Passenger(30)

“Never,” Sister Eleanor says, “and I never asked. It wasn’t my place. I figured if you didn’t want to tell me then there must be a reason.”

“There’s a reason,” I admit, “but I don’t think it has anything to do with running from the police. Or gangsters.”

“You are trapped in an increasing state of unrest,” the old nun tells me. “Each time I see you, I can sense it more and more. Your soul radiates distress. You are not sleeping, not eating properly. Your eyes tell it all.”

“Earlier this week I woke up on a bus and couldn’t remember who I was,” I say, and I go from there. I tell this old woman everything I can remember—from the address written on my hand to my attempt to locate my rental agreement from the apartment complex to my adventures with Clarence Wilcox. I tell her about the young Chinese fortune-teller and her advice about retracing my steps—or how I interpreted her advice to mean that, anyway—and how I decided to do just that. Which has led me here.

When I finish, I do not know what to expect from the wizened old woman. Childlike in her too-big robes, her sour-milk eyes never leaving mine, she only sighs and rises, with great difficulty, from the table. For one horrible moment I anticipate her telling me to get out and not come back. But instead, she crosses to the cupboard and pulls down two short glasses. From another cupboard, and to my astonishment, she produces a bottle of Maker’s Mark whisky. She carries the items to the table and proceeds to pour a shot into both glasses.

“Your stomach cancer,” I suggest.

“I have lived for eighty-six years with that stomach. The cancer is a relatively new occupant. My loyalty is with old friends, not new ones.” She sets one of the glasses in front of me. “Here. I think maybe you could use it.”

“I think maybe I could.”

I sip it and Sister Eleanor takes a healthy swallow. Setting her glass down, she remarks how she will pay for it later.

“I’ve started today retracing my steps. I’ve gone through all the places I’ve been to in the past few days. Next,” I say, “I’m going back to where the bus let me off that night.”

“And then what?”

“I don’t know. I’m hoping something will happen once I get there.”

“But what if it doesn’t?”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to think about that part.”

“Have you gone to the police?”

“No. I guess I’m afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Of what they might tell me. Like, if I’m wanted. If maybe I really am being chased by the cops.”

“If you’re afraid of what they might tell you, then you don’t really want to know. You might just be happier not knowing.”

“No, that’s not true. I feel lost. Of course I want to know.”

“Lost,” she says, “but free, too. To start over.” She says, “All your past mistakes no longer belong to you.”

“Yes,” I say, and I hang my head. I am looking at the inked address on the palm of my left hand. “That seems to be everyone’s opinion.”

“And not yours?”

“I’ve got no past mistakes but I’ve got no past accomplishments, either.”

“Then what about going to a hospital? There may be a medical reason for your condition.”

“I guess I’m just afraid of what they might tell me, too. Like I’ve got two weeks to live or something.” The callousness of my comment registers just a moment after I’ve already spoken the words. My face burning, I say, “Oh, hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“Sounds to me you don’t really want to find out who you are.”

I shake my head. “I just want to know who I am. I mean, I don’t know what foods I like, what music I listen to, what friends and family I have. No decision I make is based on anything other than animal instinct. Today I bought a bottle of water because it was the cheapest thing to drink and I knew I needed to conserve what money I had because I don’t know where any more money will be coming from. But I don’t even know if I like water.”

“You are wrong.”

“How’s that?”

“Not everything has been instinct. Some things are trickling into your conscious mind from your past memories—your past emotions and beliefs and preferences.”

“Like what?”

“Like coming here,” she says. “You always keep coming back here.”





TWELVE





Sister Eleanor walks me to the rectory door and, as I step out into the snow, I thank her.

“Answers will be provided in time,” she tells me. “You just let God lead the way. Have faith. I will pray for you.”

“Thank you. And I hope you get well.”

“Only Luke is left,” she calls after me as I’m halfway across the courtyard. Her voice is surprisingly strong. “I will pray that there will be no need for me to meet him.”

I spend the rest of the daylight hours following the bus route in reverse. I start at the final stop—the stop where I had gotten off with my address on my palm and my memory gone just a few days ago—and study the map of routes while standing beneath the bus stop portico. A key in the margin of the map lists the different lines and the times of each stop. The line that services this stop is the Green Line. On the map, I tick off all the stops of this line as they wind through the city, and count twelve. Twelve stops.