AT SEVEN A.M. ON MONDAY CHERRY WAS ON HER WAY TO her ward, reporting in with dozens of people in white. She said good morning to dietitians, doctors, therapists, nurses (she didn’t know everybody’s name, but that didn’t matter), and to nonmedical hospital people in blue: secretaries, guards, a few volunteers who were here this early. In an hour or two the secretaries, laboratory researchers, clerks, and still others would come in.
“What a special, skilled, wonderful world a hospital is!” Cherry thought. “Next to my family, I love this place best.” She knew her mother understood, but her father and Charlie grumbled good-naturedly that medical people formed a closed fraternity.
Just this weekend, when the Ameses had driven over to Dr. Fortune’s cottage, to take him and his young daughter Midge for a drive, they had been unable to pry him loose from his discussion with Dr. Harry Hope. Cherry was delighted to see “her” Dr. Fortune, who was a medical doctor and researcher, talking so earnestly with “her” psychiatrist. She’d known they were acquainted—through the hospital and the Hilton Clinic, and especially because in a small town like Hilton people knew all their neighbors. She had listened to them talk, and Cherry had grasped how closely the mind and the body interlock. After that, she felt she’d soon feel as much at ease with the psychiatrist as she did with the physician who had brought her and Charlie into the world.
Dr. Hope liked and admired the older Dr. Fortune. He told Cherry so this Monday at work.
“I could give you reasons in detail, but we’d better talk about what I plan next for Bob Smith. It’s the next step even if the watch manufacturer’s letter”—which Cherry had just reported to him—“leads us to some tangible information. You see, any actual facts the watch people may supply, such as Bob’s name and address, are important, very important, but they aren’t enough by themselves. We have to unearth what Bob himself thinks and feels about these facts. Now, this is how I propose to do it—Where’s the tape recordings of the stories he made up for the TAT pictures?”
“On the machine. I put them on in case you’d want to play them back and study them today.”
“I do, and I want you to listen to them with me.” Cherry was a little surprised. “This is the next step I wouldn’t tell you about last Friday.”
Dr. Hope grinned at her, and Cherry grinned back comfortably. There was no more “witch doctoring” about treating mental disturbances than there was about nursing Bob’s leg fracture and secondary anemia through their progressive stages. The next step was this:
Dr. Hope and Cherry would pick out from Bob’s TAT stories those key words which he had used most frequently, or used when he grew upset or excited. From these words that were significant the psychiatrist would construct a word association test. “These words really are keys to what’s troubling Bob, and they can further unlock his memory.”
They listened together, and chose the words or phrases accident, large white house, can’t, perhaps, quarrel, and several others. Dr. Hope asked Cherry if she could contribute anything further from her observation of their patient.
“Well, from my conversations with Bob, I noticed he seemed familiar with medicines and chemicals.” Dr. Hope added the words medicines and chemicals to the list. “I’d guess chemicals especially,” Cherry said.
Dr. Hope said he needed to give more thought to the word association test, and admitted he had worked on it during part of the weekend. He telephoned the University Hospital to say that he would remain at Hilton Hospital all day today, and locked himself in Dr. Ray Watson’s office with the tape recordings and plenty of paper and pencils.
Meanwhile, Cherry performed her regular ward duties. The long-term spine patient actually was able to sit up in bed and reach for a brand-new pair of crutches. Every patient in the ward watched and was heartened, and Mrs. Peters had George wheel Bob in for a look, too.
“Congratulations,” Bob said.
“Thanks. You’ll get well, too.”
When Dr. Hope was finally ready, Bob’s bed was rolled back to his room, and the three of them met in Bob’s room as usual.
This test, too, was like a game. Dr. Hope had a long list of words that, he explained casually to Bob, he would fire one after another. Bob was to answer “off the top of your head—no fair stopping to reflect” with the first word or phrase, or situation, that occurred to him. Bob looked dubious but folded his hands and paid attention.
“White house?”—“Home.” “Chemicals?”—“Business.” “Mother?” Hesitance, then, “My fault.” “Necessary?”—“Handicapped.” “Quarrel?”—“No!” “Brother?”—“Accident.” “Can’t?”—“Can’t.”
