Have You Seen Me?

by Kate White

  There must be plenty of days, though, when it isn’t hush-hush, when patients are shouting, demanding to be let out.

  Just thinking about it makes my breathing shallow. I inhale for four seconds, hold it for four, exhale for four and then do it all over again. Somehow the person I am knows how to take deep relaxing breaths, but doesn’t have a clue who she is.

  I’m exhaling again when a woman enters, smiling kindly and carrying a clipboard. She’s fiftysomething, I guess, with a youngish vibe. Her shoulder-length gray hair is flipped a little on the ends, and she’s wearing knee-high brown suede boots beneath her wrap dress.

  “Ally, good morning,” she says. “I’m Evelyn Capron, one of the clinicians here. How are you feeling now?”

  The answer: Scared shitless. Worried sick. Frantic about being married to someone I can’t even picture.

  “Concerned, of course,” I say, as evenly as I can master. “I’m not sure why I’ve lost my memory.”

  Evelyn nods, her expression sympathetic. “Dr. Agarwal is going to be in to speak to you very shortly. In the meantime, I need to ask a few questions, just as background.”

  “Okay.” But how can I possibly answer? For me, there is no background. Only today.

  “Ally, are you feeling any inclination to harm yourself?”

  Her question jolts me. I know it must be a routine question in the psych ward, but I can’t possibly fit the profile of a suicidal patient. Can I?

  “No.”

  “Do you feel any desire to harm someone else?”

  This question seems even more far-fetched than the first. I’m not even aware of who the people in my life are, let alone who I’d want to harm.

  “No, no one.”

  She has me fill out admission papers and then says she’s going to give me two printed screening tests. They’re attached to the clipboard, which she hands me. I rest it on my lap, on top of the bedsheet, and scan through questions and multiple-choice answers like, “I was very worried or scared about a lot of things in my life . . . never; a few times; sometimes; often; constantly.”

  “But how do I answer these?”

  “What do you mean, Ally?”

  “I only know what my life is like this morning. I don’t know anything from before now.”

  “Of course, then, just with regard to this morning.”

  I lower my gaze to the paper and for a moment my attention drifts to the sheet covering my legs. An image blooms in my mind. I’m sitting on a big white sofa with a laptop resting on my thighs. It’s a sofa in my apartment, I feel sure.

  “I’m a writer,” I announce to Evelyn, my eyes pricking with tears. “I work out of my apartment sometimes.”

  “That’s good, Ally,” she says.

  A split second later, another image trips over the first. I’m standing at a window on a high floor, coffee mug in hand, staring at Manhattan stretched out before me. It’s a stunning view, lots of sky and silvery buildings, and I’m smiling. I turn to say something to someone sitting behind me. A man.

  “I live by Lincoln Center,” I blurt out this time. “In—in the West Sixties.”

  “Very good. Anything else?”

  My brain is trying to claw its way out from a landslide.

  “No, nothing else,” I say, feeling desperate again.

  “Try to relax. Let things come on their own.”

  And then, as if by magic, more images appear, slowly at first and then in rapid succession, flooding my mind. With my words tumbling over one another, I share each new detail with Evelyn. She scribbles them down quickly—is she fearful they might vanish again? Soon, it’s no longer a collection of fragments but something that seems whole, like a tapestry. Me.

  I’m a personal finance journalist, I tell her. I write a monthly column, give talks, host a weekly podcast. I’m working on a book called . . . it’s tentatively called 25 Money Rules You Should Always Ignore. I spend part of the week in a communal work space, though I used to hold a key position at Greenbacks, the company I showed up at this morning. I grew up in Millerstown, New Jersey. My mother’s dead but my father, a retired pediatrician, is still alive. I have two half brothers, Quinn and Roger.

  And I’m married to Hugh. Hugh Buckley. Loving husband, lawyer, runner, Civil War history buff, Monopoly champion, Boston born and raised, and Ivy League graduate—though there’s nothing entitled-seeming about him. Our wedding was three years ago, and we spent our honeymoon in the Seychelles.

