by Hunt, Angela
I give her a wry smile. “Sounds like science fiction.”
“Not really. You know how people say, ‘I’ll recognize it when I see it?’ They say that because they know they have a memory tucked inside their brain. When they receive the proper stimulus, that area of the brain lights up. My program links various stimuli to the ‘hits’ in a patient’s brain and interprets the result.”
“Dr. Mewton—” she turns to face Glenda “—you’ll be pleased to know that I’ve solidified the procedure in which we implant memories into a subject’s subconscious. I’m sure Mr. Traut will be pleased.”
Glenda lifts a brow. “Hypnosis?”
“Partly. As you know, Dr. M, memories are called up via activation of the entire network across multiple regions of the brain. In order to plant memories, we’ll have to stimulate several regions—the process will be a combination of hypnosis, electrical stimulation, audiovisual feedback, and adrenaline injection. But it’s possible. We can do it.”
“Wonderful.” Glenda claps her hands, startling me with this unexpected display of emotion.
“I don’t understand,” I break in. “How are you supposed to internalize something that didn’t happen to you?”
“Adrenaline is the key,” Vincent says, nodding at Sarah. He looks at me. “As you know, our memories are a bit like gelatin—they take time to solidify in the brain. A memory reinforced by adrenaline becomes rock solid. Almost unforgettable.”
“Because I’m sure the process will work,” Sarah continues, looking from Glenda to Vincent, “I’d like to be the first to have memories implanted—memories of the childhood I was never allowed to enjoy.”
Sarah looks at Judson as silence sifts down like a snowfall. “Told you they’d be surprised.”
“Sarah,” Glenda says, confidence fading from her voice, “I don’t think we can sanction any sort of experimentation on one of our own.”
“I’m not talking about implanting a mission,” Sarah says, “but something completely innocuous. While I’m waiting for a donor, I can put together my own memories. Aunt Renee can help me. She could send for photo albums so I could compile memories of my father and mother…maybe even a pet.”
I am too startled by this suggestion to offer any objection.
“But Sarah,” Vincent says, bringing his hand to his cheek. “So many changes at once! A new face, new feelings—”
“Why shouldn’t I have new memories?” Sarah’s eyes widen. “I won’t be obliterating my real past, I’ll just be filing it away. But when I think about my parents, instead of drawing a blank, I’ll be able to enjoy memories of being with them.”
“Wait a minute.” I hold up a hand. “Sarah, you can’t pick and choose what happens to you in life. Everything that happens, good and bad, is your life. Your experiences are what shape you into the person you become.”
“You urged me to ask for a new face, didn’t you? How is that different from asking for new memories?”
“It—it just is. To a certain extent we can direct our present and our future, but we’re not all-powerful, only God is. The good and bad things in our past are uniquely ours. You can’t change the past without changing who you are.”
Glenda raises a brow. “Many people would disagree with your last statement.”
“You know—” Vincent presses his hands together “—they are now giving propranolol to people suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder. Unlike adrenaline, which solidifies a recollection, propranolol seems to cut the cord between memory and emotion.”
“Cut the cord?” I gape at him. “By eliminating the links between memory and emotion, wouldn’t we be creating zombies? Children who can’t weep for dead parents, abused women who can’t vent their anger or fear—”
“You’re overreacting. If I had a daughter who’d been brutalized in a rape or a mugging, you bet I’d give her the drug. I’d do it in a heartbeat to spare her the memory of such pain.” He looks at me, one bushy brow quirked in a question. “Wouldn’t you?”
My mouth goes dry as all of them turn to me—Vincent, Glenda, Sarah. Even Judson, who has not offered anything to the debate, seems to stare at me through his sealed eyelids.
“I would give anything to prevent my child from suffering,” I say, my voice heavy. “But who can say that a painful experience wouldn’t serve a purpose in my daughter’s life?”
Glenda turns her head, waving my opinion away. “Spoken like a fatalist. Everything has a purpose in your world, right?”
