The Other Mr. Bax (12 page)

The list contained another six links, but like the first six, none seemed relevant. The cloud of vague ideas at the back of Joyce’s mind remained unresponsive. “That’s not going to cut it.”

“Amnesia,” Brenda said.

She typed in “amnesia,” and clicked search.

Descriptions of general and retrograde amnesia

Resources and valuable amnesia information

Amnesia and cognition unit

Amnesia and the law

Clinical trials: Memory loss

The list went on. She checked the matching query count—over twenty thousand—then gave her sister a mock scowl. “I knew it wasn’t going to be easy.” Scanning the page descriptions, she scrolled down several pages. “I have a feeling it’s something else. Not amnesia,” she said. “But how the hell do you query something you can’t pin a name to?”

“What if you did a search within those results? Try delusions, maybe.”

Joyce gave her sister a puzzled look.

“How would a doctor approach it?” Brenda said.

Joyce typed in the word “delusions” and clicked the “search within these results” link.

False memory syndrome

Case studies in Neuropsychology…

Chapter 12: Psychological disorders

Amnesia in female characters

Dissociative disorders

Abnormal behavior

The list contained over seven-hundred matches.

“Now, that’s encouraging,” Brenda said.

“False memory syndrome,” Joyce read the description, then clicked the link. “Therapy-induced false memories of parental abuse?” she said. “I don’t think so.” She selected the next item on the list, skimmed over the text—a description of a book—and again, read aloud, “Semantic dementia; Cotard’s delusion; organic amnesia; focal retrograde amnesia; schizophrenic amnesia…” Tapping the screen with her finger, she looked at her sister. “I have no idea what any of this is.”

“Well…”

Joyce brought the mouse pointer down to the next link. “This could take hours, you know.”

“I think you’re being optimistic,” Brenda said.

Joyce sat there for a long moment, her eyes on the screen. “You hungry?”

Brenda dipped toast into her tomato soup. “Have you ever bumped into other people out there? Before today, I mean.” She nodded toward the window. “The reservation.”

“No, but last weekend, when Roland and I were on our way back from Twin Peaks, we found footprints at the bottom of the ravine, below the medicine circle. I wonder if they were Fred’s.”

Brenda scraped the last trace of soup from her bowl. “He was a bit strange, don’t you think?”

“A bit.”

“That PRS thing. Maybe he’d been hitting the peace pipe a little too heavy.”

“God, Brenda. I sometimes wonder if you’re really my sister.”

“They do drugs, you know. Remember how we used to get crackers and grape juice for communion? Well, they’d get LSD at theirs.” She made a smoking gesture.

“Pointless Rumination Syndrome… PRS. I think he saw you coming in his vision quest.”

The two sisters cleaned up their lunch dishes, then headed back upstairs to the office where the computer waited. Joyce parked herself before the keyboard, gazed at the screen. “So?”

“PRS.” Brenda said.

Joyce shrugged, then typed in “
prs
” and clicked the search button. A list appeared.

UK Performing Right Society

Welcome to the PRS Group

PRS Guitars

Philosophical Research Society

PRS: Polski Rejestr Slatkon

PRS – Procedural Reasoning System

Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery

She scrolled down to the next page.

PRS, Inc.

PRS - Ethnologue

The Hidden Nature of Reality and permanent reality shifts

She clicked the third link down.

T
he twelfth of October was overcast.
An even, gray, horizon-to-horizon carpet of clouds hung low in the sky. The house was empty by the time Roland climbed from bed. The morning ritual—Beth, Brian, and Molly rushing about, getting ready for work and school—consistently began and ended without him. He’d oversleep, waking in the early hours from dreams that would leave him awash in anxiety. This morning’s dream involved an electrical storm in his house—lightning bolting from the ceiling, lighting the bare rooms like temperamental strobes. It seemed that something, or someone, his wiser subconscious self perhaps, was trying to tell him it was time to get out—move on.

A swish came from the corn bordering the back yard—the stalks, crisp, rigid, and rattly—the corn, ready for harvest. Roland sat on the patio deck sipping coffee, staring off toward the field, sampling memory after memory, all of which were in some way sparked by the sight and sound of the corn.

The farmhouse where he’d grown up—it too was surrounded by fields such as this. He and his siblings had tried playing hide-and-seek in the corn, but no one could ever be found in its vastness. The games would fizzle like a story with no foreseeable end. There were times when he’d go off into the fields alone, finding low spots where the corn had been killed by standing water from heavy, spring rains—a secret sanctuary, an oasis in reverse. He could remain as long as he wished without the least chance of being discovered. He could have conversations with himself, sing, even dance about naked, pretending he was a hundred miles from the nearest living soul. He treasured that.

