Charlotte Had A Boyfriend : 6

By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

 

---

“The Silver Shoes,” said the Good Witch, “can carry you to any place in the world.
All you have to do is to knock the heels together three times
and command the shoes to carry you wherever you wish to go.”

“If that is so,” said the child joyfully, “I will ask them to carry me back to Kansas at once.”

— L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

---

 

"I was beginning to wonder what I was doing here," I told them, and found myself looking at Doctor Thistlewaite.

He lifted his hands in a defensive gesture. "Don't look at me!" he said, half-joking. "I know why I'm here. I wanted to be present if some memories shook loose, and—" he glanced back and forth between the two young women— "Like I said earlier: I'm here to see fair play. I wanted to make sure these two didn't bully you." He managed to make it come off as a teasing joke, but he clearly felt a sense of proprietary protectiveness.

"As if!" scoffed Carly.

Tatum grinned. "We wouldn't have gone beyond a light grilling," she quipped. Then she scribbled "CAR CRASH 8:20 AM" on a yellow post-it and stuck it on the window on the far right. "With you, we'll start at the end and work our way backwards. What's next?"

"Amos picks me up, hitchhiking," I offered.

Tatum wrote a telegraphic version of that data point. "Let's say ten miles earlier, ten minutes earlier?" and wrote "8:10 AM," before sticking it on the board.

"That's it, isn't it?" I asked.

"No," Tatum replied. "We know you spent the night in the back seat of Hugh's car, wrapped in a scratchy blue blanket. That was your first memory, and it's supported by trace DNA and fingerprints." She set her little notebook on my bed, where all four of us could see it. "Pretend that this is Hugh's car," she instructed. "Hugh's fingerprints are basically on the driver's door and all over the dashboard. Mason's fingerprints are on the passenger-side door and on the dashboard on the passenger side." She gave us all a glance and added, "I'm generalizing, but that's pretty much how it is.

"Now, Deeny, on the other hand—"

I interrupted, insisting, "My name is not Deeny."

Carly and Tatum glanced at each other. "Okay," Tatum acknowledged. "But if we call this guy Mason and you Mason, it gets confusing. So bear with us, okay? Just for now, to speed things along?"

I nodded but I didn't like it.

"Deeny, unlike the two men, left fingerprints all over. Outside, on both driver-side doors — front and back — and on the trunk. Inside, her prints are on the steering wheel, the gear shift, the ignition key, and the dashboard. Trace DNA shows that she sat in the driver's seat and slept in the back seat."

"How do you know she 'slept'?" Carly asked, with an obvious insinuation.

"There is no sign that any sexual activity took place in the vehicle," Tatum replied. "At all. There is also no evidence that Deeny was ever physically inside the trunk. I mean, she didn't hide there and wasn't put or kept there."

My heart began beating faster.

"So why did the two boys bring her out there?" Carly asked in a gentle voice.

"I don't think they did bring her out there," Tatum replied. "See, she wasn't in the trunk. Forensics established that. Which means, if she was in the car before it left Robbins, the only way she wouldn't be seen on the traffic camera was if she was crouching down in the back seat." She scratched the top of her head. "But... that only brings a new set of questions. It suggests that she left voluntarily. But why would she hide? What was she hiding from? And why would she leave without her clothes? Or where did they go, and when?"

"Well..." Carly drawled, opening her hands, palms facing upward.

"No," I said. "Didn't happen. Wouldn't happen."

Carly's eyebrows popped. "You sound awfully sure."

"I am."

"Why?"

I hesitated. Yes, why was I so sure? "I don't know," I told her. "But I'm 100% sure."

"You're also sure that your name is Perry Mason," she retorted.

"And what is the problem with that?" I demanded, hotly.

Tatum held off for a few moments, waiting to see if any fire followed that exchange. Then: "Just looking at the evidence," she said, "We can't prove that Deeny drove out to the desert with the boys. We can't rule it out, but we don't have anything to suggest that it was the case. It seems far more likely that she met them out there, where Hugh's car was found."