To an outsider the word test between doctor and patient would have sounded like gibberish. But to Cherry, who from the beginning had heard every word of Bob’s shaky recall, a dim pattern began to emerge. After the word test was over, Dr. Hope encouraged Bob to talk.
“Now what was that about a business?”
“A family business,” Bob said.
“Yes. A business in chemicals?” Dr. Hope suggested.
“That’s right. We supply manufacturers of so-called miracle drugs. We’re not one of those huge chemicals manufacturing firms, such as you find in the Northeast and in California. We do have, however, a special formula which my father developed—patented the process—and we’re the only ones who can supply it.”
Cherry was amazed at Bob’s full, revealing speech. How clear and alert mentally he was becoming! She leaned forward to listen.
“Is your family business located in the Northeast?” Dr. Hope asked. No answer. “In California?”
“We’ve lost the business.”
“You have? Well, then, where was it located?”
“There isn’t a business any more, I tell you,” Bob said irritably.
“Yes, I see. Do you want to tell us how it was lost?”
Cherry remembered Bob’s description of two men quarreling in an office. He said now, unwilling, “I guess the business failed. It must have been that. It’s vague to me.”
Here, Cherry realized, was an area of his life that Bob was deliberately forgetting. That pinpointed some part of his difficulties. Dr. Hope said in a conversational tone:
“You’re trained in chemistry, aren’t you? Biochemistry, too?” Bob nodded. “I suppose you were in the family business, then.”
“For a while.”
“Bob, now you remember yourself at college, working in the laboratories. You’re wearing a white lab coat and when you look out the window at the campus, which college do you see?”
Bob thought hard. “I see it, all right, but I can’t recall the name.” He voluntarily described what he saw in his mind’s eye, but that place could have been any one of dozens of peaceful green campuses throughout the United States.
“Who else was in the family business?”
“My father, and he’s dead.”
Cherry suggested, “What about a brother?”
“No brother! I haven’t any family.”
That clashed with his story of two boys on a beach where some accident had occurred. Indeed, the story of a family business was inconsistent with his heated assertion that he had no family. Here, too, lay a sore point.
Bob surprised them by rapidly retracing the years of his childhood and early teens. In an outburst of talk, he told of a happy childhood in a seacoast place, but of something important, troubling, that happened just before he entered his teens.
“Was it an accident?” Dr. Hope suggested. “Involving those two boys?”
Bob opened his mouth to answer when the ward telephone started to ring. It rang persistently; Bob was sidetracked. He sat up, listening to the phone.
“That might have been Susan on the phone!”
“Which Susan was that?” Cherry asked.
Bob scowled. “I never did tell Susan. Didn’t feel I had any right to.”
Susan! This sudden first mention of someone named Susan surprised both Dr. Hope and Cherry. Was Susan the “S” of the note found in Bob’s pocket? The psychiatrist asked Cherry to get the note and read it aloud to their patient. She did so.
“Doesn’t make any sense to me,” Bob protested.
“Maybe I do know a Susan, but at the moment I can’t think who she might be.”
Another fact blocked off, hence it could be a key fact. The notepaper was still crisp and fresh. That suggested that “S” or Susan had written to Bob fairly recently. Bob’s being a member of a family business must have been fairly recent, also, for he could not have been out of college for many years. So his “trouble area” was recent.
“What does Susan look like?”
“I don’t know any Susan, Doctor.”
“All right, then, what does your mother look like?”
Bob laughed. “What is this, another game?” He was stalling, evading—though not on conscious purpose. The psychiatrist, unruffled, said: “Well, if you’ll describe your mother’s room, maybe you’ll ‘see’ her in it.”
Bob described a lady’s nicely furnished bedroom in minute detail, but he did not describe the lady herself. That effacement was significant. Even if his mother were dead, as Bob had once insisted, much too excitedly, he should be able to visualize her. He had some troubling reason not to.
