Henry Franks(6)

The scrapbook lay where he’d left it, open to the picture of his mother, but no matter how long he studied her face, he couldn’t remember her; it was as if a stranger held his hand. Even his own face was alien to him, and he’d spent hours one night looking at his reflection trying to remember himself. He’d cried himself to sleep that night, face buried in the pillow, afraid his father would hear his sobs.

Beneath the picture, his father had written Mommy, Daddy, Henry with a ballpoint pen. The pages were falling out of the book due to how often he flipped through it; the flimsy photo album was in danger of falling apart completely. Henry ran his finger over the words but couldn’t feel a thing, and suddenly realized he didn’t even know his mother’s name.

He took the stairs two at a time, jumping down them and calling for his father. “Dad!” echoed through the empty house. Where the hallway to the master bedroom began, Henry stopped. A wooden door stood at the end of the short hallway, a deadbolt lock above the knob. Henry took a deep breath, stepped forward, and knocked.

The house was silent save for the constant hum of the air-conditioner.

His hand rested on the doorknob; he closed his eyes as he tried to open it and failed.



Hours later, when he heard his father return home, Henry started downstairs. The question of his mother’s name was on the tip of his tongue but would remain unasked. When his father’s voice drifted up the stairs, Henry stopped in the shadows halfway down, trying to see the person his father was talking to.

“C6, C7,” his father said while emptying three bags of fast food out on the table. “Carbamazepine and phenobarbitol; maybe divalproex. C6, C7. So close, sweetheart, almost there, I promise.” But as far as Henry could see, there was no one else in the room.

Dr. Franks piled the hamburgers up on the counter, then filled one bag back up and started walking to the dining room with it, grabbing a handful of ketchup packets on the way.

Henry watched, barely able to breathe, as his father placed the burgers on the table.

“Dinner,” his father said, calling up to him.

He tiptoed back up to his room and then walked downstairs. By the time he reached the kitchen, the remaining pile of burgers on the counter was gone. On the dining room table there were only enough for their dinner. His father was already eating.

As Henry looked at him, for just a moment, he thought he was staring at a stranger.

After dinner, his father cleaned the table and then left the room. The deadbolt clicking into place on his father’s door was loud in the silence. Henry sat at the empty table, the question of his mother’s name still unspoken and barely more than a memory.

Wind brushed leaves against the windows in the humid summer evening as the sun dipped beneath the horizon. In the kitchen, Henry searched for the rest of the food his father had brought home, but there was only one bag in the garbage can and no evidence remained that there had been any other hamburgers in the house. Somewhere, a dog barked. Then, with a crash of a branch against the side of the house, the wind hissed right outside the window.

Henry pushed the miniblinds to the side and peered out into the backyard. A light from Justine’s house sent hazy shadows across the summer-scorched grass. Barely visible from where he was standing, there was a bag of fast food on the back stoop.

Henry dropped the blinds, staring at nothing while the image of that bag flashed across his vision every time he blinked. He took a deep breath before walking to the back door and flipping the light switch for the backyard.

The single halogen flooded the area with light. A weak breeze stirred as Henry opened the door. He picked the fast food bag up. Aside from crumpled wrappers, it was empty. He dropped it to the ground and took another look around the yard.

Old oak trees, gnarled roots poking out of the ground, were draped with Spanish moss. An ancient iron fence, more rusted than not, in some places ran right into the trees in its circuit of the yard. A gate swung open on broken hinges. Even at night, the heat brought beads of sweat out on his skin, catching in the scars.

A branch snapped in two as it clawed against the house and he hurried inside, locking the door behind him. He took another deep breath, counting to ten as he leaned against the wall, staring out between the miniblinds as the Spanish moss hung motionless in the still night air.

Margaret Saville, PhD

St. Simons Island, Glynn County, GA

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Patient: Henry Franks

(DOB: November 19, 1992) “I’m alive,” he said. “I breathe.”

“And the dream?” Dr. Saville asked.

“I’m living the wrong life.” He sat up, hair falling into his face, and he tensed his fingers, stretching them as far as they would go. Then, with a shrug, he slumped back down, melting into the cushion. “Or something like that. It’s me but it’s not me. Then I wake up.”

“This is part of the process, Henry.”

“Waking up is good.”

“Then what?”

He looked at her, then closed his eyes. “Nothing. No dreams during the day. You need memories for that, don’t you?”

“What do you do during the day?”

“I’m not exactly the beach type,” he said. “Sat out back last week where no one could see. Only part of me tanned.”

“Hang out with friends? Justine?”

He looked toward the window, where the palm tree brushed along the glass, and then shrugged. “She always says hi, I guess.”