Meg let out a soft cry. “John?” Her hands flew to her mouth. “It’s you. Oh my God, it’s really you.”
I waited, expecting him to remember something. And wanting to take it as some kind of sign if he didn’t.
“Who is John?” Adam rose to his feet. He retreated back a few steps.
“What are you doing—I mean, how?” She pressed her lips together and pushed back her hair. Meg wasn’t beautiful. She was a girl who looked as if she were still trying to grow out of her tomboy years. She had thin lips, a straight waist, and mosquito-bitten ankles. The whole of her looked like it’d been scraped together with not enough material. She wasn’t a Cassidy. She wasn’t the type who automatically went with an Adam. But based on the way she was looking at him, I knew that somehow she did.
Owen cleared his throat. “Perhaps you should introduce them.”
Meg’s mouth fell open. “What do you mean introduce us? This is John. My John.”
I blinked, coming back to attention. Swallowed what felt like a thorn stuck in my throat. “Adam.” I cut her off. “This is Meg, she’s, well, I think she knew you before.”
He extended his hand to meet her. “Hi, I’m Adam. I’m from Elgin, Illinois.”
She left his hand hanging in midair. “Adam?” She glanced between us like we were playing a trick on her. “This isn’t Adam. His name’s John. John Wheeler. John, tell her she’s mistaken.”
“Victoria, why is she calling me the wrong name?”
I sighed. “Adam is his name … here,” I said. “He doesn’t remember anything. Including any recollection of John.” Her eyes widened. “It’s a long story. Way, way too long for what we have time for now. Trust me. But I found Adam late one night.” I avoided Owen’s look. “He’d gotten into a car accident,” I said slowly, remembering the story I’d told Cassidy. “He was in bad shape. Dying. I didn’t have time to take him to the hospital, but I was able to jump-start his heart. So to speak, anyway. I’d been working with animal anatomy previously and was able to transfer the findings over to him. Only, since then, he’s had no memory of before.”
Meg took slow steps over to where Adam stood. The dark, cold look still lingered in his eyes. Her hand trembled as she raised it haltingly and touched his forehead, his cheekbones, the ridge of his nose, his chin. Adam’s face relaxed under her touch. His eyes warmed. “You saved him?” Meg’s voice was breathless. “But … he doesn’t remember me.” I heard the heartbreak in her voice. I saw her knees quivering like she might collapse.
“How do you two know each other?” Owen asked. He had a problem with prolonged silences. They made him uncomfortable. Besides, I sensed his eagerness to move on from Adam, to do what we should have done all along—return him to his people.
A smile flickered. She didn’t look away from Adam. “John’s been in love with me since we were eight years old,” she said, and I thought I could detect the same hint of pride that I got when I talked about him. It was aimed at something completely different, but I still recognized it as there. “It took me a little longer to come around, I guess,” she said. She lifted her fingertip from his brow and quietly clasped her hands together. A pale pink rose to her cheeks. “I think I need to sit down,” she said. I gestured to a nearby stool that Owen dragged over for her. She perched on top and shifted her weight. “I always had a problem trusting men. It’s easy to get that way where I come from. It was almost too late by the time I came around on trusting John, but the two of us”—she twisted her mouth sideways and gave a small shrug—“we were always—I don’t know what to call it—meant to be. Like something out of the movies.”
“I—” My voice was hoarse. “Well—that’s very romantic.” I coughed into the crook of my elbow, hoping to clear the cobwebs that had suddenly taken up residence on my vocal cords. My mind was spinning. None of this felt real.
“John…” Adam sounded out the name, trying it on for size. “Victoria? But—”
So much had happened today. I had to look away from him. I studied the skull of the skeleton dangling near the far wall. “It’s true, Adam. I found a flyer just before the dance, and I knew the photograph was of you. Meg was searching for you.”
It’s for the best, I told myself. This is what has to happen. The experiment has failed. Adam killed. But it didn’t feel right.
She shook her head and stared at her knees. “I … just can’t imagine that he wouldn’t remember me. Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful, but to have it all just be gone.” The last word was choked in the beginnings of a sob. She took a deep breath and recovered.
