The next two days seemed like a bad dream, somehow moving agonizingly slow and too fast all at once. I wanted Cody to be okay, to be back to herself, but I also wanted there to be something wrong that they could identify and fix. I felt guilty at that, even though I knew it was because I wanted Cody to be okay and as she was, and I didn’t see a clear path to that without some idea of what was behind her sudden memory loss.
Except it wasn’t just that, was it? It was the call from the man at the wrecker service, with his talk of bears and broken glass. I’d called him back the next day to tell him to keep storing the car and so I could set up a time to go by and get anything valuable out of it, but I had to leave a voice mail. I was somewhat relieved, as I dreaded the idea of talking to him again, of him telling me more things that made me worry or doubt that I really understood what was going on. That I could trust what was going on.
That I could trust her.
It was a strange, uncomfortable thought. I trusted her more than anyone, and yet the hours I had spent with her in the hospital…
It wasn’t that she was unpleasant or unkind. Just the opposite. While she did still seem somewhat distant, she was also eager to have me visit and spend time with her. The doctor had told me to go easy on giving her too much detail beyond the basics—she said that with some people suffering from amnesia, an overload of new information caused high anxiety, or made them feel pressure to pretend to remember things they didn’t to please their family or the doctors treating them.
“Just spend time with her. Answer any direct questions she has honestly, but without too much elaboration, and if she presses, just remind her that we want the memories to come back on their own for the most part. Spurring those memories is one thing. Recreating them based on your perspective and recollection is another. Does that make sense?”
I nodded that it did, and I tried to stick to that when I was with Cody in the hospital. She’d learned from someone about our son and so that was a big focus of her questions, but she was also asking about our extended family. I told her that her mother had passed away seven years earlier and her father had died when she was a child. That my parents had Evan for the week and had been updated on what was going on, though I hadn’t mentioned anything to them about her amnesia yet. Just that she was okay after a car accident and was still recovering in the hospital.
But by the second day, Cody had grown impatient in her hunger for more information. She was peppering me with constant questions—random stuff. Some of it was about me and her or Evan or something else that made sense she’d want to know after losing her memory, but a lot of it was random stuff that didn’t seem like a big concern at the time.
What was her social security number? What did she do in her job? How long had she worked there? What city had she been born in? What was her favorite color?
After awhile, I started laughing. She quirked an eyebrow at me.
“What’s funny?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. Nothing, I guess. I just feel like I’m on a quiz show about you. Or like I forgot your password and I’m trying to give the answers to those questions they give you to reset it.”
She gave me a slight frown. “I just…This is really scary for me, okay? You can’t imagine what it’s like to just have something…just swallow you up. I don’t want to feel like this anymore. Don’t you want me to get better?”
I tried to hide my irritation. “Of course I do. That’s not fair. And while no, I don’t know exactly what you’re going through, I know it has to be hard. And I want to do whatever it takes to make it better. That’s why they’re still doing tests and monitoring you.”
Cody rolled her eyes. “And that’s another thing. I’m ready to get out of here and go home. Get our child and start living our life again. I’ve always heard that people remember better when they’re in a familiar setting, right?”
I stared at her uncertainly. “Uh, yeah, maybe. But I think they just want to make sure they aren’t missing something that could hurt you down the line. I think they’re good doctors and nurses and they’re trying to help. We all are.”
Her lips thinned as she gave a small nod. “I know. I think I’m just tired. Can you give me some time to sleep and come back later?”
“Yeah. Yeah, sure. I have some stuff I need to take care of anyway. I’ll be back this afternoon.”
“This is Jesse.”
“Hey Jesse. This is Steve Miltry. You’ve got my wife’s car?”
I thought his tone changed when he spoke next, but maybe it was my imagination. “Yeah, hey Mr. Miltry. I got your message. Got your car locked up in one of our garages, safe and sound. And whenever you want to come get stuff out of the car is fine with me. I didn’t take anything out, but I saw some stuff you’ll want to get.”
“Oh? Like what?”
