The Stranger in the Mirror(71)

She swallows hard and looks at her mug.

I pull out a piece of paper. “You can do the things I’ve outlined here. I’ve left you recipes for soups, casseroles, breads. You can prepare healthy meals and start doing more for me and Valentina.”

She takes the paper from me wordlessly and scans it. When she looks back at me, I see an emotion I haven’t in a while. Anger. “You’re joking, right? You expect me to just stay in this house and cook all day?”

I snatch it back and glare at her. “You’re lucky I don’t—” I stop myself and take a deep breath. “You need to think about everything I’ve put up with. Your depression, your moods, your crazy temper. Maybe you’d be better off back in the sanitarium.”

The threat is enough to douse the rebellion in her eyes. “Julian, please. I need more than this. I’m going crazy here.”

I raise an eyebrow. “My thoughts exactly.” But I realize that she does need something more. She’s no good to me, and to Valentina, if she’s this miserable. “I’m sorry, let me think about it. We can talk more tonight, okay?”

She nods. “Thank you.”

A former patient of mine is the head librarian at the town library just down the road. I’ll tell Cassandra to apply for a job there. I’ll make sure she doesn’t get it, of course, but the process of applying should keep her busy for a while. She’ll appreciate the fact that I tried to help her, but won’t blame me for the fact that she’s not qualified enough. I’ll get the credit for the effort and get to play the hero. A role I very much enjoy.

In the meantime, I’ve hired a trainer to come and work out with her in an effort to get her back into shape. Even my devotion has its limits. I need her to be as close to the original Cassandra I married as possible.





??57??

Julian




Even though Cassandra seems fully assimilated, I did have a scare last week. We were watching a television drama that takes place in Florida. I intentionally suggested it, wanting to see if I’d been as successful as I thought in eradicating her memories of growing up there. After the first episode, there was no reaction, but in the next episode there was a scene at the beach, and she began to get visibly agitated.

“Turn it off!” she shouted, standing up from the sofa.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

She began to tremble. “I don’t know. The beach. It looks familiar. Something bad happened there.” She was pacing then.

“But you grew up in Maryland,” I reminded her, sticking to the backstory that mirrored Cassandra’s. “There are no palm trees in Maryland.”

“Maybe I went to Florida with my parents, or one of my foster families,” she suggested.

I needed to see how much she could remember. I went to her, took her hands in mine, and gently squeezed them. “Take a deep breath. Sit down and close your eyes. See if you can remember.”

She did as I asked. After a few moments, I prodded again. “Picture that beach. What do you see?”

Her lip quivered, and a tear rolled down her cheek. “He’s going to drown her.” Her voice sounded young, childlike.

“Who?”

As if she hadn’t heard me, she began to yell. “Let her up, let her up. Stop! You’re killing her.”

“Cassandra, listen to me. Who are you yelling at?”

Her breath was coming in ragged gasps. “My father, it’s my father. He’s holding her under. She didn’t want to go in the ocean, and he made her. No no no no.”

I needed to calm her down. “Imagine,” I say, using our trigger word.

She became still.

“You are safe, and no one can hurt you. You’re watching a movie. It’s not happening in real time. Tell me what you see.”

Her breathing became more even and her voice less frantic, though it still sounded young. “We’re having a nice day on the beach. Building sandcastles. Mommy is reading a book. Shannon and I are running back and forth to the water to fill our buckets.”

“Go on.”

“He’s drinking beer. Mommy tells him to take it easy, and he gets mad. Tells her to shut her mouth. She gets upset and leaves. He tells us it’s time to go in the water, but Shannon’s scared of the waves. He calls her a stupid baby.” Then her voice changed, and she imitated a man. “Get your ass in that water now before I throw you in.”

Wrapping her arms tightly around her torso, she shrank back into the sofa cushions. “Come on, Shannon. It’s okay. I’m with you.” Her voice changed again to imitate the man. “Come on, you piece of shit.” And then it’s her voice again. “He’s dragging her by the arm, and she’s crying. Then he’s holding her under the water.”

“Does he let her go eventually?”

Cassandra shuddered. “Finally. She grabs on to me, and he swims away and goes back to the umbrella.”

“Hear me, Cassandra. This didn’t happen to you. It was a movie you saw when you were little. It scared you so much, you felt like you lived it. But you grew up in Maryland. You’ve never been to Florida. Repeat after me.”

“I’ve never been to Florida.”

I made a note to reinforce this changed memory in our sessions later that week. I know firsthand how you can take someone’s memory and manipulate it. Confabulation. The trick is to use truth laced with fabrication. A mother takes a trip to the park with her child. You talk to the mother about what happened on that day, based on the facts she has already told you. Now you insert a lie. You ask the mother if she remembers her child getting lost in the park. The mother looks puzzled. No. Ah, but don’t you remember how afraid you were? you ask her. She thinks for a moment. Oh, yes, now I remember. And the most incredible thing happens next. She begins to build an elaborate scenario to describe in detail everything that happened while the child was lost, the panic she felt, the relief when she found the child. It’s fascinating how the mind can so easily deceive itself. There is no such thing as ethics when it comes to the mind and its manipulation.