by Paul Cleave
He promises her that he will.
They return to the office block and join up with his mother and Principal Mooney. Aside from looking like he’s been teaching for seventy years, Principal Mooney is dressed like he stocked up on all his outfits back then too. He’s wearing a red bow tie and suspenders. He also has his sleeves rolled up, showing arms so thin they look like broom handles. When they shake hands to say good-bye, Joshua’s worried that the bones in Principal Mooney’s hand are going to break.
“You’re going to fit in well here, son,” Principal Mooney says. “We’re all looking forward to having you.”
On the drive home he watches his mom operating the car, the way her feet press the pedals, the way she changes gear. There’s a lot of timing involved, but his mum makes it look effortless.
“They all seemed nice,” she says.
“I guess.”
“You guess?”
“I mean, they probably say that same stuff to everybody who joins the school, right? What else are they going to say? ‘We’re not looking forward to having you, and the teachers actually hate children’?”
His mother laughs, and he realizes how much he’s missed that sound. “I see your point,” she says.
“Can you imagine if they were that honest?” he says, and now he’s laughing too. “ ‘You’re not going to like Mrs. Smith, because she has a hairy mole on her face and she always smells like cheese, and the art teacher can’t draw a stick figure but we employ her anyway because she gets us cheap drugs.’ ”
“Or, ‘The metal shop teacher learned everything he knows from prison,’ ” she says.
“I want to learn how to drive,” he says.
“What?”
“I want to—”
“I heard what you said,” she says. “I . . . I guess I was expecting it, just not so soon.”
“I’m old enough,” he says. “And with all that’s going on, I need something to look forward to. School’s going to be difficult, but learning to drive will help me cope with it.”
She laughs.
“What?”
“You’ve finally caught up to being a teenager,” she says.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re trying to manipulate me. You’re using your angst at the new school to convince me to teach you to drive.”
“Is it working?”
“It is,” she says. “And you’re right. How about once you settle into school, you study up and get your learner’s license and I’ll get you some lessons. Does that sound okay?”
“We have a deal.”
NINETEEN
They drive to the hospital. On Tuesday Dr. Toni had told them they no longer needed to come in every day and could start putting two days between appointments. Two weeks ago when the bandages came off, the hospital and everything in and around it seemed wonderful. He was in awe of everything. Now he sees the mundane exactly how everybody else sees it. He’s tired of coming here and he’s hoping soon Dr. Toni will space the appointments out to a week, then a month, then a year.
They pull into the parking lot only to find the only free parking space is partly taken up by the SUV in the spot next to it.
“We call that asshole parking,” his mom says, and it’s the first time he’s ever heard her swear. “Just in case it’s on your test when you go for your license.”
They park on the street and walk. Inside, they take the lift up to Dr. Toni’s office, where they have to kill time in the waiting room. Joshua picks up a gossip magazine and flips through the pages. Over the last few weeks he’s seen many of these people over and over, reality TV stars who are famous for reasons he can’t understand, people earning millions of dollars for being who they are—and it makes him wonder how somebody can be so extravagantly rich for doing so little, when his dad died for this country and never made a fraction of that kind of money. How do athletes and movie stars earn more than nurses and schoolteachers? He keeps reading, purely for the practice. A magazine like this—there aren’t any words that trip him up.
After fifteen minutes Dr. Toni comes into the waiting room and gives them a big smile. “How have you been, Joshua? It looks like the bruising has disappeared.”
He’d noticed. Every day since getting the bandages off he’d look in the mirror to see how much it had faded. He tells her he’s been good then asks how she’s been, and she says the same. He takes a seat and reads the eye chart, using letters these days instead of shapes. He gets to the second-to-lowest line with his left eye.
“Still no headaches? Nothing like that?”
“Nothing.”
They move on to the right eye. It’s the same as it was on day one.
Dr. Toni sits behind her desk and smiles at him. “With my other patients, and with all transplants in general, the donors are vetted. We need to make sure the organs going in are healthy, and in the case of eyes, we’d want to make sure we are implanting those with twenty-twenty vision. In your case, we didn’t get to do the preparation we’d normally have done. I know you think Mitchell had perfect vision,” she says, looking at his mom, “but it’s possible he didn’t.”
“Is there anything else it could be?” his mom asks.
“It’s unlikely the eye was damaged during the surgery, and I know the surgery went well. It could be amblyopia, or the equivalent of that.”
“Which is?” Joshua’s mother asks.
“One in thirty people have it. It’s when the eyes are at different strengths, so the brain switches off the optic nerve to the weaker one. If that’s the case, then it’s not going to strengthen by itself. Joshua, tell me exactly what you can see out of your right eye.”
“Shape and color,” he says, “but nothing definite. I mean, if you sat down next to me I’d know you were there, but I wouldn’t be able to tell who was sitting there.”
“The others you’ve operated on,” his mom says, “did they have similar difficulties?”
“No,” Dr. Toni says. “But I suggest we still give it some time. One option we can look at in the near future, if you’re willing, is to patch the good eye and hope the weaker one improves.”
