All Is Not Forgotten

by Wendy Walker

  I know this sounds morbid. You must get over it. The process is no different from what I did with Sean. It’s no different from searching for your car keys.

  Jenny was scared but eager. Her parents were terrified. But on the day we got the first memory back, they could all see I was right.

  Chapter Sixteen

  This is how that day unfolded.

  Detective Parsons called me that morning. Cruz Demarco had finally been assigned a public defender and had his arraignment. Bail was set at fifty thousand dollars, and he was in the process of getting the money together with a bondsman. He had nothing to offer as collateral, and his mother was done with him. Two arrests in two years. She couldn’t find it in herself to get back on that horse. Very sensible. Of course, it would have been more sensible to consider this twenty years earlier, when she was shooting heroin in front of a seven-year-old.

  Forty-eight hours had passed since my drive back from Somers. My wife and I had met with Attorney Brandino. We gave him a five-thousand-dollar retainer, in exchange for which he agreed to speak with Jason and appear at any interview he might have with the police. He said he would instruct Jason on what to say and what not to say and stop him in the interview if he crossed any lines that could not be uncrossed. He was representing two other boys who had been at the party, and we had to sign a conflict waiver. One of them had already had the interview. They were looking for confirmation that Demarco was there that night, and nothing beyond that. I felt relieved. He was very reassuring.

  Something else had transpired in these two days. The kid who’d bought the drugs from Demarco just before he was arrested (his name was John Vincent, if you recall) had been brought in for an interview. Parsons had used the leverage from that day to get the kid to identify Demarco from the night of the rape. Once he had that ID, he went back at Demarco.

  Demarco has a story, and he didn’t mind telling it to a point. After the Vincent kid gave him up for the night of the party, he admitted to being there. Said he was “invited” by a senior he’d met at some club in New Haven. Said he came to “hang out.” Wouldn’t cop to selling drugs, but there was some indication he might be willing to give up some of Fairview’s self-entitled punks in exchange for a deal. I didn’t tell him yet that wasn’t what we were looking for. Didn’t tell him he was being looked at for a rape. And the idiot PD didn’t put those pieces together until it was too late.

  Parsons danced around the subject. Said he needed verification Demarco was really there so he could nail Vincent—made it seem like a favor that might be the start of some quid pro quo on Demarco’s charges. Asked him to describe the party, where he was parked, what he saw and heard. Told him they needed to make sure he wasn’t bullshitting about being there that night.

  He looks at his PD, who nods. Sure, go ahead and dig a deeper hole. What an idiot. I don’t care what it costs you—hire a decent lawyer. You didn’t hear that from me.

  Demarco described some of the kids he saw coming and going. His account included the couple who went into the Suburban to have sex—which was consistent with Teddy Duncan’s story. He also saw a teenage boy pass by his car and disappear into the woods.

  So he says this, and I’m like, What the fuck? Is this for real? My head is spinning now. Is he playing us? If he did the rape, there’s no way he cops to being there just to position himself for a deal on the drugs. No way. It made me start to think that he was just there selling dope, and that maybe this kid he saw did the rape. But then I thought, what if he wants us to think that? What if he’s making this whole thing up about seeing this kid go into the woods because he knows we have kids who will place him at the party, he knows about the rape—maybe did the rape—so why not get out in front of that? Maybe the PD is really some do-gooder from Yale who’s outsmarting us. Fuck.

  Demarco told Parsons that the boy had been wearing a blue hoodie with a red bird. He couldn’t remember what kind of bird or if there was writing as well. The boy had short hair, light brown, average height, average build—athletic looking. That described about 50 percent of the boys at Fairview High School.

  I don’t know what to make of this. I haven’t said anything to the Kramers, but you know what Tom will do when he does find out.

  “He’ll want to ask Jenny.”

  Yep. And so do I.

