by Joy Fielding
“And if all these tests are normal?”
“We could do a spinal tap to look for infections of the nervous system or an arteriogram of the vessels going to the brain.”
“Or we could simply send me to the staff psychiatrist,” she offered, thinking what an attractive alternative this had suddenly become.
“Or we could simply send you to the staff psychiatrist,” he agreed.
“And what could the psychiatrist do? I mean, it’s not like I have anything to reveal.”
What about the money? What about the blood? she heard a little voice somewhere inside her head demand. She shook the voice away with a toss of her head.
“She’ll probably run a battery of psychological and memory tests,” Dr. Meloff answered.
“More tests,” she interrupted.
“Hey, it’s what we do best.”
“How long will all this take?”
“Depending on how fast I can get these things organized, I’d say we’re looking at a few days.”
She groaned.
“What’s the matter? Got a heavy date?”
“I was hoping that this nightmare would be over by then.”
He moved to her side and took her hand in his. “It might be.” She looked at him expectantly. “Hysterical fugue states, if that’s what we’re dealing with here, can reverse themselves at any time. And I’ve never heard of one lasting longer than a couple of months.”
“A couple of months?!”
“They usually disappear as quickly as they occur, generally within a few days to a few weeks of their initial onset. But look,” he said, placing her hand in her lap and covering it with his own, “let’s stop second-guessing ourselves and get some of these tests out of the way.” He reached toward a nearby chair and retrieved a magazine someone had left behind. “Relax, catch up on what’s happening in the world that you may have forgotten.” He checked the date on the front of the magazine. “Well, check up on what was happening a year and a half ago. There’ll be a quiz when I return.” With that, he was gone.
She sat on the examining table in her newly purchased clothes, clutching her new purse, feeling the key she had secreted under the instep liner of her new shoe pressing against the bottom of her bare foot and wondered if she should tell Dr. Meloff the whole truth. About the money. About the blood. It would certainly go a long way toward supporting his theory about her being in some sort of hysterical fugue state. And then what? Would he run straight to the police or would he be bound by doctor-patient confidentiality? What would confiding everything in the good doctor accomplish aside from making her feel better and possibly sparing her the discomfort of a spinal tap and an arteriogram of the vessels going to her brain?
Wasn’t that reason enough?
Taking a deep breath, she determined to tell Dr. Meloff the whole story as soon as he returned. In the meantime, she would do as he suggested and renew her acquaintance with some of the events of the not-too-distant past, testing her powers of recall. She flipped through the well-thumbed pages of the magazine, chuckling at the photograph of Dan Quayle during an early visit to Latin America, losing herself momentarily in the intensity of Tom Cruise’s gaze, smiling at the outrageousness of Christian LaCroix’s once-fashionable designs. And then she saw the young woman staring at her from the open doorway, and the magazine dropped to the floor.
“I’m sorry,” the young woman in the crisp white lab coat apologized, rushing to retrieve the magazine. “I thought I recognized you when I walked by before, but I wasn’t sure. You probably don’t remember me—”
“Who are you?” Her voice was a shout.
“Dr. Irene Borovoy,” came the immediate response. “We met at the Children’s Hospital a little over a year ago. I was interning under your husband.” She stopped abruptly, her hands flying to her mouth. “You are Dr. Whittaker’s wife, aren’t you? Jane Whittaker? Isn’t that right? I’m usually so good at putting names to faces.”
“Jane Whittaker,” she repeated, fitting her tongue around the unfamiliar name.
“Your husband is such a wonderful man.”
“Jane Whittaker,” she said again, tasting the sound of it in her mouth.
“Is someone taking care of you, Mrs. Whittaker?” Dr. Borovoy asked, a worried look skewering the evenness of her features. “Are you feeling all right?”
She looked into the young doctor’s clear blue eyes. “Jane Whittaker,” she said.
FIVE
SHE was waiting for the man who claimed to be her husband to finish conferring with the doctors and the police and confront her.