“Patch?” Joshua asks.
“You’d wear glasses with a patch over the good eye. It’s what we try with children. It means you can only see out your bad eye, with the hope of the nerve improving and bringing equal strength to both your eyes.”
“I’d be blind again,” he says.
“Not blind, no,” she says.
“But all I’d see is color and shape.”
“With the hope that it would strengthen.”
The idea makes him feel ill. “I can’t.”
“How long would it take?” his mom asks.
“It’s hard to know. In many cases with children it doesn’t work at all, but we’re talking about kids seven years and under. It’s hard to keep them committed to wearing the patch. With adults—well, it could take some time. A year or two, if at all. Just like the surgery we gave you, curing amblyopia in adults is still a recent advancement in medical technology.”
“I don’t want the patch,” he says. “Really, I don’t, and I’m happy with the way it is. More than happy.”
“We’ll discuss it again soon,” Dr. Toni says.
“I can’t wear a patch to my new school. I can’t be that guy.”
She gives him eye drops to dilate his pupils, then gets him to sit in front of a machine with lenses that he looks into. He follows her instructions of looking left and right while she examines him. “Everything looks in great shape,” she says. “How about I reward you by telling you I won’t need to see you till next Friday? How does that sound?”
He smiles. “Really good.”
“I’ll try not to feel too hurt,” she says, smiling back.
She walks them to the door, but then his mom stops them. “There’s something else,” she says.
“Mom . . .”
“I need to ask,” she says.
“You promised y
ou wouldn’t.”
“I know I did, but we have to know.”
“Know what?” Dr. Toni asks, looking concerned.
“We’ve been reading online about organ memory,” his mom says.
“You mean cellular memory,” Dr. Toni says. “Where some people believe memory is stored not only in the brain, but in all the cells?”
“Exactly,” his mom says. “The evidence is anecdotal, but I want to know, what’s your take on it?”
“I don’t really have a take on it. It’s not something I’ve ever had any experience with. Why are you asking? You think Joshua is experiencing it?”
“We should probably get going,” Joshua says.
“It was the day the bandages came off,” his mom says. “Joshua had never seen Ben before, but when he saw him pull up in the car he recognized him. How is that possible?”
Dr. Toni says nothing as she considers an explanation. Joshua has thought about it over and over but hasn’t come up with any answers. At least none that make sense.
“You must have called out his name without realizing it,” Dr. Toni says. “Moments of shock can play tricks on us. What we say, what we remember, and what we repress can cause confusion.”
“No,” his mom says. “That’s not what happened.”
“Joshua has known Ben all his life, correct?” Dr. Toni asks.
“Yes,” his mom says.
“And you’ve described to him what he looks like, I imagine, on more than one occasion.”
“True. But Joshua didn’t know what those descriptions meant, not really.”
“Once those bandages came off, the descriptions he’s had of people would have started making more sense. A backlog of information would have become relevant. The brain is an amazing thing,” Dr. Toni says. “It has the ability to connect all kinds of dots. My guess is everything he’d learned about Ben slotted into place, and he recognized the description. Has it happened again?”
“No.”
“Then it could also be that the next person Joshua saw who had anything remotely in common with Ben he would have thought was Ben anyway, and it just so happened it was him. Did he pull up in a police car?”
“Yes,” Joshua says.
“It seems to me there was some memory association going on, and he was lucky with his guess. I think it’s worth considering those possibilities before jumping to the conclusion of cellular memory.”
“I can see how that makes sense,” his mom says.
“Remember,” Dr. Toni says, “all that anecdotal evidence you’re reading is anecdotal for a reason.”
TWENTY
“I thought we agreed not to tell anybody,” Joshua says, as they step into the lift.
“I know we did,” his mom says, and then, in a much softer voice, she says, “I’m sorry.”
“Now she’s going to think I’m weird.”
“She won’t think that, honey, but we needed to tell her. I should have told her earlier.”
They step off the elevator. There are stripes of various shades painted on the floor to guide visitors to different areas of the hospital. They follow the green stripe to the intensive care unit. It’s a difficult place to visit. There’s so much emotion and pain in the air, along with hope, false hope, and the sense that Death is browsing the patient list looking for people to take on a road trip. People who’ve come to see their loved ones walk around with grim looks on their faces, and when they do manage a smile, there’s nothing warm in it. The nurses and doctors who work here are amazing. He wonders how they stay so strong. It’s in this ward that Erin is being kept. She’s in a private room hooked up to a bunch of machines that monitor her vitals. Her head has been shaved, exposing stitched-up wounds and bruising. Parts of her body are covered in bandages, and other parts are covered in casts. Her body is in traction, both her legs elevated, her right arm the same. She has a cracked spine, broken ribs, shattered legs, and a swollen brain. Even if she does come out of the coma with no significant brain damage, months, if not years, of rehab are waiting for her. One of the machines connected to her is monitoring her heartbeat, offering a consistent and soft beeping sound. He wonders if she is dreaming, and if she is, he hopes it isn’t of the fall.