“Hmm? Cell phone, driver’s license, what I’m guessing is your wife’s purse. That kind of thing.”
“Did you go into my wife’s purse and check her license?”
Jesse sounded surprised and slightly offended. “What? No. I wouldn’t do that. It was in the passenger floorboard by itself. Partway under the seat, and I never touched it, but I saw enough to know what it was. The purse was in the backseat floor I think, and I never went in it.”
“Oh, sorry. I…just don’t know why she’d have it out is all. Anyway, yeah…can I come get that stuff now?”
“Sure. I’ll be here all afternoon unless I get called out.”
Jesse Hartman looked younger in person than he sounded on the phone. His hair was already thinning on top, but he had a baby face and was quick to smile when I came into his office. “You Steve?”
I returned his smile awkwardly. “Yeah, that’s me. And hey…I was thinking about it on the way over here. I’m sorry again about how I acted on the phone. I wasn’t trying to accuse you of messing with her purse.”
He waved his hand as he stood up and came around the counter toward me. “Nah, man. I get it. Nothing to worry about. Come on back.” He patted my arm as he moved past to a rear door leading out into a large fenced yard housing three rows of cars. Beyond that, there were two outbuildings, one small and the other much larger. Jesse gestured toward the buildings. “Yours is in the big one. We use it for extra security on some vehicles. I think at one time the boss was going to use it as a working garage. Had the idea to run a full mechanic’s shop.” He shot me a grin. “Don’t think it worked out though. We piddle some in the small garage, but mainly just to keep our trucks running.”
“Oh, so you don’t own this place?”
He shook his head as we reached rolling door. “Me? Nah, I’ve only been here a year. Guy that owns it doesn’t come in much anymore, and the other fella he had working for him…” Jesse paused and seemed to consider something before looking back at me. “Has your wife said anything about the first guy we sent out?”
“Huh? I thought you towed the car.”
He shrugged. “I did, yeah. But I wasn’t the first person we sent out. Robbie…he’s the other guy the old man has working for him…he took the call originally. But then I could never get ahold of him after that. Never answered my call or text to tell me he’d found the customer…your wife…and well, Robbie has a problem with booze. Not a bad guy, but he isn’t reliable. So when I couldn’t get him in a few minutes, I took the other truck and went out there myself. By then your wife was gone. I think someone driving by had seen her car and called 911, but I can’t say for sure. And I don’t know that Robbie ever even made it out there. He wasn’t there when I got there, and neither was the truck. And it’s not unheard of that he might drop off for a day or two, but not more than that, especially when he has one of the trucks. So I just…I’m starting to go from irritated to worried, you know?” Jesse gave a short laugh. “Sorry, here I am bothering you with this and you’re just here to get your stuff.”
I shook my head. “No, I get it. I…I don’t know. She hasn’t said anything about the accident. Well, except for some texts I got at the time, but she doesn’t mention a tow truck or the Robbie guy or anything.”
Jesse nodded as he pushed up the door. “Well, he’ll turn up. Probably sleeping it off somewhere.” He gestured to the car inside the building. “There it is.”
I felt my chest tighten as I looked at it. He hadn’t been exaggerating. The front of the car looked fairly intact other than the broken grill and a small bend in the bumper, but the driver’s side door…The window was not only broken out, but that part of the door had been bent out of shape as though something too large to fit had been shoving its way inside.
“Jesus.”
Jesse made a small clucking sound in the back of his throat. “Yeah. That’s what I was saying. I don’t know what does that. That door won’t work, but the passenger side is fine.”
I glanced at his strange expression and then went closer to the car, examining the brown-black trails running thick down the outside of the door. “I-is that blood?”
“Nah. I wondered at first too. But it isn’t blood. I think it might be mud.”
Looking inside the car, I saw the broken glass and small specks of red that might actually be blood, but there were more black smears of mud mixed in with tracks of ruined plastic and leather where something had torn the inside of the door and parts of the driver’s seat apart. I took a step back, trying to catch my breath. “I…I don’t understand any of this.”
