by Marni MacRae
Chapter 9
The drive home this time held more questions than my earlier journey through the rain-slicked streets. The drizzle had not let up. The streets still held a shiny wetness that reflected the streetlights like pools of gold, shimmering in a mist of fog. But now my mind raced with my heart, clamoring to make sense of something that felt foreign. Although not an uncomfortable sensation, it came with a truckload of questions, concerns, and too few answers. By the time I turned the key in the lock and stepped into the house I knew I wouldn’t be sleeping anytime soon.
Grabbing a beer from the fridge, I return outside and lower myself onto a cushioned deck chair. The air is as crisp as the beer and I let both clear my head. Settle the heat that began burning through me the moment Eve smiled and said, “I’m so glad you came back.”
I hadn’t expected that. I had resolved to meddle, to help, to do what I could for her, indulge the drive to protect her. After she had asked me to leave in the hospital lobby, I felt somewhat relieved. I know it was an excuse, an easy way to keep my distance. Emotionally. She’s broken, she wanted space, I am a stranger. Damn Nick, what did you think? You feel some kind of connection to a golden-eyed girl and she just falls into your arms?
It hadn’t been like that. I’m not a romantic, soft guy who buys flowers and courts with poetry. But something happened. Lee sensed it. I denied it. Kind of. I can’t be sure what led to what. Seeing that fear and sorrow in her eyes as she screamed in the road. Holding her against me as I carried her into the hospital. Or watching her steel herself with a strength she seems unaware of as she told me she didn’t know her own name. Asked me to leave to face it alone. Yeah, it probably wasn’t just one thing.
She is lovely. Any guy would respond to her looks. And she has a gentleness about her that makes a guy want to protect her. Touch her. Be touched by those small hands, soft pink lips…
“Ah, hell, you’re making it worse.” My habit of talking to myself rears its head under stress, but I am in no mood to try and curb my vocal quirk. My home sits on ten acres on the outskirts of town. No one can hear me tell myself I’m nuts. And I am, I know it. Nuts to the degree of crazy.
Walking into that hospital room with a balloon and damn stuffed bear from the tiny gift shop in the lobby was an apology from me. I knew I had to question her. I knew I was intending to meddle. I knew even then that I was holding back pushing for more.
Until she smiled. It lit up her face, and for a second, I thought she forgot who I was. That she mistook me for someone she knew. That kind of smile is reserved for a loved one. It held relief and delight, and I thought I saw…attraction.
Another swig of beer serves to go past the line of clearing my head and into fuzzy thinking territory. I need to sleep, get up early, get to the job and set Mike up with running the site for the day. I need to talk to Lee, get some answers. I need to see Eve again. I know I’m going back. No point in trying to deny that. I may be bordering on nuts at the moment, but I’m no liar. I’m hooked.
Doc is right. Eve doesn’t need to be prodded and poked at. I went back thinking maybe my brother was right, she might know something that could help. But amnesia, by definition, means no memory, so what did I think she would say? I forget everything important to me except the questions you ask—yeah, I have those answers.
I feel myself getting a little mad. Mostly at myself, but a little at the situation. I can’t not touch her. And she lets me. That amazes me. I feel the need to make contact, to share in her warmth. And she responds. I can’t focus when she touches me. I missed a big part of Doc’s questions due to Eve’s hand in mine, so small and warm with not a lick of weakness for their tiny size. Her grip was strong and sure, and that only made me want to touch more of her.
“Oh, man, I’m gone.”
I finish the beer and rise. Sleep might bring answers. Hopefully clear the confusion that is tricking me into thinking I might have some kind of future with Eve. I know I rounded that bend. I let down my guard tonight and allowed my impulse to take over. Holding Eve in my arms, her head over my heart, I felt sure she would hear it melting. As she drifted off against my chest, my blood was heating up. I thought my heartbeat would wake her it was so loud in my ears.
