Music in the Night (Logan 4)

"If you refuse your therapy, you'll have to be transferred upstairs, and if we can't help you upstairs, you'll be transferred to a different sort of institution, one that suits your needs better," she said. "Believe me, that's what will happen." She started to turn away.

"But Doctor Southerby is helping me," I moaned. How could I fight such raw power over me?

"Doctor Scanlon is just as good. In fact, he's Doctor Southerby's superior. You should be grateful you've been given the opportunity, that he has made time for you, but being grateful for things is not in the character of most of the patients here. Why should you be any different?" she added. "Don't be late for dinner," she warned.

She left me staring after her, wondering what I had done to deserve to be transferred to Dr. Scanlon. After all, getting my memory back wasn't something to be punished for. Was it?

14

Out of the Shadows

.

My mind wandered all through dinner that

night. I kept drifting back to the me

mory of walking with my little sister on the beach toward the boat where my twin brother was waving, beckoning. The images burst like flashbulbs in the backdrop of my empty and dark mind: a tiny smile, a lobster trap being pulled up from the bottom of the sea, castles in the sand, starry nights on the beach, and the deep voice of a man I knew must be my father reading, reciting. It sounded like a chant, and then the woman I knew must be my mother singing a lullaby. My early memories mingled with later ones in a hodgepodge of faces, voices, and sights. I felt like I had fallen into a giant crossword puzzle. I was just another letter searching for the others that joined me to an entire word: family. The letters spun around and around in my head until they spelled out a name.

"May," I suddenly said "What's that?" Lawrence asked. Everyone stopped talking and looked at me.

I turned to him.

"Her name is May."

"Whose name?" Lulu asked.

"My little sister. Her name is May," I said more enthusiastically. "I just can't think of my brother's--"

"Easy," Lawrence said, reaching to touch my hand. "Don't try to remember too much at once."

I looked at his concerned face and nodded.

"It must be exciting for you, though," Mary Beth said, "regaining your past, your identity. Pretty soon, it will all come back to you."

"Yes." I nodded. "Yes, it will. Doctor Southerby was right."

I finished my dinner quickly because I had let most of it get cold while I sat there thinking. After dinner we usually went to the rec room to watch television, read, or play board games. This evening I didn't feel like doing any of those things. I was too excited by the closeness of my memories. I just wanted to sit in a corner by myself and struggle with images and words until I put together more of the puzzle.

Mary Beth, feeling sorry for Lulu, spent more time with her, playing the games with her that Megan used to play.

Lawrence sat across from me reading A Tale of Two Cities. He read a lot, and when he talked about some of the books he read, I remembered having read them, too.

"You must have been a good student," he remarked, "to have remembered all the characters."

Now I wondered. Was I a good student? Where did I go to school? Who were my friends? What did I want to become? Not having the answers to the simplest of questions had become more than an irritation. I sat there feeling as if an explosion might happen any time in my mind and send me rushing back to my past. I guess I looked like a hen about to lay an egg, because Lawrence suddenly looked up from his book and laughed.

"I wish you could see the expression on your face, Laura. You look so poised, so tense sitting forward like that. You look like you might jump up and yell 'Eureka!" "

"It's the way I feel. The images keep floating by, circling, circling, drawing closer. I can hear my mother's voice, my father's, too, and I'm beginning to see their faces. It's like a continually growing light is bringing them out of the darkness. Does that make any sense?"

"Yes," he said. "Actually, it makes a lot of sense, Laura. You're one of the really lucky ones here. You're going to get better," he said, "and very soon," he added, not without a little sadness in his voice.

"So will you."

"Yes, I will," he said. "I'd like to meet you again on the outside and do something . . . normal, like take you to a movie or go dancing. Something."

"Me, too," I said, smiling, "but who knows where I live? Maybe it's hundreds, thousands of miles from where you live."