There are plenty of get-well cards on display, most with pictures of flowers or teddy bears with Band-Aids on their arms. There are lots of flowers too, all fresh looking, as if they were delivered today. Michelle sits next to the bed, and Joshua leans against the windowsill. The window looks out over the parking lot, and beyond that the gardens of the hospital. Some of the trees are starting to change color. In the past, autumn has meant cool weather and the crunch of leaves underfoot and nothing more. He had no idea it could be such a beautiful mess.
“What did you think of Dr. Toni’s explanation?” his mom asks.
He turns back towards her. “It makes sense. My fear is that doctors will start eyeing me up to be their next medical experiment.”
“That won’t happen.”
“It will, if people think cellular memory is real. They’ll want to study me.”
“I’m sure they wouldn’t.”
“Scientists always want to study stuff like that. Usually for all the wrong reasons.”
“Only in the books you read,” she says. “In real life they’re not going to strap you down and cut you open.”
“Won’t they?”
“They might ask you some questions, and run some tests, but that’s all.”
“What’s all?” Uncle Ben asks, coming into the room. “What are you guys talking about?”
His mom gets up and hugs Uncle Ben. “How are you?”
“I’m fine,” he says, but the way he sounds, the way his body slumps as he says it, tells Joshua he’s not fine at all. If he were still blind, he’d have taken Uncle Ben at his word—he’s learning people often say more without them.
Ben squeezes Erin’s hand before leaning against the windowsill next to Joshua. “What were you talking about?” he asks. “About cellular memory?”
“Nothing,” Joshua says.
“It didn’t sound like nothing. I’ve heard the term before. It’s like when a guy receiving the heart of a concert pianist will suddenly want to take up the piano, right?” He turns towards Joshua. “Is that what’s happening to you, kiddo? You’re getting the urge to join the police force?”
Joshua shakes his head. “No. It’s nothing.”
“Well, if it’s nothing, then it can’t be too hard to explain.”
“The same day Erin was brought into the hospital,” his mom says. “We were outside on the grounds. Joshua’s bandages had only just come off. We saw the ambulance arrive. We saw you arrive.”
“And?”
“And Joshua recognized you.”
The smile on Ben’s face vanishes. He tightens his lips and the beginning of a frown appears. “You recognized me?”
“I don’t know how,” Joshua says.
“Your mom must have said something.”
“I didn’t,” his mom says.
“Maybe you did, but just weren’t aware of it.”
“I’m telling you, that’s not how it happened,” she says.
Ben’s frown becomes full blown. “How is that possible? You think it’s this cellular memory theory? You think it’s real?”
“According to half the research on the Internet it’s real,” his mom says.
“And the other half?” Ben asks.
“The other half think it’s crap,” Joshua says.
“Joshua!”
“Sorry, mom, but it’s true. We told Dr. Toni about it. She thinks it was some kind of lucky guess, because you were in a cop car.”
“Cellular memory,” Ben says. “So what or who else have you recognized?”
“Nothing else, really.”
“Think,” Ben says.
“I am thinking.”
“Think harder,” Ben says, an edge to his voice.
“Ben,” his mom says.
Be
n throws a glance in her direction. “This is important,” he says, his words clipped. Then he sighs, looks back at Joshua, and carries on. “Look, this is important. I need to know, has there been anything else? Anything at all?”
“No,” Joshua says.
“Are you sure?”
“He said no, Ben.”
“There are dreams,” Joshua says.
The room goes quiet, except for the faint beep of the heart monitor.
“What dreams?” Ben asks.
“I started having them before the bandages came off. I wasn’t really aware of them at the time, but became aware later. My dreams used to be full of shapes and not a lot more, then suddenly there were people. I think I saw my dad.”
“What?” his mom asks.
“There was one face I kept seeing, and when the bandages came off, well . . . Remember after we saw Uncle Ben and Erin, we went back into my hospital room? Remember what we did then?”
“I showed you some photographs,” his mom says.
“You showed me Dad,” he says, and he remembers thinking at the time he was looking at a dead man through that very dead man’s eyes. Other than the eyes, which belonged to Mitchell, there were other similarities that ran in the family. Same wavy black hair, same jawline, same cheekbones. He can see those features in his granddad too. His grandmother tells him that he has the same smile as his biological mother, the same laugh too. She told him he even walks the same way his dad did back when he was a kid, and when she tells him things like that she smiles, but there’s a sadness there too.
“And?” Uncle Ben says.
“That was when it came to me,” he says. “After the operation, I stopped dreaming about shapes and started dreaming about people. That included Dad.”
“You said there were others you recognized?”
“I knew who Mom was too.” He looks at his mom. “When the bandages came off, I recognized you right away.”
“You did? Why didn’t you say anything?”
“It didn’t . . .” He shrugs. “I don’t know. I think I wasn’t really aware of it. I remember that you looked familiar, but I didn’t question why. With everything else going on . . . I don’t know. I just didn’t think about it.”
