He Never Forgot

by P. D. Workman

  “Think about Bridget, but worry about the babies.”

  Zachary furrowed his brows, thinking about that for a minute. The dreams he’d had hadn’t been nice, soothing, happy dreams about newborn babies. They hadn’t been happy, cuddly dreams. They were full of menace and danger, of the specter of death.

  “Do you think… I’m worried about the babies because of what happened to Burton?”

  She raised her brows. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’ll need to give me context.”

  “Um—my client. I’ve been helping him to connect with his past. He was badly abused and neglected. Yesterday… we found the remains of his brother. He was killed thirty years ago, by one or both of his parents. And buried in the basement.”

  Dr. Boyle winced. “Yes, that could certainly cause nightmares. And concerns about how Bridget and Gordon are going to treat their children.”

  Zachary closed his eyes, letting the feelings wash over him. He’d been trying to suppress the emotions and to compartmentalize. Keep Burton and his brother in one box, and Bridget and the babies in another, and his own history in yet another. Now he let go and let them mix.

  45

  The image that bubbled up and rose into his mind was not Elizabeth Dougherty and Allen and Bobby, or Bridget and the babies.

  It was his mother.

  He again saw her after the births of the younger children. Too tired to get out of bed or show any interest in them. Easily angered if one—or more—of the children got in her way. Zachary and the older girls had done what they could to take care of the younger ones. He remembered carrying them with him, rocking, feeding, and changing them.

  They were, in his mind, the best part of his day. He dragged himself off to school and dealt with schoolwork and teachers and bullies and distractions, but when he got home at the end of the school day, he didn’t see taking one of the babies as a penalty, but as a reward.

  What could be better than holding and playing with a baby? They sometimes cried, but they didn’t hit him or scream and criticize him. They didn’t steal his lunch, make fun of his stained clothes, or tell him to do his homework. They just loved him back.

  He knew that his mother didn’t see them that way. She complained about their demands. She didn’t nurse and preferred to let one of the other children bottle feed them. She would, eventually, get out of bed and once again take up her responsibilities of making dinner and trying to keep the house in some kind of order. An impossible task with the number of children in the house.

  She and their father drank and fought frequently. Joss and Heather and Zachary tried to keep the little ones out of their way and shelter them from the violence. Sometimes they were successful, and sometimes they were not. Like Burton, he was too small to stop an adult who was intent on violence. He could run and hide, but he did not have the strength to stop them.

  “Do you want to share?” Dr. Boyle asked.

  Zachary opened his eyes and just sat there for a moment, pondering. “Maybe I am worried about how Bridget will be able to care for them,” he said cautiously. He certainly didn’t want Dr. Boyle calling Social Services to say that Bridget needed to be investigated. The babies hadn’t even been born yet. He was sure that she was getting all of the prenatal care she needed. That would not have been a problem for Bridget.

  But when they were born? What then? He assumed that there would be a nanny. Bridget would not be responsible for all of their care. She had a maid and other employees to help around the house and grounds. She was bound to have someone to help with child care as well, especially with twins.

  “If I married Bridget because she reminds me of my mother…”

  “And you know how your mother treated you as a child.”

  “And the littler ones. I didn’t care so much about how she treated me. I mean, I did, but I could try to be better and not to irritate her. But the babies couldn’t do that. We had to… look after them.”

  “You personally?”

  “Yes. Me and Heather and Jocelyn. We tried to take care of the little ones and make sure… nothing happened to them.”

  “You were not very old yourself.”

  “I was eight when Vince was born. And six when Mindy was born. That’s old enough to help.”

  “To help… yes. But it sounds like you’re talking about a little more than that.”

  Zachary nodded.

  “I’m interested in hearing that you had that much responsibility. Usually, when you talk about your childhood, you’re talking about the trouble you got into. And I don’t think that the whole of your existence consisted of getting into trouble.”

  “Well…” Zachary cleared his throat. “Mostly. That’s what I remember. Always being on edge, trying to avoid screwing anything else up.”

  “That’s what I mean. You were trying to be responsible. You weren’t just ignoring everything your parents or teachers told you and willfully getting into things. Seeing you as an adult… I don’t think you spent very much time intentionally breaking the rules.”

  “No. But I got in plenty of trouble anyway. Ask my sisters. Joss says I was always getting into trouble, and,” he swallowed, “getting her into trouble too, because she was supposed to be watching me and keeping me out of mischief. I don’t remember that, but I do remember my mom saying that I was incorrigible and could never behave. And my dad… didn’t talk so much as he took action.”

  “He punished you for your behavior, a lot of which wasn’t your fault, but was the result of your ADHD and learning disabilities.”

  “But I still did stuff that I knew I shouldn’t.”

  “So do all kids. How do you think you would treat a child who broke a rule? Or who got into some other mischief? How do you think Bridget will react?”

  “I don’t know.” Zachary scratched the back of his neck. “She’ll have help. And Gordon isn’t like my father. He’ll make sure she has someone to help with the babies.”

