She's Not Here

by Mandi Lynn

  “Why?”

  “Can I have Pup?” Her eyes had lingered down to his hand and she was gone. Whatever focus had been holding her to the conversation was gone.

  — — — — —

  “Paul, he’s supposed to be one of the best neurologists in the region. There’s nowhere else to go that could be better.” Shelly’s voice was soft when she spoke.

  “Best in the region, that’s bullshit and you know it,” Paul said, pacing in front of Sam’s bed.

  That was the first thing Dr. Ash heard as walked into Sam’s room. When he saw her, she was staring off into space again. She had the small stuffed dog in her hand and even though her grandparents were visiting her, she didn’t take notice.

  “Good evening,” he said. Paul and Shelly turned, and they weren’t happy. Shelly had the face of someone at a funeral—a look she seemed to be sporting ever since he met her—and Paul was seething. They’d seen Sam like this for a few days now, but each day they came in they asked more and more questions that Dr. Ash couldn’t answer.

  He knew what Paul was going to say before he opened his mouth.

  “What the hell is the matter with her?”

  Dr. Ash only knew what he was going to say because it was what he said to himself every time he looked at Sam’s charts.

  “Paul, Shelly, would you both please sit down?” He motioned for them each to take one of the plastic chairs that was in the corner of the room.

  “Unfortunately, it appears Sam has been deteriorating more. She seems more impaired, but the exact cause is uncertain. All tests we’ve run come back normal. The MRI scans are that of a perfectly healthy sixteen-year-old girl. However, when I do cognitive tests, she continues to decline.”

  “So what does that mean?” Paul said. He sat in his chair, but just barely. He was one move away from storming out of the room.

  Shelly reached out to grip his hand. He took it, though it did little to sooth him.

  “It means, we still aren’t sure what’s wrong.”

  Paul rolled his eyes and sat back in his chair. Shelly looked over to Sam who was still in the room but completely oblivious to the conversation they were having.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me. So what do we do? Wait again until she turns into a vegetable?” Paul said, pointing to his granddaughter.

  “Paul.” Shelly’s voice cut through and she gave him a pointed look.

  “I think it might be time to start considering other avenues. I’d like to see Sam get a psychological evaluation.”

  Paul balked at his words. “Seriously? So you think she’s crazy?”

  Shelly cowered away at his voice. Sam was the only calm one in the room.

  “I think that because nothing is showing up physically, that the only answer is that this might be psychological. Up until the fire, she’d never had problems, right?” Dr. Ash asked.

  “Right,” Shelly said. Paul looked at her quickly before turning to Dr. Ash again.

  “So, what, you think the seizure was all psychological too?” Paul said.

  “No, that could have been something completely different. But this,” he pointed to Sam, “might be her way of protecting herself from the trauma of the fire.”

  “This is bullshit.” Paul got up and took Shelly by the hand. She followed but the movements were slow and tentative. “I want my granddaughter out of this hospital.”

  “Sir,” Dr. Ash raised his voice and the room was silenced. Paul turned around but the anger was still radiating off his shoulders. “I don’t recommend moving her out of this hospital unless absolutely necessary. Any other hospital, or doctor for that matter, will treat Sam as a new patient. They won’t have the same history of her as I do. From what I’ve seen, Sam’s situation is becoming critical and at a rate we can’t predict. The amount of time it will take a new doctor to observe Sam and learn everything they can about her isn’t something she can afford. I’m searching for answers to the best of my ability.”

  Shelly looked at Dr. Ash, her eyes apologetic. Paul stood his ground as his eyebrows furrowed into a line.

  “Don’t you dare tell me what’s best for my grand-daughter.”

  Chapter 20

  Willow was asleep on the small couch in the corner of Randy’s office. Her hair was pulled back into a braid, but small strands stuck to the skin around her face. Her eyes were closed, relaxed.