I heard a sigh behind me. “I don’t either, but…I don’t know.”
I looked back at him. “What? What do you know?”
He shrugged. “Nothing, man. Just reminds me of some weird shit I’ve seen. But I don’t really know anything.”
I thought about pressing him on the point, but how could I? I didn’t feel like he was lying to me, and even if he was, how could I get him to say more? So I watched as he turned and started back to the office and then I started going through the car.
I found the purse, and laying between the passenger seat and the door was Cody’s phone, which was dead after several days. And just as the man had said, there was her driver’s license peeking out from under the seat in the floorboard. I could see her smiling face looking out at me, a past her that was happy and safe and didn’t know this strangeness was ahead of her. There was more of the black stain across the bottom of the photo and I almost wiped it away when I realized what it was.
A fingerprint.
Something stopped me then, and I stayed frozen, hunched over in the doorway of the car, holding the license gingerly by its edges as I decided what to do. Why did this feel important? Like I was preserving evidence from a crime scene?
Because maybe I was. What if Cody was attacked? Either by this Robbie or somebody else? This could be proof of that, and I couldn’t risk destroying evidence.
Swallowing, I looked around for somewhere to put the license without disturbing the fingerprint there. I finally settled on breaking off the plastic lid of some baby wipes she kept in the back seat. It wasn’t great, but after I dried the lid on my pants it should be a decent place to keep the license until I could get it into a proper box or something. Feeling both scared and stupid, I headed back up to the office holding her purse and phone in one hand and the lid to the wipes with the license in the other.
When I went in, Jesse was gone. I still wanted to press him for anything else he might know, but it wasn’t like I didn’t still have the car there. I could always make the excuse to question him again when I called to check on that.
I was halfway back to the hospital when the same nurse that had first called me called again. “What is it? Is something wrong?”
Her voice was odd. Different than her normal kind and positive tone. “No, nothing like that. I just…well, your wife has demanded to be discharged. We’ve convinced her to wait until tomorrow morning, but we’re starting to process the paperwork now.”
“Discharged? Why?”
There was a pause. “Well, she says she remembers much more now. She remembers you and more of her life and she wants go home. And we can’t keep her against her will.”
“Okay, um, well, maybe that’s good news, right? I’ll be back there in just a few minutes, okay? I’ll see if I can talk to her and find out what’s going on.”
“Sure. I just…Look, I wanted to ask you a couple of things before you got back, if that’s all right.”
“Oh. Well, yeah. What?”
“Well, when she first woke up, your wife said that her home address is 157 Albrecht Drive. But our records from when she had her baby here three years ago shows 201 Benton Lane. Have you moved since then?”
I gave a relieved laugh. “Oh, is that all? Well, no. We’ve lived at Benton for seven years. Since her mother died and Cody inherited her house. But before that our house was 157 Albrecht. For the first few years we still kept our old house as a fallback. Still got our mail there even. We didn’t sell it until we had the baby. So maybe she’s just remembering the old house because we used to live there.”
Another pause. “Maybe so. It just seemed strange and I wanted you to know. See you when you get here.” Then she was gone.
As I pulled up to a stop light, I kept turning the conversation over in my head. It was weird. She’d acted like she needed to correct the address, but then at the end it was more like she just wanted me to know because it was ‘strange’. How strange was it, really? We had lived there, after all. For years. And Cody did remember parts of her life, so was it that odd that she’d remember living in our old house?
I felt a small chill run up my back.
Except it was our old house. If she remembered living there, why didn’t she remember me, from back then at least? I pushed back against the thoughts crawling into my brain. No, that was dumb. How else would she know that address except that she remembered it? And I didn’t know how amnesia really worked, and I certainly didn’t know what all she had been through that day. I glanced over at her driver’s license, smudged with that dark print, some relic of the terrible mystery that had invaded our lives.
And then my breath caught in my throat. The license was five years old and up for renewal this year. My eyes shifted from the expiration date up to the information above. Her name and date of birth, but also her mailing address five years ago.
157 Albrecht Drive
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Credits
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