Dear Evie: The Lost Memories of a Lost Child

by P. J. Rhea

  “Well, dear, all I really know is that when the police brought you to the hospital your hands were burned pretty badly. They told me the fireman had a terrible time getting you to let go of your baby brother so he could wrap them up.”

  Her words were like a hard punch in my chest, and I had to struggle to catch my breath. My eyes had to have been as big as half dollars when I stared back at her.

  “Did I hear you right? Are you telling me I have a brother, and you never told me about him? Where is he? What happened to him?”

  My head was spinning from the revelation. Why was I only hearing about this now? My first thought was to be angry. How could she have kept that from me, and why would she? I was in the twilight zone. I was staring at my mother as if she had two heads and horns.

  “I don’t really know anything about him, Katie. He went to another family, I assume. We were too busy with you to try and follow up on him. You were in shock for months, even after you left the hospital. You barely spoke a word until the day you were adopted, and you asked to be named Katherine Marie. I guess the truth is we were afraid to tell you since you seemed to have no memory of him. You were finally happy, and I guess we just wanted to keep it that way. Make a fresh start with a new name.”

  “So, that isn’t the name I had when I arrived?”

  My mother was driving me mad without realizing it. She was relaying this information to me as if it were a simple bedtime story and of no significance. I felt tears burn my eyes but fought to keep them from falling. If she had any idea how betrayed I was feeling, she would get upset and probably stop talking about it. I had to keep it together. She was finally giving me the information I needed, and I was not going to give her reason to stop

  “There was a nurse who had been extremely kind to you in the hospital. She spent her off hours reading to you and playing games. She appeared to be the only person you trusted in the beginning. You loved her so much, and so when you found out you were getting a new last name, you asked if you could pick your new first name. You wanted to be Katherine like the nurse who had taken care of you. And I suppose the middle name came from your other nurse. Her name was Marie. Since you had never responded to your other name, we felt it was the best thing to do.”

  I was feeling sick to my stomach. This was too much to take in. All I could think about was that she had known this all along and had never told me any of it. I felt myself getting angry with her, but I tried to keep in control partly because I didn’t want to scream at her and stop the flow of information coming forth, and partly because I loved her and knew she’d done what she did to protect me. I didn’t agree with her decision, but I did understand it.

  “Mom,” I said in almost a whisper, “do you know what my name was before I changed it?”

  She looked at me like it was the silliest question I could have asked.

  “Well, of course I do, Katie. Your name was Evelyn Belle Moon. The neighbor who gave the police information about you called you Evie.”

  It was as if I had run head on into a brick wall. I felt dizzy, and my head was pounding as if my heart had moved locations and now rested in my skull. In a matter of seconds, all the dreams and visions replayed in my head more vividly than any movie on the big screen. I was trying to grasp what I suddenly knew had to be true. Evelyn was Evie. I was Evie! All those dreams were memories, and Dr. Anna was right. I did have unresolved issues, because even with this new knowledge, I still remembered nothing. It was as if my life before I became Katherine Marie Tipton had never happened. Evie still seemed to be a separate person from me. I did seem to feel her emotions, and, yes, I felt very protective of her, but she wasn’t me; she couldn’t be me. The fog that I’d hoped my mother could help lift was now so dense and thick I could barely breath.

  “Katie… Katie, are you all right?”

  I realized my mother had called my name several times as I stared out of blank eyes, reeling from my attempt to process the news.

  “Yes Mama. I am just a little shaken by all this.”

  A little shaken had to be the understatement of the year, but I tried not to let my mother see just how the secret she had so casually blurted out had completely shifted my life in a downward spiral. In my head I was screaming, crying, and demanding it not to be true. It could not be true. In all fairness, I had never told my mother the name of the little girl in my dreams. I had not told her many details at all, so she didn’t realize what a blow it was when she told me my original name.

  “So, let me make sure I have this all straight. My name was Evelyn, and I was found holding my baby brother after the accident that took my parents. Is that right? What happened to my belongings, pictures, and documents? Maybe I can locate my brother if I can find the things left behind.”

  “Oh, there were no pictures or documents left. I’m sure they were all destroyed when the house burned. It was a total loss. The only reason they were able to find out information on you was because of school records and what little information they obtained from your neighbor. There was nothing left but ashes.”

  I had always assumed there had been a car accident and that my injuries were a result of the car catching fire. No one had ever told me different, and I had never asked about it.

  “So my parents… my birth parents,” I said, correcting myself, “burned up in a house fire?”

  I knew my tone was proof to her of how absolutely freaked out I was. I couldn’t seem to keep it together any longer, and I could see in her eyes that she did not want to answer the question, but she did manage to respond in a very low, embarrassed whisper.