"What about other cars?" Carly said. "Can we follow up on cars that went in or out of the desert in that same time interval? She must have come in with someone else."

Tatum looked down at the floor. She clearly didn't want that task. "I'm sure we can put somebody on that," she demurred in a quiet voice. Then, after another pause, she laid it out: "What I think happened, and I believe this is supported by the physical evidence, is that the three of them were never at the car together. The two men drove off the road, into the desert... for some reason that we don't know. They either shut off the engine, or the car died--"

"Why do you say that?"

"The battery is dead. Once they turned off the engine, the cold killed whatever power was left."

"Why would they turn off the engine?" Thistlewaite queried.

The four of us looked at each other for a moment. "Star gazing?" Tatum ventured. "Out there, away from the city lights, the sky is packed with stars. It's pretty powerful."

"Okay," Carly acknowledged. "Anyway... for whatever reason, they shut off the engine and couldn't restart it. What do we think? Did they start walking?"

"We don't know," Tatum replied. "Unfortunately the scene wasn't cordoned off until after it was too late. Police cars, police men, pretty well wiped out any tracks or treads between the car and the highway. Luckily, the other directions weren't contaminated, so what we DO know is that they didn't walk off into the desert. They must have gone back to the highway." She shrugged.

"And that's where we lose them," Carly stated. Tatum nodded in confirmation.

"Anyway... AFTER the two men walked back or got picked up by someone else, or whatever the hell they did, Deeny arrived at the car. It was night, it was dark. She tried to start the car. Her prints are on the key. Unfortunately, car battery was dead, so even if she wanted, she couldn't drive off. I think we can assume that if the boys were still there, Deeny would have left with them."

Carly nodded. Then, an objection occurred to her: "All of that makes sense, except for one detail. Hugh left his keys behind. Not just his car key, but the keys to his apartment, to his police locker, and every other key he possessed. That's not like Hugh. We both know that he's more than a little OCD, especially about his car. Knowing Hugh, he would have closed all the windows and locked all the doors before he walked away, and he would have taken his keys with him. But that's not how it was. The car was completely unlocked, with the keys right there in the ignition."

"True. And agreed: it's not like Hugh. But that goes to support the idea that Deeny arrived after the boys were gone. Forensics show that she jumped into the driver's seat and tried to start the car. She wouldn't have done that if Hugh was still there. Unless she was alone, I don't see Deeny trying to start the car and then rummaging through the trunk. And for sure she wouldn't have shivered through the night alone."

"Okay," Carly conceded. "And then in the morning, when the desert started heating up, the car still wouldn't start? Am I right?"

"Correct."

"By now, the blanket is now too heavy and too hot, so she leaves it. But she takes her umbrella — Hugh's umbrella — and follows the tire tracks back to the highway."

"Amos picks her up, and then bam! The accident."

That seemed to sum it all up. Still, after a pause, the doctor put in, "Can I ask a question? I've been on that road. It's long, straight, and flat. If a car's coming towards you, you can see it coming miles away. And it was broad daylight. How on earth did two cars collide head on?"

Carly's face broke out in a grin. "I shouldn't smile," she said, "but honest Amos confessed: Deeny had to sit in back because Amos' front passenger seat belt was broken. And she — she must have forgotten that she had nothing on, underneath her t-shirt — because she was putting on quite a show for the poor boy!"

My face burned. "I was not! Was I?"

"Sounds like it was inadvertent on your part," she conceded. "Unfortunately, he couldn't keep his eyes off his rear-view, and apparently was drifting all over the road. The other driver — even though impaired by drink — did his best to avoid the the collision, but Amos took one glance back too many, and the second driver's reflexes couldn't respond in time." Then she added, "Consequently, boom!"

The doctor, emboldened, offered another question: "Isn't it possible that Deeny came down the road from Aldusville?"

"No," Carly replied sharply. "It couldn't have happened. The state troopers have a road block where the desert road hits Aldusville."

"We've already checked with them," Tatum informed the doctor.