He peered out over the dull ochre field and imagined being surrounded by a wall of corn, cut off from any reminders of the days that followed his youth.

He lifted the ceramic mug to his lips—a quarter-cup of cold, black, bitter coffee—stepped to the edge of the deck, slung the coffee out onto the lawn, then set the mug down behind him. He walked across the yard to the edge of the cornfield, then pushed through the crisp wall of stalks. The first eight rows ran parallel to the field’s border; beyond that they ran perpendicular. Roland stayed between two rows, walking a straight line, deeper into the field. In his youth, the long knife-shaped leaves left stinging, superficial cuts on his face and arms, like paper cuts, stinging all the more on hot summer days—his skin, moist with salty perspiration. The reward of solitude, however, would inevitably outweigh the discomfort of getting there.

One memory led to another as he walked on: the school bus, the songs on the radio, the playground, the tether balls and swings, the rattle and squeak of their chains, conversations with Joyce, her telling him of a new show she’d watched over the weekend,
The Outer Limits
. “Nothing is wrong with your television set
.
” He could still recall the enthusiasm in her narrative, but could not locate a face. Even after seeing her in the hospital, he still could not find the face that belonged to those school-day memories of her. He could call her, he realized; he had her number. He could request a photo of her, as a young girl—something he would have treasured in his youth. She’d grant him that, no doubt. After all those years of wondering, it was now simply a matter of asking. But he hadn’t, and he was almost certain he wouldn’t.

A wall of corn stalks blocked his path at the opposite end of the field. He pushed through into a perpendicular row and followed it north for a way before cutting again to his right, looping back toward his brother’s house.

A breeze, like a gentle wave, rustled the stalks as it passed—a noise not unlike the sound of a Gulf of Mexico beach. Roland stopped. He listened as it quieted, and waited for the next wave. The wind was selective about where and what it touched. It whispered in the distance—rising, then falling. Then the opposite side—moving closer. A picture of a dark-gray moonless sky, meeting the featureless Gulf horizon, came to mind. The only clue as to their meeting point was a few, faint, distant lights—fishing boats on their way home. Dana sat close to his right—a glass of Chardonnay, crackers and cheese—cool, fine sand between their toes—Coquina Beach, hardly a soul in sight—the only sound, the swish of waves breaking forty feet away.

They’d moved to Bradenton less than two years after having first met in Stelle. The entire Florida experience, from the beginning to the last day, seemed like an endless test of resolve. Even the act of moving their possessions was wrought with breakdown after breakdown, as though the universe was trying to say, “No no no, bad idea.”

There were moments though, pleasant memories now, such as the nights on the beach. They’d go at night more often than the day. The heat—the long sweltering summers. It didn’t take long for Roland to realize he was not cut out for the southern climate. The dull, nearly nonexistent contrast—hot and humid, day after day.

A crow cawed from somewhere behind him. Roland turned, but saw only gray sky and corn, and then heard another caw.

The doorbell rang as Roland was cleaning up the remnants of lunch. A man in a brown uniform stood on the front porch, holding a clipboard. Two brown, corrugated cardboard boxes as big as moving boxes were stacked on a dolly beside him. A Federal Express van sat idling in the driveway.

“Two packages for”—the man glanced at his clipboard—“Roland Bax.”

“Uh… really?”

“Do I have the wrong house?”

“No, no… I’m Roland. I just wasn’t expecting anything.”

“Sign here if you want them.” The man held the clipboard up while Roland scribbled his signature in the tiny, pressure-pad window. Then, pulling the dolly out from under the boxes, he added, “They’re not heavy, just awkward.”

Roland examined the shipping labels. “Joyce Bax” was neatly written above her Queen Creek address. Roland moved the boxes into the house, then retrieved a knife from the kitchen and sliced the seals on the boxes. The first box was filled with clothes, all neatly folded—an envelope with his name written on it lay on top. He lifted the envelope, removed the letter from inside, unfolded it, and read:

“Dear Roland,

“I’ve been staring at the space below my so carefully worded salutation for ten minutes before admitting this much. I’ve never been very good at letter writing. How about an essay on writer’s block? I’m better at that sort of thing. Not that I don’t have anything to say; the problem is, everything seems either too trivial or too something else.