  My god, Hugh. Where is he?

  “Do you know if they’ve made contact with my husband yet?” I say to Evelyn.

  “I know they’ve been trying, but let me check again now.”

  As soon as she departs, the tears that have been welling in my eyes spill over, wetting the paper scrubs. I have my life back.

  Evelyn returns five minutes later. “We’ve reached your husband’s office,” she reports, “but he’s been out on business most of the morning, and they haven’t been able to get through to him yet.”

  I squint, trying to remember what Hugh said about what he had planned for today. But I’m drawing a blank. In fact, I still don’t remember anything about the hours before showing up at Greenbacks—getting dressed, or saying good-bye to Hugh, or traveling downtown. And I still don’t have any clue why I went there.

  What I need to do, I suddenly realize, is to split and sort this out with my own doctor and therapist, people I’m familiar with. Maybe I should even have further tests.

  “Since you can’t reach my husband, it seems like the best idea is for me to head home on my own now,” I volunteer. “I don’t have keys, but our concierge can let me into the apartment.”

  Evelyn’s eyes widen slightly.

  “I know you’re eager to be home, Ally, but it’s essential for you to have someone accompany you. And it’s also important that you be examined by Dr. Agarwal. Let me see how long it will be before he can speak to you.”

  So that’s the bottom line: there’s no way they’re giving me back my clothes and letting me out of here unless I’m accompanied.

  “Okay,” I say pleasantly, realizing it’s in my best interest to act compliant.

  Evelyn smiles and promises to be back soon, but it’s Dr. Agarwal who shows up instead. He’s carrying a clipboard of his own, thick with pages. He’s in his mid- to late forties and has wavy black hair and deep brown eyes.

  “Ben Agarwal,” he says, shaking my hand. “So sorry for the delay, Ms. Linden. I’m sure this has been a harrowing day for you.”

  “Ally, please. And yes, it was scary earlier, but fortunately I’m much better now.”

  “Has anything like this ever happened to you before?”

  “No, never. Not even close.”

  “Ms. Capron said that things have been coming back to you. What have you begun to remember?”

  “Pretty much everything.”

  “I’m glad to hear that. Can you tell me your mother’s maiden name?”

  “Hemmings.”

  “And can you tell me what year it is and who the US president is?”

  I rattle off the answers and throw in a few extra newsy facts as backup.

  He smiles and thumbs through a couple of pages on the clipboard.

  “You said pretty much everything came back. What’s still missing?”

  “Just what happened very early this morning, really. I don’t recall getting up or leaving my apartment—or why I ended up at an office I haven’t worked at in five years.”

  “Where would you ordinarily go first thing in the morning?”

  “Generally to WorkSpace on West Fifty-Fifth Street. It’s a coworking setup where I have a small office. But lately I’ve been working at home a lot. I’m under deadline for a book I’m writing, and it’s quieter there.”

  “What about last night? What do you recall about the evening?”

  I look off, trying to summon the details.

  “That part’s a little fuzzy actually,” I admit. “I know my husband and I ha
d dinner at home. I’m sure he’ll be able to fill in the gaps when he arrives—though they seem to be having trouble finding him.”

  “I have good news on that front. His office was able to reach him at his appointment a few minutes ago, and he’s headed here now from Connecticut.”

  My sense of relief is diluted by frustration. Hugh must be at least an hour away, and so it’s up to me to take as much control of the situation as possible.

  “I know I don’t have any obvious signs of a head injury,” I say. “But it seems that something along those lines must have happened to me. It was raining this morning—maybe I slipped and fell on the street.”

  Agarwal purses his lips briefly, and I can tell he’s not buying it.

  “A severe concussion can cause amnesia, but it usually involves forgetting events just prior to the injury—anywhere from a few minutes beforehand to a few days. In your case, you were missing big chunks of your identity. It seems what you actually experienced was what we call a dissociative state.”

