by Marni MacRae
“What’s your name?” He leans forward and places a warm hand on my arm. His touch makes me want to tell him. I want so badly to tell him my name, my life story. We could watch a ballgame together in that world, the one where I know me and could share that. But I shake off the yearning, recalling the scream and the peace that accompanied the emptiness.
I have nothing to offer this person, nothing at all to balance the kindness and generosity he has shown. There is a shadow of shame that covers me, a deficit that defines me as I am right now. Nick deserves better than a girl who screams in the middle of the road for a friend, and although I wish I could give him the simple response he is expecting, I know I can’t. Accepting my reality is the scariest concept so far. If I accept the emptiness, I fear it may close the door to ever going back. To ever exhuming who I was.
I look back up at Nick and give him the first of many answers, knowing each that follow will be the same.
“I don’t know.”
Nick’s brows draw together, and he leans toward me, peering into my eyes. “You don’t know?”
“No. I mean, yes, I don’t know my name.” I sigh and lean back in my blue chair, resigning myself to the inevitable. “I woke up in a field.”
My voice starts to break, and I can feel the pressure in my chest threatening a break down into tears. I take a slow breath and close my eyes. Somehow it feels easier to admit my nothingness if I can’t see the confusion in Nick’s kind gray gaze. My own confusion has no room for his.
“I woke up and it was raining,” I continue. “I had no shoes or jacket, I didn’t know where I was, so I walked through the field until I came upon a track, I followed that to the highway and kept walking until you arrived.”
Stating it in a sentence like that made it sound simple. The fear and confusion, pain, and struggle to keep myself from crumbling couldn’t be put into words. I wouldn’t share it anyway even if my mind could come up with the vocabulary. The short admission is more than I wanted to say. But I take another slow breath and open my eyes and look at him. His confusion is still there but is fading and morphing into surprise and concern.
“Thank you for helping me, but you don’t need to stay. I don’t have any answers for you.”
Nick’s hand is still on my arm and he runs it down to clasp my hand that is clenched into a fist in my lap.
“Were you in an accident? Was there a car in the field?”
His voice is calm and he seems to be coming to some decision in his mind. His body has shifted in the seat as if he is readying to move, perhaps the revelation of my crazy will send him on his way after all.
“No, I don’t think so. I didn’t see a car anywhere, but I really don’t know.”
I shrug my shoulders and pull my fist from his warm hand. Immediately I miss the contact but I don’t want to give him any reason to stay. I’m drawn to Nick, not only because he rescued me in a moment of need but because he feels safe to me. I feel as if I were a newborn child and the scary world, even my scary, empty self is kept at bay when he touches me. But I also feel ashamed and embarrassed, admitting to my deficiencies, my lack of self, to this one person I know.
Somehow saying aloud the thoughts that have been bouncing around in my head makes everything more real, more solid. The speaking of it gives it weight and I can see myself through Nick’s eyes. The frailty and vague insubstantiality of me almost breaks the dam inside, and I squeeze my eyes closed again, holding my breath until the need for air assures me I am real. I am a person, empty, yes, but I breathe and feel and have weight. I am not nothing.
Perhaps if Nick leaves I can summon the courage to forge ahead into this bleak empty land in front of me and figure out where I stand in it all. If he stays I am certain I will cry. His touch, his voice, the simple witness of him mirrors back to me my failings; his strength and gentle warmth makes me feel small.
No more crying. You don’t need Nick to be your strength. Nameless or not, you are a survivor. The inner me rallies and boosts me into sitting up straight and looking Nick in the eyes.
“Please go,” I say it softly, surprised I got the words out at all. It feels terribly rude to dismiss him, but I must start building my strength, building myself, and I can’t afford to need a stranger.
Nick nods his head and gives me a small smile.
