Still With Me
“No. I’m completely lost. I have no idea why things are the way they are with my parents. I don’t know anything about Clotilde and Pierre’s situation. I can’t follow any of your conversations. This morning when I woke up, I didn’t even know who the baby was. My own son. And I don’t remember our wedding, Victoria. I feel so empty, completely empty.” Jeremy slumped against the back of the chair.
“Shit.” Pierre leapt to his feet. “That’s not possible. This can’t happen all over again. The doctors said—”
Victoria interrupted. “They didn’t say anything. They didn’t understand. An emotional shock. They all said the same thing.”
“What happened the day after I went to the hospital?” Jeremy asked. “I remember going to sleep in my room. I felt sick. I hallucinated.”
“The next day, everything came back to you,” Pierre said. “Except the events of the day before. A form of selective amnesia, in reverse. The doctors wanted to hold you for observation, but you refused. You went back to work, and you didn’t say another word about it.”
“They wanted you to come back,” Victoria interjected. “But you never went to the appointments I made with a specialist. And because nothing else bad happened, I didn’t insist.”
“And on my birthday last year?”
Victoria shrugged her shoulders. “You were normal. We worried about a relapse. The doctors told us to keep you home the night before, not to leave your side, and not to let you drink alcohol. And everything went fine.”
A tense, anxiety-ridden silence filled the room.
“We have to go back to the hospital,” Victoria announced. “It’s the only solution.”
“No, I don’t want to go. If they didn’t understand my problem then, why would it be any different now?”
“He’s right,” Pierre agreed. “They’re idiots. They’re going to treat him like a guinea pig. Nothing more.”
“You two have a better solution maybe?” Victoria seemed frustrated.
“Maybe we could talk to you about things that matter to you,” Pierre offered. “Show you places you go?”
“I doubt that’ll work. If seeing my mother didn’t bring anything back…”
“You have a point,” Pierre agreed. “But there are no rules for this kind of thing. One ordinary detail might have unexpected results.”
“Let’s cancel whatever we had planned for the afternoon at least,” Jeremy suggested. “I don’t feel up to the performance.”
“Good idea,” Pierre said. “Imagine what would happen if your boss saw you with a case of…wandering amnesia. It could damage your credibility. Just when you’re expecting a promotion.”
“What should I tell him?” Victoria asked.
“Tell him Jeremy’s having stomach problems. Serious stomach problems. They don’t require any explanation, and they keep people away.”
Victoria went to make the call.
Pierre sat down next to Jeremy and patted him on the thigh. “Listen, it’s no big deal. If it’s like last time, tomorrow you’ll get your memory back and…all will be forgotten.”
“Very funny.”
“Worth saying, though, that it’s a question of time. Right now you’re having a bad dream. Tomorrow you’ll wake up and it’ll all be over. Everything will be fine.”
“Except I won’t remember this conversation, and my symptoms could come back at any moment.”
“Eventually we’ll figure out what…what’s wrong.”
“It’s hard waking up like this. I’ve lost all sense of who I am. It’s like someone cut me up into little pieces and scattered them all over the place. I can find some of the pieces, but they don’t fit the puzzle like they should.”
“You lost me,” Pierre said.
“I don’t recognize myself in the man you describe, the one who’s with you most days. I love my parents. I’m not mean-spirited. At most I’m a little
lost. And I don’t have the temperament for sales. I’m more of an artist. I don’t even like alcohol. So how can I rebuild my life when the pieces don’t look anything like me? I mean, tell me, Pierre, how do you see me?”