  “Dissociative?” I say, feeling myself frown in confusion. “What does that mean exactly?”

  “In layman’s terms, it’s an involuntary escape from reality. It’s generally characterized by a disconnection between thoughts, identity, and memory—meaning you have difficulty recalling important information about who you are and events in your life.”

  He’s reeled this off calmly enough, like he’s telling me I’ve slipped a disc or popped a blood vessel, but his words make my breath catch. How could something like this have happened to me?

  “But that makes no sense,” I tell him. “I’ve never felt disconnected from my thoughts in any way.” Before I can chicken out, I ask him the terrifying question that’s been at the front of my mind. “Could—could it happen again?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. A person can experience multiple episodes throughout his or her life. That’s why it’s key to determine the trigger.”

  “Can something physical trigger it?” Please, I think, don’t let me have a brain tumor.

  “Generally, not. The symptoms usually first develop as a response to trauma. It might be physical abuse or sexual abuse, or in certain cases, a military combat injury. It’s the brain’s way of keeping painful memories under control.”

  My heart skips. I’ve never been abused or been to war, thankfully, so does that mean something traumatic has happened to me recently? Today, even?

  “There’s nothing like that in my life. What—what if I were mugged on my way to work this morning?” I say, as the thought suddenly pops into my mind. “And—that would explain my purse being missing.”

  “Do you think having your purse snatched would have been highly traumatic for you?”

  “Well,” I respond, managing a smile. “I’m constantly advising people to be smart with their money and not let go of it stupidly—so that probably would have upset me.”

  This provokes a chuckle, but his expression quickly turns serious again.

  “Tell me again about last night,” he says. “Even if it’s a little fuzzy.”

  “Uh, like I said, we ate at home. We’d ordered in. And we watched something on TV. A pretty typical weeknight evening these days.”

  “What about earlier in the day? Do you recall anything upsetting or stressful? Something related to your job—or personal life?”

  “I’ve been a little stressed about finishing the book I mentioned, but not anything I haven’t experienced before.”

  Agarwal says nothing in response but instead studies me quietly, his kind eyes glistening. I can tell he’s waiting for me to elaborate. And then I realize he’s probably wondering if the trauma has to do with my husband, that he might be physically or emotionally abusive. But Hugh’s a great guy—and he’s never been abusive in any way.

  “There is one thing that’s been on my mind,” I say. There’s no harm in mentioning it, I decide. “When my husband and I got engaged, we were on the same page about wanting kids one day, but lately I’ve . . . I’ve had second thoughts. I’m not totally sure anymore, and it’s been, well . . . it’s been a source of a little friction. But we’re hardly at any kind of crisis point.”

  And we’re not.

  “Where do things stand at the moment?” Agarwal asks.

  “We agreed a few weeks ago to table the discussion for a while. With the pressure off, I feel it’ll be easier for me to make a rational decision. And I’ve started seeing a therapist, someone to talk it over with.

  “So it’s stressful but hardly traumatic,” I add, shrugging. “It hardly seems like something that could make me disconnect from my identity.”

  Agarwal nods, as if weighing my comment.

  “The traumatic event doesn’t have to have happened recently,” he says. “It could be an episode from your past that’s rising to the surface again for some reason.”

  I look off again, thinking. Suddenly my lips part as my brain pries something away, like I’m opening an orange or tangerine and the thin white membrane is tearing apart. No, this can’t really be what it’s all about, can it?

  I glance back at Agarwal, and the alertness in his eyes intensifies. He knows he’s touched a nerve.

  “Is there something that’s been troubling you lately, Ally?” he continues. “Something from your past?”

  “Nothing I can think of,” I lie. “At least not off the top of my head.”

  5

  Agarwal’s expression gives nothing away this time, but I can sense anticipation morphing quickly into resignation below the surface. Though he seems caring and competent, this isn’t something I intend to discuss with him.

  He studies me for another minute before speaking. “The therapist you’re seeing. How many sessions have you had so far?”