“Well…yes.”
Vincent shakes his head. “While I respect your opinion,” he says, his voice warm with regret, “I have to admit that I agree with Sarah. What’s the harm in giving her a better childhood than the one she’s known? Why not let her have a handful of pleasant memories she can enjoy?”
“I—I need to think about it.” I look around the circle and struggle to explain my resistance. “But if we give Sarah a past that’s not real…isn’t that worse than keeping her in a pretend convent? She may not have enjoyed many experiences here, but at least those experiences were hers. Her life is her own.”
“Your illogic astounds me.” Glenda eyes me as if I were a bad smell. “You want to take our Sarah and send her away with a fake face. Yet when Sarah volunteers to use her own program to give herself a happy childhood, you balk.”
“I have to say, Aunt Renee,” Sarah adds, “I don’t understand, either. Of all people, I thought you’d be happiest for me.”
I look to Judson, hoping for a word of support, but he remains silent, his face tilted in my direction, his brows lifted in an unspoken question.
Apparently my answer is unacceptable to everyone in the room.
Chapter Fifty
Sarah
For the next two weeks, I spend far more time in the past and future than in the present. I’ve begun to fill a notebook with recollections I want to create and store in my memory. When I’m not dreaming up new memories, I have been enthusiastically applying myself to Aunt Renee’s lessons—studying photos, watching faces, and sitting in front of that nasty oval mirror while trying to imitate Dr. Kollman’s uplifted brow and Dr. Mewton’s curled upper lip. I am determined to face the future well equipped.
Though Aunt Renee does not agree with my decision to adopt a new past, she does not criticize me during our sessions. Still, there are times when I catch her looking at me in unguarded moments, and now I am better able to read the shadow in her eyes, the sadness in her smile.
She would change my mind if she could.
“It’s strange,” I tell Judson one afternoon. “Dr. Mewton is against the face transplant but she supports my plan to implant new memories. Aunt Renee is in favor of the transplant and opposed to the memory transfer. They disagree about almost everything.”
“And yet they manage to avoid coming to blows,” Judson quips. “Admirable women, both of them.”
I leave him in the hallway and jog up the stairs to the third floor. Dr. Kollman didn’t come down for lunch, and I want to be sure he’s feeling okay.
As I turn at the third floor landing, I slow my step and consider my approach. I know he is much older than I, but we have spent time together nearly every day. He has measured my face “inside and out,” as he likes to joke, and sometimes I think he knows me inside and out. We laugh and talk at breakfast every morning. Judson and Aunt Renee eventually join us in the dining room, but Dr. Kollman and I are nearly always the first at the table.
I’m not sure I understand why my heart has begun to thump every time his gaze meets mine, but lately I’ve been drawn to him like a butterfly to a flower. Though I used to get nervous every time Mitch came into view, Mitch never asked about my favorite poet or recited lines from Moonstruck as he took my blood pressure.
After Dr. Kollman told me “Snap out of it!” was his favorite line in any movie, I hurried downstairs and ran into the garden, so filled up with feeling that I thought I might burst. I had to do something—run, jump, dance, or turn cartwheels—so I stepped
onto the flattened grass covering a grave and then hopped to the next on one foot. I had never played hopscotch, but suddenly I had to. I owed myself this opportunity to hop in a flood of happiness.
So I bent one leg, held my foot behind my back, and jumped from grave to grave, laughing myself silly. If Aunt Renee or Dr. Mewton had glanced out a window, they would have thought me crazy, but I didn’t care. I hopped the entire width of the graveyard and collapsed next to the wall in a gale of giggles.
What is it about Dr. Kollman that makes me happy? I don’t know. Why does his smile make me feel warm inside? I don’t care. Let Dr. Mewton call me silly or stupid or even insane. It doesn’t matter.
What I felt for Mitch, I’ve decided, was a silly crush. What I feel for Dr. Kollman…must be love.
