Falling in Love in New York

by HILL, MELISSA

  She recalled what Hannah and the doctors had said about how certain memories or instances might very well be stored in her long-term memory, but due to the damage caused could begin to fade away much faster than was usual.

  But while the shock of knowing that her memory was actually failing had been horrifying and completely overwhelming, her subsequent chat with Finn had made her feel a little bit better. For one thing, his suggestion that it didn’t matter what way her memories were stored as long as they were indeed stored made sense, and gave her back the one thing she needed in all of this–control. What he’d said about her having coped well up to now and continuing to carry on a normal day to day life made sense too. She had coped well and until today hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary. Or at least she’d convinced herself she hadn’t Abby admitted guiltily, remembering how she conveniently explained away any unusual incidents as regular absentmindedness.

  But ironically, Abby thought now because of her and Finn’s plan to test out her memory, she couldn’t write about today’s frightening discovery in her diary, nor could she make an account of the myriad emotions she’d experienced because of it. Because if it turned out that it was only her own records that were keeping her memories alive, didn’t it follow that if she tried to recall today’s events of her own accord–and without the help of her diary– then by rights she shouldn’t remember a thing about discovering it?

  Exactly two weeks later, Finn rang the doorbell of the address he’d been given.

  “Hello?” A friendly voice that definitely wasn’t Abby’s drifted out of the intercom.

  “Um, hi,” he said, speaking nervously into it. “My name is Finn Maguire and I’m here to see Abby.”

  “Oh. OK, just a sec, I’ll buzz you in,” the girl replied in a breezy tone that buoyed his confidence somewhat. Whoever this person was, she’d hardly allow him into the apartment without checking Abby knew him, would she? Which meant that she must have mentioned him, he thought heartily taking the stairs up to her floor. But if that was the case, then why…?

  Abby opened the door, and seeing the completely blank look on her face, Finn’s heart sank to the floor.

  “Hi, can I help you?”

  They’d discussed this of course. Discussed what would happen if their experiment failed, and Abby didn’t appear at their agreed meeting point outside St Stephens Green shopping centre. He’d waited there for a full hour past the time, all the while stupidly trying to convince himself that there might be a perfectly normal explanation for her non-appearance.

  He’d also arrived a half hour early, just in case she might get there before the time, and also because he was just as anxious as she was to find out if she would actually remember him.

  But when eight o’clock came and went and Abby still didn’t appear, he knew that his (and even more so her) worst fears had been realised. She’d forgotten the meeting, which meant that she’d forgotten him too, all in the space of two weeks.

  But even worse, and much harder for Finn, it also meant that as far as Abby was concerned, their conversation in the Green had never happened, so in effect, she still believed her memory was absolutely fine. This was the bit that from the outset had worried Finn the most and what had almost stopped him from following through with the second part of their agreement.

  “How stressful will it be for you to have a complete stranger call to your house and tell you the truth? Especially when we both saw how finding out all this affected you today,” he added gently, referring to her fainting. “I’d really don’t want to be responsible for upsetting you like that again.”

  Yet like it or not, they both knew that this was the only way this could work so, having waited well over an hour at their agreed meeting point, Finn eventually called to her apartment to break the news and yet again shatter Abby’s world.

  She looked at him now, her expression so untroubled and completely innocent of what was to come next that Finn almost turned and ran. She didn’t recognise him, didn’t have a clue who he was or what he was about to say, so he could just as easily say nothing and leave her be, leave her alone to her happy-go-lucky world.

  But deep down he knew he couldn’t do that; he’d made this girl a promise, and whether she knew it or not, she was depending on him. And unfortunately for Finn, this vulnerability was something that drew him to her even more.

  “You were looking for me?” Abby said now, evidently wondering what the hell he wanted. He supposed he’d better say something before she got nervous and mistook him for some kind of nutter.

  “Abby, hi. My name is Finn Maguire and I’m here because I have something very important to tell you.” They’d rehearsed what he’d say if things didn’t work out, and while it sounded reasonable enough at the time, now Finn thought it came across a bit overdramatic. Still, what else could he do?

  As expected, Abby was a bit taken aback. “What? Who are you and what’s all this–”

  “Abby is everything all right?” The other person, who Finn suspected must be a good friend or something, appeared in the doorway. “What’s taking you so …oh hello,” she said, smiling at Finn.

  He swallowed, suddenly at a loss as to how to approach this. When they’d arranged this, there had been no mention of someone else being around, and he didn’t really want to break such awful news while … Then he paused, as something struck him. Maybe this was Abby’s way of ensuring that if their plan went awry, then she wasn’t on her own if he had to break the bad news.

  It certainly made him feel a whole lot comfortable having somebody she trusted around, although he was a bit worried that the friend might deck him if he tried to upset her. She certainly looked formidable in any case. Then he suddenly remembered Abby mentioning her best friend when she’d spoken fondly of the experiences she’d had over the past few months.

  “You’re Erin?” he asked.

  “That’s me,” she said, and there was a brief silence as she looked from him to Abby, evidently seeking an introduction. As there obviously wasn’t a hope in hell of Abby doing so, Finn obliged.

