"They're giving me more medicine, Lawrence. It makes me so tired. I'm afraid not to take it, I'm afraid of what might happen to me. Lawrence," I said, seizing his hand, "Megan, Megan wasn't transferred to another hospital. She's here. She's in what they call the Zombie Ward. I saw her. She looks terrible."
"Zombie Ward? I know about that place. She's really that bad?"
"I almost didn't recognize her. She looked so wild she frightened me. Oh, Lawrence," I moaned, "what if that happens to me? What if the medicine and my dreams drive me mad? Don't let them put me in that place."
He shook his head sharply.
"Never. I'll never let them lock you away in there."
"If only I remembered everything they would let me go," I said with a small sob.
"I think it's happening, Laura. I heard you cry out in your sleep for someone, someone you were losing. That must be your traumatic experience, the event that caused your illness," he said.
"You did? Who was it? Did I say a name?"
He hesitated.
"I'm afraid to tell you. After what you just told me, I'm afraid of doing something wrong," he said.
"You've got to tell me. I can't stand this emptiness, this darkness. Please. Whom did I cry for?"
"It was the same name I heard you say before." I thought a moment.
"I can't remember what I said before, Lawrence. The medicine that they're giving me has already turned my mind into a glob of mush. Whose name did I call out?" I repeated more firmly. "You must tell me, Lawrence. I don't want to end up like Megan. Please.".
"Someone named Robert," he replied.
The sound of his name took my breath away. I stared at Lawrence.
"I think it was someone you cared for very much," he said sadly.
"Yes. Yes," I said, seeing the darkness begin to retreat and the light begin to slip in from behind the cloud of my memory. "He was. He is."
And I knew that today, today I would
remember everything. I was filled with mixed emotions, anxious, terrified, and yet hopeful it would mean the end of my ordeal. Finally I would be free.
16
Reunited
.
"I hate to leave you," Lawrence said.
Through the slight opening in my window
curtain, we could see the dawn beginning. The light that cleared away the darkness gave me hope that something similar would happen to the darkness in me as well.
"You have to go, Lawrence. I'll be all right now," I said, smiling. "I will. Somehow," I said, my eyes shifting as I gazed ahead, "I know I will."
"I wish they wouldn't give you so much medicine. It doesn't seem right," he worried aloud. He leaned over and kissed me softly on my forehead and then smiled. "I'll see you later," he promised, squeezing my hand and walking toward the door. He paused to check the hallway and in moments, he was gone.
"Robert," I whispered in the silence that followed. It was as if my lips were trying on the word to see if it fit. "Robert."
I closed my eyes and a series of pictures rolled maddeningly by. I concentrated, slowing them down until I saw my family clearly, heard their voices clearly, the sounds of their laughter, their chatter at dinner, Daddy reading from the Bible, and then-- Cary. His name emerged in a bubble rising out of the confusion, and with his name came a litany of his words: his compliments and his complaints, his warnings and his hopes.
A small sailboat bobbed on the surface of a pond. I understood it to be one of Cary's models. I had memories of him working hard on them, hunched over his table with his soldering gun and his glues, his fingers turning and fitting the miniature parts into their tiny places. I realized I was remembering his workroom. With each memory, each vivid picture, my home was returning. I saw my own room, my stuffed animals, my beautiful, beautiful bed. I saw Mommy in the kitchen making a delicious clam chowder. I saw Daddy sitting in his favorite c