All The Dead Girls

by Tim Kizer

  He’d done a great job figuring out his wife’s name, by the way.

  “No,” Frank said. “I don't recognize you, Josephine.”

  He peered into her big, deep-set brown eyes in order to take the last stab at spotting anything familiar in Josephine’s face. The attempt failed. He still could not remember her.

  Then whom did he remember? Did he remember anyone at all?

  “I'm Kelly's sister, Frank. We talked on the phone this Monday.” Josephine lifted his right hand and pressed it to her chin, as if she was going to kiss his fingers. Frank darted a quizzical glance at the doctor, waiting for his professional opinion that would explain everything. Raynolds was silent, knitting his brows, with his arms crossed on his chest.

  “I'm your wife's sister, Frank. Do you remember your wife?” Josephine said pleadingly. “Do you remember Kelly? I can’t believe you don’t remember Kelly.”

  She had a pleasant voice, Frank thought again. He was somewhat sorry that his words had distressed Josephine so badly, that she took them so close to heart, but he had only told the truth. He had forgotten her and her sister Kelly, who was evidently also his wife. He realized he was supposed to know Josephine since she was his sister-in-law and they had hung out on a regular basis, but he couldn’t just force his brain to remember her, it wasn’t how it worked.

  Why was it so important to Josephine that he remember her? And how about that list of people he did remember?

  Think, buddy, dig into that beautiful mind of yours. Answer this question: what is your son's name? Why don't you remember it? You forgot your son’s name. Don't laugh, you simply forgot everyone in your family. Damn, you had a really bad luck, Frank Fowler (it has to be your name because they call you that, right?).

  As Frank stared at Josephine’s face, it registered in his mind that she used very little make-up, which explained the absence of running mascara on her cheeks when she had teared up a few minutes earlier. Josephine had probably gotten Botox injections in her forehead as it was enviably smooth.

  Frank heard Josephine’s and Doctor Raynolds' voices, but didn't bother to listen to whatever they were telling each other. The mumble of their conversation enlivened the room and had a soothing effect on him. There were two living souls by his side, who were concerned about his condition. He was glad they were here for him.

  Accident. Blood. Death.

  A pang of fear wrung his heart.

  He didn’t remember Josephine. Hell, he’d even forgotten his own name. He’d forgotten his wife and son. Or daughter. He had wanted a son, but dreams do not always come true, do they?

  What date was it?

  Don't torment yourself, bud; just ask Josephine. Why torment, if you can simply ask?

  What year was it?

  Josephine loved him, cared about him. She had taken time out of her busy schedule to come here and check up on him.

  What year was it? Ha-ha, he must sound like a guy who had traveled in time. He should ask what year it was and thus complete the picture. Had he ever thought that one day he would ask himself this question?

  He felt all right, his legs and arms were intact, save for a few bruises here and there, and he still had all of his fingers. There were no major problems with his body. However, he might be jumping to conclusions; he’d been in a bad car crash after all.

  Frank closed his eyes. He had no desire to think about the car crash. Car crashes were associated with mutilation, broken bones, dismemberment, blood, and death. He didn’t need all this negativity; he craved happy thoughts. He’d forgotten a lot of things, but sooner or later all those memories would come back, wouldn’t they? He would recall his whole family in due course, but now he needed a little rest. He didn't remember what his bedroom looked like or what kind of chandelier hung in the living room, and it was okay. At least he remembered having a house. Yes, he definitely owned a house in a Buffalo suburb.

  His name was Frank Fowler. He’d been in a car crash. He had a son. Or a daughter. And he was married... A daughter. Yes, he had a daughter. He was fairly confident he had a daughter, not a son.

  “How long is it going to last?” Josephine asked the doctor. “Can you treat it?”

  A Buffalo suburb? Why was he so sure about it?

  Wife. Daughter. Why hadn’t they visited him yet? So rude of them.