But when she had reached up to touch my cheek there was something in those golden eyes that hit hard. A depth of sorrow. A curiosity. But more than anything, purity. She is pure. In a way I can hardly define. Not innocent, like a child, or chaste like a nun, but real. No mask, no attempt at games or coyness. No flirtatious suggestion or banter to take those small steps toward unraveling another person.
I can’t stand dating for that reason. I don’t like games or the way most women behave as if they hold all the cards and a guy is supposed to beg and comply to get anything from her. I have had two relationships that barely got past the three-month mark. They ended with frustration and a realization that neither of them were my friends. They didn’t care about who I was. Who I am. They only wanted their own agenda fulfilled.
Eve is as real as it gets. It’s refreshing in a shocking, yet comforting way. She thinks she doesn’t know who she is, but from one day of knowing her, I can see she has more character in her little finger than any woman I have ever dated. She is sincere. Strong. Gentle. And a fighter. She is honest and has the best intentions. She isn’t afraid to apologize or try to help even when she has nothing to her name. In one day she has managed to strip me down, get past my defenses and squeeze at my heart.
I need another beer. I grab one from the fridge and take it with me into the bedroom. With my mind on this tangent, I know it’s the best medicine to get me to sleep.
I turn the TV on and set the volume to low. I set my phone alarm to high and swig the beer down in four long gulps. Medicine in me, I crawl under the sheets and let visions of CNN’s latest newscast distract me from Eve long enough to succumb to sleep.
* * *
“No, man, nothing.” Lee hands me a cup of bitter, cop coffee that I know will burn holes in my stomach and shrugs his shoulders, “I mean, we looked. I traipsed through a pretty large portion of forest last night.”
Lee sips at the burning black acid and makes a face. Setting the cup on his desk he plops down in his chair and wiggles the mouse on the desk top to awaken his computer screen. “You remember when we were kids and went camping behind Brian Beezer’s house?”
“Yeah, that strip of trees he called woods. I remember he cried and his mom made us sleep inside.”
“Yeah, he cried cuz his brother was out there making weird groaning noises and Bryan was convinced it was Bigfoot.”
“It was never proven his brother did it. Personally, I choose to believe it was Bigfoot.” I set the cup of black sludge on his desk and pull up a chair beside his desk. “What’s your point?”
“Well, I swear, last night, Bigfoot was out there tracking me.”
I make a noise and kick the leg of his chair. “I don’t doubt it, man, you put off a scent those hairy dudes can’t resist.” Grinning, I lean over to see the map Lee has on the screen.
“Oh, you're funny. Don’t dis my cologne, Ana digs it.”
“Mmhm, so did your hairy buddy point you to a clue?”
“Check this out.” Lee waves a hand at the screen and leans back in his chair.
“Yeah, that’s a cool map—give me more info, Lee. What am I looking for here?”
“This is the state land that borders Jensen’s. It runs through three counties all told. It’s where I was running from Bigfoot last night. In the rain. And mud.”
“If memory serves, Brian wasn’t the only one crying that night.”
“Dude, Bigfoot is no joke, but my point is, this is huge.” He nods at the screen. “And past that is more forest, more mountains. It’s back in the hollers where you don’t roam on purpose. Even the mighty Sasquatch stays clear of some of the folk that call that area home.”
“Yeah.” I grab the mouse and zoom in on the border where Lee had entered last night. “So y
ou’re not going back? I mean, you have a gun.”
“So do those people. Not that that’s really the point. I have a healthy respect for the, um…people who live out there. But what I’m trying to convey to you is”—Lee grabs the mouse back and clicks out of the map, turning to look me in the eyes— “if Eve came out of there, which we know she did, then ask yourself, what is in there to come out of. No roads, not county-maintained ones. No towns, just scatterings of communities and a few Sasquatch dens.”
“Are you calling quits?” I get what he’s saying. The search got harder than we thought. Knocking door to door isn’t really an option when private property of some of these communities is strictly enforced with firepower and booby traps. There are stories of deep backwoods rivalries that have death tolls never reported, births never registered. Crossing a property line unknowingly might mean never coming back out of those mountains.
