Emily sighed, almost blurting out a laugh or maybe a spew of cusswords. She wasn't sure which. “I don't—” She rubbed her hands along her temples. “—remember them.”
“When you speak with your mother, get their information. I'll find them for you.”
The thought froze her. What if he succeeded? What if he delivered news that her friends had died? What if he tracked down those three people, they walked through her hospital room door and she didn't remember a thing about them? Did she really want to spend her final days in the mental chaos of a fight to remember or, if they were dead, trying to forget? “I'm going to find out either way,” she said under her breath.
“Pardon me?”
“Can you do me a favor?” Emily asked. “Call my mother for me.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes, tell her about me. Tell her everything.”
“If that's what you'd like.”
“I mean, I still plan to talk to her, but she might handle the shock better if it comes from a stranger.”
“You think my informing her of your condition is going to keep her calm?”
Emily smiled. “No. I just don't want to listen to her hysteria when she finds out. Consider yourself the whipping boy.”
Logner seemed to restrain the laugh. “Fair enough.”
“God, I really want to see her.”
“If you could walk out of this hospital right now and do anything, is that what you would choose?”
Emily glanced at the phone. “Yes.” She shrugged. “You said anything? In that case, I'd also choose to remember my friends. Visit them. How about not die? At least so my mom didn't have to go through the misery.”
“She obviously means a lot to you. Even the friends you can't remember seem to hold a place in your heart.”
“They mean everything,” Emily whispered. “I think it's my fault I don't remember them. When I'm upset, I have a bad habit of pushing people to the back of my mind. Mom makes me aware of this quite often. I know I didn't want to be on this trip. I guess I was mad at my friends for making me come. But I'm not mad anymore. Part of me feels missing not knowing who they are.”
For a moment Logner sat quietly and nodded. His eyes seemed lost in a deep thought. Then he stood. “I must apologize to you, Emily. I wasn't entirely honest about my reasons for being here.”
“What do you mean?”
“I'm a doctor. A psychologist for the Army, actually. I did come here to spend time with you in a personal manner, but I also needed to assess your mental state.”
“What? You came here to analyze me?” The blood flow burned under the skin of her cheeks. “Acting like you're trying to do me a favor? Telling me a sob story about your daughter?” Her arm shot out, and she pointed at the door. “Get out of my room.”
Logner reached inside his jacket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. “This is a release form.”
She slapped the paper out of his hand. “I'm not signing anything for you.”
He picked up the paper. “What if I—”
“Get out,” she screamed, and clenched her fist. “Get out. Get out. Get out.”
“—could give you longer to live?” The words boomed from his mouth.
“Get out. Get—” Emily's heart pounded inside her chest. “Is this your idea of a joke? You think that's funny?”
He placed the paper in Emily's lap. Then his posture straightened, face darkened. The gentle, likeable demeanor seemed to disappear behind an experienced military man who demanded respect and full attention. “No, this is not a joke. These civilian doctors aren't aware of everything available to treat your condition.”
“You're saying—you mean you can cure me?”
“Possibly.” He produced a pen from his jacket. “It's an experimental treatment. There are side-effects, some of which you won't like.”
“Such as?”
“Your internal organs can heal most of the damage without long-term effects, but the brain is not as repairable. You will have lapses in your memory, potentially worse than you already do, and I cannot estimate how much you might forget. That is the risk. But I can guarantee you ninety days of doing whatever you want, be it spending time with your family, maybe taking a vacation.” He glanced at the window blinds. “A real vacation.”
“So instead of a week or two, I'm going to die in three months?”
“No,” Logner said. “Your three months are a courtesy. After that, the treatment has a price.”
“We have some money saved. My college fund. We don't need it now. We can pay.”
“I doubt you'd come close to the monetary costs. But money is not the required manner of payment. You may wish to read the fine print.”
She studied the form. The first page detailed the consent for treatment, legal jargon about holding the Army harmless for any complications resulting from said treatment. Then she flipped over the page. “Trial? Experiment? What is this?”
“Your cost. But before you ask questions about this trial, I don't know specifics.”
“Will it kill me?”
“I have been made aware of such a risk.” Logner sat on the edge of the bed. “Look at it this way. You get your three months instead of a week or two. The Army might get the rest.”
“But I'm still going to die?”
“Emily, we all die. Whether you are old and frail, if it happens today, a week or even three months from now, it is unavoidable.”
She tapped the pen against the paper. “I should call my mom.”
“It may be a day or so before you can reach her, and your level of radiation exposure is already eating away at your body. This treatment has a small window of effectiveness.”
She hesitated.
“Everything I told you today was the truth. I don't want you to die alone. I also know I'm not the prime company for your last moments, and I think you know it, too. Sign the form, and I promise you this—I will make damn sure you are home with your mother by tomorrow night.”
Emily stared at Logner as she lifted the pen. She imagined her bedroom, the way the sun shined between the purple curtains in the morning. Her mother in the kitchen, making eggs and toast. Her house, which she always complained was too small. Would she remember any of it? But Emily would still be there. All those things would exist whether she recognized them or not. Those things made her feel safe. Secure. Happy.