“Imagine,” the psychiatrist said, “that now you are walking out of your mother’s room, and you go downstairs to the living room. It’s evening, just before dinner. Who’s in the living room?”
“Nobody.”
“What time did your father generally come home for dinner? Didn’t he and perhaps someone else come in about now?” Bob looked baffled. “How many places are laid at the dinner table?”
“I am searching in my mind, Doctor, but all I get are distant pictures of the beach and the rocks, from when I was small.”
“Fine. We’d like to hear about the beach, too.”
“The beach—well—” Bob sighed. “I’m so tired. Can’t we have a recess, now?”
“All right,” Dr. Hope said, “let it go. I think you told us a very great deal today.”
“Are you going to send me home—when you find out where my home is?”
“If you don’t want to go home, we won’t force you to go.”
“Thanks, Doctor. Though I suppose I ought to—it worries me, if only I knew what—”
Bob’s eyes closed in exhaustion. They were about to leave him alone when Bob suddenly said:
“I’m beginning to recognize myself.”
Out in the corridor, Dr. Hope and Cherry shook hands.
Dr. Ray Watson was satisfied, after another X ray, with the way Bob’s fractured leg was healing. Bob had been doing push-up exercises in bed to strengthen the triceps muscles in his arms for the use of crutches. On Tuesday Dr. Watson said:
“Well, young fellow! What would you say if I told you we’ll let you try your luck with crutches? Yes, sir, three weeks in bed is enough.”
Bob grinned. “How soon can I drive a car?”
“Hear that, Miss Cherry?” Dr. Watson boomed. “Ambitious, isn’t he? Well, we’ll try you out on crutches first.”
Bob’s spirits rose still higher when Cherry brought him a pair of crutches. Standing up, he was taller than she had estimated him to be. At first Bob hobbled around his room uncertainly on the crutches. Cherry was interested to observe his scientific habit of mind as he figured out how best to manipulate them. He got the hang of them quickly, and said:
“Mind if I show my friends on the ward that there’s another fellow around here on his feet?”
“Just wait while I ask our head nurse.”
Mrs. Peters was happy to say yes, and Dr. Watson himself made a loud announcement to the ward patients. Bob hobbled forth to smiles and cheers from the men in casts and wheelchairs and braces.
“Congratulations,” called Tommy and Mr. Pape and the spine case, who had his own crutches next to his bed.
Bob actually blushed and stammered when he said thanks. He stayed with his ward friends for lunch. This socializing was progress too. Cherry had to urge him back into his room.
Next morning Mrs. Leona Ball came into the ward. She was all smiles. The Cleveland jeweler had answered her urgent letter of inquiry about Bob’s watch. The jeweler’s letter read:
“Dear Mrs. Ball: Our business records show that a man’s wristwatch of Excelsior make, #8991374, was sold two years ago this July to a Mrs. Olivia Albee. The customer paid for it with a check drawn on the First City Bank of Crewe, Connecticut. I myself waited on Mrs. Albee and from our conversation had the impression that she was on a trip. She produced identification from Crewe to validate her check. I trust this is the information you require. Sincerely yours, R. J. Jennings.”
“Albee!” Cherry exclaimed. “Mrs. Olivia Albee. Is she Bob’s wife or mother or sister—or just a friend?”
“Or an aunt or grandmother,” Leona Ball teased her. “I suppose if the jeweler had any more information than this, he’d have sent it along.”
“It’s a real lead,” Cherry said. “At last we have the name of someone who probably knows Bob, and we have the name of that person’s town. We’d better ask Dr. Hope’s advice on what to do next, don’t you think so? He’ll be in tomorrow.”
“Think again, Bob,” Cherry said gently.
Bob was sitting up on the edge of his bed, legs dangling. Dr. Hope had assigned her to reveal the news to their patient; after so many pressing interviews, he felt Bob might be on guard with him.
“Think, now. Doesn’t the name Albee sound familiar to you?”
“Albee … Albee …” Bob repeated. “And you said the town of Crewe, Connecticut. No, I don’t think so—but it’s confusing. It rings a bell somewhere. I think I once had a schoolteacher by the name of Alsop. Sure you don’t mean Alsop?”
