All Is Not Forgotten(45)

“Well, even then, please don’t lose sight of the fact that the treatment has compromised her ability to serve as a witness. And all the work I’m doing here, well … it’s very unconventional.”

Tom rubbed his forehead with the palm of his hand. I don’t care about all of that. I just want to know who it is.

“Even if the way you find him means he can’t be punished?”

Oh, he’ll be punished. Don’t doubt that. Don’t ever doubt that.

Charlotte looked at him, and then at me. We both had the same thought, I imagine. Tom seemed to be indicating that he would take matters into his own hands if a conviction were not possible. But we were so far away from that point, I didn’t give it much pause. Nor did Charlotte. That did not prevent her from using Tom’s false bravado to lash out.

Seriously, Tom. Can we just stop this charade? You have put all our lives on hold while you—do what? Look for pictures of boys in sweatshirts? Why can’t you get past this? Why, for God’s sake, can’t you be man enough to let it go!

“Charlotte…” I said, trying to stop this runaway train.

On hold? What the hell has been on hold? Huh? I coached Lucas’s lacrosse team. I had record-breaking commissions. I’m home every goddamned night and every weekend playing with our son and studying with our daughter so she can get back on track. What should I be doing? Playing golf? Would that make me more of a man, if I played more golf and spent less time searching for this monster?

This is why I don’t believe in couples therapy.

“Charlotte, Tom … let’s stop right there. Everyone is emotional today. Saying things that cannot be unsaid is not going help anyone. Least of all Jenny.”

Fine, Charlotte said. She could no longer look at her husband. Can we please discuss what this means for Jenny? You said she has found one memory from the woods. The man smelled of bleach.…

“Or she could smell bleach in the woods somehow.”

Okay. She smelled the bleach. She would have smelled it for the entire time. For the whole hour it was happening. And yet the one memory is the moment he …

“Penetrated her. Yes, that’s right.”

But he did that for the whole hour. And in different ways …

“I believe the memory was from the beginning. I imagine it was that moment that was most shocking to her. When she realized what he wanted to do. What he was going to do.”

Charlotte exhaled loudly and slumped back against the sofa cushions. Her eyes were on the sticker on that tulip plant. So now she knows what it feels like to be raped. So now what? Is this going to make her feel better?

I proceeded with caution. Knowing about Charlotte’s first sexual experience, I felt I needed to be respectful of her secret. I had been suggesting to her that she tell her husband. It was the only way to finish breaking the bond she had with Bob Sullivan, and unless that bond was broken, her marriage was going to fail. Charlotte did not want her marriage to fail. She just did not see that she was on that road.

“I know it sounds strange. But yes, this is going to make her feel better. She is going to be able to attach her emotions to this memory. Even if this is the only one we get back, it may be enough.”

Tom was not paying attention. I could see him obsessing on that sweatshirt. And I knew he was going to go home and ask his daughter about it.

“Tom?” I said, getting his attention. “We need to be on the same page. All of us.”

I don’t know. This all sounds like a bunch of voodoo nonsense to me. You let her smell bleach and she remembered being raped. What if we show her a sweatshirt and she remembers something else about that night? How can you say the bleach wasn’t suggestive? Huh? You didn’t know if there was bleach. You thought she was remembering a smell from the bathroom. How do we even know where she smelled the bleach?

“I don’t know for sure. But she had an organic memory of a strong odor. She’s smelled over sixty odors during our work together, and this was the only one that triggered that response. She doesn’t have any memory of colors or clothing or the red bird. If I introduce something like that, she’ll know there must be a reason, that we have some suspicions, and that knowledge could trigger a false memory. Her brain will send it to the place where it holds the story of that night, and it will arrive in that place with a seal of approval. I don’t know how else to explain it to you.”

Then show her sixty shirts and coats and sweatshirts. It’s safe to say the guy was wearing something on his body. She can’t assume anything from that. Right?

Tom was relentless. And he had Parsons breathing down my neck about this sweatshirt. If they could all just give me more time to work with the bleach and this one little memory. It was like a little newborn chick. I just wanted to keep it safe and warm and see how it progressed. I agreed in the end to have her look through catalogs of men’s clothing, from suits to Tshirts, while we were doing our work. I promised to do it later that week.

I would not keep that promise.





Chapter Eighteen

The Kramers went home to Jenny. I went home to my wife, who was crying in our bed, holding a blue hoodie with a red bird.

The Kramers did not speak in the car or in the house, partly because they were angry at one another, and partly because they were each lost in the new reality Jenny’s recalled memory had created. They were two trains leaving the same station but heading in opposite directions.