  He commanded his brain to go into a stand-by mode so as not to be distracted by Josephine and Raynolds' conversation and his own thoughts that kept trickling into his mind. Frank fixed his vacant gaze on the white ceiling right above him. At the bottom of his frame of vision he could see the fluorescent lamp radiating soft light. A lulling wave of carefreeness suddenly overwhelmed Frank, who had gotten tired of feeling weary. The time had come to take a break from suffering and somber thoughts. Thank God, there was no physical pain in the mix; one fewer thing to worry about, you know.

  Frank Fowler... That was his name. Frank Fowler... Yes, yes, without a doubt, his name was Frank Fowler.

  Fowler... Frank Fowler.

  Mother. Do you have a mother, Frank Fowler? You must have a mother and a father; otherwise you wouldn’t have been born. What are their names?

  Names? Yes, they surely had names.

  They have names, buddy, which are stored somewhere in your head.

  The house had been ruined. Nothing could have escaped destruction in this fire, nothing. The flames were exceptionally hot, and even metal pipes got twisted in whimsical ways by the blaze. Something might have been preserved in the basement or in a fireproof safe. There could be jewels, important documents, or something else of value in that safe. Cash.

  His mother's name was... Mo... Mo... Something beginning with Mo.

  Father? Will? Walt! His father’s name was Walt!

  Monica? Was his Mom’s name Monica? No, he was wrong. Her name did not begin with Mo. But he was sure his Dad’s name was Walt.

  There, in the dusty smoke-filled basement, something had been saved from the fire. Old furniture—chairs, tables, sofas... Walt Fowler and... Arlene. His mother's name was Arlene.

  He closed his eyes and fell asleep before he knew it.

  5.

  He woke up a few days later. No, it must have been only a few minutes because the woman was still talking to the doctor and had the same clothes on. Josephine and Doctor Raynolds were still talking; he could hear their voices.

  And then his name emerged to the surface of his consciousness—just like a corpse of a drowned man floats up from the bottom of the lake—Frank Fowler. His name was Frank Fowler. The doctor had been correct calling him Mister Fowler.

  How about his wife? And his daughter?

  “Frank, Doctor Raynolds told me there’s nothing to worry about.” Josephine craned over him, her face tense with concern. “I’m so glad you’re going to be fine. We can’t wait to have you back, Frank.”

  Excited... She looked excited now. And cheerful. She seemed to sincerely love him. Sister-in-law. Kelly's sister.

  Kelly... Kelly... Kel-l-l-ly. Hi, Kelly! How are you?

  His daughter... Where was his daughter?

  “I remember,” said Frank. “My name is Frank Fowler.”

  “What?” There was a visible shift in Josephine's facial expression. “What did you say, Frank?”

  His hand was in its place. Thank God, his right hand was still in its natural place. Here it was, his remarkable right hand. How about fingers?

  He darted an anxious look at his hand. His fingers were still there, all five of them. One, two, three, four, five. Yes, all five of them.

  Do it, please! Do everything in your power, dear doctors! Fix this body. Don’t let this man perish.

  Car crash. It’s such a horrible thing. Something must be wrong with his body.

  “My daughter,” he said, trying to speak as loud as possible. “Where's my daughter?”

  “You remembered your daughter?” the woman said with enthusiasm. “Did you remember me? Please, try a little harder. I know it's difficult for you to
focus right now, but, please, try to remember me. Josephine. Josephine Buckhaus. Kelly's sister.” She smiled and gently rubbed his hand. “Kelly's sister, Frank. You’ve got to remember me.” She turned to Raynolds, expecting him to put his two cents in.

  “What’s my daughter's name?” asked Frank. “Tell me my daughter's name.”

  Josephine shifted her eyes from the doctor to Frank, and a smile appeared on her face again.

  “Kathy, Frank.” She squeezed his wrist. “Her name is Kathy. Do you remember her?”

  Frank nodded, and a second later—or maybe a minute?—he realized that he had done it without effort. That was great news: he was able to easily move his head, which meant his neck was fine.

  He had done a good job drawing conclusions on the basis of trivial details, by the way.