  “Willow?” Randy whispered, closing the door behind him as he walked in. Her lips twitched as she rolled onto her back. The small notebook that had been in her hands dropped to the floor.

  The cover of the notebook fell to the side and exposed the pages. “Venom Trials” was printed in neat script.

  When he started reading the notebook, he thought Willow had just made notes on the article that she had read on the experiment. A formula was written out, the exact measurements and how to mix the compounds covered the pages. His stomach dropped when he flipped past the chemical formulas and found notes referring to an unnamed patient.

  Took solution well, didn’t wake up.

  Showed signs of memory loss.

  MRI scan shows significant deterioration.

  Has begun to carry around a stuffed animal. Named him Pup.He almost dropped the notebook when he read the words. It wasn’t until that point that he flipped through the pages faster, looking for some sort of sign that what he was thinking wasn’t true. His thoughts were proven correct when he found her chart in the back of the notebook that Willow had been using to document vitals. It was eerily similar to the chart on Sam’s records.

  He slipped past the chart to another page. Another chemical formula was written across the pages, this one different than the last. The first one was perfected and written only as instructions on how to proceed. It was obvious by this second one that it was a work in progress. Formulas and measurements were written and crossed off over and over, no combination ever the same.

  “Willow?” he said. He flipped through the pages, never once did she name her patient, but her name screamed loud in his head as if it were carved into the pages.

  She was still asleep. He looked at the woman he loved and thought of how every night the two of them would crawl into bed and count down the hours until they had to go back to work. Willow had finally stopped asking Randy about his research on Alzheimer’s. He thought that had meant she had moved on, but the notebook was proof that she had merely moved her focus elsewhere.

  “Willow,” he said again, this time louder. “Wake up.”

  She rolled back on her side.

  “Wake up!” he said. His hand lowered. He still held the notebook in his hand, but he couldn’t get himself to look at it anymore.

  Willow stretched out before she opened her eyes. Her first thought when she woke up was that Randy was waking her up to get back to work after her lunch break, but then she saw Randy’s face. His lips were drawn down and his eyes looked lifeless, like someone had shot him in the chest—or better yet, that he had just witnessed someone else shoot her in the chest. There was no anger as he stood over her, only heartbreak. He looked at her hoping she would be able to explain everything to him and that it would all just be a big mistake, but the feeling in his gut told him otherwise. The deepest part of him knew that each word in the notebook was exactly what it appeared to be.

  “What’s wrong?” she said, rolling up from the couch. Her eyes rolled down to the notebook in Randy’s hand, and her stomach dropped.

  “What is this?” He held the notebook out in his hands. The cover was worn from all the days Willow had carried it around in her pockets. There was so much research pouring into those pages, so much information that was never meant to be seen by anyone except Willow.

  “Tell me what’s written in this notebook,” he said, his voice quiet. He wanted to be angry. He wanted to scream at Willow until she saw sense, but he couldn’t help the tears that began to flow down his cheeks.

  “It was an accident,” Willow said. “I didn’t mean for Sam to get sick.�
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  “You put an unknown substance into her body with a syringe,” he said, still holding the notebook out. “And then she woke up the next day and you continued to observe her like a lab experiment. And you did that every day.”

  Willow looked at her husband. As he spoke, he began to wilt. The notebook dropped to the floor. She wanted him to scream at her, hit her, do something that was less painful than watching him fall to pieces.

  “For weeks,” he said, his voice turned to a whisper. “For weeks, I’ve been trying to understand this girl, to help her so she can go back to her family, and for all this time you’ve been working against me and letting her sink deeper and deeper into your game.”

  “It’s not a game,” Willow said.

  “Of course, it’s a game!” he said. “It’s always been a game with you, and the prize is the cure. But did you ever think of this girl’s life? She never chose this for herself. You did, all because you needed to find a cure.”

  Randy threw the notebook across the room, knocking a certificate off the wall. Willow didn’t weep at his anger, she absorbed it.