"Then she must have come in from across the desert," he concluded.

Carly gazed at him in disbelief. "From where?" she asked. "If you don't come by the one and only road, there's nothing and no place anywhere nearby. If she crossed the desert, unless she dropped from the sky, the only place she could have come from is Mariola. Problem is, Mariola is like, 300 miles away. And it's 300 miles of nothing, as the crow flies!"

"Mariola?" the doctor repeated. "Is that— um— I've never heard of it."

"Exactly!" Carly said. "It's a tiny little nowhere town on the other side of the desert. Unless she flew, there's no way she came from Mariola."

"What about a small plane? Maybe one of those little, experimental aircraft?" Tatum ventured.

"I guess that's possible," Carly conceded. "If she got dropped off there, naked, for some crazy reason. Otherwise, I mean, if you're thinking there was a crash, the helicopter search didn't spot anything like that. And if that's the answer, it means that either Deeny here is a pilot, somebody else is lost out there."

"I'm just brainstorming," Tatum said defensively.

"It's fine, but right now we want to stick to provable facts. We can keep an open mind on the small plane idea." She thought for a moment. "There's likely to be a small airport near Mariola; we can call and ask whether anyone flew in or out Tuesday night." Tatum scribbled a note on a green post-it and stuck it to the glass.

 

---

 

I didn't want to say anything at the time, but the name Mariola rang a bell. A strange bell. Not as though I'd ever been to Mariola, or came from Mariola, or knew Mariola, but each time someone said it, I had the distinct, unsettling feeling I'd heard that name before.

For some reason I kept that feeling to myself.

 

---

 

Another minute of discussion followed. Nothing significant. Tatum photographed the layout of notes stuck to my window, then peeled them off into an orderly pile that she placed in an envelope and stuck in her pocket.

Dr Thistlewaite took my hand and asked, "You okay?"

"Uh, yeah," I responded. "I'm a little... uh... my heart is beating fast. I don't know why." I caught his look, and added, "Before you ask: no, I didn't remember anything. It's just that hearing all those things, about me and the car and being... naked... in the desert. I just—"

Carly listened, silent, interested.

I continued, "I just wonder: What on earth happened to me? What was I doing there? Why were the two men there? Do I even know them?"

Carly blew out a big breath. "All great questions. We have those exact same questions. Don't worry — we'll find out what happened to you. We'll find out who you are and how you got there."

I nodded.

"You're going to remember, I promise you," Thistlewaite assured me.

"You shouldn't make promises," I told him. "I think this is going to come down to plain old detective work. Shoe leather."

"Shoe leather?" Carly repeated, cracking up with laughter. "Who are you?"

"Who is she?" Tatum echoed, "She's Perry Mason, that's who!" and the pair of them, laughing, left my room.

"Shoe leather," Thistlewaite repeated. "You should write that in your notebook. Have you been using it?"

"Using what? Shoe leather?" I challenged, deliberately obtuse.

"No," he replied cautiously, picking up on my mood. "The notebook I gave you."

"Sure," I told him. "I've been writing in it. All the random, meaningless bullshit."

"That's fine," he said. "You'll get used to remembering."

I didn't answer. Ironically, in that exact moment, I did remember something. I'd been asking myself why the name "Mariola" rang a bell. I meant to look it up on my phone the moment Dr Thistlewaite left my room, but my subconscious got ahead of me, and tossed up the answer.

An image appeared on the inner screen of my mind; an image of me. I don't know what was going on before or after, and I don't know where it happened, but I must have been standing in front of a full-length mirror. I say that because I could see myself, my whole body, looking back at me. In this memory, I was naked (go figure!), but I didn't seem to care. In fact, I was smiling. In this memory I was talking to someone, someone I couldn't see. Or else I was talking to myself. It was hard to tell.

This memory came and went in a flash, but I took it in completely. It hit me like a bolt from the blue. It came to me so vivid and true, I relived the moment, as if were happening here and now. In this memory, a sardonic grin pulled up my mouth's right corner. I had the sense that I was talking already, but in conclusion I declared, "I am NEVER going back to Mariola! Never!"