  “Yes, I remember I have a daughter. I seem to remember that. And her name is Kathy.” He fell into trance again.

  Kathy, Kathy, Kathy, Kathy, Kathy Kathy Kathy... Nothing. The name did not ring a bell at all. It just bounced through the chambers of his memory, producing the same results as the name of this woman, Josephine Buckhaus. Kathy Fowler. Kathy Fowler, his daughter. Kelly Fowler, his wife. Josephine Buckhaus.

  “Josephine?” he muttered, staring at the woman. “I don’t remember you, Josephine.”

  “Don't you really remember me, Frank?” the woman exchanged glances with Raynolds for the hundredth time. “I guess it’s not the end of the world. After all, he remembers Kelly.”

  “No,” Frank said and began waiting for the others' reaction. It was amazing: they paid attention to every word of his.

  “You don't remember Kelly,” muttered Josephine. “You don't remember your wife?”

  He shook his head. It immediately registered in his mind that he could move his head easily, without any pain. Or was it the painkillers doing their magic?

  He-he, buddy. It was a bad car crash, you're not going to get off scot free!

  “Maybe I'll remember her later,” he said. “You’re saying Kelly is my wife?”

  His neck. What had happened to it?

  “Yes, Frank. Kelly is your wife. How could you forget her?”

  He turned his head to the left until his nose touched the pillow, and a jolt of pain struck the bases of his neck. The pain subsided when he turned his head to the right in order to digest the latest bit information from Josephine. His neck was obviously not all right.

  “What happened to my head?” he asked. “When am I getting out of here?”

  “I think we’ll be able to release you in less than a week,” said Raynolds. “Apart from the memory loss, you are in a great shape, Frank.”

  “I—” Frank paused. “Am I paralyzed?”

  Raynolds smiled and said, “Please don’t scare yourself, Frank. I assure you that you are not paralyzed.”

  “You are going to be fine, Frank. Try to relax,” Josephine said. “Doctor Raynolds will take a good care of you.”

  “You’ll be back home just before you know it, Mister Fowler.”

  Chapter 4.

  JANE

  1.

  Female life expectancy in America is eighty one years; hence, when a woman is sixty one, she has on average twenty years ahead of her. To Jane Frey, twenty years was a heck of lot of time, and she liked thinking about it occasionally, especially while watching a travel show about some exotic country on the Discovery Channel. This cold November evening—seventeen and a half months before Frank crashed into a freeway wall—Jane was leisurely making a list of things she could do in the next ten years. She was sitting in an armchair with knitting needles in her hands, intermittently glancing at the window, behind which the backyard had been growing darker and darker. She noted with a tinge of melancholy that another day had passed. In about three hours it would be midnight, which would mark the beginning of a new day without George.

  She had twenty years at her disposal. Twenty years of living without George. It was quite a long period of time, no doubt about it. Hopefully, she would be dementia free at least until she hit seventy five.

  She was knitting a scarf for Kelly's daughter Kathy. It sounded so trite—knitting at sixty—that she almost laughed at herself. She wished she was able to laugh more often now, a month after George had died. Time heals all wounds, they say, right? She had been with George for thirty six years, so it must take her wounds quite a while to heal. After spending more than half of your half with someone, you get used to always having this person by your side, and when that person dies, you are perplexed about how it could have happened at all. He has always been there, for thirty six years, then all of a sudden he is gone and all that’s left is ashes in a brass urn.

  George Frey had passed away and would never be back. Never.

  In the past month, she had begun getting used to George’s absence. She had forced herself to do it because she couldn’t allow this depression to go on forever. George was dead and nothing could change this fact; that was the harsh reality, that was the new normal.

  “You have so much to do, Jane. People only start living after sixty,” her friends told her.

  And she wanted to believe them because it gave her strength to go on and keep her sanity. The day after George's death she had realized she had had to pull herself together, but she was not sure twenty years would be enough for the pain to go away.