  I told Parsons that I could try to find a way to ask Jenny this without compromising our work. But, honestly, I did not see how I was going to do that. Since my work began with both Sean and Jenny, I had immersed myself in memory-recovery research, and there were new reports coming in every week. There was one that had caused alarm. A neuroscientist in New York reported being able to reconsolidate memories to make them false, simply by providing detailed facts that were interwoven with strands of reality. People were told they had been lost in the mall when they were little children—something that never happened. The mall was one that they knew well and the story included specifics, like how their mothers yelled at a clerk, what they’d been wearing, what they ate for lunch. The details had all been taken from true stories. It was just that last detail—that they had gotten lost—that was added. Their brains added that last detail into the real memories of going to the mall and, voilà—they had a whole new reconsolidated false memory that they could not discern from the truth. Some of them cried as they “remembered” their fear when they couldn’t find their mothers.

  It is one thing to reconsolidate memories in a way that lessens the emotional attachment. I see no harm—indeed, only good—in that. But changing the facts is altogether different.

  You can imagine the implications for my work.

  I saw Jenny later that day. We began our therapy as we always do, by talking about any new feelings she’d had, her state of mind, her general disposition. I always make sure she’s not slipping back into the darkness that made her suicidal. And I always make sure she’s not using any substances beyond the mild anxiety meds I’d prescribed. Lately, I had added to our session inquiries about Sean because their developing relationship was having a profound impact on her. And because it was beginning to concern her parents. We moved on from there with a significant pause and reconfirmation that she felt prepared to do the memory work. She always has, without fail and with visible enthusiasm. I could see her mood lifting as she pulled from her bag the prompts we have been using to go back to that horrible night.

  “Where do you want to start today?” I asked her.

  With that smell.

  How good is your memory? I know I’ve mentioned that one of the few things Jenny remembered was a strong odor. I obtained samples from a physical rehabilitation center, a variety of “scratch and sniff” patches that are used for patients with anosmia (loss of smell due to brain injury). They use them mostly to test—to see if there are any particular odors that are recognized by the patient. Any recognition prompts hope because if there is none within six months, the condition is considered permanent. It is a terrible condition, but that does not concern my work with Jenny. The patches were extremely useful to us.

  Jenny always held her clothing in her lap. They are not the actual torn and bloodstained articles from that night, but new ones her mother purchased—exact replicas. The short black skirt, the ballet slippers, the cropped sweater and underpants. All exactly the same. She rubbed some makeup on her face and lips, the same makeup she has always worn and wore that night. It has a fruity smell. We now know which songs were playing during the party and the entire hour of the rape. I won’t bore you with the list. It was what you would imagine. Demi Lovato, Nicki Minaj, One Direction, Maroon 5, et cetera, et cetera. With closed eyes and the room dark, we played the music and took her back to that night. I did the initial prompts until she knew them herself.

  I’m so happy when we walk in. I feel pretty. I feel excited. All I can think about is Doug Hastings. I walk with Violet through the kitchen. We’re looking for kids from our grade. People say hello to us. We get a drink. My eyes are scanning every doorway, loo
king for a glimpse of Doug. Violet pokes me. She tells me to stop being so obvious. I try to talk to a girl we know who’s already drunk. She sounds like an idiot.

  I placed the paper strip that smells like vodka under her nose. She inhaled and let the smell sift through her brain. The music was playing. We know what song it was. “I Knew You Were Trouble” by Taylor Swift. Jenny remembered this all very well. She explained to me that this song is about a boy who breaks a girl’s heart and how the girl is singing that she should have known better. This song was still playing when Jenny and Violet walked into the family room and she saw Doug there with another girl. They were definitely “together.” We discussed briefly the irony of the song.

  I felt dizzy. It wasn’t the drink, either, because I’d just had a couple of sips. I felt like the world had just exploded, my world. My entire world.

  Jenny and I have discussed this many times. I am an “old man” by her standards, but I can remember what it felt like to be rejected by a girl when I was fifteen. We all know that feeling, don’t we? Don’t you?