“No, I mean Albee. Is that by any chance your name?”
“Albee? No.” But Bob looked very doubtful.
“You’re sure, now?”
Bob sighed, rubbed his forehead, restlessly swung his good leg. Cherry waited.
“You’re right. My name is Albee, Richard Albee. And my hometown is Crewe.” His face cleared.
“You’re sure of that, now?”
“Yes, perfectly sure. Go ahead and check. You’ll find I’ve got it straight this time.”
He was so calm and confident that Cherry was ready to believe that he was Richard Albee, of Crewe. Still, his earlier, calm statements that he’d attended Oberlin College and had held a summer job with the circus turned out to be fantasies.
“We-ell. And who is Olivia Albee?”
“My mother. She bought me that wristwatch—by the way, thanks very much for returning it to me. She bought it a couple of summers ago while she was traveling in the Middle West. In Cleveland, I think she said.”
“Is Crewe your mother’s home, too?”
“Yes. I mean it was, while she was still alive.”
The subject of the patient’s mother was a touchy one. Cherry gingerly decided to turn the interview over to Dr. Hope at this point.
He came in promptly, after Cherry’s quick briefing. Bob seemed a little troubled to see him. He picked up the interview where Cherry had left off. Bob protested.
“I suppose you’re going to ship me right back to Crewe—maybe write a note to my mother first. ‘Here’s your son, madam, he’s on your hands now.’”
“No, we’ll do nothing of the sort. I’ve told you that already, Bob. Or Richard?” Dr. Hope smiled at him. “Relax. I’m still your friend. But I’m sure your mother or other relatives must be worried about you.”
“My mother is dead, and I’ve already told you that.”
“So you did,” Dr. Hope said quietly. “I don’t like to pester you with questions about her. I realize it’s painful for you—but it’s part of your cure.”
Bob muttered, “I can’t go back there, I can’t!”
“Why not, fellow? What’s bothering you?”
“Why, how could I ever face her?”
“Your mother?” No answer. Or did Bob mean the unknown Susan? Dr. Hope rephrased his questions.
“Yes, she’s dead. Yes, recently! I don’t know how recently! Well, she died of a tumor, it was neglected, the operation was put off too long because of—” He choked on his own words. “My mother was neglected, and she died.”
“Bob, listen to me. Is your mother really deceased, or are you only worried that she may die?”
Bob’s eyes grew shiny with tears and he would not or could not answer.
Cherry said, “You know, Bob, if your mother, or anyone, needs medical care and can’t afford to pay for it, there’s always free care available. Every hospital does that.”
“That’s right,” Dr. Hope said. “Can’t some other member of your family arrange for an operation if she needs one?”
Bob mumbled, “No other members in my family.”
“Haven’t you a brother?” The other boy on the beach, the other boy in the violin scene, the other man in the quarrel. Literally true or not, these scenes pointed persistently to two boys or two men, and Bob had admitted one might be himself. “Have you a relative named Susan?”
“I haven’t. Oh, let me alone! Please. I haven’t any family.” Bob tried to suppress a sob. “Don’t you suppose I’d tell you their names, or our home address, or our business address if I could?”
The inconsistencies in what he’d said hinted at many sorts of hidden facts. But Bob’s panic was the urgent matter at the moment. Dr. Hope stood by while Cherry soothed him. They promised him they would find out all they could from Crewe, to help him remember. They promised to inquire discreetly so that Bob would not be thrown back into an obviously distressing situation.
At Dr. Hope’s request, the hospital social worker wired the Crewe police, for a confidential report. Had they any record of a Richard Albee? Of an Olivia Albee? She gave what information they had about their patient, and in her long telegram also requested the Crewe police not to tell the Albee family (if one existed) of the Hilton Hospital inquiry just yet, because of medical reasons.
Mrs. Ball sent the telegram on Thursday. No reply arrived on Friday. Cherry made a special trip to the hospital on Saturday. No reply. She wondered how she could wait through the weekend.