  “That’s good. Does that make you feel better?”

  “On the outside,” Zachary said slowly. “I get it logically. But on the inside… I guess I’m still worried.”

  46

  At the police station, Burton and Zachary didn’t have to sit in the hard chairs of the lobby waiting area. The officer of the day had been told that they were coming and had another officer escort them to an interview room. It was a comfortable room, with soft boardroom chairs rather than the hard plastic tubular chairs that Zachary knew were in the interrogation rooms intended for criminals. It was more the type of room that a family would be invited to when they had bad news. Or where a couple of chiefs might meet to discuss their teams.

  Burton looked around and fidgeted a lot. He wasn’t looking good. He had probably not obeyed Campbell’s advice and abstained from alcohol the night before, but he’d been up for long enough to have time to think about what he was being asked to do.

  A woman joined them after a few minutes and introduced herself as a therapist who was experienced in meeting with victims and helping them to provide statements that would help the police to investigate crimes and could later be used for the prosecution. She didn’t introduce herself as ‘doctor,’ but as Harriet Sonbaum, and invited Burton to call her by her first name.

  “I don’t really remember anything clearly,” Burton said uncomfortably. “I don’t have a picture in my head of what happened. Just… feelings and impressions.”

  “That’s fine,” Harriet assured him. “Let’s start with that.” She settled herself into a chair and pushed a strand of dark hair back behind her ear. It was obvious that it was not long enough to stay there and would swing free again as soon as she shifted. “You came here, if I understand correctly, looking for the house that you had lived in when you were young.”

  “Yes.”

  “What feelings did you have about that? You wanted to come home?”

  Burton considered that.

  “Well. No, I don’t think that was it, no. I didn’t wa
nt to move here, or to have some kind of reunion. I wanted… to see it again. To know where I came from.”

  “What did you know about the life you had before you were adopted?”

  “Nothing, really. My parents only talked about my life after I was adopted. Before that… everything was kind of a blank. I don’t know if they thought I remembered, or if they thought that if they didn’t talk about it, I would forget, and that was better.”

  “Did you ask them about it as an adult?”

  “No. I don’t want to hurt them. I don’t want to challenge them about it. I just… needed to have some kind of connection to… the before.”

  “And after Mr. Goldman helped you to find the house, how did you feel? When you first saw it and knew that it was the right place.”

  “I was… I don’t know. Stunned. I didn’t know how to feel. But I wanted to see inside. To walk through it. Looking at it from the outside-in was not what I was looking for.”

  “You probably hadn’t seen it much from the outside as a child, from what I understand.”

  “I guess. I just… needed to be inside. Where I had been.”

  “Because it was familiar.”

  “Maybe. I don’t know why. I just wanted to be there.”

  “Okay.”

  Burton looked at Zachary. He looked back at the therapist. “I don’t know what else you want.”

  “Tell me about going into the basement. How did you feel? What were you thinking?”

  “I wasn’t thinking that my brother was buried there, if that’s what you’re asking,” Burton growled.

  “No. So what were you thinking?”

  “I was thinking… that it wasn’t the same. Too much had changed. It wasn’t the same place as it had been before.”

  “What had changed?”

  “I don’t know. I guess the floor had been poured. That was the biggest thing that didn’t seem right. When I was there before, it had been a dirt floor.”

  “Anything else?”

  Burton shook his head. “Everything. It had been open before, no smaller rooms. No closet around the furnace. All just one open area.”

  Harriett nodded. “Yes?”

  “And… you know, there were finished walls and floor and the carpet. And the lights weren’t there before. Not like that.”

  “What kind of lights were there before?”

  “I don’t know. It was dark. All of the corners were dark. Black. So I guess they weren’t very good lights. Low wattage. Maybe just… a couple of bare bulbs.”

  “What do you feel when you think back to the way it was before? When you lived there?”

  “Nothing.” He shook his head slightly. “I just lived there. That’s all. It was… like my room. My house.”

  “You felt like you belonged there? Like it was your possession?”

  “I don’t know. If I was so little when they started to keep me down there… then I would never have known anything else, would I? So how would I judge it? I wouldn’t know if it was a good or bad place; it was the only place I knew.”

  “That’s true.” Harriett let some silence pass. “How about the people? Do you remember your biological mother and father?”

  “No, I don’t think so. I don’t… have a picture in my mind. It’s just… nothingness.”

  Though he had been pretty sure that the motorcycle dude wasn’t his father.

  “How about Allen?”

  Burton rubbed his chin. He looked around the room. He looked down at the table and his hands clenched into fists and then released again. “I don’t remember him,” he said finally. “It was just… too long ago. I can’t help the police with anything that they’re looking for.”

  “Don’t worry about the police. Don’t worry about helping anyone. Just relax and explore the basement in your mind. You knew that your bug jar was behind the furnace.”

  “I didn’t know it was there.”

  Harriett didn’t ask any questions, just waited for him to clarify.