“I’m calling caution and referring to my boss for a game plan.” Lee hands me a stack of papers and gets to his feet. “I have a ton of paperwork and stuff I gotta get to, but I pulled up some numbers for you.”
“What is this?” I glance through the pages. They’re lined with names and figures.
“Missing persons.”
My head jerks up from the stack, and I look at Lee whose expression has sobered. “For all of America? Man, this will take some time to sort through.”
“No, Nick.” Lee nods at the papers in my hand. “That’s for Kentucky. For the last two years. Last year around half a million missing persons were reported nationally.”
Lee taps the stack of papers in my grip as he steps around me, heading down a hallway toward the jail cells. He pauses before he gets out of earshot and turns back,
“I’ll send you some links, man—just know this ain’t an easy thing. It’s like looking for a straw in a haystack. You might want to prepare for a long road. Maybe give Eve a heads-up.” He lifts a hand as a ‘see ya later’ and rounds the corner out of sight.
Half a million. How can that many people go missing? I never hear that kind of number on the news, can’t recall knowing anyone even by six degrees who disappeared.
I stay at Lee’s desk for a minute, trying to wrap my head around the roadblocks he just threw up. Going into the woods to try and pick up Eve’s trail might be a bad plan. I need to get county maps of property lines, a compass. And dig out my gun.
Lists begin to form in my head. Plans to attack the problem, solve the mystery. Eve wasn’t in the system, local or national. Nothing had come up on a basic search into the missing persons database. Le is still waiting to hear back on a deep search with her DNA and prints. In the meantime, I’ll gather together what I will need if that fails.
No roads anywhere near where Eve emerged from the woods suggests she may not have been in an accident. She wasn’t just a day hiker who got lost and slipped and fell, bumped her head and wandered out of the woods. She had been wearing a skirt, no shoes, no jacket, provisions, or water bottle. Christ the girl didn’t have a cell phone, purse, or fanny pack. No, looking at that map, knowing the history in those hills back in the woods, there is a good chance Eve ran out. On her own. Her memory loss the result of abuse.
If that’s the case, do you really want to send her back?
“Not my decision to make,” I mutter angrily to myself. Standing up I walked out of the station with a sick feeling that—maybe—helping Eve find where she came from might not be in Eve’s best interest.
Chapter 10
“You’re saying I’m…crazy?”
“No, Eve.” Dr. Eston chuckles and then rearranges his features to a comforting expression. “I’m saying your CAT scan and the MRI we did this morning came back fine. The tests confirmed there is no swelling, no tumors, no trauma at all that can be seen. In fact, from all the tests we have run and the physical exam I gave you, it appears you are in perfect health.”
He seems proud, as if he had bestowed health on me, like a gift.
“What does that mean? I don’t understand—if I’m healthy, then what is the cause of amnesia?”
Dr. Eston places the clipboard he had been holding onto the side table and folds his hands in his lap. “There are a number of possible explanations. Of course, without knowing your medical or personal history, we are limited in our information. You may have had a drowning experience, a lack of oxygen to the brain could have affected your memory. It is possible there are injuries in the brain that were not revealed by the scans. Long-term drug use, alcohol abuse or prescription medication could cause memory loss. Or your amnesia was brought on by psychological trauma.”
“Drowned?” The list of possibilities sounds overwhelming, and I feel like we are back at square one. The long morning of tests in machines that clicked and hummed as they scanned me. The vials of blood taken. The questions that made me feel as if I was a child. And still no answers.
“It may explain your clear memory of swimming. How you connected to it so quickly. There have been cases of drowning patients with damage to mental functions such as memory, though many were accompanied by some form of head trauma.”
I digest this for a moment, then continue with his list of possibilities.
“I thought you tested my blood for drugs and, um, diseases. Laurel said you would see if I had been drugged.”
“Yes. We ran the standard tests, and your blood came back clean. No toxins, or sign of chemical abuse or even alcohol. I believe it to be the least likely cause, but I am hesitant to rule anything out.”
“So, if it wasn’t drowning, drugs or drinking, then crazy is the answer.”
