didn't you take her to get help? Take her for counseling?”

  “Counseling?”

  “For her dissociation.”

  “I wouldn't call it that,” Ramani said. “Where's my pen?”

  “You left it in the kitchen.”

  Barbara watched her grandmother get up a bit unsteadily. When she returned with her pen, she said, “It was more of a copin
g mechanism. She was there, you know. She was there when Cedar fell, and she was there when––” Ramani's voice caught. “It was easier for her to be Dora. Dora's so much stronger.” Ramani laughed a humorless laugh. “Dissociative identity disorder,” she muttered. “That's the same as the multiple personality thing?”

  Barbara nodded.

  “It's one thing to pretend to have characteristics that you feel you lack and a whole other ball of wax to genuinely believe you're someone else.”

  “You said she pretended to be Dora since she was little, but then stayed Dora after Cedar's death?”

  “It was Serene's way of dealing with the tragedy.”

  “But how do you know she didn't genuinely think she was Dora? Did you ever talk to her about it? About her going around as Dora sometimes and sometimes not?”

  Ramani laughed again. “Barbara, honey, the internet is a wonderful thing, but sometimes we can simply come to the wrong conclusion trying to self-diagnose or, in your case, diagnose someone else.”

  “It's not just amnesia,” Barbara cut in.

  “Of course it's amnesia. Everything Erica told me about Dora's condition points to amnesia.”

  “Ramani, Mom told me that her last memory is of leaving our house when she was my age.”

  “Well, there you go. She's lost a lot of years. How are you making this jump to multiple personalities?”

  “When Mom was my age, she was called Serene.”

  “B, if you were a forty-year-old woman who changed her name and you suddenly lost your memory, and the last thing you recalled was being a teenager with your previous name, it doesn't necessarily mean multiple personality disorder.”

  Barbara leaned back and Ramani took a few more puffs off her pen. “Actually, I've been thinking about that girl, Taylor,” Barbara said.

  Ramani set her pen down and leaned forward, her voice barely above a whisper. “That night at Enzo's. Those kids.” Her tone got fiercer. “One of them knew something or did something, then they pinned it on Darpan.”

  Barbara flinched. Her recent research pointed to Darpan's guilt. The arguments for his more than probable attack of Taylor made sense. Plus, his semen was found in Taylor's body.