  “I knew… something was there. I knew the furnace was there, somewhere. I knew that. But that’s not really anything special. Any house in the neighborhood has a furnace.”

  “Of course. But not everyone would be concerned about it and want to look at it. Unless they were, say, a furnace repairman.”

  “So I wanted to look at it for a reason.”

  “Your jar was there.”

  “Yeah. And the names.”

  “What did you think when you saw the names?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t think anything. Until Zachary said that was my name. Bobby Allen. I thought it really was.” He pushed his chair back from the table slightly. “You see? I didn’t know about Allen. If I knew about Allen, I would have known that wasn’t my last name. That it was his name.”

  “Maybe.” Harriett said. “And maybe you did.”

  “No,” he shook his head with certainty, “I didn’t.”

  Harriett let it go. She looked at the clipboard she had brought with her.

  “When did you start to remember that Allen wasn’t your last name, but was a separate person?”

  “I didn’t. Zachary did.”

  Zachary shook his head. “No… I told you it wasn’t your last name. But that maybe it was your first and middle name. Or a double-barreled first name. You were the one who kept asking ‘who is Allen?’”

  Burton patted his pockets, then went still again. He scratched his head anxiously. “Allen was my brother,” he said, answering his own question back across time. “My… big brother.”

  “Yes.”

  “He was the one who wrote the names on the wall. Not me. I didn’t know how to write. Or to read the names. But he’d gone to school, so he knew.”

  Zachary listened, fascinated. They hadn’t had any confirmation before that Allen had gone to school before being shut in the basement.

  “He went to school?” Harriet asked.

  “Yes. He must have.”

  “Did he got to school while you were at home in the basement?”

  “No. No, I don’t think so. It was… a long time ago. He told me stories, but he didn’t go to school anymore…”

  Harriett nodded. “What other stories did he tell you?”

  Zachary remembered Burton saying that Allen had told him about animals. Nice, furry animals rather than the many-legged denizens of the basement. Dogs and cats and animals in other parts of the world. What had Burton thought when Allen told him about those things? Could he picture them? Did he think they were fantastical, like unicorns and dragons? Did he think that Allen had just made them up for entertainment?

  “I don’t know.” Burton closed off immediately. Every advance was followed by a retreat. Fear kept him from moving forward.

  “What did he tell you about school?”

  “I don’t know. It was where you went to learn. There were lots of other kids there. Teachers to tell you what to do. There were… slides and swings.”

  Burton said ‘slides and swings’ like they were something mystical. And to him, they must have been. He was attached to the ground. He didn’t know about sliding from a high ladder. He didn’t know about swinging way up above the ground, until the horizon seemed like it was at his feet.

  “Yes,” Harriett agreed with an appreciative laugh. “That must have been very puzzling for you. Like a rollercoaster or jet plane is to someone who has never even seen a picture of one. Did you want to go to school?”

  “Of course. He did, so I did. He made it sound wonderful.”

  “Were you disappointed when you eventually went to school?”

  Burton considered this for a few moments. “I was and I wasn’t. It was not as grand as what I had imagined… and it was more. I just didn’t have anything to base it on.”

  “Your experience was very limited.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you remember,” Harriett said slowly, “anyone coming down the stairs to see you?”

  This time she hadn’t suggested s
pecific people like his mother and father. And she had added in a new trigger, something that had to be part of Burton’s experience. People coming down the stairs.

  They could not have fed him or taken care of any other physical needs without coming down the stairs. They could not have killed and buried Allen without coming down the stairs.

  Burton shook his head at first, but no one said anything and he had some time to think about it. He must have also known that people had to have come down the stairs at some point. So he made himself remember. But was it really a memory, or was it something his brain created because it should logically have been there?

  “I… didn’t like it when people came down the stairs,” he said slowly. “That scared me.”

  “Did it? But there must have been good things about someone coming down the stairs too. Food to eat or other new supplies.”

  Burton nodded. Zachary thought about the foods they had talked about before. How Burton hated mac and cheese and fish sticks. How when he had gone to the foster home, he had not been able to eat textured foods without gagging, and had to be taught to eat. He ate pablum and mush. A few soft things. His diet had been very restricted.

  Had his mother fed him by hand like she must have done when he was a baby? Spooning food directly into his mouth? Playing ‘airplane’ to try to get him to eat it all up?

  “There was food,” Burton agreed. “I don’t remember it being very good… about being hungry for it. I had to eat it when they brought it. That’s all.”

  “How about Allen?”

  Burton pushed back immediately. “I don’t remember Allen!”

  “Okay.”

  There was a period of silence. Burton rubbed his face and jaw and the back of his neck. He was holding it back. He didn’t want to remember.

  He didn’t want to have to compare notes. He didn’t want to say what his parents had or had not done. Logically, they must have come down the stairs at some point. But he didn’t have to remember more than that.

  “Let’s skip ahead to when you were rescued,” Harriett suggested after letting some minutes pass in silence. “What do you remember about that?”