  “I’m Finn,” he told her. “Um, this is a difficult situation to explain, but I’m sort of a friend of Abby’s…” his voice trailed off, when he saw her staring at him in bewilderment. “If you could just let me explain – ”

  “For God’s sake, come in then and stop loitering out there in the hallway,” Erin ordered, much to Abby’s chagrin, judging by the look on her face.

  “Um, I’d better not, thanks all the same.” Knowing that Abby understandably viewed him as a complete stranger, Finn decided against going inside, hoping to at least try and gain her trust before dropping his bombshell.

  “OK then, I’ll leave you to it,” the friend said going back inside, despite the daggers look she got from Abby.

  “I’m sorry, but what exactly is it you want?” Abby asked, her tone suspicious now. “What makes you think we know each other? And while we’re at it, how do you know Erin?”

  Finn cleared his throat yet again. God, this was a hell of a lot harder than he’d thought.

  “Abby, this is going to sound very strange, and I know you think you don’t know me, but I’d like you to just hear me out for a few seconds.” He took a deep breath, trying to remember it all word for word, just as they’d planned. “I know about your accident and that you’ve spent the last few months trying to create the memories of a lifetime hoping to try and undo the damage to your brain.” The fear in her eyes was enough to stop any man in his tracks, but still Finn refused to break stride. “I know you lost over a grand on roulette in Las Vegas, most of it on black 17. I know that you really wish you’d had the guts to hit one-hundred-and-eighty in the Ferrari. I know you never felt as close to your mother as when she took your hand at the high notes in Aida. I know that you when you tried on that ball-gown in London, you wished that …” He looked down at his notes, “that Kieran could have seen you in it, just so you could prove him wrong.” Finn gulped, as all at once he saw
her expression change from wariness, to bewilderment to outright panic. “Yes, I know that all of these things are personal to you, things you believe nobody else knows. But I only know because you told me about them all in great detail last time we met,” he blurted, eager to get it all out now. “You told me to help gain your trust in telling you something else you already know, but because of the damage to your memory have since forgotten,” he added sadly. “And there has been damage Abby, that’s what I’m here to tell you.”

  “Who the hell are you and why are you doing this?” Abby gasped, her eyes filling with tears. “Get out of here, out of my sight now!”

  “I’m sorry, but I had no choice …” Finn went on, troubled by the depth of her despair. “We both agreed that this was the only way to make you understand.”

  “How dare you!” she cried. “How dare you come here and say all these things to me. Who on earth do you think you are?”

  At the sound of raised voices, Erin reappeared at the door, her friendliness of earlier quickly displaced by suspicion. “What the hell is going on here?” she demanded. Abby, by now unable to speak, turned on her heel and raced back inside.

  “I’m so sorry, I didn’t meant to upset her,” Finn said, with a despondent shake of the head. “Well, I knew all of this would upset her of course but …” He turned to Erin and tried to explain it all in a rush, how he’d originally met Abby in New York a few months back, and had bumped into her again two weeks before, but she didn’t remember him, how she’d realised that parts of her memory had been fading and in the end, how they’d agreed to carry out this experiment.

  “I’d hoped that all this wouldn’t be necessary, and that she’d remember meeting me of her own accord and know exactly who I was. But when she didn’t turn up …”

  He trailed off, realising how outrageous all of it sounded, fully expecting Erin to tell him to get lost.

  “Hold on, you’re telling me Abby knew there was a problem with her memory two weeks ago?” She looked away puzzled. “But she never said a word.”

  “She didn’t want to in case it was just a one-off, a freak occurrence. And she asked me to help her find out.”

  Erin was shaking her head in bewilderment. “Which was how you knew my name.”

  “Yes, she told me all about your road-trip to California, told me lots of personal things, things no-one else knew in the hope that it would be easier for her to trust a supposedly complete stranger. We thought it would help her believe me when I told her the truth.”

  Erin was silent for a moment, and seemed to be considering this. “So you two met on Christmas Eve, and she didn’t remember a thing?”

  “Yes … wait, how did you know it was Christmas Eve?”

  She sighed and Finn couldn’t decide if it was one of resignation or relief. “Because we’ve all known for a long time that things weren’t right, but none of us had the heart to break it to her.”

  Chapter 26

  “An interesting development,” Hannah said, which Abby thought was putting it mildly.

  She’d spent the entire weekend holed up in the flat with Erin, devastated. She couldn’t believe that after everything she’d done, and how hard she’d tried to fight it, her memory really was failing. She hadn’t done anything to make it better, hadn’t realised that it was pointless even trying. But to make it worse it seemed everyone else had known that it was pointless trying.

  Erin had since admitted that her family had confided that they’d been aware of some ‘blips’.

  “They knew you didn’t remember who George Michael was when you got those tickets at Christmas,” she confessed guiltily. “And Dermot mentioned something about your forgetting to put sugar in your coffee, things like that.” She put a comforting arm around her friend. “I noticed a few things in California myself too, smaller things, like a blank look you’d sometimes have in conversation. To us, all these things pointed to the truth but because you were so doggedly determined not to admit there was anything wrong, we just didn’t have the heart to shatter the illusion.”

