The Forgetting Time(34)

And where was Noah’s well-being in all this?

She set the page aside.

“How did you get this information?”

“Some of it is…” He gestured vaguely. “On the computer. Also, I’ve been in touch with the mother. She confirmed that her house was red and her other son is named Charles.”

“You talked to Tommy Moran’s mother?” She realized she was shouting and tried to contain her voice. She didn’t want to wake up Noah. “Why didn’t you ask me first?”

Anderson seemed unperturbed. “I wanted to make sure the case was solid. We e-mailed. I told her about my work, about the similarities.…”

“And she responded to this?”

He nodded.

“So—if I say yes—then what?”

“Then we take Noah to the home and find out if he can identify members of the previous personality’s family, favorite places … that sort of thing. We take him around, see what he recognizes.”

She considered everything he was telling her. The logical end of the road she’d embarked on.

She had heard stories of mothers who had worked tirelessly and reversed many of the symptoms of autism in their children; mothers who learned how to build ramps for disabled daughters, who taught themselves sign language to reach deaf sons. But when did you stop, when it was your child?

She knew the answer already. There was no stopping.

She got right to the point. “And this process will heal my son?”

“It might help him, yes. It often has a beneficial effect upon the child.”

“And if I don’t do this?”

He shrugged. His voice was restrained, but there was tension in it. “Then that’s your choice. And the case is closed.”

“And Noah will forget all about this?”

“It isn’t uncommon for a child to forget by five or six.”

“Noah is only four.”

His eyes glinted. “Yes.”

“I don’t know if I can make it a year or two.”

He faced her stoically across the kitchen table. She’d met him twice now, had shared intense hours in the same room with him, and she still didn’t trust him. She couldn’t figure out if the light in his eyes was that of a genius or a crackpot. There was something stilted and hesitant about the way he talked to her, something that remained hidden, though it might simply have been the reticent nature of a scientist.… Still, he was good with Noah, gentle and patient, as if he cared about him, and he was a psychiatrist, and had handled many similar cases. Could she rely on that?

She felt again the current of fear that had been flowing inside of her for months now, like a river beneath a thin layer of ice. She heard it rushing through her dreams. When she woke up, she remembered nothing but the sickness of the feeling; she lay in bed and felt the power of it pulling at her and thought: my son is unhappy, and I can’t help him.

“You still plan to write about this?”

He sat back in his chair and regarded her. He spoke so slowly it was maddening. She wanted to shake him. “I am interested in documenting the case. Yes.”

“The case, the case. The case is a child, Jerry. Noah is a child.”

He stood up, a flash of aggravation crossing his face. “I know that. You think I don’t know that? I’m a psychiatrist—”

“But not a parent.”

The anger dropped from his face as quickly as it had arisen. He was impassive again. Resigned. He picked up his battered briefcase and glanced at her briefly, his eyes glittering with restraint. “Let me know what you decide.”

She sat for a long time in her kitchen, looking over the documents he had assembled. Her questions were too numerous to count. What would Noah want with this other family? What could they do for him? Was it crazy to do this? Perhaps she was the sick one. Perhaps there was a rare syndrome that caused mothers to hurl their offspring into vortices of new age pseudoscience.

But no; she wasn’t being neurotic. She was doing this for Noah. Not because he was wildly disrupting their lives and bankrupting them (though he was) but because the look on his face when she put him to bed, this night and every night (“I want to go home. Can I go home soon?”), was breaking her heart.





Fifteen

On the drive from his home in Connecticut to Ashview, Virginia, Anderson got two speeding tickets. He drove in a state of high excitement, barely catching his breath; he couldn’t keep track of the speedometer, could hardly focus on the GPS. He looked out the windshield, thinking of his new American case, and felt like he was starting out all over again.

He remembered his first case as clearly as if it had happened the day before.

Thailand. 1977. The river.

It was early morning, and the day already warm. He was eating breakfast with his old friend Bobby Angsley on the veranda of his hotel. Up the river, toward the city, buttery sunlight bounced off the Temple of the Dawn, scattering color into the air like a jewel. In front of them, a dog struggled to cross the river, its matted head thrusting above the waves.

Anderson was jet-lagged and three days sober. His sunglasses gave everything a sickly yellow tint. He focused on his friend, who was flirting with the waitress as she arranged a saucer of clotted cream on the white muslin next to a plate of scones. Her face was perfectly symmetrical, like a face in a dream.