  “Yes, sweetie, they were consumed along with everything else in the house.”

  A sudden surge of nausea came over me, and I had to run to the bathroom. I couldn’t even picture my parents in my mind. I had no memory of either of them, but when I heard those words, a set of blue eyes, sad and pleading, flashed into my mind, and I felt so sick that I had to vomit. Then I cried as if my heart was broken. I didn’t remember my birth mother. I had no idea that she’d died in a house fire, but the instant the truth was revealed to me I was overwhelmed with emotion. When I finally emerged from the bathroom, my mom was waiting outside the door to make sure I was okay.

  “I guess I should have told you all this a long time ago. I hope you will forgive me for keeping it from you, but you seemed to be happy with us, and I didn’t want to upset you by bringing any of it up. As time passed, I guess it just didn’t seem important anymore. Until a few weeks ago, you had never mentioned your past, never asked any questions. I guess I hoped you were so happy with us that you just wanted to forget the past. I believed you were just better off not knowing the truth. I guess that was selfish on my part. I’m so very sorry, Katie. I never meant for my silence to cause you such pain. Please forgive me, Katie. I love you so very much…We love you so much,” she said as she looked at my father who sat in the living room not sure what to do.

  I wasn’t able to respond to her comments. I felt as if I was trying to wake up from the longest nightmare in history. I sat across from my parents in the living room of the house I grew up in; that is, at least from the age of ten. The walls and furniture held proof that I’d been there. There were pictures for every accomplishment, including awards day at school with me holding up my certificate; trophies from the sports teams I had participated in; and even pictures of Jason and me as we grew in our relationship, starting with prom our Junior year. There was a picture of our wedding and one of Jason and me with our newborn baby daughter. Was all of this a dream too? Nothing seemed real to me as the overload of information tried to register in my brain. When I felt strong enough to stand, I kissed the top of my dad’s head, and then I kissed the woman I knew to be my mother on her forehead and headed toward the door.

  “I love you, Katie,” she said almost pleading for a response from me.

  “I love you too, Mom,” I finally managed. “I’m okay, so please don’t worry. I just have to let it all sink in. I’ll talk
to you about this later.”

  I don’t remember picking Gracie up from school, or even driving home for that matter. Until the visit to my parent’s house, the dreams of this little girl had felt like a totally different subject from my forgotten memories and my intimacy problems. Now it was impossible to separate them. How did the pieces fit together? Somehow, I would have to move forward. I would have to come to grips with this reality no matter how unreal it felt, because the truth was more important to me than ever before. I knew there would be more shocking details about Evie. I still could not speak of her in the first person. She was still the little girl in my dreams. Until I knew what happened to make me forget her and choose to become Katherine, I would not think of her as myself as a child. I still felt as if she was asking me to save her from something, and I would do everything I could to make that happen. When I walked into my house, I headed straight to my journal. I needed to talk to her. I stared at the letters I had written to her over the past weeks. To me nothing had changed when it came to the journal. I was still giving comfort to the little girl. That’s all I knew to do at that point. She needed me… she needed Katherine to be there for her, and I would be.

  Dear Evie:

  I am so sorry I left you back there. I promise I am going to try to understand what happened to you. It must have been terrible if I have buried it so deep that I can’t remember you. I also promise to find our baby brother. Somehow I will make things right.

  Katherine

  I continued to dream the same dream night after night, but with a much different reaction. I almost willed myself to have the dream and tried to force it to continue, to add details that would give me a clue as to what my life had been like as Evie. I had never been able to see the faces of my parents, even when Evie would look at them. It was as if my mind refused to allow me to see their faces. I had lived with those people as their daughter at least until I turned ten years old, but try as I might, I could not see their faces. Was the man who was so mean in my dreams my dad? Was the memory of knowing my parents had burned up in their house more than my mind could accept as a child? Did I try to save them? Was that why I had the burns on my hands? The questions were never ending and made it impossible to function in the days prior to me seeing the doctor again.

  The morning of my appointment with Dr. Anna, I rushed around as if I were preparing to catch a plane for a grand vacation. I couldn’t seem to get there fast enough. I wanted to share my new knowledge with her and see if she could fill in some blanks for me. Anything my parents knew, I was positive Dr. Anna had been informed of as well. But maybe she knew even more. She may have found out more when I was a child under her care. That thick notebook had to be filled with something, after all. When I arrived, I rushed down the hall, into her office, and waited for her. Dr. Anna walked into her office with a look of disbelief on her face. She looked at me as if she was trying to evaluate my speedy entrance. The doctor smiled at me and almost seemed amused until she noticed how uneasy I was.

  “Sit down, Katherine, make yourself comfortable. Are you sure you don’t want coffee?”