It's worth the risk. She slid the pen across the signature line, trying to keep the tip from punching through to the sheets. Looking at the paper, she barely recognized her own name. Logner snatched the form off her lap and rushed out of the room, slamming shut the door.
Alone again, Emily imagined her mother's embrace. The tears of happiness, not misery. Three months to spend together. Anything to forget about the end. Still, her mind pounded with another thought.
Faust.
A man who also wanted the unattainable—a disruption in the natural course of events. The Devil granted those wishes, and in the end Faust lost his soul. Now Emily had made her own deal, but unlike Faust, she didn't know the payment.
At least I'll see my mom again.
At least…
Faust probably said the same.
Minutes later four soldiers pushed a gurney inside the room, and a blond-haired soldier switched her IV bag with another drug “This is Versed, so you might begin to feel light-headed.” The other soldiers helped her on the mattress, wheeled her to the hall, down the winding corridors, and into an elevator. By then, her eyes were growing heavy. The blond-haired soldier pressed the Roof button. As they went up, the muffled thumping of helicopter blades rattled the metal walls.
A flash radiated across her mind—bright, clear—a candle burning in the center of a dark room. She clutched the blond-haired soldier's arm. “I…I remember them…”
The world faded.
Emily woke at six on a Thursday morning and threw her hand over the digital alarm clock, drowning out the red haze. She looked around the room, took
in the lingering smell of hair conditioner and recognized the closeness of the walls. For the last three months, a brown teddy bear, which she had perched on the dresser top, watched her morning ritual with dime-sized eyes.
She touched her feet to the floor and went to the dresser, and as she fumbled through the drawers for a T-shirt, she stared at the bear's taunting smile. Her father, while in a hospital bed at Vanderbilt Medical Center, gave her the toy on her tenth birthday. The bear was now missing an ear, a single black thread held its nose, and half the stuffing had leaked out. Still, Emily could argue that the years were kinder to the bear than her family. Two days after she carried the present home, the doctors took her father off life support.
It was a memory she'd have rather forgotten but nonetheless a memory—complete from the day her father received the cancer diagnosis and ending when his coffin lowered into the earth. The sight of the bear each morning kept that memory whole, unlike the fragmented images: moving to this small house but not remembering the trip, the first day of school but recalling none of the teachers, attending junior prom but not knowing her date's name. She pulled a blue T-shirt from the top drawer and put it on. Then she swiped at the bear, knocking her no-longer-needed reminder to the floor.
Emily's mother sat at the dining room table, staring through the window, and she held a glass of ice water in one hand and an unfolded piece of paper in the other. As Emily stepped out of her room, the floorboards belted out a shrill creak. Her mother turned.
Someone—Emily remembered only that the voice was female—had once said how much she resembled her mother. Now half-moons of black flesh painted the cusps of her mother's eyes. Streaks of gray ran the length of her blond hair, more frizzed than her usual straightened style. Emily decided not to ask if she had slept.
“How are you feeling?” her mother asked.
Emily crumpled into the chair and exhaled. “My head hurts, my back hurts, my skin hurts.” She rubbed her scalp. “Even my hair hurts. How can hair possibly hurt?”
Her mother folded the letter, concealing the government letterhead. “Maybe you'll feel better once today is over.”
“I doubt it.” Emily leaned across the table and looked at the empty street. “When are they supposed to be here?”
“Nine. Do you want to go for a walk? You have time, and if they show up before you get back—” Her mother smiled. “—they can wait.”
Emily glanced at the bottom of the front door, at her tennis shoes, which she had worn the soles down to a paper-thin layer of rubber over the last three months. The walks were her escape from a house absent of meaningful reminders—a chance to recognize someone, remember the things her mother wouldn't tell her.
Their neighbor, Ralph Thomas, always waved when she stepped on the sidewalk. Thomas, who was in his fifties, lived alone, and he wore the same red suspenders every day as he slung garden hoses around the lawn, watering dirt that never seemed to grow a blade of grass. If Emily left her house to remember, she supposed Mr. Thomas left his house to forget. Michael Thomas, the man's only son, was one of the seventy-four Washington victims from their town. Emily assumed he knew about her trip, so to avoid the subject, she would simply tell Mr. Thomas how nice his lawn looked and go on her way.
Emily covered miles of cracked sidewalk, looking at the strange houses, trying to connect them to a lost memory, but the cookie-cutter designs swarmed in her thoughts. Even the For Sale signs, which decorated every other front yard, were identical. Jack McDonald, realtor extraordinaire, probably owned a swimming pool full of cash.
As she continued on her walk, the curious eyes of people who still held onto their homes peered at her from behind windows. Unfamiliar cars sped by, and unrecognizable names decorated mailboxes. A few miles later, she would arrive at the turnaround point of her walks. The particular house always marked that point. Something about it compelled her mind, beckoned her to take a closer look.
Grass had grown above the top of the chain link fence, dangling over the sidewalk. Dirt stains blotted the white vinyl in patches of brown and red. Still, a mental image passed before her eyes—freshly cut grass, glossy windows and a pure-white exterior—but when she walked around the side, she found the same neglectful overgrowth in the backyard. Throughout her trespass, the interior lights never sparked to life. Movement never flickered from inside the windows. Someone had apparently abandoned the house and not placed it in the clutches of Jack McDonald. But it seemed like such a nice place. Cozy even. After her visit, she would head straight home, her memories still as fragmented as the day before.