At the top of the stairs I draw a deep breath, smooth the wrinkles out of my cotton shirt, and knock on his door. From within, I hear a deep greeting that increases my pulse rate.
I open the door and step into the room. The doctor is seated at his desk, but he smiles—with teeth showing—when he sees me. “Sarah!” He stands, a polite gesture I never see in modern movies. “Can I help you with something, or are you playing hooky from work?”
I shrug and lock my hands behind my back. “I wanted to stretch my legs, so I thought I’d come up to see you. Do you mind?”
“Mind? I’d find your company a welcome diversion. Please, pull up a chair.”
I pull up one of the chairs next to the desk and sit down, grateful that he’s not going to put his medical journal aside on my account. I like to watch him work. “What are you reading?”
“Preparatory materials.”
“Preparatory for what?”
“For you.” He pushes his reading glasses back to his nose and runs his finger over a column. “I’ve been lining up the team we’ll need when we do your transplant. The operation will require specialists in two operating theaters—one here, of course, and one in the city where your donor is located.”
“Why can’t they bring the donor here?”
“Too much time, too many permissions required. The donor face will be degloved and shipped in a cooler, but don’t worry, it will last up to eight hours. While it’s en route, we’ll prepare you—” He hesitates, his eyes searching my face. “Does discussing this bother you at all?”
I wave my hand, dismissing his concern. “Are you kidding? I’m the queen of surgical procedures.”
“All right, then. I’ll make a long description short and say that we’ll remove your damaged tissue, then reattach your clamped blood vessels and nerves to the donor face. It’s complicated microsurgery, but I’m confident our team will be able to handle it.”
“Nothing but the best for America’s team.”
“Something like that.” H abruptly closes his periodical. “Can I get you something? Water? A soft drink?”
“No, thank you. I’m fine.” A brittle silence falls between us, and I look up, wondering what has changed. I study his face, but he has lowered his gaze and seems reluctant to meet my eyes.
Has talking about the transplant reminded him of how repulsive I am? Did I say something to embarrass him? Or…could he be feeling some of the same emotions I am?
“Dr. Kollman—”
“Sarah, I—”
“Please. Can I tell you something?”
Before I can explain the emotions that have been battering my heart, someone raps on the door.
Aunt Renee’s face appears in the opening. “Hi, you two,” she says, her voice as sunny as her smile. “Am I interrupting something?”
Dr. Kollman lifts a brow at me—his shorthand for a question—but I’m not about to spill this secret in front of Aunt Renee.
“Not a thing.” I pull myself out of the chair. “And I’d better get to work.”
And as I leave the room, I hear him greet her, and a note in his voice that wasn’t there a moment ago…or was it? Love is so confusing.
I don’t want to be hurt. I don’t want to love anyone who doesn’t love me back. But once you open your heart to someone, how can you stop feeling?
Only three of us show up for dinner that night—Dr. Kollman, Aunt Renee, and me. Judson comes down late, and when I lean over to ask him what’s up, he gives me a terse response: “Espinosa is stalling. And Mewton’s not happy.”
When Shelba comes in to clear the table, we stand and compliment her on a delicious dinner. She thanks me when I stay behind to help her stack dishes on her cart.
I hand her the set of salt and pepper shakers. “Is Dr. Mewton eating?”
Shelba shakes her head. “The doctor is on an urgent call and cannot be disturbed. She may come down later for a bite, but who can say? The woman works too hard.”
As Shelba pushes her cart toward the kitchen, I linger at the bottom of the stairwell and wonder what I should do with my evening. I could go upstairs and get in a couple of hours of work, I could go to the therapy room and stare at pictures of facial expressions, or I could roam around down here and hope to bump into Dr. Kollman, who has not yet gone upstairs. I’m not sure where he is, but if I wander in the right passageway…
I stroll through the hallway and try to imagine the building as it was a hundred years ago. Fewer than thirty or forty nuns worked and ate in these rooms, living on charity while they passed their lives in prayer and meditation. They spent hours on their knees, developing thick calluses, no doubt, while they waited for a word from God.