I hear the defeat in my voice and immediately regret the comment. I know Dr. Eston is trying to help, but it seems that every answer I get only opens doors to more questions. More elusive questions that I can’t wrap my hands around and squeeze answers out of.
If it is my mind, my own choosing to forget, then how am I to believe I will ever choose to remember? Do you really want to? Whispers in the back of the defeat and I feel a chill run down my spine. Of course, I want my life back. The emptiness is too great a burden to justify any reason for forgetting. I am homeless. Penniless. Starvation and worse come with this reality. Surely where I came from was better than being destitute, wandering aimlessly without direction or even a name.
You are Eve, whispers back and I raise my eyes to the kind face of the doctor. I have no choice but to be Eve now, do I?
Dr. Eston sits back and his gentle, friendly demeanor changes. “First, Eve, we don’t say crazy. It is not a kind word. And, second, that is not what I said. Psychological trauma is a devastating reality for many people.” The older man sighs, and his gentle smile returns. “Soldiers who go to war, witness horrible deaths and are forced to perform acts they cannot bear to live with. Or children who survive accidents or tragedies only to watch their family perish. Children who are beaten, abused. None of these people are crazy, but they have endured significant psychological and emotional trauma. Forgetting is a tool our mind uses to help cope with that trauma. Many are not so lucky. Suicides among veterans is quite high, as well as with children who suffer abuse. They cannot live with the pain, and so they choose not to live.”
“I’m sorry, Doctor, I didn’t know.” I feel like he has struck me. Images of war and battlefields fill my mind. Bodies battered and broken. Mothers dying while their children cry beside them. Yes, he struck me, but I was asking for the blow.
“What do I do now?” I am not really asking the doctor. It’s a question that runs through my mind almost constantly. It started when I awoke in the field and continues in a constant loop. What do I do now? What do I do now…a whisper that keeps a trickle of panic feeding my blood. I rarely have the answer.
“I’ve recommended you to Valerie Leesing. A local therapist who will treat you pro bono. She is expecting a visit on Friday. Laurel will give you her information. As for now, I am releasing you. With unlimited funding, you could stay and run test after test with no guarantee of
an answer at the end of it. As it stands, you have no insurance, you are in good health, and I see no reason you should subject yourself to further testing. Stress won’t help you in your healing moving forward. However, I want to see you back once a week for the next month. And don’t hesitate to call if you experience dizziness or panic or headaches, anything that might worry you. I am always here for you.”
Dr. Eston reaches out and pats my hand, leaving his aged warm palm over my chilled fingers for a moment. “If you recall anything let me know, or speak to Valerie. I wish you the very best.” He gives my fingers a squeeze and removes his hand as he rises and retrieves his clipboard.
The trickle of panic increases to a stream, and I reach out for Dr. Eston’s arm. “Wait, I don’t know where to go, I don’t have anywhere to go,” I feel tears burning behind my eyes, and I struggle to maintain some calm. Releasing the doctor’s arm, I take a breath and repeat my constant question. “What do I do now?”
“Eve.” The doctor moves to the door, “I would like to introduce you to Ms. Thornton.”
Pulling the door open, Dr. Eston waves his hand in a flourish as if he were presenting royalty. His eyes sparkle and he struggles to hide a grin as he gives a slight bow to the woman who walks into the room.
“Oh, Maxwell, stop your nonsense.” Ms. Thornton flaps her hand at Dr. Eston. “You will give sweet Eve the wrong impression.”
Ms. Thornton strides directly toward me, arms outstretched as if to embrace me. The look on my face must show my confusion and none too disguised fear, for at the last moment she pulls up and settles for grasping my upper arms.
“Eve! Maxwell wouldn’t let me visit until he was ready to let you go, but my darling, I can tell you I have been waiting all morning. And, Maxwell”—she turns to look down her nose at the doctor who is standing at the door, hands in pockets, rocking on his heels as if thoroughly enjoying the show— “why have you not done something about that rubbish you call coffee in the cafeteria? I simply will not touch it.”