That was it; the whole thing. It came and was gone, but not completely. I couldn't see it any more, but I could picture it, the way you can recall a movie scene that strikes you. Not with the crystal clarity of a moment earlier, but as a kind of mental video clip; a close-up of my face: the sardonic smile, the declaration.

What was Mariola to me, or me to Mariola?

Thistlewaite waited in expectant silence, watching my face.

"Did you remember something?" he asked, with barely suppressed excitement.

"Why should I tell you?" I shot back, with more bitterness than I intended.

Thistlewaite took a step back, away from me, clearly startled.

"I'm sorry," I told him, "but I'd prefer to keep this to myself."

"Why?"

"Because you — and the pair of cops who just left — laughed when I told you my name. None of you call me by my name. Not Perry, not Mason. You keep calling me Deeny. You don't believe me."

"But D—" he began, and stopped. "It's so improbable! It can't be your name!"

"I remembered it," I insisted. "I'm sure about it. If you don't believe *that*, why would you believe anything else I remember?"

His expression filled with dismay. "No, no, please—" he protested.

I cut him off. "You think you can decide which of my memories are real." I shook my head. "That doesn't work for me. You've got this lofty idea of not pushing the river, but at the same time you want to lay down the rules about where and how the river can flow."

He struggled to find the words to contradict me, but I waved his efforts away. "Just let it go," I said. "It doesn't matter. If I ever remember everything, I'll let you know. I'm feeling more and more certain that I'm *never* going to remember anything. We'll see who's right: you or me. But you're just going to have to wait and see, just like me."

He didn't answer. To his credit, he didn't offer excuses. At the same time, he didn't say sorry, either. He limited himself to asking a few pointless questions about my general state of feeling. I assured him that I was fine, just a little agitated by our discussion. I was also more than a little angry about the way the women laughed at my name, but I'd already told him that.

After Thistlewaite left, I tried to cool off, to calm down. But then I thought, Why should I calm down? I have a perfect right to be upset!

And so I sat there, fuming uselessly, looking at my reflection in the window, studying my angry look. It was stupid, but I couldn't find any other channel for my frustration.

When suddenly...

A strange feeling welled up inside me. It's hard to describe. It came on me quickly, almost like a strong feeling of nausea, rising from my belly like a wave that rode, relentless, to my head, where it overwelmed me. I closed my eyes, gritted my teeth, and tilted my head down. I found myself clenching my fists, clenching them so tight that my arms were shaking.

And then...

A memory, sharp and clear, came in, like a image on bright, brand-new television: a woman, a nice woman, sitting at a kitchen table opposite me. I have no idea who she is or was, but I liked and trusted her. Completely. She looked to be just south of fifty, with a fair amount of gray in her short, curly hair. She smiled and leaned in, towards me. She had a story to tell me; a story that didn't begin with the well-known phrase once upon a time, but with one that was equally improbable. She did her best to hide her amusement before she took a breath and began:

"Charlotte had a boyfriend."

It floored me. The memory was almost more than I could bear. The woman — I knew her. I was this close to calling out to her, to calling her by name. I know — I almost knew — who she is or was to me. It was tantalizingly close, but I couldn't reach it. My breath caught in my throat and nearly choked me.

Who is she? Why did she care that Charlotte had a boyfriend? *I* didn't care. Why should anyone care?

Was it supposed to be funny? That woman clearly was amused, but didn't want to show it.

This memory — and I'm sure it was a real memory — weighed on me. Why? Because it carried a sense of loss and a strange kind of pain. I wanted more of that memory, but I didn't want the pain that came with it.

What in the name of hell is going on with me?

 

---

 

Lucy arrived a few minutes after 5 PM, dressed in her white uniform. She found me with my head in my hands.

"Is everything okay?" she asked, with obvious concern. "Did something happen?"

