As I watched her now, her excitement over the sea horses that didn’t even move – I had seriously never seen them swim or move, they seemed permanently attached to a piece of seaweed – finally became contagious. I looked in the tank again, trying to see it as she must be seeing it; both a memory and a revelation, old knowledge mixed with new discovery. If I had been annoyed – ok, I had been a little annoyed – by our slow progress before, I found myself really looking at these animals for the first time, the habitats they were living in, the placards by their tanks that I had only occasionally read in the past. I started pointing out interesting facts as we stepped slowly together now, instead of me just hanging back while she excitedly peered into each exhibit.
As we approached the tank with the skates where they let people reach in to touch them, Lottie didn’t hesitate. She had never tried to touch one before. As it slid beneath her fingers, she let out a squeal of both excitement and nervousness but reached down to touch it again as it looped around at the edge of the tank and made its way back toward us. I watched her, fascinated with this new sense of bravery and willingness to experiment. She was absolutely radiant. I found myself reaching for my phone and snapping a picture as the fish glided under her fingers again and the same nervous giggle escaped; she looked up at me, her shy grin transforming into a wide smile. It was a great picture of her.
As I closed the camera app on my phone, the picture of Lottie on the beach in Galveston flashed on my screen and my stomach knotted. I had an overwhelming feeling of guilt and depravity, as if I were betraying Lottie’s memory by enjoying myself now. I watched her again as she stepped back from the shallow pool, letting a little boy take her place at the edge. In so many ways, she was the same. But this wasn’t my Lottie.
And yet, by the late afternoon, when we finally made it to the exit, tired and starving and knowing far more about aquatic animals of North and South America than I had ever known before, I felt something I hadn’t felt in a very long time; something I hadn’t thought I would ever feel again. I felt happy. Lottie took my hand as we walked out and rested her head against my arm, sighing contentedly as we walked toward a café to get an early supper before heading home.
It still felt like this was Kyrieana’s experience, this was her day, her turn to be selfish and have those moments she had left everything behind for. And I surprised myself by feeling honored that I had gotten to be a part of it. I looked down at her as we walked, still wanting to know how much she had known when she first woke up in that strange bedroom in Waco, if my Lottie had really been with her instead of these bits and pieces she had always led me to believe. But I wouldn’t ask her today. Today was for Kyrieana.
She fell asleep quickly on the ride home, still holding onto the little crawfish statue playing an accordion with a banner that read “Laissez les bon temps roulez! New Orleans!” underneath it. Lydia didn’t like crawfish. Lottie said they freaked her out. I almost woke her as we neared the Highland Road Exit to point out we were passing Blue Bayou again, but I let her sleep. She was breathing slowly and deeply, looking so peaceful and angelic, save for the creepy little musically inclined crawfish still nestled in her lap, that I didn’t want to wake her. I wanted to steal as many glimpses of her as I could, just like this, so that they would be seared into my memories for the rest of this afterlife. If there was beauty to be found here, it was asleep next to me in my car. As I pulled off the interstate at our exit, she opened her eyes and looked sleepily around her, then sighed that happy, contented sigh again. “Thanks, Dietrich,” she stifled a yawn, “this is the most fun I’ve had since … well, since coming here.”
I smiled at her as we waited at the red light so that I could take her home. “You’re welcome. Thanks for letting me the spend the day with you.”
I’m pretty sure she knew who I meant.
I didn’t feel even a little bit bad about being showered and ready for bed by 9:00 that night. I was fucking exhausted. Eric had borrowed my car and had taken off … somewhere … a sports bar maybe? I hadn’t really been listening. I had just climbed into the hotel bed that for once, felt unbelievably firm and comfortable, instead of saggy and springy, when my phone rang. I had a nagging suspicion it was Eric calling me either because he’d gotten into a fight or was too drunk to drive. I was tempted to ignore it. I felt like I hadn’t slept in days. But he had my car. The car Lottie had picked out for me. I groaned and picked it up. It was Lottie’s number.