“I think about you, a lot. I hope you’re doing well, or better. But what can I do? I sometimes try to imagine being in your shoes, which only makes me feel sad and sorry. So, since returning home from Buffalo, I’ve been digging around, trying to identify this ‘thing,’ your thing; I’ve made it my thing too. There apparently has been little published on the subject (what some experts call, ‘reality shifts’) as things such as this generate about as much respect as crop circles and fairies. The only book I could find that contained anything remotely relevant was mostly theories about the influence we have over our realities (quantum physics and other spooky stuff) though somewhat sketchy on the topic of people vanishing, or whatever it is they do. I didn’t think it would be helpful (wild theories with no practical relevance), so I sent a novel instead. It was one of your favorites. But if you ever want to talk about this other thing, or anything, call me. You’ll find my number on the backside of my letter. I’d love to hear from you.

“Love, Joyce

“P.S. There are a lot of things you’ve been to me through the years; the most important was being my friend. I hope we can be friends again.”

Kneeling before the box, Roland gazed into a space in his mind. He had carried throughout his youth, and well into adulthood, the secret hope that he and Joyce would someday reconnect. It was not until he’d met Dana that he had finally outgrown the fantasy, moving beyond it, or perhaps, more accurately, pushing it to the rear. Regardless of his resolve, moments would arise when her wandering phantom would work its way into his consciousness and he’d again wonder about her.

His thoughts skipped back to the hospital, those last moments with Joyce—the kiss—a kiss like countless hundreds he’d given and received from Dana. Though ever so casual on the surface, the kiss nonetheless conveyed a sense of assuredness, of knowing who
we
are, with an assumption of intransience—the kiss of content spouses. The days he’d spent at the hospital, like the memory of a dream, had already begun to recede in his mind. The kiss however had not; it remained lucid.

He folded the letter and slipped it back into the envelope, then folded that and dropped it into his shirt pocket. He then moved the two boxes into the bedroom his brother had provided, a room which had once belonged to his nephew, who was now attending school somewhere in Vermont. He opened the second box—more clothes—lifted out a shirt and held it under his nose; its scent revealed nothing. He unfolded the shirt—a dark-gray flannel with a quirky pattern of red cowboy hats and yellow lassos. He tried to imagine it hanging on a rack in a store and then feeling compelled to buy it.
No
…

He removed more clothes, one item at a time, sniffing each, noting the colors and patterns, refolding them and stacking them on the bed. Buried beneath the clothes, at the very bottom of the box, was a hardbound copy of
Islandia
, a novel by Austin Tappan Wright. Roland lifted the book, a rather heavy volume—a thousand pages or more. As he opened the book, a photograph slipped out and fell to the floor.

The image in the photo seemed to contain a story as big as that in the book it fell from. A young couple sitting on the forward deck of a large sailboat, the guy’s arm around the girl’s shoulders, pulling her close, their heads tilted together, broad smiles, eyes full of contentment—lovers.
Though something felt misplaced—this woman’s face alongside his, the unfamiliar setting—while, at the same time, it appeared natural and genuine—the warm light on their faces suggesting the hour before sunset, a stray strand of hair, blowing across her face, nearly hiding an eye, a breeze from off the ocean, the smell of warm saltwater. He turned the picture over. “Tampa Bay 87” was written, in pencil, near the top. He flipped it over again and studied her face, her mouth, the shape of her lips, the rare way in which they formed a smile—her smile.

A memory? Or was it the memory of a memory? Her smile exuded the same childish innocence that had for so long bound him to her. For a fleeting instant he was that nine-year old boy sitting next to her on a swing. He tried to hold onto the moment, but it quickly dissolved, like a snow flake in his hand.

Focusing on the woman in the photo, Roland failed to find the spark of recognition he was looking for. Though the fact he was there for even that one instant was enough to impress upon him the strength of the tie they’d so long ago forged. He noted other details in the photograph and wondered if sailing might have been a hobby of theirs. Possibly this was a place they had once lived, and the boat belonged to them. More likely, it was chartered for a cruise, a vacation in the Bahamas or the Mediterranean.

He returned the photo to the book, and laid that on top the nightstand. He recalled his walk down the bike path, the day it all changed—remembered reminiscing about his childhood, about Selma and Joyce, and at some point experiencing something like
déjà vu, but could no longer recall what had provoked it.

He stood there, assessing his fate, wondering about that other life, the life he’d missed, the thousands of moments Joyce had shared with him that he, in return, took no part in. And for the first time since leaving the hospital, he was aware of
her
pain, the one thing he was certain they had in common.