  “At least I’m trying,” Willow said, her face reddening. “I’ve always been trying. I want to find a cure. Is that so wrong?” Her hands shook and through the anger she couldn’t help but want to cross the room and take her notebook back before Randy could do anything else with it.

  “Of course, I want to find a cure, but we have to do it correctly. You don’t even know if injecting the mock disease will help aid in a cure.”

  “We won’t know until we try, “she said. Willow’s breathing shuttered and she took a moment to compose herself. Her body wanted to be elsewhere. She craved to have the notebook back in her hands.

  “Where are Sam’s real MRI scans?” Randy said. His voice was calm, but his body stood stiff.

  “In the safe,” she said. Her voice was quiet as she held her head down, only glancing up to spot the notebook still laying across the floor. The pages were splayed open and she wanted to close then contents tight.

  Randy crossed the room and knelt to the ground in front of his desk as he entered the combination on the safe. As the tumblers fell into place, Willow knew she was about to be exposed. She remained on the couch as Randy ruffed through the papers and pulled out Sam’s files, her MRI scans printed out in full, never seen by anyone except Willow.

  “Fuck.”

  Willow cringed as she heard Randy swear.

  For a long time, Randy said nothing else. He never bothered to get up from the floor as he looked over the files. Instead, he laid everything out on his desk. He saw each scan in its entirety. He lined them up by date, watching as her brain cells began to die off one by one, slowly, until her real self was missing.

  “Did you know her grandparents want to take her to another hospital?” he said.

  Willow heard him shuffle the papers and bring it all to his desk as her stood. She couldn’t speak.

  “Because she hasn’t been getting better, they want a second opinion, and I can’t blame them. In fact, I wanted her to see a psychiatrist for their input, but now,” he looked down at the desk. Dark blotches from the MRIs scarred back at him. “Now I don’t know what to do.”

  “You’re going to turn me in,” Willow said. It wasn’t a question. She knew Randy. When he took his oath to become a doctor, she knew he meant every word he said. Above all, do no harm.

  “I need you to leave,” he said. His voice found a resonated calm.

  “Please don’t turn me in.” She got up from the couch and crossed the room to pick up the notebook. She slipped it into her pocket and she saw Randy turn his head to watch it disappear out of site. There were no more secrets she could keep from him.

  “Go home, Willow,” he said. He didn’t look at her. They never left each other without kissing, hugging, touching, something, but now he couldn’t even look at her.

  She found her way to the door, looking back one last time to be sure he was still there, that she had really been exposed. The door closed with a soft click behind her.

  Randy watched the door for a long time, expecting her to come through and beg for forgiveness. He could hear her soft footsteps as she walked away.

  Randy buried his face in his hands. When he ran his fingers through his hair, he was tempted to pull it out. How could she have done this? He stared across the room to where the notebook had fallen on the floor. The only reminder that it had been there in the first place was his MBA diploma, the glass in the frame now cracked.

  Before he could change his mind, he grabbed all the papers off his desk and locked them in the safe. The next door to be locked was his office as he rushed to Sam’s room before anyone would advert his attention. He grabbed a wheelchair before entering.

  “Hi,” Sam said as Dr. Ash walked through the door. She smiled when she saw him, sitting up a bit straighter.

  “Sam, we need to do some quick tests,” Dr. Ash said. His voice was soft and he continued to look over his shoulder as he spoke. Nurses walked by in the halls but none ever bothered to look into the room. He was being watched, or at least he believed he was. He put Willow out his head as much as he could. He didn’t want to believe what she had done, but he knew he wouldn’t know for sure until he saw the results for himself.

  Before Sam could protect or notice any difference in the usual routine, Dr. Ash scooped her up, wrapping his arms around the back of her legs and her back and placing her into the wheelchair. She stared off into her own world as he wheeled her down the hall and into the room with the MRI machine. He hadn’t bothered to check the room’s schedule before they entered so he was lucky when he stepped in and the room was empty.