“Hello?” My heart was racing again. I had only dropped her off an hour ago.
“Um.”
Shit.
“Dietrich, Lydia did something today …” Goddamn, it. I wasn’t going to sleep anytime soon.
“Ok?”
“I don’t know what all she and Eric talked about, but it made her start thinking … or realizing stuff … and she got really freaked out and she’s so scared something’s wrong with me, so she called somebody …” Lottie trailed off again. Somebody? Calling a Somebody was never good. It was even worse if that Somebody was from Somewhere like Omaha.
“Whom did she call, Lottie?” I heard myself saying it. Christ, I sounded like a pretentious asshole when I used whom. I vowed to stop doing it. Or to at least try.
“His name is Jackson. He’s … I don’t know, he’s been here a long time. He knows a lot. She told him everything that’s wrong with me.”
“Lottie, there’s nothing wrong with you.” Or maybe there was, but I wasn’t going to let anyone treat her like she was defective.
“He wants to meet me. Us. I mean, you and me. He drove into town today and would like to come over tomorrow morning.” I didn’t tell her it was a good thing he wanted to meet me, because there was no way in hell I was going to let him come near her if I wasn’t there. Some voice in my head told me I was being controlling, that if she wanted to meet with him and tell me to get out of Baton Rouge, she could. I told that voice to shut the fuck up. “So, will you? Um … you know, meet him?”
“If you want me to, of course, I will.”
Lottie got quiet on the other end and I could picture her biting her lip in that nervous way of hers, worrying … “Lottie, what all do you know about this guy?”
An inhale. A deep breath. Fuck. He probably was from Omaha. “He’s … like our doctor. He’s the one who took care of Lydia and me when we first came here.”
“And he makes you nervous?” He was human now. That was all I needed to know.
“He decides things, Dietrich. I don’t know. I want to find out what happened, why I’m … like this … but when Lydia told him, he said she must have gotten some of the information wrong. What she was describing is impossible. But the way she told it to me, it’s exactly what’s been happening to me, so how can it be impossible?” She was rambling, anxious, maybe even scared. I definitely didn’t like this asshole. Even if he was just from Waco.
“Wait, Lottie, slow down. What kinds of things does he decide?”
“What if he makes me leave?” her voice was a whisper now. Is that what had her so frightened?
“He can’t do that, Lottie. I won’t let him. I don’t care who he is, he’s in my world now,” God, that was so clichéd, “and I promised you no one would hurt you. No one is going to make you do anything.”
“But he’ll cut me off.”
“From what?”
“Everything! All the help we get. The money, the drivers’ licenses, the social security cards, the passports, the birth certificates … it all came through him. And he still helps us, he sends us money and he got us these jobs and there are others, in the city, like real doctors so we can go see them and it’s just easier, less … I don’t know. I don’t know why anyone would take our DNA, this is still kinda new and it has us all freaked out, so we kinda stick together now and I can’t just ignore him because then I’ll have no one!”
“I ...” I stuttered. No one? How many times had I promised her I would help her, protect her? Didn’t Lottie know that? “Lottie, I’m not goin
g to abandon you. Why …?”
“God, Dietrich,” she was crying now. I didn’t know if it was because of this Jackson asshole or this Dietrich asshole. “You have no idea how hard this is.”
“I think I have an idea.” I was so drained. I didn’t mean to sound bitter but she wasn’t the only one who was tired of hurting. “Ok, why would he even want you to move? You’re here, we know each other. The damage has been done. What’s the point of trying to keep us apart now?”
“I don’t know! I’m just scared that he will! I don’t want you to …” her sobbing choked off whatever she was going to say.
I took a guess. “Lottie, I’m not leaving you.”
“It’s her,” she cried, “it’s her you love, you don’t want to leave her.”
I felt like we had had this argument at least half a dozen times. They were the same person but they weren’t, so what difference did it make? “Lottie,” I sighed, exasperated, but she didn’t let me finish.
“You will never love me. You can’t. I know that. You can’t ever love anyone but her, and I’ll never be the same, and you have no idea how much it kills me, how much it hurts to love someone who can’t ever love you back.”