“He’s in trouble,” I said, making sure to stare past Adam and directly at Meg.
She nodded. “I guess he seems to find trouble wherever he goes then.”
Adam looked between the two of us. Here we were, the most important women in his life. “I don’t want to be in trouble. I’m good. I want to be good.” He knitted his hands together. “Victoria, I didn’t mean to break the wall or the mirror or Knox. I’m sorry. I can fix them. Right? Can’t I fix them? Victoria, you can bring him back. Put him in the tub. I know you know how.” The veins writhed in Adam’s forearms, twisting like snakes.
“It’s gotten a little bigger than you, buddy.” Owen put a hand on his shoulder. Owen gave me a small frown, meant to be reassuring.
“What kind of trouble?” I asked Meg. I probably should have offered her something. An iced tea. A Diet Coke. But I had nothing to give, and besides, the situation seemed beyond niceties.
For the first time, Meg looked grim. She took a deep breath and looked between Owen and me. “Like you said, it’s a long story, but John took off after a … fire. He’s wanted from here to the Mississippi, I imagine. I wasn’t sure I’d ever see him again.”
“Fire?” Adam and I both said at once.
She studied us. “Yes … But I thought you said…”
“I’ve seen fire,” Adam explained, and I thought of him searching for the house, searching for numbers painted on a curb, searching for answers. “Bits of my memory. They come back. Mainly that one bit. The fire. I can see it sometimes. Victoria said she would help me find it, but she never did.”
Meg’s shoulders fell. “Oh.” And I could see she was disappointed that his first memory wasn’t of her.
“There hasn’t exactly been a lot of downtime since Adam’s arrival,” I said.
“Better that you didn’t. I thought maybe you were dead.” I could tell she wanted to touch him again, but she held back. “There are some bad people after you. Some things you—we—got mixed up in. I would have come sooner, but I thought you were gone.” She looked down at her shoes, and when she looked up, the sparkle of tears danced in her eyes. “I guess you were, almost. When they found your car near Lake Crook, that’s when I started looking.”
I felt Owen’s eyes snap onto me. A fugitive on Lake Crook. I knew what he was thinking, but just because of Knox didn’t make Adam the Hunter. The methodology was all off.
We waited several heartbeats when it began. It was soft at first, so soft we could have been imagining it. But then, from above, came the sound of sirens.
“They’re coming,” Owen whispered. Light flashed over his glasses. We both cast fleeting looks around the room. The cellar felt like an animal trap. There was nowhere to go.
“What’s happening?” Meg tilted her chin to the ceiling. “Are they coming for him?”
“You guys have to leave,” I said. Adrenaline took over. “Owen, grab the wires,” I commanded.
Adam looked at me, and it was as if an entire chasm had opened up between us. “But I want to stay with you,” he said, pushing past Meg. I turned my shoulder to dodge his touch. The specimens, the lab equipment, the maps, and notes, they all belonged here. Adam didn’t. Not anymore.
“Wires?” Meg spun in place. Owen tugged at the ends of his hair and muttered to himself, but he retrieved the wires. We should have been more prepared for this.
I picked alligator clips from a surgic
al tray, then crossed the room and cupped them into Meg’s hand. “Meg, the method to keep his heart beating, it’s not permanent.” I zigzagged through the laboratory, every step familiar. I tore the kilowatt meter from the wall. The small generator. “Brine, Owen.” He retrieved jars from the shelves and pushed them into Adam’s arms. “Salt will work in a pinch,” I said. “It’s a conductor. You need water and then attach the wires to the notches in his chest. Adam, you remember how it works.”
“No, Victoria,” he said, but I knew it wasn’t in response to my question. “No, don’t leave me. I’m Adam. Adam,” he repeated.
My Adam.
I steeled myself. “Your name is John,” I said. “John, you have to do the charge exactly as I’ve done it. You remember.” I stared intently at him. Adam wrapped himself in a hug, his fingers tucked into his armpits as he rocked back and forth, clearly perturbed. The sirens were a high-pitched drone now. I stared up at the ceiling. Time had run out. “Where are you staying?”
