When I Find You

by R. A. Casey

  Only that FMS was so strong that it triggered my dissociative amnesia.

  It convinced me I had a son.

  Even though I’d been fucking Glynn and there had been no mention of a son in our entire affair, I became convinced.

  In the end, it was Gregg who reassured me it wasn’t true. Who got me sectioned for the best. And then ended up leaving me while I was in there, something I couldn’t really blame him for, right?

  “I became… I became plagued by false memories again. And I started suffering from dissociative amnesia. I blocked out the trauma of my previous breakdown. My mind became obsessed with the idea of Charlie again. With finding him. With the idea that he was lost, and he was out there. I suffered from—from paranoia-induced hallucinations and became convinced somebody was following me. That I’d done something bad a long time ago and that somebody knew about it.

  “But now… but now I know none of that was real. None of that was true. Charlie… Charlie never existed. I’ve grieved for a son I never had so many times. But he—he never existed.”

  It is so hard to admit this. So hard to accept it. I’m still not entirely sure I believe it.

  There are vivid memories I have.

  Memories of holding Charlie’s hand in the school field.

  Memories of Glynn bringing Alan around to play with Charlie, only apparently there was only one occasion where Alan came round, and we sent him upstairs to play on Gregg’s Xbox while he was away.

  Memories of holding a crying baby Charlie in my arms in the summer heat.

  And all the stuff with the note. I KNOW EVERYTHING. The strands of blonde hair.

  Every memory I have of my son and of losing my son.

  There was no evidence any of that even happened.

  None at all.

  So as real as it felt, we were chalking it down to my fragile mental state.

  My trauma.

  My False Memory Syndrome and my dissociative amnesia.

  I suffered a trauma years ago. A trauma I cannot remember. A trauma I do not want to remember.

  It resurfaced again three years ago, and it resulted in me being sectioned.

  I never truly recovered and became increasingly paranoid and convinced of Charlie’s existence and that someone was out to get me.

  But it’s not true.

  None of it is true.

  “My husband—my ex-husband—he tried to protect me. But he couldn’t handle it. Not anymore. But Freddie. My boyfriend. He—he is much better. He is more understanding. I have a lot of… a lot of things to explain to him. I’ve told him what happened now. I’ve told him my story. And hard as it is for him to understand, he gets it. He really gets it. There’s a long road ahead. But I… I can see the truth now. I can see it, and it’s so clear. And that’s all thanks to your help.”

  Dr Maubid smiles. “Flattered as I am, it’s thanks to your hard work, Sarah.”

  I nod. I appreciate it. It means I am saying all the right things, even though deep down inside, that voice of doubt still speaks up.

  “There is one more thing I would like to speak about,” he says.

  My stomach turns because I think I know what is coming.

  “There is one section of your past you seem particularly reluctant to talk about. The years before Gregg. Your teenage years. The years we have identified as… as being the years your trauma was prompted.”

  My body seizes up, goes totally rigid.

  “You alluded to something… something to do with a cult. With summer weather. Maize fields. Is there anything you’d like to say about that?”

  I feel my face getting hot. Surely this isn’t right? Aren’t you supposed to be fucking careful around trauma memories rather than being so, well, haphazard?

  “Sarah?” Dr Maubid says.

  I swallow a lump in my dry throat. Take a deep breath. Shake my head. “That’s the past. It’s gone now. It’s over now. All of it.”

  He looks at me for a few seconds. Like he’s trying to figure out whether he really believes me.

  Then, he smiles.

  “In that case, I’m happy to let you leave today if everybody else is. Which considering your cooperation and your improvement, I see no reason to doubt that.”

  My eyes light up. A smile stretches across my face. “Thank you. Thank you so, so much.”

  “Thank yourself, Sarah. You’ve made an excellent recovery. Coming to terms with some of the things you’ve had to come to terms with cannot be easy for anyone. Not by any stretch.”

  I sit there, and I smile.

  Because I know my story now.

  Charlie never existed.

  The note and the strands of hair and all the terrorising and stalking that happened to me three months ago were all just a product of my fragile mind.

  I am a mess of false memories, of dissociative amnesia, of post-traumatic stress disorder.

  But I know what is and isn’t real anymore.

  At least, that’s the story I tell those around me.

  Because deep down, even though I sit there and smile and take my meds and do as I am told, I don’t believe them.

  Not on a deep level.

  On an instinctive level.

  Because in my mind, I had a son called Charlie.

  In my mind, I suffered a loss. A great loss.

  And in my mind, somebody really was terrorising me about a past I cannot talk of.

  A past where I can barely even bring myself to look at myself.

  Call it trauma burial.

  Call it dissociative amnesia.

  Call it whatever the fuck you want.

  This is my secret.

  And it’s one thing I am not sharing with a soul.

  I just have to pretend to be healthy.

  I just have to pretend to be well.

  That’s my only way forward, now.

  “So,” Dr Maubid says. “Ready to chat with the relevant authorities before getting out of here?”

  I take a deep breath.

  I am Sarah Evatt.

  I have no son, and I have never had a son.