“Jane Whittaker,” she said again, thinking the constant repetition of the name would eventually snake its way into her memory and push her identity out. But the words were hollow, lacking resonance. They merely vibrated inside her head for as long as they took to pronounce, and then vanished, leaving no trace. They brought with them no revelations, no sudden epiphanies. They carried with them no emotional baggage, only a surprising, almost overwhelming, feeling of indifference. “Jane Whittaker,” she whispered, drawing out each syllable, feeling nothing. “Jane Whittaker.”
It struck her as ironically appropriate that her name should be Jane. Wasn’t that always the name they assigned to unidentified female bodies found floating in the Boston Harbor? To unidentified women found murdered in the streets? “Jane Doe,” she muttered under her breath.
Or how about Jane Eyre, waiting for the mysterious Mr. Rochester to appear? Would the man now claiming to be her husband make as dramatic an entrance as that gentleman had done, appearing boldly on horseback, only to suffer a fall and sprain his ankle in front of his confused heroine? Would he be similarly dark and strong and stern? And would she fail to recognize him as Jane Eyre had failed to recognize the future great love of her life?
And what of another Jane, Lady Jane Grey, teenage pretender to the throne of England, beheaded when she tried to be someone she was not? Or Jane, wandering through the jungle looking for her Tarzan: “Me Tarzan, You Jane.” Did that account for her strange dream during the CAT scan? Was her subconscious using jungle imagery to reawaken her sense of self? You Jane. Was it really that simple?
You Jane. Plain Jane. See Jane. See Jane run.
She fought the sudden impulse to leap from her chair and flee the hospital, seek out the safe obscurity of the Lennox Hotel, order room service, and hide under the bed covers from the rest of the world. Spend her days with The Young and the Restless, her nights with Johnny Carson and David Letterman. She didn’t want to meet the man claiming to be her Mr. Rochester. Michael Whittaker, they told her. A doctor, they said with pride, looking at her with fresh respect. A pediatric surgeon, no less. How very lucky she was!
She forced herself to remain in her chair. Where could she run to after all? Weren’t the police, the doctors, her husband, huddled together in the next room, dissecting her past and making pertinent decisions about her future? Why should she have expected to be involved in any such decisions when she had so definitively abdicated her responsibilities with regard to her own life? Hadn’t she given up on reality and opted for a hysterical fugue?
“Oh, fugue off!” she exclaimed loudly, looking around guiltily to make sure she hadn’t been overheard. But she was alone in the room, as she had been since a police officer had announced that Dr. Whittaker was waiting in the lounge, and the doctors had filed out, rendering her nonexistent once again. If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it fall, did it make a noise? she found herself wondering. If this man fails to identify me, am I any less real?
What was he like, this Dr. Michael Whittaker, renowned pediatric surgeon, whom everybody seemed to know and admire? The medical staff spoke his name in respectful, no, downright reverential, tones. Even Dr. Klinger’s relentlessly impassive face betrayed signs of approval, hovering for several seconds in the vicinity of a smile. And Dr. Meloff had immediately decided to hold off on further testing until he had a chance to meet and confer with his
respected colleague.
“Your husband is such a wonderful man,” Dr. Irene Borovoy had told her before running off to fetch Dr. Meloff. It seemed to be the consensus of opinion. She was married to a wonderful man. Lucky her!
Why wasn’t she wearing his ring?
It stood to reason, she decided, that if she was indeed the wife of renowned pediatric surgeon Michael Whittaker, she would be wearing some proof of this on the third finger of her left hand. There was no such proof. In fact, aside from her watch, she wasn’t wearing any jewelry at all. So, in all likelihood, Dr. Michael Whittaker was not her husband. Hadn’t he insisted when he was first contacted several hours before, that his wife was visiting her brother in San Diego?