“Victoria,” he said. “Please. Don’t make me go. Victoria.”
“It’s Tor,” I said. “It’s always been Tor.” And I felt my arteries snap and my heart drop to my bowels.
“At the Queen’s Inn,” Meg replied, clutching the heap of supplies close to her chest. “A few miles down the road.” Everyone knew only truckers and lot lizards stayed at the Queen’s Inn. The two-story motel bred cockroaches and venereal disease in equal quantities. I tried not to think about it.
I hovered at the bottom of the stairs. “Wait five minutes. Owen and I will buy you enough time to leave.” I tore my attention away from Adam’s pained stare. The skin bunched around his eyes, and the image seared into my sockets like a brand. Adam. My Adam.
For once, Owen made no smart remark. Maybe there wasn’t room for it. Maybe he was that scared or maybe the whole thing just wasn’t funny anymore. Like at all. He did come to stand loyally at my side, though, my lead foot already starting up the staircase. “Good luck,” I said. “I’ll … I’ll come find you.” And it was a strange thing that I didn’t know whether I meant that.
Adam was John. Adam—my Adam—had failed in some fundamental capacity, and I felt my heart closing up, like somebody sliding shut the seal on a ziplock bag. He wasn’t my Adam anymore.
I didn’t turn back. I pounded up toward the hatch and shoved it open. I climbed out and dusted off my jeans. I pulled Owen out after me. We slammed the hatch door closed with an aluminum clang that rocketed through the night.
I looked around, suddenly grateful for the country dark. Red, blue, and white flashed on our front lawn. “Come on.” I held fast to Owen’s hand, and we ran around the back of the house in a loop so that we were spit out on the other side. I had little to no plan when I saw the two cop cars parked in the dirt in front of my house.
From inside I could hear Einstein already hoarse with barking. Her nails scratched the door. “Quiet, Einstein,” I muttered too quietly for her to hear.
I arrived to greet them, panting. A middle-aged officer with a blond mustache and a holster strapped around his pregnant-looking belly got out. He rested his hand on his gun.
“Is that dog dangerous, miss?” He nodded toward the front door. She whined and scratched some more.
“Who, Einstein? Only if you’re afraid of excessive amounts of drool.” Owen nudged me in the ribs. “Right, I mean, no, she’s harmless.”
“We’re looking for an Adam Smith. Heard he might know something about the murder up at the school. People told us to try here. That you two were close friends, and that he might have left the gymnasium with you.” He nodded at me.
The question knocked me off balance. Adam had left with me. What could I answer?
“What do you need Adam for, sir?” Owen stood up straight, stalling. He was good with adults. He had that nerdy charm that convinced them he was no trouble at all. I, on the other hand, seemed to lack that quality entirely.
“Just a few questions,” replied Officer McMustache. “That’s all.” By now his partner had climbed out of the car and was looking out at the property. I felt the seconds ticking by.
“I…” I swallowed down what felt like a wasp stinging my throat on its way down the pipe. “He left me. After the gym, he took off,” I said, sticking with some version of the truth. I forced myself to quit talking, not to ramble, not to offer any details that could be used against me. People were always too quick to volunteer the details with which to hang themselves.
“Shoo, shoo,” I heard from behind me. On the porch, a door thwacked against the wood frame. Einstein resumed barking. “What’s going on?” My mom’s bare feet stepped onto the grass. She had managed to wrap a robe around her shoulders. “What are you people doing on my lawn?” Without makeup and with her red hair all askew from a few hours’ sleep, it was easy to see how much she’d aged in the past few years. I could hear the empty wine bottle in her words.
Go back inside, Mom. Go back inside. I made a silent wish.
“We’re looking for Adam Smith, ma’am. Is he here?”
My mom’s face screwed up in the headlights. She noticed me standing a short distance to the right, and then she noticed Owen. “That’s Owen. Owen Bloch,” she said, and seemed so pleased with herself for remembering. In other circumstances, I would have been quite impressed myself.