"Oh!" I responded, sitting up. "I didn't realize I was sitting that way. But yeah, I've remembered something... I mean, I remembered somebody." I looked her in the face. "It's the first person I've remembered." I shook my head. "And seeing her face gives me all these feelings I don't understand."

Lucy stood there silent, watching the emotions play across my face while she considered what to say.

"Do you think it's your mother?" she asked, quietly, cautiously.

"I don't know. Maybe."

"How do you see this person in your memory? Are they happy, healthy, good?"

"Yeah. Yeah. All those things."

"Well, that's good, isn't it?"

"I guess so."

Lucy nodded and stepped closer to me. She scratched her ear in a distracted way.

I was about to say, And do you know what's weird about it, though? and tell her how this woman told me that phrase, "Charlotte had a boyfriend," but I held back.

Weirder still, Lucy herself said it. "Listen... Hermie told me a thing to tell you. I didn't remember it — don't remember it, because I was only 16 when it happened, and I was pretty... consumed with, uh—" She took a deep breath— "I didn't follow the news already, but it all happened around the same time that my parents... died." She took a breath to steady herself. "That thing you said: Charlotte had a boyfriend — turns out it's something pretty much everybody, anybody around here would know. But like I said, I wasn't paying attention at the time, and it was just too wacko—

"So this Charlotte is Charlotte Raffy-something—" (I didn't interrupt) "—and, duh! she had a boyfriend! This guy Ross, the boyfriend, was a football player, a college freshman, supposed to be a rising star, an up-and-coming talent, blah blah blah, and one night, two years ago, he went into the desert with another woman, and he was never seen again."

The hairs on my arms and the back of my neck stood at attention.

"Also, his pickup truck — never seen again, either."

"What about the woman?"

"Oh, *she* came back. Said they had a fight and she ran off." Lucy shook her head.

I didn't know what to say. Some of it intersected in a bizarre way with what happened to me, or maybe to Hugh Fencely and Mason Rafflyan. A parallel; a variant running on a different track. Like an echo, vibrating in the past. Or maybe we were the echo...

But — enough with the metaphors. I prompted Lucy: "So..."

"So, the police investigated. They found no signs of foul play. Everyone figured that Ross couldn't stand the stress of success, so he ran away." She shrugged. "I guess that's a thing that happens. I wouldn't know."

"Huh."

"Anyway, Charlotte convinced herself that the other woman had murdered Ross, or whatever his name was, and she pestered the police until they took out a restraining order against her! Can you imagine? The *police* took out a restraining order against her! The *police* felt they were being harassed!"

"I guess I can imagine it," I told her. "One of the cops who visit me goes ballistic every time she hears Charlotte's name."

"Well, that's the story," Lucy concluded. "If you need to know more, Hermie has all the details, so you can ask him. In fact, he said he wants to talk to you about it. Which reminds me—" She fished a little flip phone out of one pocket, and its charger out of another.

"Hermie figures you're getting out soon. This phone isn't good for much. It was actually my grandmother's. It's fully charged, but you have to keep an eye on the battery level. There's no lock code, and the only numbers in there are Hermie's and mine. Hermie works from home, so whenever the hospital lets you go, you can call him and he'll drive over and pick you up."

"He doesn't need to do that," I protested. "I can walk to your house, or take a bus or something."

"No," she said. "Hospital rules. They won't let you go unless someone comes to pick you up in a car."

I gave in with a smile. "Okay. Thanks, Lucy, and thank Hermie when you see him."

 

---

 

Naturally, I was surprised (at first) by the apparent coincidence of my "Charlotte had a boyfriend" memory and the arrival of Lucy with her explanation. My surprise didn't last very long. Clearly, the boyfriend's disappearance in the desert was a big deal in Robbins. There was no denying: it was a curious event. As a wound in the town's social fabric, it was fairly fresh. After all, two years is not a very long time.

Even if the town somehow managed to gloss over or shrug off the boyfriend's disappearance, Charlotte was always ready to stir the pot, to keep the case on the radar. She must have been a colossal pest, if the police had gone so far as to take out a restraining order against her. I want to say that I'd never heard of such a thing, but of course I don't know whether I have. It seems awfully extreme.