  I had a breakdown, and I became convinced I was being stalked and followed.

  But now I am better again.

  I am ready to live a normal life again.

  I swallow a lump in my throat, take another deep breath, and I smile.

  I see the maize fields in the periphery of my mind.

  And I push them away.

  “I’m ready,” I say.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  I am in the waiting room, and time is going incredibly, painfully slowly.

  I have a rucksack on my knee with my things. Nothing sharp, of course. And I’ve practically spent the last three months wearing trackies, which barely fit me at first. But I’ve grown into them. Eaten pretty well in here, in all truth. The food really isn’t as bad as it’s made out to be. Pretty damned healthy, in fact. Probably better than most people cook for themselves. Obviously, that’s the way it goes nowadays. All these places need to have tip-top health policies. Anything less than stellar, and it reflects badly on the whole institution.

  I feel healthier. I’ve put on weight, so I’m not rake thin anymore. I even have a healthy glow to my face.

  But honestly, I can’t wait to just get out of here and get back to my normal life. To takeaways with Freddie on a Friday night, sometimes midweek, too. To lounging on the sofa in his arms, watching whatever crap’s on telly.

  I just long for those days again. The good days. The days before all this crap entered our lives.

  I sit in the waiting room, and I keep checking the clock. There’s a woman at reception, rather chubby, with long pink nails. They remind me of my doctor from three months ago. Doctor Murray, or whatever she was called. The conversation I had with her. The increasing of the dosage of my medication to help with my symptoms. Symptoms I was convinced were some kind of conspiracy.

  I remember flushing them down the toilet every single day.

  Becau
se I didn’t need them.

  As far as I was concerned, I wasn’t suffering any illness at all.

  But I see now how wrong I was back then.

  I see now that it’s important I take my medication. Because some days, I wake up, and I’m still convinced all those things actually happened to me.

  That Charlie actually was my child.

  That my grief was real.

  And that I really was stalked three months ago by somebody who knew more about my past than I was comfortable with.

  Maybe you were.

  I shake my head.

  Just thoughts.

  Observe the thoughts, let them go.

  Do not go down the trail.

  Do not follow the automaticity of thought.

  I hear the woman at the reception desk tapping away at the keyboard. See a few folks walk in from their trips out of low secure, which are allowed for a few hours each day. Something I’ve taken advantage of, meeting Freddie for a brew a few times.

  The wait goes on. That long wait for Freddie’s arrival.

  And as I sit here, I wonder if maybe he won’t show. If maybe he will bail. Just like Gregg did all those years ago.

  It’s something I pushed from my mind. Something I chose to forget. Dissociative amnesia, they call it. Totally psychological. And coupled with my supposed tendency for false memories, a nightmare when it gets out of hand.

  But now I remember three years ago so, so clearly.

  Being locked away in a psychiatric hospital. And one not as nice as this, either.

  Waiting there for Gregg to come to pick me up, even though he hadn’t visited for three weeks.

  Getting a call from him to say he couldn’t make it.

  And leaving on my own.

  Completely on my own.

  I feel betrayed by Gregg. Freshly betrayed. He was always nice to me. Always good to me. But at the end, he was a shit towards me. He ran away from me. Ran away from any sense of responsibility towards me. Broke up with me in my lowest moment.

  I should never have been so forgiving towards him.

  But my mind chose not to remember that part of my life.

  Because it was intertwined with far too much trauma.

  A door opens.

  I turn around. Expect to see Freddie.

  But it’s not Freddie. It’s another one of the receptionists. A short, skinny bloke. Camp looking. Definitely wearing some makeup.

  He looks at me and smiles, and I can only smile back.

  I look at the clock. Ten past four now. Where is he? He was supposed to be here ten minutes ago. I want to call him, but I don’t have a phone. I see the two receptionists peeking over the desk at me, muttering under their breath. I feel their sympathetic gazes burning into me.

  I know they must see this so often. Someone left behind. Or someone waiting for someone to pick them up, someone who never ends up showing.

  I wonder just how many people who walk through these doors end up walking straight back into them again. Like prisoners. Unable to hack the outside world, so end up reoffending just to get back inside.

  It’s a comfort. A weirdly small comfort.

  If all goes to shit on the outside, I can just play crazy and get myself locked back in here again.

  The clock hits half past. He’s half an hour late. The receptionists are getting antsy. I wonder how long I wait here before stepping outside, before giving up. They won’t let me go without him because that’s what’s been agreed. You have to state who is picking you up. If nobody, they get somebody to escort you out. The last act of care before throwing you back into the outside world.

  I stand up. Pace back and forward. I’m starting to get nervous now. And whenever I get nervous, I panic because I begin to question everything.

  Am I going to slip down the same dark path as I did the last time I got sectioned?

  Is it all going to happen, all over again?

  The forgetting?

  The paranoia?

  The dread?

  Am I going to have to start my life all over again?

  I see one of the receptionists—the camp one—climb off his stool, and I know he’s going to walk over to me to tell me to sit down when I hear the door creak open.

  I turn around.

  And then I see him.

  Tall.

  Muscular.

  Handsome.