“Can I come back? Just to check and make sure you’re all right? I promise I’ll leave if you ask me to, but I won’t sleep knowing you’re here with no one to support you.” Nick reaches out and takes my hand again, unfolding my fingers from their fist and warming them with his heated skin. “They will call you Jane Doe,” he says softly. “But you don’t look like a Jane to me. How about I call you Eve until you remember your own name or find a better one for yourself.”
“Eve. As in first woman?”
“As in newly born. Innocent.”
“Until the apple.”
Nick laughs and gives my hand a squeeze before releasing it and standing.
“Well, I will think of you pre-apple. Just a moment, Eve, I’ll be right back.”
With long strides, Nick walks over to the receptionist’s desk and sets down the papers he never did hand to me. I catch a few words he is saying to the woman behind the counter but can’t really make out anything coherent. After a moment, he returns and lowers himself beside my chair to bring himself to eye level.
“OK, little Eve, I mentioned to the nurse that you have no information or personal ID. She is going to take you back to an exam room to see a doctor. She says you can deal with the paperwork before you leave. This,” he hands me a small slip of paper, “is my contact information. My home and cell numbers are there as well as my address. Please don’t hesitate to call if you need me.”
Nick reaches out and softly runs his fingers along my temple and down my jaw.
“If you remember who you are, please call me to tell me your name.”
He pulls his hand back and takes a breath as if he wants to say something more but then changes his mind and rises to his feet.
“I have a feeling they will keep you overnight. I’ll come back and check in. I don’t live far from here so I can be here in a few minutes if you need me.”
“Why?” The word bursts from me before I can stop it and I instantly regret its escape. Nick is being kind and helpful, and I don’t want to lose the only potential friend I have in the entire world by questioning his kindness. But the question is out now, so I forge ahead.
“Why will you come back? I mean, I understand why you stopped for me, only a cruel person would keep driving, but you don’t need to help me with paperwork, or speak to the nurse for me, or come visit, or…give me a name.”
At this, my voice lowers to a whisper, because I don’t want him to take it back. It’s almost definite that Eve is not my name, but that Nick gave me something to identify myself with was a gift and a kindness greater than he could know.
“I was just wondering why,” I mumble to the floor.
The blue chair in front of me fills with his tall frame again as he lowers himself onto the cushion, his hands reaching for mine, taking them firmly in his grasp.
“Eve, look at me.”
My eyes fly up at my new name, my response to it already an instinctual connection, like ownership. His gaze catches and holds mine, and I see that he is smiling. Not a laughing smile or an amused smile, but a comforting, happy smile that brings a soft light into his gray eyes and makes my skin tingle with warmth.
“You are not nothing, Eve.”
My breath hitches at his words, and I wonder if he heard my thoughts of only a moment before. I am not nothing.
“You may not remember who you are, but that does not mean you aren’t somebody special.”
I let Nick’s words sink in. I know next to nothing about me, but that doesn’t negate me. My worth isn’t measured by my memories, and who I am now is my choice regardless of who I was yesterday. I begin to feel calm for the first time since I awoke in the field, a sen
se of personal power emboldening me and fueling my strength for the struggle ahead. My feelings for this stranger grow even more complicated as I feel the firmness in his hands that hold onto mine. That he continues to lend me emotional support endears him to me and I almost want to take back my plea for him to leave. But I know I still need to stand alone and face this. I know I cannot burden him with more of my personal drama.
“Thank you, Nick.” I relax my hands in his and return the gesture of support by offering a smile. “I am so grateful for all you have done.”
Nick’s eyes light up and he grins, then he leans toward me and lowers his voice speaking gently as if he doesn’t want me to startle like a wild bird.
“I helped you because you were standing in the middle of the road, and, yes, anyone may have stopped, but I’m glad I was the one to find you.”
His fingers leave mine as his hands travel to my shoulders. He leans farther forward, his body tensing a bit and for a moment he looks confused or torn, then, shaking his head slightly, he retreats and releases me. Whatever he was going to say is lost as footsteps approach behind me, and Nick’s eyes leave mine to glance over my head.