  She hadn’t seen George’s face after he had died. Kelly hadn’t allowed her to look at his body, knowing that this sight—the sight of a man that had burned to death in his truck after crashing into the ditch—could have killed her then and there. They had been right. Jane’s heart would have exploded had she seen his mutilated corpse. Her lovely daughter had prevented her from being haunted by a dead George’s charred face in her dreams for the rest of her life. Jane was impressionable enough to let the monstrous face imprint itself into her memory as the master image of her husband that would have come up first every time she thought about him.

  Yes, Kelly had been very wise not to allow her to see George dead.

  Jane had twenty years ahead. She had already endured one month without George, and there were hundreds of months more to live through. Was she up to this challenge? Did life only begin at sixty? Or was it merely a white lie intended to make old folks feel better about themselves? How many people had the fortitude and imagination to start anew at sixty? Or was she weaker than most older women?

  Well, she had already started something—the scarf. She ought to finish it and then begin to look for another fun activity.

  Jane readjusted her glasses and resumed knitting. By her estimates, the scarf would be finished in two days. She hoped Kathy would love it.

  2.

  He was sitting in a Ford Focus, which he had rented last night, gazing at his watch with an air of deep thought. It was 7:08 pm. The car engine was off. In November, daylight was short and kept shrinking all the way to the winter solstice in late December. This time of day in November, you had to strain your eyes to discern the license plate number on a car just thirty feet away.

  He had decided to go to the old woman's place when it was dark enough so that a casual witness would not be able to describe in detail the person who had visited Jane Frey around eight o’clock in the evening. He hoped the prospective witnesses would even be unsure if it had been a man or a woman. To add more confusion, he had put on a fake moustache. He loved his moustached look: the resemblance to a younger Tom Selleck was striking.

  He was waiting for 7:30 pm. He chose this particular point in time because 7:30 was a round number, and he had a certain fondness for round numbers. It was a newly acquired compulsion—a quirk if you will—and he liked it. Of course, 8:00 pm would have been even better, but he didn’t feel like waiting that long.

  He heaved a weary sigh, moved his tongue, pushing the stuck food particles from between his teeth. He spat out a tiny piece of beef—a remnant of the cheeseburger he’d devoured two hours before.

  It was 7:11 pm.

&nbs
p; 3.

  Jane glanced at the wall clock. A quarter past seven. The clock was either a few minutes fast or a few minutes slow, she had forgotten which it was. One thing she knew for sure: you couldn’t trust its accuracy. She thought, with a hopeless sadness: the closer you got to seventy, the less the exact time mattered.

  Was it bad? Was it bad that she didn’t have to hurry anywhere? Was it pathetic not to care what time it was?

  When had she entered this carefree zone?

  It was not pathetic or sad; it was marvelous, and young people would be happy to have such a luxury.

  Jane rose and headed for the kitchen. She felt thirsty and was going to pour herself a glass of orange juice.

  How about getting married again? Men in their sixties do it all the time. It was just a wild thought a friend of hers had thrown out a few days ago. This idea seemed unacceptable to her at the moment, but who could predict how she would feel about it two, three, or five years from now? Never say never, right?

  In the kitchen, she opened the refrigerator and quickly found the bottle with juice.

  How old was Elizabeth Taylor when she married her last husband? Around sixty, wasn’t she? And what about those eighty-year-old women marrying ninety-year-old men Jane read about in newspapers almost on a monthly basis? It wasn’t an exotic thing anymore, you know, for an older woman to tie the knot again.

  4.

  His watch showed 7:25 pm. He braced himself and ordered his brain to focus on the old woman. He had already prepared a neat list of things he would do to her. Five minutes. He was planning to get out of the car in exactly five minutes. It would take him two minutes to walk to Jane’s house. He had the key to her front door, so he didn’t have to waste time picking the lock. If there were no surprises, he should be inside the house by 7:33 pm. Only God knew how long he would stay there, alone with Jane. It could be fifteen minutes, it could be half an hour; he would play it by ear.