“Has an Adam Smith been residing at your house the last few weeks, ma’am?” Officer McMustache widened his stance.
“Don’t you think I’d know if a boy was living here in my house?” She said her consonants extraloud, like somebody was adjusting the volume on her remote control without her looking.
McMustache looked to his partner and then back at Mom. “Yes, ma’am, I suppose you would. But, all the same, would you mind if we had a look around?”
“Yes!” I pressed my lips together. Just once could she not—“Yes, I mind!” she shrieked. And that was when my mother’s robe flew wide open, revealing only an oversized Lynyrd Skynyrd T-shirt with nothing on underneath but her bony, white-sheet legs.
McMustache’s partner took off his hat and crossed it over his chest. Both of them averted their eyes to the ground. Owen scratched his temple and squinted one eye like he didn’t know what to do.
With the sound of the sirens cut, I heard a distinct creak from the back of the house that made my armpits sticky.
“What was that?” The younger partner raised his hand to his holster.
“Probably just the dog,” I said quickly. “She’s always knocking things over.” I looked over my shoulder. Every so often, I could hear Einstein’s frantic puffs of breath underneath the threshold.
“Ma’am, maybe—” continued the officer while definitely, most certainly not looking up at Mom.
“Did you not hear me right? I didn’t give you permission to be on my lawn,” Mom shouted. “I didn’t give any of you permission. Get off!” The sleeve of her robe fluttered. “Get off! All of you! Scram!” She pointed back at the robe and took several more barefooted steps toward the police. “This is my property. Don’t go telling me who is on my property like I don’t know.”
I wanted to laugh and cry and hug my mother, open robe and all.
The officers exchanged looks again. McMustache cleared his throat and said, “We apologize, ma’am. You’ll let us know if you hear anything, I’m sure.”
To that, she spat on the ground. Then she pulled the robe around her chest and marched back into the house. The younger partner raised his eyebrows. Then to Owen and me he nodded. “Y’all take care. We may be back around if we hear anything else.”
As the sirens faded and the lights disappeared, I felt the emptiness spread out over my house like the first day of winter, cold, bleak, and alone. The realization seeped into the pores of my skin. Owen wrapped his arm around me and tugged me into his side. I leaned into his chest and listened to his heart thud steadily against my cheek. The experiment was over. Adam was gone.
THIRTY-FIVE
I return to my fathe
r’s favorite quote:
“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”
—Thomas A. Edison
* * *
I slid my textbook off my desk at the end of Dr. Lamb’s class and stuffed it into my book bag. I wasn’t sure if I’d dozed off those last few minutes or if I’d just turned off my brain. That seemed to be happening more and more these days. I had these long stretches of time where the outside world was filled with white noise and afterward I couldn’t remember anything.
“Tor.” Dr. Lamb was peering at me over her glasses. Her chunky half-inch heels clacked over to her desk, where she took a seat in the rolling chair in front of a poster of a rocket launch. “Can you come here for a minute?” she asked.
I glanced around the room at the other students packing their bags and heading for the door and thought about pretending I hadn’t heard her. But since I knew it’d only create twice the hassle tomorrow, I dragged my feet over to her workstation. “Did I do something wrong?” I asked. I had done so many things wrong in the last few weeks I wouldn’t know where to begin.
She rested her pointy elbows on top of a pristine desk calendar. “Is everything okay, Tor? It’s been a week since you last raised your hand in class, and I don’t think you even bothered turning the pages of your text today. You’re usually one of my brightest students”—I chafed at the phrase “one of”—“so I hesitate to say anything, but so much has been going on, and I want you to know we have resources here to help you process anything that might be upsetting you.”
“You mean about Knox?” I asked, relaxing my posture. “We weren’t exactly friends.”
“Knox … and the other boys.”
“Right, them,” I said absently, kicking my shoe on the classroom floor. “I’m fine, but thanks. Was there anything else?”
She frowned. The corners of her eyes crinkled. “No, that was it, Victoria.”
* * *
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