Not only was it extreme, but it seemed an unlikely, improbable move; maybe you could go as far as calling it a desperate move — akin to the fire department declaring that they wouldn't bother to show up if a certain person's house was on fire.

Clearly, the boyfriend's disappearance and Charlotte's subsequent agitation was a major nerve running through town. It was hard to avoid touching it, and if you did hit that nerve, even lightly, there was no telling what sort of response you'd get.

For Dr Thistlewaite, the mention of Charlotte's name evoked a sense of sadness, almost pity.

Carly's response, on the other hand, was more like a volcanic eruption.

Tatum managed to keep fairly neutral, although she probably moderated herself to balance out Carly's anger.

And none of it was imaginary! Charlotte was a real person. I'd seen her myself.

Not only had I seen Charlotte, I'd also witnessed her *intensity* for myself, and clearly the other nurses had experienced it as well. Their response was a measured you again? with an implicit threat. They sent her back to her own floor, and she obeyed without being asked twice. It wasn't hard to divine a series of excesses on Charlotte's part, followed by several talkings-to and/or disciplinary actions. Charlotte folded immediately when she was challenged, and left without protest. She knew she'd gone as far as she dared, and could go no farther.

 

---

 

Somewhere around nine PM a young uniformed policeman stuck his head in my door. He was so boyish and fresh-faced, he resembled a high-school student in a police costume. "Deeny Mason?" he asked.

"Close enough."

"We got a ping from missing persons. Your family reported you missing late today! Isn't that wild? And here you are!"

"My family?" I asked. The words echoed in my head without producing any response whatsoever. No images, no feelings, no words or names.

"Yeah. You're the chick with amnesia, right?"

"Yes."

He nodded and was about to leave, but I caught him, by calling, "Wait!"

He stepped into my room with a puzzled expression on his face.

"Aren't you going to tell me anything?" I asked. He frowned, not getting it.

"What's my name?" I asked. "It's Perry Mason, isn't it?"

"Oh!" he exclaimed, the light dawning. He pulled out a small notepad, much like Tatum's. He flipped a few pages, and started reading. "Okay, so — your name." He smiled at me, drawing out the suspense. I wanted to smack him.

"Turns out you're *not* Perry Mason — I did hear that one, heh! You're not Deeny Mason, either. Your name is—" He stared at his notepad, trying to form his mouth around the sounds before he actually said it. "Okay, I hope I can pronounce this right. Your name is Celandine Lisente, aka Deeny Lisente." He looked at me, eyebrows high on his forehead.

"No," I said. "No fucking way."

"Unfortunately," he said, "Your family has the receipts: they're bringing your documents, pictures of you, clothes... and stuff." He consulted his notepad again. "Your younger sister is on her way here, now."

My heart froze in my chest. "Now? Like, right this minute? Dr Thistlewaite said he'd be here if someone tried to claim me."

The cop tilted his head back, taking that in. "Okay...," he acknowledged. "Okay. That sounds fair."

"Is she coming tonight? This sister-person? When will she get here? We have to call Dr Thistlewaite!"

"She's got a long way to go," he informed me in a calming tone. "I mean, if she really hauls ass, she could get here in four and half, five hours. Minimum. Realistically, though, if she gets here that fast, nobody's going to let her in. If I was a betting man, I'd say she'll aim for early morning, somewhere between six and nine. You know?"

"You haven't talked to her, then?"

"No. Oh—" he looked again in the book. "Her name is Sheba! What about that? Your family really goes in for the exotic names, don't they?"

I asked him for "my" name again — Celandine Lisente. I took out my notebook and wrote it down. It sounded all wrong, so wrong, in oh so many ways.

The cop, smiling a trifle foolishly, confessed, "Seriously, no offense, but I have never heard that name before, in all my life. Celandine."

"Me, neither," I agreed. He smiled. The man struck me as a little dim, but well meaning. He appeared unable to grasp the implications of amnesia, about forgetting, about not knowing.