  And although she felt hurt and distrustful, Abby supposed she couldn’t really blame them, particularly when her ‘mission’ had really given her a new lease of life and had finally helped bring about the long-awaited recovery from her broken heart.

  Moreover in the last few months she and Erin had been getting on better than ever and she and her family were closer than they’d been in a very long time, and in addition to her quest for unforgettable memories, everyone seemed to understand that Abby was also on a necessary journey of a self-discovery.

  After breaking the news to her the day before, Finn had at Erin’s bidding afterwards come inside. The poor guy had tried everything to make her feel better; insisting that as she’d clearly been able to live a normal life up to now, there was really no need to panic or let this awful news devastate her.

  While he seemed a nice person–emotionally she just wasn’t able to handle having him around just then, or listening to his sweet but pointless attempts at trying to lift her spirits. Evidently sensing this, he stayed for only a little while longer before eventually leaving her and Erin alone.

  “Is it all right if I call back in a few days’ time, just to see how you are?” he asked, and Abby nodded numbly, willing to agree to anything if only to make him leave.

  “Just don’t get too upset if I don’t realise who you are,” she couldn’t resist saying, but could tell by his face that the words had stung. “I’m sorry,” she said then, “I just – ”

  “Hey, no need to apologise,” he interjected with a wave of his hand. “I completely understand. But maybe if you’re up to it, I think it might make things easier if I were able to go through everything that’s happened with you, maybe help you fill in some of the blanks, as it were.” He gave a tight smile. “I’m so sorry Abby, I really was in two minds about having to be the one to break this to you, because even though we don’t really know one another, I wouldn’t have hurt you for anything.”

  Abby nodded numbly, wanting to thank him but didn’t think that it was quite the right word given the circumstances.

  Now, sitting in Hannah’s purple armchair, her arms wrapped tightly around her body, she looked at the psychologist.

  “I can’t believe it,” she said croakily. “I can’t believe that this is really happening.”

  “It was always going to Abby, and I know you don’t want to hear it but this was what I was trying to tell you all along.”

  Hannah was right, she didn’t want to hear it and just then she wondered why she bothered coming here at all just to have the other woman tell her ‘I told you so’.

  “But there are also some major positives here. As this guy pointed out, you have lived a normal life up to now, better than normal really. OK, so now you know you can’t always rely on your memory for everything, but as it’s only episodic memories you’re losing it’s not the end of the world.”

  “Not the end of the world? Hannah, I have absolutely no recollection of ever meeting him before yesterday! And not only that but I do remember New York, everything about it except the part about meeting him!”

  Hannah allowed her to calm down before speaking again. “Remember, back at our first meeting when I explained the difference between episodic and semantic memories, and I asked you to tell me what you remembered about 9/11?”

  Abby nodded.

  “Well, let’s use that to try and make sense of what’s happening here. You remember being in New York with your family because you’ve all spoken about it and shared the experience many times since. But, what you actually remember is the semantic version of events, not the episodic ones. And through talking and reminiscing with your family about that time, you reinforced the experience too.”

  “You’re saying that my memories of New York aren’t real?”

  “Of course they’re real Abby, it’s just your recollection of them that’s the important thing. Tell me, can you cast your mind back now to Claire�
��s apartment and tell me what colour her front door is, or precisely how the dining table was decorated for Christmas dinner?”

  Abby attempted to do so, but to her dismay, she realised that no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t do it, she couldn’t actually put herself back in Claire’s apartment. She knew she’d been there of course, but at the same time she just couldn’t remember any of the specifics, other than the dinner, the Christmas presents and all the other things that the family did together. It was weird and very scary, but at least it gave her some idea of what Hannah was talking about.

  Then, before she knew it, she started to sob and for a while Hannah let her. She let her get it all out, all the disappointment, worry, and now fear of what the future held.

  “Abby, I know it’s hard, but try to take some positives out of this. OK so most of it has faded but at the same time you did in fact retain a lot of that visit to New York, which us tells that your memory can cope through continuity. And as I said, reinforcement is obviously hugely important too.”

  Abby sniffed. “I don’t know what that means.”

  “Well, by reinforcement, I mean that because your family remembered and made reference to the event, their own recollections of it reinforced your memory. Your memory of it is essentially anchored by theirs. Whereas you appear to have no recollection of wandering around by yourself, because this memory hasn’t been reinforced by anyone else–you were on your own for most of it. The only person that could have reinforced it was that guy you met–Finn is it? Yet by the time you bumped into him, the memory had since faded to nothing and was lost.” She paused slightly, trying to make things as simple as possible. “I suppose it’s a bit like studying for exams. We take in a huge amount of information just for the exam, but unless this information is reinforced, our recollection of it tends to fade over time. It’s not quite the same thing as what’s happening here, because in your case this process obviously occurs much faster, but it’s a reasonable comparison.”