Christ, what was happening? The room was spinning, my stomach was rolling again. I knew these sensations. Because I couldn’t cry. “Lottie,” I whispered … but what could I tell her? I loved Lottie. More than anything. More than everything. She would always be my life. My world. I had died without her. I had descended into this afterlife that was so often more painful and agonizing than any Hell conjured up by theologians. I could teach them a thing or two about deprivation and misery. She wasn’t the same, but she was … so close. And she made me feel again, I was even happy again at times, so surely that counted for something? But that’s not what worried her now; that’s not why her heart was breaking as I sat in that dark hotel room in Baton Rouge, exhausted but sick, Lottie’s cries on the other end digging into my chest, blades of thin, hot metal that seared deep into my heart. Kyrieana knew that I could never love her. And she was in love with me.
“It’s ok, Dietrich,” she whispered between her hiccups and sobs, “I always knew you could never love me. But I couldn’t help it. We’re just … she’s me and I’m her, and she loved you so much … and I’ll always love you too.” And just like that – she disconnected.
I looked numbly at the phone in my hand for a few seconds, willing it to make sense of this vortex of emotional mania that my life had become. My stomach rolled again, and I rushed to the bathroom to throw up.
Chapter 8
Jackson had brought a surprise with him. A younger man, one Lottie and Lydia had never met either because he was introduced to all of us as David. While we all sat around the living area with Jackson, David kept his distance, sitting at the table where Lottie and I had finished off most of a bottle of pinot noir … only four nights ago? It seemed like I had been here for weeks. He must have been about Eric’s age – early 30s – and had the look of someone who spent a lot of time in the gym working on bodybuilding and strength training. Was he Jackson’s bodyguard? Even Lottie didn’t know exactly what Eric or I did, and Lydia certainly wouldn’t have known. So why was he here? What was Jackson worried about? I immediately didn’t like either man, and when I looked over at Eric, who had sat on the floor in front of the TV, I noticed he didn’t seem comfortable with their sudden presence in Baton Rouge either. I also noticed Lydia had chosen to sit on the floor next to him. A little too closely.
Jackson was eager to start questioning Lottie, and started with her earliest memories from when she had awakened in that bedroom in Waco. He was a tall, thin man, probably in his mid-50s, with thinning hair and gray sideburns. Every now and then, he would pause, look thoughtfully between Lottie and me, recross his legs or adjust his black rimmed glasses, then ask another question. He had started with simple facts, asking her if she had known English when she woke up, for example, and Lottie had said yes. She had pretended not to because she knew she shouldn’t know how and it had scared her. He asked her about her memories growing up – or Lottie’s memories growing up – and she confirmed she’d had them all with her from the beginning.
“And him?” he asked. He had just recrossed his legs again and had cocked his head toward me like he was examining one of his patients.
“Yes, I remembered him,” Lottie said softly, looking down now at her fingernails, pushing at a cuticle that was creeping up toward the Persian green color she had recently chosen.
“But was it just a memory,” he asked, more as a confirmation than an actual question.
“Well, not exactly,” Lottie was still picking at that cuticle. I was starting to worry it may never grow back if she didn’t leave it alone.
But Jackson was getting impatient. “Lottie, look at me. What do you mean ‘not exactly.’” I didn’t like the tone of his voice.
Lottie complied and looked up at him. Her hands were trembling, and she was chewing on her lower lip again. If he spoke to her like that again, I was going to throw him out. Maybe even over the railing and off the walkway. It probably wouldn’t kill him. Unfortunately. I put my hand over hers and she quickly wrapped her fingers around mine. “I mean I remembered things, but I felt them too. Like I was actually Charlotte Theriot. But I still remembered my life and felt my emotions as well, so when I woke up, I was scared and alone but excited because it had worked and we were here and alive but then it all hit me – this life I would never get to have, this man who would never be my husband, and oh God, I loved him so much, it hurt so badly to think about never seeing him again or hearing his voice and I missed him so much that I wanted to die. I just lay there both ecstatic to be alive and praying for death.”
