All Is Not Forgotten(24)

Charlotte Kramer came to see me while Jenny was still in the hospital. Dr. Markovitz had refused to release her without a course of therapy in place—a therapist on board and a plan for her care. Charlotte did not resist. Whatever responsibility any of us, including Tom and Jenny, might ascribe to her for Jenny’s suicide attempt, Charlotte took it on tenfold. Soaked in her daughter’s blood, she spoke to Detective Parsons about how she found her daughter. And while she managed to cover her tracks with regard to Bob Sullivan, I believe she was sincere about her feelings of remorse.

I sat with her in the family lounge. It was like déjà vu. I couldn’t believe something else had happened to that poor girl. But Mrs. Kramer was different this time. I remember on the night of the rape, she was all dressed up for some dinner party. Even after hearing the news, she kept her composure. Tom Kramer was another story. Christ, was he a mess. Both times. Just a sloppy wet mess. Mrs. Kramer sat on the couch, crossed her legs, and folded her arms in a very ladylike way. But she was shaking. I remember watching her right hand as it lay over her left wrist, both of them resting on her knee. She was fighting it hard. I asked her to just tell me what happened, start to finish. She nodded and said something formal like, “Certainly, Officer.” I mean, I’d been talking to this family for months, even before I found the blue Civic. Probably once every few weeks, you know, keeping them up to date on the investigation, asking about how Jenny was doing.

There wasn’t much to tell before the car showed up again, what was it—ten weeks after the suicide attempt? But I knew Tom needed it, so I made the effort. I probably talked to Tom more than Mrs. Kramer, but still. There’s a familiarity there now. But she addressed me like we’d just met. Anyway, she took this long breath and then … I’ll never forget it … she used both hands to smooth out her blouse—this white blouse that was completely soaked in her daughter’s blood. And then she reached up to her face to brush a piece of hair back across her forehead, and the blood, it just got smeared there across her forehead and she didn’t even notice it. It was as if she was still going through the motions of normal behavior but she was so distraught that she didn’t even see what she was doing—getting the blood all over her hands and then her face. I just wanted someone to come in and hold her until she finally let it out.

Detective Parsons continued, reading from his notes what Charlotte said to him:

She said she had seen a light on in the pool house bathroom. There’s a small window and I guess she was out in the yard to check on some fallen tree branches so she could tell the landscaper what needed to be done. She caught a flash of light coming from the window. So she went to turn it off. That’s when she found her daughter. She did not go into the details. She let out a little cough to clear her throat and said that she called 911 from her cell phone, which I guess she had with her, and then she wrapped Jenny’s wrists in the towels. Probably saved her life. Hard to say, but at that stage, seconds counted, and it was ten minutes before the paramedics arrived. I was writing all this down in my notebook. At one point, she stopped talking. I thought she was letting me catch up with my writing, but even after I lifted my pen, she was silent. I looked up then, looked at her, and this very thin stream of tears was coming down both sides of her face. It was so odd because there was no other indication she was crying. I mean, Tom was like a contorted twisted ball of flesh, his eyes, his mouth, his brow all scrunched up and bright red. But Mrs. Kramer was just staring blankly with these little waterfalls coming down, dripping onto the bloody shirt. And she said then, when I looked up at her, and I’ll never forget this either, she said, “This is my fault. I did this. And I’ll fix it.”

Dr. Markovitz immediately consulted with the Naval Health Clinic and the woman doing the study on the treatment. He said she had mentioned other trauma victims who had received the treatment and how she had been following their progress. She was, apparently, shocked that Jenny had tried to take her life. I find this disingenuous. She knew full well what torment Sean Logan had suffered when he returned home without his right arm or his memory. She had followed his treatment at the clinic, the chronic insomnia, the rage attacks against his wife and in front of his son. He had withdrawn from his friends and family and cut off contact with everyone he knew in the navy. His symptoms were complicated by the underlying anxiety, which before had been self-medicated with exercise, drinking, and sex. The clinic had put him on Prozac and lorazepam, and these had muted the symptoms of the anxiety. Had he come to me before the mission where he lost his arm, I may very well have prescribed the same drugs. They could not understand why he was not getting better. But that’s because they were missing two crucial pieces of information. First, his chronic anxiety predating the mission. They assumed his anxiety symptoms were a result of PTSD. Why, I might have asked them, would he have PTSD when he had no memory of the events? Wasn’t that the whole reason for giving him the treatment? Infuriating. Second, they were unaware of the deleterious, anxiety-producing side effects from the treatment itself—from the dislodging of the emotional and physiological experience from the factual memories

Sean described his mental state like this. This was when he first came to me. His humor and lightness would not return for many months. He refused to wear a prosthetic. I think he wanted the world to see him as defective or damaged, because that was how he felt inside. You will surely notice the similarities to Jenny Kramer.