“The nurse is here to take you back.” He nods to my right.
I rise, feeling a bit shaky, not sure if it is from the cold still leaving my body or the warmth I can still feel on my arms where his large hands had held me. I’m grateful for him. And I’m glad he insists on returning. Every moment that passes I realize just how alone I am in the world. Despite asking him to leave, a part of me clings to him, to his words. Eve, as in newly born. You are not nothing. Even if Nick doesn’t return and this is our one encounter, I feel grateful for the amount he gave me in such a brief time.
“This way, sweetie.” The nurse is wearing a bright pink outfit that hangs loosely on her tall, trim frame. She gestures to a hallway to the right of the long, curved desk.
I turn and begin to follow her but stop before we pass the desk and turn back to Nick. He’s still standing in front of the blue cushioned chair, hands in his pockets, watching me leave, and I can’t place the expression on his face.
“Nick?”
“Yes, Eve?” His eyes sparkle with humor, and he grins when I blush at hearing my name.
“What is a cell?”
Chapter 4
She has amnesia. Isn’t that the stuff of soap operas and action movies? I’ve never met an amnesiac. Or an albino, a leper, a movie star or even a deaf person, but they all exist. Some in considerable numbers. I question my safe secure world previously free of lovely frail girls with no memories. Just because you have never seen a million dollars doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. I slam the truck door and pull the seatbelt over my shoulder. First order of business—find Leland.
I pull out onto Cross avenue and head toward the police station. I know Lee is on duty tonight. I’m just hoping he hasn’t been called out on patrol. I know he’ll help, no questions asked. If I can count on my little brother for anything, I know police work will be put ahead of anything else.
Eve said she didn’t know if she had been in an accident. I need to find out. I’m pretty sure she had walked out of Jenson’s field. Old man Jenson owns enough acreage off Highway 83 to start his own kingdom. Which most days he believes he has. If I can get Lee to follow me out there, we may find her tracks. It hasn’t rained enough to wash them away yet and the fields are soft this early in spring. Freshly plowed, the new corn just sprouting. Her tracks may lead to a car or a home. Answers, hopefully. I can’t go home before I’m certain no one else is out there, injured or trapped in a vehicle. That’s where Lee can call in the help if needed.
I pull into the station’s tiny lot and shut off the engine. My mind is racing and I take a second to focus and clear away the confusion. It’s not the girl’s—Eve’s—memory loss that has me antsy. It’s her. Her light caramel eyes are striking, the way they pierced me as if she could strip away the surface, get to the meat, the heart of me. An uncomfortable feeling in normal situations, especially concerning women, but this one…there’s something about her that makes me…feel. I’m at a loss for a descriptive word to define exactly what feeling she inspires, but acknowledge it is there.
She’s a tiny girl, fragile at first sight; however, despite her size, Eve possesses a fierceness she doesn’t know she has. But damned if I can’t seem to get the memory of her scream from replaying in the back of my mind. Every time the image of her in the middle of the road popped into my head I had to reach out and touch her. I couldn’t seem to stop myself.
Of course you couldn’t. She’s like the million dollars—once you know it’s there, you can’t stop looking, counting the bills. She’s a novelty.
I need to get it together. I step out into the rain that just won’t quit and prepare to mobilize the forces.
Entering the station, I give a nod to Betty who in turn raises a hand, wiggling her fingers in a hello. She jerks her perfectly coifed head toward my brother’s voice coming from the large room that serves as an office for the staff of BVPD. The space boasts two rows of twelve desks, six to a row, with a maze of file cabinets, printers and copy machines dispersed throughout.
I always wonder how anything is accomplished in the station with the layout challenging even the junior staff to move through the gauntlet of sharp edged metal desks and questionably dated office machinery. Not to mention the clutter. Filing and paperwork are apparently not strictly enforced, if at all. Shaking my head, I put on my blinders to the feng shui chaos and follow the sound of my brother’s voice toward a desk set off kilter to the rest near the back of the maze.