A brother who lived in San Diego, she thought wondrously. Was it possible? Had she been on her way to visit him and been waylaid, savagely attacked in an attempted robbery? Maybe—but that hardly explained how she ended up with the money, not to mention someone else’s blood covering the front of her dress.
A brother! A brother and a husband! Two for the price of one. At what price? she wondered.
The door opened and Dr. Meloff walked inside, followed by several police officers. They were smiling but looked serious. Seriously smiling, she thought, feeling herself smile in response. So many questions leaped from her brain to her tongue that they stumbled over one another and blocked each other’s exit. The result was that when she opened her mouth to speak there was only silence.
“Your name is Jane Whittaker,” Dr. Meloff told her gently as tears filled her eyes. “Your husband is waiting in the next room and is very anxious to see you. Do you think you’re up for it?”
It took all her strength to push the words from her mouth. Even then, she noticed Dr. Meloff had to lean forward to hear her. “Are you sure? What makes you so sure?”
“He brought photographs, your passport, your marriage license. It’s you, Jane. There’s no mistake.”
“I thought Dr. Whittaker’s wife was visiting her brother in San Diego.”
“That’s what he thought. But apparently you never showed up.”
“Wouldn’t my brother have called him to find out where I was? I mean, if I was supposed to show up in San Diego a few days ago? …”
One of the police officers was laughing.
“You’d make a good detective,” Dr. Meloff told her. “Officer Emerson asked him the same question.”
“To which he obviously had a satisfactory answer,” she stated more than asked.
“Apparently you’d planned the visit as a surprise. Your brother didn’t know you were supposed to be there until your husband called to find out if you were.”
There was a moment’s silence. “So, I really am this Jane Whittaker,” she said with quiet resignation.
“You’re really Jane Whittaker.”
“And my husband is waiting in the next room.”
“He’s most anxious to see you.”
“Is he?”
“He’s understandably very concerned.”
She almost smiled.
“He was so sure you were in San Diego.”
“And now he’s sure I’m here. Maybe he’s wrong this time too.”
“He’s not wrong.”
“What did he say about me?” she asked, seeking to delay the inevitable confrontation, to arm herself with some much-needed facts.
“Why don’t you let him speak for himself?” Dr. Meloff turned toward the door.
“Please,” she begged, the urgency in her voice stopping him. “I’m not quite ready.”
Dr. Meloff returned to her side and knelt down, forcing her eyes to his. “There’s nothing to be afraid of, Jane. He’s your husband. He loves you very much.”
“But what if I don’t recognize him? What if I look into his eyes the way I’m looking at you, and all I see is the face of a stranger? Do you know how terrifying a thought that is for me?”
“Can it be much more frightening than looking in the mirror?” he asked logically, and she had no reply. “Are you ready now, Jane? I don’t think it’s fair to keep him waiting much longer.”
“You’ll stay with me? You won’t leave us alone!” The second request emerged as a command.
“I’ll stay until you ask me to leave.” He stood up.
“Dr. Meloff,” she called, once again stopping him, this time as his hand reached for the door. “I just wanted to thank you.”
“It’s been a pleasure.” He paused, as if carefully considering his next words. “I’m here if you ever need me.”
And then he opened the door and stepped into the hall. She held her breath, hearing voices approach. She stood up, then quickly sat back down, then immediately stood up again, hurrying to the far wall and positioning herself beside the window. The police officers watched her with bemused curiosity from the other side of the room.
“It’ll be all right, Mrs. Whittaker,” Officer Emerson said. “He seems like a very nice man.”
“But what if I don’t recognize him?” she repeated, panic filling every pore. “What if I don’t know him?”
She didn’t.
The man who preceded Dr. Meloff into the room might have been anyone. He was perhaps forty years old, tall, approaching six feet, and slender, with longish, fair hair that had undoubtedly been blond as a child. Even full of anguish, his face was decidedly handsome, with pale-green eyes and full, sensual lips. Indeed, the only thing that marred the otherwise perfect cast of his features was a nose that was slightly off angle. It humanized him, rendered him more accessible, instantly likable. He was not some perfect Ken doll; she would not be expected to be Barbie.