These walls have witnessed a lot of waiting.
I pass my aunt’s room and then glance into the chapel. The sight of Dr. Kollman’s figure in a pew catches me by surprise. I didn’t know he was a religious man. Has he been coming here every night?
I creep into the chapel and slide into the pew behind him. He is sitting quietly, his head bowed. After a little while, he turns and glances toward the door.
And sees me.
“Sarah.” His voice is both powerful and gentle. “I didn’t expect to see you.”
“Surprise.”
He gestures toward the altar. “I find this one of the most peaceful rooms in the facility. Coming here helps me focus my thoughts.”
“On your work?”
“On everything.”
I look up at the face of Jesus while I weigh his words. This may be the opportunity for which I’ve been waiting. Like Scarlett in Gone with the Wind, sometimes a woman has to gather her courage and say what’s on her mind.
“Dr. Kollman, I need to tell you something.”
He shifts on the pew to better see me. “Having second thoughts about the surgery?”
“No—if anything, I’m even more determined to go through with it. But during these last few weeks, I’ve…I’ve begun to feel things I’ve never felt before.”
He tilts his head. “Your aunt told me this would happen. I was surprised by the data, but apparently there’s a real physiological connection between facial expression and corresponding emotion. You’ve been concentrating on creating expressions, so it’s only natural that you should begin to experience a corresponding increase in emotion.” His face creases in a smile. “I hope the emotions have been pleasant.”
“They have…mostly. Sometimes a bit unpredictable, though.”
“That’s what emotions are…unpredictable. The trick is learning how to keep a rein on them.”
“Even love?”
He lifts a brow and takes a wincing little breath. “Love? Some would say it’s more an action than an emotion. Love is what we do, not necessarily what we feel.”
“But I do feel it…for you.”
The doctor blinks, his strong mouth opens in a look I’ve learned to recognize as honest surprise.
His look fills me with a painful feeling of emptiness. Something rushes up from the pit of my stomach, sucking the air from my lungs, from the room, from the world.
I cling to the seat of the pew as the room begins to spin.
“Sarah…while I appreciate the compliment—”
“You don’t love me.”
“I didn’t say that. I am fond of you, quite fond. And I’m honored you should feel…anything for me. But really, I think your feelings are probably more like those of a daughter for a father.”
He can’t look me in the eye, but seems intent on delivering his speech to a spot beside me on the pew. “I suggest—” he clears his throat “—that you talk to your aunt about these emotions. She will help you understand them, sort through them.”
I lower my gaze and try to swallow the lump that has risen in my throat. Ten minutes ago I was facing the future with hope, not resignation. Now my mouth fills with the bitter taste of ashes—the ashes of my dreams.
What good is a new face if the man I love knows what a fake I am? He can’t love me because he knows I am a misshapen monster. Even if I look like Miss America by this time next year, he will never be able to forget what I truly am.
I stand, keeping my head lowered. “I’m sorry if I embarrassed you.”
“I’m not embarrassed. I’m honored, really.”
Sure you are.
I nod a brief farewell and walk toward the door, blinking back tears as an odd line—is it from an old movie?—comes to mind: Beauty may be only skin-deep, but ugly goes clear to the bone.
Chapter Fifty-One
Renee
I am waiting outside Sarah’s door when she comes up the stairs. She seems surprised to see me, so I flash the DVD case in my hand: “It’s a classic—one I know you’ll like. Sunset Boulevard.”
She glances uneasily at Judson’s door, and she does not look happy.
“Did you have plans?” I ask, ready to retreat. “I only came up because it’s Friday night, and nobody likes to sit home on Friday night. I thought it might be fun to watch a movie, maybe see if Shelba can scrounge up some popcorn.”
“Popcorn?”
“Or hot dogs.”
“But we just had dinner.”
I laugh. “That’s not the point. The point is to stuff yourself with junk food while you watch the film. If the movie’s good enough, you won’t even notice the resulting tummy ache.”