The Forgetting Time(82)

Janie sat in the chair next to Denise. She’d thought about asking to take the other woman’s seat by her son, but she couldn’t risk upsetting Noah. At one point, Denise had loosened her hand a bit from Noah’s and shifted, as if to offer Janie her rightful place by Noah’s side, but Noah had grabbed her wrist, his eyes meeting hers over the mask. They regarded each other for a moment like two horses recognizing each other across a field, and then Denise shrugged slightly and settled back again, placing her other hand over his.

After fifteen minutes or so of this, Janie couldn’t bear it any longer.

“Noah? I’m going to be right outside. Just for a little while. Right outside that door,” she’d said, and the two of them had turned their heads and looked at her as if they hadn’t known she was in the room.

Janie didn’t want to leave him there like that, but she had to get out. She needed air. She started to back slowly out of the room.

“Mom?”

Janie and Denise both turned to him. He took the mask off.

He looked at Janie. “You coming back?”

Never had she thought that the sudden spark of fear in her own child’s eyes would be something she could savor. But everything had been turned on its head this day.

“Of course, sweetie. I’ll be back in a minute. I’ll be right outside that door.”

“Okeydoke.” He cast her a sleepy, contented grin. “See you soon, Mommy-Mom.”

“Put the mask back on, sweetie.”

He settled the mask back on his face with the hand that wasn’t holding on tightly to Denise. Then he gave her a thumbs-up.

Janie pulled the curtain and closed the door gently and left her palms there, resting her forehead against the door. One breath, then the next. That was how it was done. One breath, then the next.

“He’s fine, you know.”

She turned. A gaunt old man was sitting on a chair in the hallway. It was Anderson. When had he become so frail?

“They’ll let him out soon,” he added.

“Yes.”

She sat down next to him, blinking up at the ceiling, at the small dark bodies of dead bugs trapped on the bottom of the bright bowl of light. One breath, then the next.

“Quite a day,” Anderson said.

“I should go back in there. I don’t even know that woman.”

“Noah does.”

Silence.

“Most of them forget with time, you know,” Anderson said. “Present life takes over.”

“Is it bad to hope for that?”

Anderson’s rigid body seemed to soften. He patted her hand. “It’s understandable.”

When she closed her eyes, the bright oval of light shone inside her lids. She opened them. Her brain was roiling. “That man … the one the police have. He’s the one who killed Tommy?”

“Possibly.”

“Will Noah have to be there? At the trial?”

Anderson shook his head, a wry smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “A previous personality isn’t much of a witness.”

“I guess you’re right,” she said. “I still don’t understand how they found him.”

“I expect … it had to do with Noah.”

She would ask later. She would find out later. There was only so much information a body could handle at one time. One breath, then the next.

Anderson’s back was straight as a rail, his hands in his lap. At attention, still.

“You don’t have to wait here, you know,” she said. “You can go to the hotel. Take a cab. Get some rest.”

“It’s all right. We’ll rest … on the day after today.”

“Tomorrow.”

“Right. Tomorrow.”

The word lingered in the air.

“And tomorrow,” he murmured.

“And tomorrow,” she said. “Creeps in this petty pace from day to day.”

He glanced at her, startled. “To the last syllable of recorded time. And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death.”

“You know your Shakespeare,” she said. Perhaps he also had a Shakespeare-quoting mother. She felt all of a sudden as if her mother was in the room with them. Maybe she was. Could people be reborn and also be here, as spirits? But that was a question for another hour.

Anderson smiled ruefully. “Some words I remember.”

“Everybody forgets words sometimes.” She thought back to the way he seemed to substitute some words for others. The way the GPS had flummoxed him. “But it’s not just that, is it?”

He was silent a moment.

“It’s degenerative. Aphasia.” He smiled dryly. “That word I can’t forget.”

“Oh.” She felt it like the blow it was. “I’m so sorry, Jerry.”

“There’s more to life than memory. So they tell me.”

“There’s the present moment.”

“Yes.”

“Memory can be a curse,” she said. She was thinking of herself, of Noah.

“It is what it is.”

Silence.

“Maybe I will go, then.” He put his hands on his knees, as if willing himself to stand.

“Actually … Can you stay a few more minutes?” There was no way to keep the need from leaping out of her voice.