He rushed toward her, an instinctive act. Just as instinctively, she recoiled. Both came to abrupt stops. “I’m sorry,” he said quickly, in a voice that was at once gentle and strong. “I’m just so relieved to see you.” He paused, his gaze shifting from her frightened face to the floor, biting back tears. “You don’t know me, do you?”
It was her turn to apologize. “I want to,” she ventured meekly.
“We’ll leave you,” Officer Emerson stated as he and his partner headed for the door.
“Thank you for everything,” she called after them, fixing Dr. Meloff with a look that implored him not to follow their lead.
“If you don’t mind,” Dr. Meloff began, “I’ll stick around for a few minutes.”
“I think that Jane would appreciate that,” Michael Whittaker said immediately. He tried to smile, and almost succeeded. “Actually, so would I.” He took a deep breath. “I seem to be very nervous.”
“Why are you nervous?” she asked, the thought that he might be as nervous as she was simply not having occurred to her.
“I feel like I’m on a blind date,” he answered guilelessly. “And I really want to make a good impression.” A laugh caught in his throat. “I thought I was prepared for just about everything,” he continued, “but I have to confess that I don’t know what to make of this situation.” He lifted his eyes from the floor, returning them to his wife’s worried face. “I’m not sure how to act.”
“So this has never happened to me before,” she stated rather than asked.
“God, no.”
“Why do you think it’s happening now?”
He shook his head, his confusion too expansive for words to contain.
He was dressed casually in gray pants and a blue shirt that was open at the neck. She noticed that his shoulders stooped ever so slightly, probably the result of long hours spent leaning over an operating table. His large hands dangled uncomfortably at his sides, and his long, thin fingers clutched at the air, as if trying to grasp the larger picture of what was happening to their lives and bring it into sharp, clear focus. He had a surgeon’s hands, she recognized, noting the carefully kept nails, and imagining those fingers operating with deft precision on a small child. Gentle hands, strong fingers, she thought, suddenly aware of the thin gold wedding band he wore.
“Why aren’t I wearing a wedd
ing ring?” she asked, catching everyone, including herself, by surprise. “I mean, you’re wearing one and I’m not. It seems a little unusual….” Her voice trailed off, disappearing into the still confusion of the room.
It took him a minute to respond. “You haven’t worn one for a while,” he said slowly as she looked to him for further clarification. “You had some sort of allergic reaction to the gold. Your finger became very itchy underneath the band and the skin got all flaky and red. You took the ring off one day and never put it on again. We kept saying we’d replace it, get you something with diamonds instead—nobody’s allergic to diamonds, we’d laugh—but we never got around to it. To be honest, I’d forgotten all about it.” He shook his head, as if amazed he could have forgotten anything so important.
“You’d be amazed at the things you can forget,” she said, seeking to reassure him.
He laughed, and suddenly she was laughing as well.
“This might be a good time for me to take my leave,” Dr. Meloff volunteered, and she nodded. “Let one of the nurses know when you’re ready to go home. I’d like to see you before you check out.”
“He seems like a very nice man,” Michael Whittaker remarked after Dr. Meloff had left the room.
She smiled. “That’s what they all say about you.”
He sighed, the air sliding from his mouth in ripples, like a wave. “What can I say that will reassure you? Tell me what I can do to help.”
She edged herself gingerly away from the window closer to where he stood, careful to leave a space of at least several feet between them. “How long have we been married?” she asked, feeling infinitely foolish.
“Eleven years,” he answered simply, no attempt at embellishment. She liked that.
“What day did we get married? How old was I?”
“We got married on April seventeenth, 1979. You were twenty-three years old.”
“That makes me thirty-four?” she asked, although the answer seemed obvious enough.
“You’ll be thirty-four on August thirteenth. Would you like to see a copy of our marriage license?”