  “No, I’m fine,” I answered quickly, showing my impatience with the formalities. I started to spew out all I had learned so fast, she couldn’t keep up on her note pad. I knew she was a little frustrated at the speed of my talking. I hadn’t given her a chance to sit down and open my file before the flood of words began; but she never reprimanded me. She could sense how important it was for me to get it out. When I finished and sat across from her, breathless from my effort, she sat quietly and looked over her notes for a few minutes. I couldn’t help but wonder and worry that this was all news to her as well, and she would be of no help whatsoever. Finally she looked up and met my gaze.

  “Katherine, would you like to see the pictures that Evie drew for me?”

  I moved closer and nodded like someone trying to get a glimpse at a secret.

  “Yes, please.”

  Dr. Anna opened her thick folder to the front where I assumed our visits had begun, and she pulled out several pieces of paper that obviously had the drawings of a child on them. I soaked them in, trying to examine every detail for clues. In one, Evie had colored almost the entire page black with the exception of a stick drawing in a box, and there were tears coming from the face. I was positive the stick figure was Evie, and I decided the box was probably the closet from my dreams. Another picture had two bigger stick figures, who I felt were her parents. One seemed like a male and the other I assumed was female because it was slightly smaller than the other one and had a triangle that was possibly a dress. The bigger of them had a circle fist at the end of its arm and was hitting the smaller one, who had tears and I guess blood coming from its face. Tears were blue and blood was red, of course. Some of the pictures I wasn’t sure what they meant yet, but all included tears and most had blood.

  “This poor little girl must have had a terrible childhood, I remarked.”

  Again, she made notes in the folder, but gave me no hint of her opinion of what I had said. I realized I had spoken of Evie as if she were someone else and not me. Was that what she made a note of? I wondered. When I came to the last three pictures, they seemed to be of Evie when she was a little older. The stick person was longer and had brown hair instead of yellow, but she had the same blue dots for eyes. I just knew it was still Evie. One of the pictures was Evie being held under water by a set of hands, another appeared to be Evie lying down and a monster with big teeth was over her. There were words in that picture. The words were tiny, as if she didn’t really want them seen. “It hurts,” was all it said. The last picture gave me that same sick feeling I had experienced when my mother had mentioned how my parents died. It was a picture of Evie surrounded by fire, and in the flames a pair of blue eyes looked at her. I started to cry without realizing it.

  “Do you know why you are crying, Katherine?” Dr. Anna sounded almost pleased at my reaction, as if my crying was what she had hoped for.

  “It just seems so sad to me that Evie had to suffer at the hands of her parents.”

  Dr. Anna handed me the box of tissues from the table and allowed me a few minutes to gather my thoughts.

  “It’s the first time you have wept for Evie in our sessions. When you came to me as a child, you were so filled with anger and sadness you couldn’t put any of it in words, so the drawings helped you tell what happened.”

  “What exactly did happen to me, Dr. Anna?”

  She seemed to show an expression of sympathy for the first time since we started our sessions. Actually, it was one of the first expressions she had made at all.

  “I don’t know what happened to you, Katherine. When the police investigated the fire, there was no evidence to explain why it happened. Everything in the house was ashes. All they could determine was that the fire originated in your parents’ bedroom. There had never been a police report connected to that address, and the neighbors had little to say. One woman who lived next door told police the man was mean to you and your mom. She saw the man trip you once in the backyard and laugh at you when you cried. When he noticed she was watching, he just went in the house. She was the only one who had seen anything at all, and Evie seems to be guarding the details of what happened for now. I think your mind just shut down and refused to remember what was obviously too painful. The dreams and visions are letting you know that you are ready to handle it. We will go as slow as you need, but you need to let Evie reveal it to you no matter how hard it is to hear. A child can not heal until she is heard.”

  The words sent a chill down my spine. Evie was trying to heal, and in order to do that I had to hear what she had to say.

  “Katherine, I believe that once the truth comes out you will be able to accept Evie as part of you and not think of her as a separate being. There is a child in you that had never been allowed to heal, never allowed to speak, and she is finally ready to be heard. Continue to write to her when you are compelled to do so, and please write down any new details of
your dreams and visions for our next session.”

  “I will write to her about everything I remember. Dr. Anna, do you think the memories will come faster now that I know that Evie is?” I hesitated to admit the truth. “That she is me?”

  As I finally accepted it, I couldn’t help but wonder how I would ever explain all of this to Jason.

  “Yes, Katherine, I think we will see a great deal of progress when you come back.”

  “I have one more question, if you don’t mind.” She sat back down and waited for my request.

  “I’ll answer it if I can, Katherine.”

  “How can I find my brother? Where do I start?”

  She smiled at me and gave my hand a pat.

  “Let me write down a few suggestions on where you might start.”