"Kinda sounds like those tiny oranges, am I right?"

I had no idea what he was talking about, so I let the remark blow by. "Is there anything else you can tell me?" I asked. "Keep in mind that I don't know a single goddamn thing about myself."

"Um—"

"Where is this Sheba woman coming from?" I asked him.

"From your home town, duh!" he laughed.

I regarded him with disbelief. "Which is?"

Finally he got it. "Ah, right — amnesia! It's Mariola. You come from Mariola. It's way the hell that way." He waved his hand vaguely toward the wall. "Does that ring a bell?"

"Maybe," I hedged.

"Progress, then!" he commented, nodding several times. "Remembering stuff!"

 

---

 

We spoke a little bit more. He assured me at one point that "Detective Rentham and Officer Scrattan" (aka Carly and Tatum) would talk to me and my "sister" before they let me leave. "They won't let you go without a fight!" he joked.

"I hope so," I agreed. "All joking aside, I hope you're right."

 

---

 

I didn't know what to make of the news. There was nothing I *could* make of it. Aside from the name "Mariola" none of it rang a bell, or made an echo, or sounded familiar in any way. In particular, that name — Celandine Lisente — I felt one thousand percent, absolutely sure that I'd never heard the name in my entire life, amnesia or not.

Ditto for "Sheba Lisente."

Going back over what the young policeman told me, I turned his phrase over and over in my mind: "They won't let you go without a fight!" Yes, I hoped Carly and Tatum — and the Robbins police force — would fight my corner. It made sense that they wouldn't let me be taken away. Wouldn't they want to keep me in town? Wouldn't they want me to wait here until my memories returned, so they could find out whether I knew anything about Hugh's disappearance?

In any case, if the police didn't fight for me, I formed a determination to fight for myself. I wasn't going to go without a fight.

I immediately revised that resolution: I wasn't going to go at all. After all, no one could compel me. I was an adult, and I had a place to go. Just to reassure myself, I flipped open my new phone and turned it on. The contact list, as Lucy said, had only two numbers in it: Lucy's and Hermie's. There was also an extra button marked HOME.

"There's no place like home," I said, feeling a kind of magic in the saying of it, as though if I said that phrase and pressed that button, in a flash I'd find myself transported — somewhere. Who knows where. Robbins? Mariola? The desert?

In any case, I felt my resolution, rock-solid within me. I wasn't going anywhere until I had a good reason to go. "Good reason" meaning a reason that made sense to me, not one that made sense to anyone else — anyone else at all.

Even if my so-called family arrived, armed with "receipts" — documents, photos, whatever — I had to be true to the little that I knew of myself, and one thing that I knew for sure is that I'd already once in my life declared that I'd never go back to Mariola.

 

---

 

I expected that what with the news, the revelations, the imminent arrival of my so-called sister, and above all after my two flashes of memory, that I wouldn't sleep a wink all night. Oddly enough, the moment I leaned back on my pillow and closed my eyes, I fell deeply, soundly asleep.

 

---

 

I slept until there was daylight outside, and when I woke, I lay quietly, looking at the scene out the window. Somehow I managed to hold off all the preoccupations and fears that today could bring: the arrival of my "sister," my release from the hospital, possible fights or arguments about where I'd go and stay and what I'd do.

Obviously, my memories hadn't yet returned, in spite of Thistlewaite's sanguine predictions and promises.

This amnesia business had gotten old pretty quickly. I felt just about ready to say to hell with my memories and to live my life here and now, as Perry Mason, as if I'd been born fully grown at that accident in the desert.

Sure, the business about Hugh's car — the disappearance of the two men — the question of how I even got there and what became of my clothes — all those things were troublesome, mysterious, and possibly even sordid (?) — Even so, those were questions I could live with, I think. Of course, they wouldn't be material for light conversation, but everyone has some sort of secret, don't they?

Quite a philosophical morning! All calm and full of wisdom! I felt ready for whatever the day was about to throw at me — except of course for the one thing that actually happened.