Emily looked at her mother and curled her sore toes under her feet. “I think I'll stay inside. I doubt one more walk will do any good.”
Her mother smiled.
Emily patted the folded letter. “But since it's my last day here, can you finally tell me about the rundown house? I swear someone I knew lived there.”
“Honey, we repeat this conversation after every time you visit that house.”
They had. The military sent along a brochure of guidelines for her mental well-being and safety. Parents and Guardians rule number one sucked the most. Do not volunteer any lost information. The military reasoned that the stress of not remembering something was healthier for the mind than being told and still not remembering. “Yeah, but—”
“I've cried myself to sleep because my little girl is suffering with a broken mind, but those doctors gave me specific instructions. Yes, I agree with you. Those rules might seem unbelievable but so does the sight of my child alive and sitting here in front of me after a doctor said she would die in a week. This entire time, I've never lied to you. Everything you asked, I either told you I didn't know or I said I couldn't talk about it.”
Emily sighed. “I just want to fill in some of these blanks. After I woke up the other morning, I spent an hour wondering if Dad liked the lawn mower you bought him. That was twelve years ago. Twelve years, Mom. I keep a damn teddy bear on my dresser to remind me he is dead, but I still expect him to come home each night. And I haven't had a single visitor in three months. No one has called for me. Was I a social outcast or something? Where are my friends? Did I even have any?”
“You did. They loved you very much.”
“Loved, as in past tense? Are they dead? Did they die in the attack?”
Her mother gazed through the window, not answering.
“You can tell me that, can't you?”
Her mother's lips creased into a slight smile. It was a hint Emily doubted she could forget even if she underwent a dozen more treatments. The conversation was over. No ifs, ands or buts unless Emily wanted to find herself sentenced to her room for the day. Wait, she thought. I'm not fourteen. She can't ground me.
Then her mother chuckled as she looked outside. On the other side of the street, a recreational vehicle, off-white with Holstein spots of brown rust, idled in front of the neighborhood park, beneath the outstretched branches of a large oak tree. “We haven't had guests at the park in awhile,” her mother said.
Emily huffed. Way to change the subject. Still, she also stared; her mother was right. Before Washington, families traveled from miles around to visit the humble patch of grass and picnic tables. Now the foot-high overgrowth buried any semblance of a place where children once laughed and played, where her father had pushed her in the swings every Sunday after church.
Her mother tapped the window. “Look, look.” Her voice sounded less beaten.
Near the back of the RV, a little girl, about six years old, hopped barefoot in the knee-high grass. Her blond hair glowed golden in the dawn sunlight, fanning out in all directions, and her white T-shirt collar stretched halfway down her chest. A moment later she stopped bouncing, rubbed her eyes and smiled at the woman who stepped out of the RV.
Emily's mother trembled, rattling the ice cubes around the glass. Outside, the woman lifted the girl as they both laughed. After she set down the child, they bounced a red ball to each other.
Emily's mothe
r banged the glass on the table. “Why did this happen to us? Why do they get to enjoy today?”
Emily stared at the floor, searching for the right thing to say. Her mother watched the street often, as if she waited for someone. Maybe she expected Emily's father to walk through the park. Perhaps she saw squealing children and laughing parents, and imagined herself as one of them—complete.
Her mother banged the glass again.
“Mom?” Emily leaned back as her mother raised the glass. When the bottom of her hand came down, a shrill pop reverberated inside the dining room. Glass shards shot outward, sprinkling across the table and falling to the floor. Emily leapt forward and grabbed her mother's wrist. “You're bleeding.” She squeezed her fingers under her mother's grip. “Open your hand, Mom. Let go.”
Then her mother's eyes seemed to sink into her face. Her jaw quivered as if she wanted to speak. Now Emily's eyes watered from the pungent smell—burnt diesel fuel. An ancient, green military transport, something she thought only existed in history books, idled in front of the house.
“They're early,” her mother said. Her voice was low, almost inaudible.
“And they can wait.” Emily dug her fingers into her mother's closed fist and pried open the death grip. Blood-laced shards clinked on the floor. “The kitchen,” Emily said. She tugged at her mother's wrist, but she didn't budge. “You need a bandage. The hell with them.” Emily pulled harder, and this time her mother's feet inched forward, appearing to surrender to an instinct that wanted to maintain balance. In the kitchen, Emily flipped the faucet handle upward and guided her mother's hand under the spray. A threadlike string of blood slithered out of the gash.
Then the first booming knock came. Sprinkles of ceiling tile snowed on the carpet. The windows rattled.
Her mother's pinkish hue faded. “They're going to steal you away.”
Emily's knees wobbled, knocking into each other. Stay focused. She grabbed a clean dishcloth, placed it in her mother's palm and squeezed shut her hand.
The knock came again. Emily gently released her mother and walked to the door.
Walking Ghost Phase Page 3