Shimmying between a stack of files and a faded plastic ficus I catch sight of Lee. He’s leaned back in his desk chair so far, I am certain he is going to fall, brandishing a pencil in his right hand. I pause in my navigation around a particularly large copy machine as he draws back and slings it at the ceiling with enough force to snap it in two.
“Damn it!” the pencil hits the ceiling tile on the eraser end and comes back down with almost as much force as it was propelled, missing Lee’s eye by a hair's breadth and clacking onto the hard-tiled floor. “Man, I used to be able to make ‘em stick. Watch, I’ll get it this time.”
I reach the pencil just as my brother’s hand slaps down to snatch it up. My boot covers the yellow stick and Lee snaps his head up, an accusing glare ready for me.
“Bro, you’re stomping my lead.”
“This is why we complain about paying taxes. I won’t ask how many tries you gave that dumb trick.” I shake my head and retrieve the pencil from beneath my boot.
Lee doesn’t even attempt to look ashamed, he just gives me a wide grin and grabs the pencil from my hand. “Six, but seventh time’s the charm, right?” His arm pulls back and he turns to glare at a lead-marked tile above his head. I can clearly see more than six pencil streaks randomly marking his target. More like a couple dozen.
“I need your help.” I watch as the pencil flies and makes its taunting mark next to the rest before crashing back to the floor, adding insult by rolling beneath Lee’s desk.
“Man, I’m on duty. Can’t help ya with that siding load till the weekend. Besides, isn’t it raining?”
“Not help with the job, man. I need your help—as a cop.”
Lee snaps up in his chair and swivels to face me. “You in trouble? Dude, what did you do? I’ll handle it, as long as you didn’t kill no one, just tell me what you need.”
Lee’s like that. A goof, but he always has my back. Cop to the core. When he isn’t wasting tax dollars.
I sit down in the chair next to his desk and shake my head. “I’m not in trouble. I was on my way home from that order I had to make in Lexington. Coming up on Jenson’s east field there was this girl standing in the middle of Highway 83. I thought she could be hurt so I picked her up and took her to the hospital. Turns out, she doesn’t remember anything.”
“Like an accident? Or is she faking to cover for someone? You know, spousal
abuse? That happens a lot.”
“No, she doesn’t remember anything, like who she is, where she’s from, nothing. Amnesia style. I asked if she was in a car, she doesn’t know. So, I’m thinking we need to go back to where I found her, out by Jenson’s fields and see if we can track down the scene of the accident, or whatever happened. You know, make sure no one else is hurt out there.”
“Absolutely.”
Lee springs to his feet. I can tell he’s anxious to do anything but throw more pencils at a circa 1950’s tile. Rain or not, field work is better than pushing (or tossing) pencils any day.
“I’ll send Hansette over to take a statement, get a report going. You and I can head out to Jenson’s fields. You remember where you picked her up?”
“Yeah, just this side of the old washout. She says she woke up out there. You might want to call old man Jenson, get permission to track through his place.”
“I’ll get Betty to do it. You know Jenson won’t listen to us.”
“Yeah, but he does have a sweet spot for Betty.”
“Yup.” Lee grins and grabs a black, brimmed hat with BVPD across the front in bold white letters. “Be just a minute and I’ll follow you out.”
* * *
Fifteen minutes later my headlights pick up a dirt—now mud—track leading into Jenson’s east field. I pull the truck off the road far enough to give Lee plenty of room to park his cruiser behind me. Stepping out into the drizzle I fantasize about a thermos of steaming coffee and promise myself to let my water heater run to cold in an hour long steaming shower when I get home. I grab my mag-light from behind my seat and pull my hat brim down, cursing the drips already running down to my ears.
“This it?” Lee locks his cruiser and clicks on his flashlight. I don’t know where cops order their lights from, but his beam shoots out like the sun over the short shoots peeking out of the soaked earth for a good football field length. My mag feels inadequate.