A small sound in the hallway caused me to turn my head to my right, and there I saw resting on my bed, the tousled blonde head of a young woman. Her sleeping head rested on her crossed forearms. She sat in a chair, leaning forward. How long she was there, I had no way of knowing. In any case, I was pretty sure I knew her name.

"Sheba?" I called softly, as I debated whether I should touch her head with my hand. My fingers paused there, two inches from her head. It seemed like the natural thing to do, if you woke to find someone's head resting on your bed. But it was as though there was a barrier between her and me, and that barrier was the fact that she was a total stranger.

I called her name again. "Sheba?"

Her head twitched slightly. She took a quick sniff of a breath, a wake-up reflex. Her head turned slightly, slowly, as her consciousness crept slowly up toward morning. Then, abruptly, her head jerked up, turning to face me, eyes bright, an open-mouthed smile showing an unblemished set of pearl-white teeth. I'd been studying my own face in the mirror, and this young woman had that same face, albeit a younger, cuter, more attractive version. It would be hard for anyone (even myself) to doubt that we were sisters.

"Deeny!" she exclaimed. "I *knew* you'd remember me! Ha! They said you have amnesia, but I told everybody, Deeny will remember me! She has to!"

Then, as she studied my face, took in my reactions, however slight, her happy confident expression fell apart.

"Oh, Deeny! Don't look at me like that!" Her hand rose; her fingers covered her mouth. "It's creepy!"

"I'm sorry," I replied. "Sincerely. But how am I looking at you?"

"Like you don't know me! Stop it!"

I heaved a big breath. Here I'd been preparing myself to put up a fight against a family of strangers who'd come to take me away. Instead, I found myself facing off against a childlike near-twin. In the moment, I was less concerned with remaining in Robbins and more concerned with not hurting Sheba's feelings.

"Hey, I'm sorry," I repeated in as soft and conciliatory tone as I could manage. "Amnesia is a bitch. I honestly don't remember anything."

"Anything at all? Then how can you talk?" She challenged, incredulous.

"The doctor says it's different parts of the brain. Where I got hit is all about long-term memory."

She touched her forehead, unconsciously, vicariously feeling the lump above my eye.

"The lump is going away," I told her, "it doesn't hurt as badly as it used to."

She seemed bewildered. "Deeny — you really don't remember me? Nothing at all?"

I shook my head, no.

Her face fell, and it looked as though she could start crying. So I reached out, touched her hand, and asked her, "So tell me all the things that I don't know."

"Like what?"

"Like the family. Parents, brothers and sisters..."

She laughed.

"Is it just you and me?"

"No, of course not!" she scoffed. "There are four of us. I'm the youngest girl. Nate is 18 months younger than me. He's the only boy. You're the middle girl, and Cameron is the oldest."

"So... Cameron is a girl."

Sheba's eyes popped wide in amusement. "Oh my God! Scandalous! She would be so upset to hear that! Not only that, but she is the only one who's actually married... to Andre, and they have two adorable little girls. Nate just got engaged. They'll still working on the date, but probably some time next year, September probably. And you—" Here her gaze turned to my left hand. Her jaw dropped and her face went white.

"Oh my God!" she cried, "Where is your ring?"

"What ring?" I asked. My heart rate doubled. I could feel it. An existential dread came over me. "What ring?"

"Your engagement ring! What other ring would it be?"

"I don't know, Sheba. Remember: I don't know anything. Anything at all. I'm engaged to be married? To a guy?"

"Yes," she answered, as if talking to a simpleton. "Of course to a guy. Oh my God! Barney is going to flip!"

"Barney?" I repeated. "I'm engaged to someone named Barney?"

Sheba's eyes twinkled. "Yes, like the dinosaur!" She began to sway back and forth, singing I love you, you love me, la la la la la la la...

"Uhh. Sheba, I can't make any sense of that."

She huffed in frustration. "This is going to be weird," she observed, nettled.

"It already *is* weird," I informed her.