  “Uh, I’ve seen her five or six times.”

  “Do you know if your therapist does cognitive behavioral therapy? That’s what is most often recommended in these cases.”

  “Um, yes, I remember seeing that in her bio.”

  “If I have your permission, I’d like to speak with her in the next day or so and review what’s happened.”

  “Sure.” That seemed to make sense. “Her name is Elaine Erling. I don’t have her number with me, obviously, but my husband can provide it or you can find it online. She’s got an office in the city and also one in Westchester County—in Larchmont.”

  “When is your next appointment?”

  “Wednesday. But I’ll try to get in to see her before then. Tomorrow if possible.”

  Hopefully Erling can squeeze me in, and with luck she’ll be working out of her Manhattan office. I’ve been to the Larchmont office just once—when I had a scheduling conflict—and a trip there is not something I could pull off under these circumstances.

  “Yes, it’s important to see her as soon as possible. Now, why don’t you try to rest a little before your husband arrives.”

  After he departs, I realize how bone-achingly tired I am, something I’ve been too wired and vigilant to notice until now. I finally allow myself to sink fully into the bed. Hugh is coming and he’ll take me home. I don’t have to fret anymore. Within seconds I’m drifting off to sleep.

  When my eyes finally flutter open, I discover Evelyn standing along the side of my bed. Her fingers rest on my arm and she’s gently stirring me awake.

  “Look who I’ve brought,” she says.

  Hugh steps from behind her, his face pinched with worry.

  “Hey, sweetheart,” he says.

  I project myself forward and we embrace, hugging tightly. His silky tie, the soft, rich cotton of his shirt, the feel of his fingers softly raking my hair—it all seems so real. My body pulses with relief. This whole horrible day—maybe it’s nothing more than a momentary blip in my life.

  “I’m so glad you’re finally here,” I tell him.

  “I’m sorry it took forever. Traffic from Connecticut was a mess, and there was one annoying delay after another.”

  I glance at Evelyn. “I hop
e this means I can be released now.”

  “Why don’t we have Dr. Agarwal weigh in on the timing?” she says. “He’ll be back shortly, I’m sure.”

  “Oh god, Hugh. I’m so embarrassed about this,” I say as soon as she steps out of the room.

  “Don’t be silly. But can you fill me in? They wouldn’t tell me anything on the phone, only that you were being held in the ER for observation. I’ve been going out of my mind.”

  You and me both, I almost say, but he’s probably not in the right mood for gallows humor. I explain about showing up at Greenbacks this morning, purseless and phoneless, passing out, remembering nothing, and then, almost all at once, everything flooding back. Despite how calmly he appears to take it, I can read the concern in his light brown eyes.

  “Why Greenbacks?” he asks when I’m finished. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that’s his first question. He knows about my years there. And he knows, too, about my prior relationship with Damien.

  “I have no idea. Maybe I was so disoriented, I lost track of where I actually work now.”

  “Could you have had a concussion?”

  “They don’t think so, but—”

  I’m spared from recounting my psychiatric assessment by the return of Dr. Agarwal, who offers Hugh a recap of what he shared with me earlier. I have to hand it to my husband: as freaked out as he must be listening to Agarwal, especially when he brings up the fact that reoccurrences are common, Hugh appears to take it all in with perfect equanimity.

  “How can I be of help to my wife?” he asks when Agarwal finishes.

  “Just be as supportive as possible. Ally should do her absolute best to avoid stress. It’s possible her memory from this morning will return in time.”

  Hugh is quiet for a moment. “Understood,” he says finally.

  We soon discover that the only obstacle blocking my departure now is paperwork, and because several staffers don’t seem to know where the release forms are at the moment, it feels like I might never be discharged. Hugh springs into action, not in an aggressive, alpha-male way, but in that subtle lawyer style of his, sorting through the confusion, finding a person to take charge, and flashing me a conspiratorial grin when the designated hero finally appears, papers in hand.