  Just as I remember him.

  Smile beaming across his face.

  “Freddie,” I say.

  He walks towards me.

  Grabs me in his arms.

  Holds me. Tight.

  “I’ve missed you,” he says.

  “You soft git,” I say, tears rolling down my cheeks. I can see he is crying, too. Eyes bloodshot. “I saw you on bloody Wednesday.”

  “I know,” he says. “I—I got caught in traffic. I was getting us Chinese.”

  I laugh. And I cry. I can’t contain myself anymore.

  The pair of us stand there, together in this waiting room.

  Freddie takes my hand.

  “Come on, love. Let’s take you home.”

  I look at the receptionists, both of them smiling.

  I look back at the door towards the place I’ve just spent the last three months of my life.

  The place I am actually weirdly grateful for.

  And I take a deep breath and turn around.

  I take a step, out of the front door, out into the crisp, crunchy autumn leaves, and into whatever my new life holds for me.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  ONE MONTH LATER

  I have been home one month, and life could not be better.

  It’s the start of December. Christmas is just around the corner, but we put the trees and the lights up early because fuck it. We don’t give a shit what anyone thinks. What anyone might say. I love Christmas, and I always have. And the second Freddie heard that, he rigged up the cheesiest, most novelty lights setup possible. Big inflatable Santa on the roof, something that Moira didn’t seem too impressed about, seeing as she’s directly attached to our place. But she can’t talk about fire hazards with all her smoking, the crazy old fool.

  A big light display outside, with lasers and everything. Even a fake snow machine, something the kids on the street love.

  It’s cheesy as fuck, but I love it.

  Really, life is good right now.

  I’m sitting outside in the backyard around a patio heater. It’s one Freddie got from work. Made out of an old washing machine drum. The flames crackle away, giving off an immense amount of heat. We’re at that weird point of the year where the orange of autumn has fully made way for the cobalt grey of winter. It’s a sort of limbo state. That no-place between dying and death.

  And yet, there’s a beauty to it. A real beauty.

  Freddie holds a stick with a marshmallow on the end over the open flame. He looks up at me and grins. “Go on. Your turn.”

  I shake my head, laugh a little as he holds that marshmallow to my mouth. “Won’t it be hot?”

  “Oh, yeah. Excruciatingly hot. Like burning alive.”

  “Nice. Very poetic.”

  “Go on. Just take a bite. It won’t do you any harm.”

  I go to take a bite out of the marshmallow, and Freddie jolts back the stick, making a funny noise as he does.

  “Damn it, Freddie,” I say, laughing. “You scared the shit out of me.”

  He leans back, laughing. I can see he’s pale. I can see he’s lost a lot of weight. And I can see he has suffered along with me.

  But he’s been amazing since I got back. While I was inside, he was amazing too. But since I got back… he’s made life fun. He’s made me feel loved. He’s taken a full month off work just to make sure I’m comfortable.

  He’s insisted he’ll give me my space. He’s trusted me not to turn into some suicidal wreck at the first sign of loneliness. Really, he’s been perfect.

  He goes back to work tomorrow. Which, admittedly, makes me a little nervous.
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  But honestly, I’m feeling better than I’ve felt in a long time.

  I managed to keep my driving licence. The dangerous driving case was dismissed. I’m so grateful for that element of freedom, but I know I’ll be in big trouble if anything like that ever happens again. The judge was particularly lenient. So glad I caught him on a good day.

  I’m taking my meds, for one. Regularly. New meds. New doses of old meds.

  I’m being supported by the doctors and the psychiatric hospital I stayed in. Good aftercare, where I have regular phone calls, visits, all that stuff. I even see Doctor Maubid again from time to time. It feels like they really care about me this time. Like they are really looking out for me and don’t want to see me fall back down a dark road again. Especially not after last time.

  I’m doing therapy, too. Regular therapy. And while there are things in my memory I don’t want to touch on… honestly, I’m not even sure what is real and what isn’t real from my past. Not anymore.

  There is trauma there, sure. Trauma from somewhere.

  And there is grief there, too. Grief for a child who didn’t exist.

  But for all of this, I’m doing all the right things.

  I’m taking my life one step at a time.

  And I am enjoying every minute.

  “Want to be careful burning stuff like that.” A voice from over the wall. Moira. “Wouldn’t want the whole building to go up in flames. Especially not with all those lights.”

  I smile at Moira. Nod. She hasn’t liked me since my breakdown, really. Seemed nice at first. I actually pitied her.

  But she’s of that generation who judges mental illness just like she judges pre-marital sex.

  She’s naive. I can’t really blame the environment she grew up in. We all have our stories. We all have our flaws.

  We all have our secrets.

  I’ve told Freddie everything I know now to be true. About Charlie. About losing contact with my mum and dad. About my lack of contact with my sister. I’ve told him everything.

  Or at least, everything that is relevant, anyway.

  And truth be told… I’m really starting to believe the official story of what happened to me now. Or rather, what didn’t happen to me.

  I’m starting to believe that I really did just have a mental breakdown. Because all the evidence suggests I did. Especially when it has happened before.