  “What are we doing?” Sam asked. It was an innocent question, one she asked all the time, but his confidence was shaken. He looked at the door like he had been caught, but no one was there. It was just the two of them in the room, Sam looking around, examining every square inch even though she received MRI scans on a regular basis.

  “We’re doing a test, Sam,” Dr. Ash said.

  Sam’s face dropped. She didn’t like tests. She failed too often and it always ended in disappointment.

  Dr. Ash lifted her from her wheelchair once again and laid her across the hard, thin table of the MRI machine.

  “Do I have to?” Sam said. Her eyes were wide, her body tense. She looked at the machine feeling a vague familiarity, but not sure why that was.

  “It will just be a quick test,” he said.

  “I don’t want to fail,” she said.

  She was laid out perfectly as Dr. Ash lowered the head piece over her forehead. She stared through the mirror to the empty room. The loneliness made her breathing pick up. What was he doing to her?

  “Now just hold still,” he said.

  Sam heard his words, but she couldn’t find where he was coming from. She began to squirm.

  The machine began to hum and pulse. Sam hadn’t realized it, but he had placed headphones over her ears. There was no one at her feet for comfort. When she looked through the mirror above her eyes, she was still utterly alone. Everything was too loud, but she couldn’t lift her hands to cover her ears.

  “Just lay still and we’ll be done in no time,” Dr. Ash said. His voice, normally calm and even, possessed a tone of doubt.

  Sam took a breath and hummed to herself, waiting for the sounds to stop and to be let out of the machine. She closed her eyes, waiting for the panic to go away.

  He was in a room aside from the MRI machine. As the machine pulsed he stood, waiting for confirmation that what Willow had done was all just a big ruse. He begged for her scans to come back as they always did: normal, utterly healthy. Within seconds, images began to pull up onto the screen and with it brought a certain dread.

  The buzzing held the room when the results finally came in. Darkness clouded her scan. It was as if he was looking at one of the MRI scans Willow had printed out herself. A dark, large spot was in the center of Sam’s brain. If he hadn’t know
n any better, he could have thought he was looking at a scan of an elderly patient with dementia.

  Dr. Ash blinked once, twice, and stood in front of the screen. Sam began to squirm in the MRI machine again, but it didn’t matter. The results were already in. Nothing could undo what Dr. Ash had seen.

  He walked back into the room with the machine and pulled Sam out. Her eyes were full of tears when she had the mirror headpiece pulled off.

  “Where’s my pup?” she said.

  She sat up quickly and looked around the room. Nothing was important except finding her pup.

  “Come on, Sam,” he said, trying to get her to sit in the wheelchair once again.

  She pulled away from him and ran to the door. Before she could understand how to open the door, Dr. Ash had his hand wrapped around her wrist.

  “Let go!” she screamed. She pulled against him and fell to the floor in hopes he would release her.

  “Samantha!” he said. His voice was firm, but she didn’t budge.

  “No!” She was a toddler on the floor, wrapping her arms around her legs so she shouldn’t walk or move.

  “Get up, now!” He spoke too loudly and she froze. He could feel the control slipping from him. He didn’t know what to do. There was this girl in front of him. For days, she had been suffering from something unknown and now, all at once he knew. She was suffering from something all too similar to Alzheimer’s. For so long, he had been wishing to know what was wrong so he could work closer to a cure, but now that he knew, he wished he had never found out.

  Sam was still on the ground, but she had stopped protesting. She was looking up at Dr. Ash with a look of wonderment and confusion. He gripped her hand as she got off the ground and found her seat on her wheelchair.

  He wheeled her through the halls, and she never spoke a word. Every possibility passed through his mind as he pushed her wheelchair. Sam needed help. Willow needed help. Both were very different forms of help, and he knew he couldn’t find a solution that would leave both Willow and Sam safe.