  Violet stares at me and then Doug and then back at me. She tries to make me laugh by saying she’s gonna go kick his ass. She says she heard he has a little dick anyway. She makes fun of his hair, how it’s sticky with gel. She calls him metro. None of it matters. I could not sit with the feelings I had, so I went to the kitchen and started chugging vodka.

  Jenny had begun to adopt “therapy speak.” It’s very common. We talk about “sitting” with our feelings. Being able to process them and redirect them with thoughts so they lose their power over our bodies. It is then that we are able to live our everyday lives.

  Jenny continued with the parts she remembered. They ended with her vomiting in the bathroom.

  Violet was holding my hair. I could hear people talking about me, laughing at me. Someone was pounding on the bathroom door. Violet yelled at them to go away. She told them to fuck off. This song was playing, and I hate this song.

  “Moves Like Jagger” was playing when they were in the bathroom. It was playing in my office as she was talking about the bathroom. It is here that we stopped to smell the strips. It was my suspicion that the strong odor she recalled was something in that room—the vomit, or bathroom cleaner, or one of those toilet disinfectant disks that turn the water blue. I had strips for the vomit (yes, they do have those) and for the cleaners. I have an actual blue disk—the same brand used by the family in that house on Juniper Road. None of them had a greater reaction than any other beyond what would be expected (the vomit strip making her cringe).

  But on this day, I had added one more. Bleach.

  I had not thought of it originally. I do not clean our bathroom. It was my wife who had this thought when I was confiding in her our failure with the memory of the odor. I went through the list of things we’d been working with. The family had given me a list to the best of their recollection. But remember, nine months had passed. My wife thought about it for a few seconds and then blurted it out—Bleach! The irony of this will soon be apparent.

  I went through our strips and the blue disk with Jenny. Then I introduced a bleach disk. Bleach smells the same (unless it’s scented) in all forms—liquid, powder, granules, pressed-powder disks. She looked startled and opened her eyes.

  “It’s something new. Just let it come in,” I said.

  She closed her eyes, then inhaled deeply. The reaction came in a matter of seconds, but I can recall the progression as if it were happening right now in slow motion.

  It started in her shoulders. They rose almost to touch her ears. It reminded me of a cat when it becomes afraid, how its back arches up and its hair stands on end. Her face then contorted, forehead collapsing into her eyebrows, lips pursing together, then her open eyes, wide with terror. She jumped from the chair. Her arms flailed, fists closed, swinging at my hand holding the bleach and then at me. She caught me in the face, sending my glasses to the ground. My cheek began to swell instantly. I would have a bruise for several days.

  But it is the scream that I remember most.

  She stood in the middle of my office, holding her stomach, buckled over in half. Her back rose and fell with the overpowering heaves of her breath as the cries of agony poured from her body.

  I have treated hundreds of patients and I have seen breakdowns of all kinds. Men have punched holes in my walls. Women have sobbed. Men have sobbed. Teenagers have yelled at me with obscenities that rival my patients in Somers. This was something beyond anything I had ever witnessed. And I knew Jenny was back in those woods.

  I did not hold her. That would not have been appropriate. But I did grab hold of her arms to steady her. She pushed me away; her arms were still swinging wildly.

  Stop it!

  She screamed at me over and over. She was looking at me but not at me. I kept trying to grab hold of her until she finally let me. I walked her to the sofa and helped her lie down in fetal position. I texted her mother that we were ending early and to please come back from her errands.

  “Jenny,” I said cautiously. “Where did you go? Can you tell me?”

  She held herself, still crying, but calmer. Her hand was on her back, rubbing the scar.

  “Close your eyes again. Take a deep breath. Let’s not lose this moment. What are you feeling? Can you tell me? Do you want to stop or keep going?”

