Henry Franks(2)

“How?” he repeated.

She looked back at him and smiled, lighting up her soft brown eyes. “Could’ve been a longer movie.”

She was a sophomore, too, but not in any of his classes, and she was the one person at school who seemed to know his name, mostly because she lived in the house next door to him. She knew everyone, it seemed, and he was … well, he was Henry.

“Any plans for summer?” she asked.

Henry opened his mouth, though he didn’t have an answer. No plans, ever.

“Football practice,” came from the seat behind him. Bobby stretched his arms over Henry, pushing him out of the way in order to drum a quick beat on Justine’s backpack where it sat beside her. “You cheering again?”

Henry squeezed up against the window as they drove over the only bridge onto St. Simons and Bobby’s elbow kept hitting his shoulder. In the heat of the bus, his shirt was sticking to his skin and the thin white scar that circled his neck appeared for a moment when he pulled the collar out, but he quickly hid it away.

Justine pushed her backpack to the floor, breaking the beat. “No, my parents didn’t appreciate the three Bs I got this year. They decided I would get better grades without distractions.”

The bus stopped with a squeal of hydraulics and Henry ducked beneath Bobby’s arm.

“Bye,” Bobby said, slapping Henry’s shoulder and pushing him forward so that he stumbled down the aisle. Someone laughed, but he didn’t turn around to see who it was.

“Henry,” Justine called to him as he walked down the street.

He stopped walking but, for a long moment, didn’t turn around. When he looked over his shoulder at her, she was lost in the shadows of the oak trees lining the street.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

Henry shook his head before turning around to face her.

“I was actually asking you,” she said, taking a step closer to him, “on the bus, about summer.”

He let his hair fall into his eyes before finally brushing it away. “No plans,” he said. “You?”

“Junior counselor at the Y camp, that’s about it.” She walked a little in front of him, maintaining most of the conversation as usual. “I overheard my parents talking about a trip somewhere but I didn’t pay much attention.”

He turned into his yard even as she was speaking, and as he walked up to his house he could still hear her as she continued walking home.

Henry waved, even though she had already disappeared inside, and slipped his key into the lock. He jiggled the handle up and to the right, then turned the knob. Repeat steps two and three as needed. A bare bulb burned right inside the door, the weak light reflecting off the dark wood paneling and darker floor with a strange yellow tinge. Curtains, thick and dusty, were pulled across the windows and allowed knives of sunlight to sneak through and slant across the room. Dust danced and tumbled around him as he walked down the hall. Spanish moss fell against the windows, adding a diseased pallor to the heavy air.

Upstairs, Henry closed his bedroom door, dropped his backpack on the bed, and slid down to the floor. The room was sparsely furnished: a small desk with a laptop attached to an LCD monitor, and mismatched furniture. There had been a mirror over his dresser once but he’d taken it down, leaving blank walls dotted with pushpins around his desk.

He’d put the mirror in the closet after studying his body for hours one night, trying to see all of the scars or count the stitches or remember the accident.

He’d failed at all three and vowed never to try again.

From a pile next to him, he pulled out a scrapbook and flipped to the back; to a picture of him surrounded by boys and girls he didn’t recognize at a birthday party he had no memory of ever attending. He was blowing out the candles and they were all smiling when the flash caught the moment. They were, he thought, friends.

Outside, a branch scraped against the house. Henry gently pushed the scrapbook away, unwilling to further damage the book after so many nights flipping the pages. He walked to the window and scrubbed the dried blood off the glass, then rested his finger on a plastic pushpin. He took a deep breath and counted to ten. The hissing grew louder but there was no wind and the trees were still.

Margaret Saville, PhD

St. Simons Island, Glynn County, GA

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Patient: Henry Franks

(DOB: November 19, 1992)

Official record of nine-month therapeutic anniversary: patient presents with retrograde amnesia affecting declarative memory. Medical consultation shows no physical damage to medial temporal lobe or hippocampus; diagnosis of post-traumatic stress from motor vehicle accident (patient spent extended period of time comatose after accident, mother did not survive).

Continued monitoring of occasional blackout phenomenon in addition to twice-weekly therapy to accept the possibility of permanent memory loss.



With his index finger, the skin a shade or two darker than the rest of his hand, Henry scratched at the heavy line crossing his left wrist.

“They itch?” Dr. Saville asked.

“Always,” he said before curling his mismatched fingers into a fist to stop the motion. Sweat beaded on his skin, pooling in the scars.

“Why can’t I remember?” he asked.

“It’s a process, Henry, the act of remembering. The accident, and before—the memories are there. It’s only been a year.” She pointed to the photograph he’d brought, resting on the table between them: Henry and his parents, bright smiles and wind-blown hair. “Have you had the dream again?”