Oh, Lottie. I would die a hundred times over for you. If there is a God, please don’t let anything like that ever happen to her again. Please.
Jackson adjusted his glasses, and just said, “Hm.” He studied his own nails for a minute before speaking again, while I pulled Lottie closer to me, resting her head against my shoulder, kissing the top of her head and that soft brown hair. Even now, I could smell the pears and honey.
“Ich sterben würde diese Todesfälle für du,” I whispered. Jackson glared at me, apparently not appreciating my insensitivity to his human monolingualism.
“Aren’t you at all concerned,” he asked me, “that you’re being conned?”
“What?” Lottie shot up, whatever fear Kyrieana had of this man was quickly replaced by Lottie’s indignation.
“Everything Lydia already told me, everything you’re telling me now … none of this is possible. The brain is just another organ. Once it’s dead, everything that made that person unique is gone. Irretrievable. Our own emotions, personalities, memories replace what was lost. You can’t be Charlotte Theriot because Charlotte Theriot was most certainly dead. She had been dead for nearly three days. Do you remember reviving her body?”
Lottie, pale and hopelessly confused, shook her head. “That’s not uncommon; it is pretty traumatic,” Jackson continued, “so it’s probably for the best. Modern funeral practices are … well, they’ve made what we do a lot more difficult. Facial features are set, often with wire, to create a peaceful expression on the deceased’s face, the body is filled with embalming chemicals and the …”
“Ok, I get it, it’s not pretty,” Lottie snapped, “but we do it all the time, and the bodies start working again, so why is it so impossible to believe this body is still her? And now, me too?”
Jackson sighed impatiently and looked over to David. Muscle-Man still hadn’t moved. He didn’t even look overly interested in our conversation.
“Fine, Lottie, I will look into this” Jackson sighed again, a patronizing sigh that was intended to convey he was just placating her but we should all remember that he thought Lottie was a remarkable con artist and that I was remarkably stupid.
“I am not lying,” Lottie clenched her jaw. She was furious now.
“W
ell,” Jackson held his hands up in a gesture of reconciliation, but I doubted its sincerity, “we will see what I can find out. I will have to talk to … some experts first.”
“Why the hell didn’t they send the experts in the first place then,” I muttered.
Jackson glared at me again. Perhaps I would throw him off the roof. “Ok, Lottie, I believe that you believe this is all happening to you. But don’t you think it’s possible that you saw this man at the funeral, at the cemetery, and just wanted Charlotte’s life? So you’ve created this,” he paused again, waving his hands around him, then toward us without ever taking his eyes off of her, “fantasy?”
Lottie shook her head, but less vigorously this time. “No,” she said, quieter, but confusion was etched in her voice now. He was getting to her. He was making her doubt herself.
“But Lottie knows things she wouldn’t know otherwise. Hell, she knows things I didn’t know,” I countered.
Jackson’s glare fell on me again. Maybe I would throw him off an airplane. Without a parachute. The way Lydia had talked about this doctor, she had made him seem so kind, so compassionate. Where was that man now? “Explain,” he demanded. I arched an eyebrow at him. Did he really think he could order me to do anything? But Eric spoke before I could respond – preferably by breaking his thin, wiry neck.
“I tried to kiss her once. A long time ago. She asked me not to tell Dietrich so I never did, and based on Dietrich’s reaction when I had Lottie tell him what happened, she had never told him before either. Only Lottie could have known all of that. And that was definitely Lottie there. Telling that story, I mean. It was just like Lottie was still alive.”
Jackson never looked away from me. “I see. Well, I’ll make sure all of this gets relayed.” He stood up. For the first time since coming in the apartment, David finally moved. He stood up as well and walked to the door, his hand on the doorknob, waiting. “We’ll be in touch, Lottie. I’ll give you a call when I know something. Lydia, it was so nice seeing you again,” his smile turned genuine, more affectionate and fatherly. Christ, I hated this guy.
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