  She took a breath. She closed her eyes. Tears were streaming, pooling on the leather beneath her skin. She was so strong. So incredibly determined. And when she spoke, the way she said the words, and the raw emotions that were escaping the confines of her body and filling the room—I felt not only that I understood her. I felt like I was her that night.

  I feel him. I feel his hand on my shoulder, pushing me to the ground. I feel another hand on my neck, like I’m an animal and he’s riding me. Oh God!

  “Okay, Jenny.” I could barely get the words out. “What else do you feel? What else do you see? Do you smell the bleach?”

  She shook her head. There’s nothing else! Where did it go! I want to see him. Who did this? Who did this to me?

  Rage seemed to have taken over her body. She got up from the sofa and looked around the room, frantically.

  “What do you need, Jenny? What is it?”

  Then she found it. The bleach disk. She picked it up and pressed it to her face. It made her gag—it’s too strong to be that close.

  “Jenny, stop! It can burn you, your nostrils and throat…”

  She breathed it in again and then dropped to her knees. I could see it on her face then. It was beautiful but also profoundly devastating. We had found it. She had found it. One small memory of that night.

  “What is it, Jenny? What are you remembering?”

  It hurts so much. I can feel him, he’s tearing me, pushing harder and harder. I can smell him. I smell it on him. He’s on me like I’m an animal. Oh God! I feel him! I can’t stop him! I can’t stop it from happening! I feel him inside me. I can’t hear him, but the way he is, I don’t know! The way he’s moving. I’m an animal and he’s just riding me and it’s making him … I don’t know!

  “You do know. What is it you know about him right now, at the moment he’s inside you?”

  Oh God! Oh God! I can’t say it!

  “Just say it. I already know, Jenny. So just say it.”

  I know he feels satisfied.

  I had no more words that day.

  Chapter Seventeen

  By the time Charlotte came for Jenny, we were both emotionally exhausted. I told Charlotte that it had been a productive but difficult session and that we would talk about it later. I suggested Jenny take a pill and get some sleep.

  Tom and Charlotte met with me the next day. In the eleven weeks I’d been treating the Kramer family, I had conducted just one session with both parents, and that had been to discuss Jenny’s treatment. Seeing them separately had proved immensely useful to their family, and to each of them individually, and I fully intended to stay this course. I have already told y
ou how I feel about couples therapy. However, I made an exception, given the extraordinary progress Jenny and I had made in recovering this memory of the rape.

  Tom’s primary concern was with the search for the rapist and how we could use this new information in the investigation. He also wanted to know why I had not asked Jenny about the blue sweatshirt with the red bird. Charlotte was more concerned with what this memory was doing to Jenny. After her breakthrough about her meeting with Bob and her acceptance of the guilt she was carrying for not seeing Jenny’s death march during the months after the rape, she was keeping her eye on that ball.

  I explained to Tom, to both of them, that I was not about to introduce the blue sweatshirt into the memory-recovery process with Jenny after what had happened. I had come to believe three things after her sudden recall of the moment the rapist penetrated her. First, was that the memories had not all been erased. Of the different scenarios for “forgetting” that I have explained, it was clear that Jenny’s “forgetting” had to do with the inability to recall the memories from that night. The treatment she was given, the combination of drugs, had caused the memories to be filed in a place that was disconnected from any emotion, and from the other memories of the party. Without having these trails of crumbs to lead her back, the memories of the rape were lost inside her brain. The missing car keys.

  The second thing I believed was the deduction that if the memory of this one moment had not been erased, none of them had. The events from that one hour were so close in terms of spatial proximity and emotional significance that there was no reason to believe that only some would have been spared the treatment. My own thoughts were spinning that day, thinking about what this meant for Jenny, but also for Sean. I wanted to tell them both to clear their schedules, to work with me day and night, until we found every last detail of what had happened to them. But I am a patient man, and I respect the process of therapy. Too much too soon could cause more harm than good. It’s like inputting data into a computer. I didn’t want the hard drive to crash.