ON THE DRIVE home, Paul’s quiet, not upset like yesterday, when I didn’t stay put. This time he simply looks sad, which feels worse.
“We need to find who did this to me,” I say finally.
“Who did this to you?” Paul asks, turning to me. “Dee, you did this to you.”
“No. Someone—”
His hand goes up so I stop. “I’m going to explain what I think happened,” he says, “and I need you to stay calm, not get upset, not interrupt till I’m finished. Okay?”
Do I get so agitated that he needs to issue a warning preamble? I guess I do. Or did. I nod.
“I believe you snuck out, hitchhiked once you reached Route 15. Probably a trucker picked you up, dropped you in town. I didn’t see any other store windows broken, so it looks like you had a plan. Usually do. You went straight for the hardware store and cut yourself breaking in. Must’ve gathered the weapons right before you blacked out.”
“That’s not right,” I say. “I just can’t remember…”
Paul shakes his head. Guess I can’t blame him for being so sure I did it. He’s been to that rodeo a few times.
But this is not that rodeo. “Someone took me—”
“You have no idea how lucky we are Arthur called me and not the sheriff. I trust him not to say anything. Promised we’d make certain it wouldn’t happen again.”
My husband is too concerned with sweeping my crazy under the rug to listen, and I’m too angry for a second attempt at making myself heard. So we drive the rest of the way in silence.
When we pull up to the house, Paul says, “You know, I offered Arthur money. For the repairs and his discretion. He wouldn’t take it. Said I should donate it to the Kiwanis. I suppose so they can buy more flying reindeer.” Paul looks at me and smiles. He’s trying to leaven the moment after all the drama. Get us past this.
But I refuse to be leavened. “Maybe the sheriff’s office should be called. Let them dust for prints, collect DNA.”
“DNA? What the heck is DN— Never mind.” He shakes his head. Shuts the car off. “You’re imagining things.”
And I remember Mary saying I was on the CIA’s radar. What if she wasn’t so crazy? “The people who took me, maybe they’re with the government.”
He slaps the steering wheel. “Do you hear yourself? This is how it escalates, Dee, with you inventing conspiracies to explain your actions.”
He gets out of the car, slams the door.
I start to follow him but spot a big stretch of mud just to the side of the driveway. Walk over to it and see human footprints cutting across the deep brown slurry, disappearing into the woods.
Just the single set. My size.
I turn and see Paul there, eyeing them. The two of us walk silently back to the house.
Eloise took me upstairs and helped me get cleaned up. I’m grateful she hasn’t said a word about their all-night search, or Arthur’s call. She’s just put a Band-Aid on me when Paul pops his head into the bathroom.
“Dee, would you come with me?”
I follow him down the hall, past the staircase, till we’re in front of the storage room. He pulls out a key. “There’s something I need to tell you. Was hoping I’d never have to, but I just can’t see a way around it.”
Is he going to confess his lie about the woman?
As he unlocks the door, Paul looks at me, serious as pox. “It’s time you learned what we’re up against.”
What does the woman he lied about have to do with “what we’re up against”? With what really happened to me last night?
Only one way to find out. I follow him inside.
The storage room’s filled with random pieces of furniture and shelves stacked high with cartons and junk. I spot a bowling bag on a high shelf, in early retirement.
“Up till a couple years ago, things weren’t that bad. You had your struggles, but the symptoms were mild. Then it changed. You became more excitable, restless. Something inside you began seeing threats, enemies it needed to guard against.”
The voice. Urging me to resist, goading me to arm, consigning me to battle.
All for a mission she could never quite name.
“You started talking about the future,” Paul says, “and something important you needed to accomplish. Your purpose.”
“I’ve heard this, in Dr. Sherman’s office—”
He puts his hand up. “I told myself I could handle it. And I did for a time,” he says, “smoothing things over with neighbors, keeping the police from getting involved.”
Paul the fixer. Evidently, he’s had a lot of practice.
He digs through objects on a nearby shelf. “When you remembered what you’d done, you were mortified. But other times, like last night when you had no memory, you’d look for some enemy to blame.”
“Last night was different,” I say. “How can I make you see—”
“You started traveling, first to a church in town.” I remember from the sheriff’s department reports in my file: St. Mark’s Church, Doyle- town, Virginia. My memory of the address from Dr. Sherman’s file managed to withstand the ECT. “But then you went farther, to Washington. And you began stealing. Things that voice in your head must’ve said you needed for your mission. Weapons.”
He moves a wall clock that’s been cleaved in half to an empty shelf. Pulls out the carton behind it. “It became clear you needed more supervision. So, I cut down my hours on the road, hired help, and for a while, we made things work. But you’re resourceful…”
“What do you mean?”
He gives me a doleful look. “Come,” he says, picking up the carton, and I follow him to a desk where he puts it down. “Yesterday you wanted to know why we didn’t have more photographs. This is why,” and he opens up the carton. “I kept a few things in case I needed them.”
In the box is a collection of scorched objects. I pick up a large, blackened book. “A fire?” I ask, and he nods. “What happened?”
“Not entirely sure,” he says. “Mrs. Engels, your caregiver at the time, was in the house with you.”
My caregiver. Christ.
“Neighbors said the place went up like kindling. Mrs. Engels was trapped upstairs. Escaped by jumping from a window. She sustained some burns and a broken leg in the fall.”
“Where was I?”
“Nowhere to be found.”
“And you think I started it?”
“Not according to the official report. It states Mrs. Engels accidentally burned down the house by operating our kerosene space heater too close to the living room curtains. I quietly paid the woman three thousand dollars and all her medical bills so she’d agree to that story.” He hands me a small stack of canceled checks made out to Helga Engels.
I sit down on the desk and try to wrap my head around the idea I might have tried to kill another human being. Not merely heard a voice in my head urging me to. Actually attempted it.
And I realize with a cold chill that it’s not so outside my ken, not completely unbelievable. But still I fight it. “If I wasn’t there, how do you know?” I ask.
“When I saw the ruins, heard you were missing, I knew where to look. Found you at the church. You reeked of kerosene but had no memory of what you’d done. Like this morning. You accused me of lying, said I was part of some vast conspiracy keeping you from fulfilling your mission. Eventually you realized the truth, and you were devastated.”
My eyes are filling up. I don’t fight it.
“Soon you started hurting yourself. Small ways at first. I tried to convince you to get treatment, but you wouldn’t. And even with the help, it got more and more difficult to keep you at home, out of trouble. The police would bring you to the local hospital’s mental ward, hold you a few days. It started to get commonplace. We needed a fresh start.”
“So you moved us down here?” I ask.
He nods. “I thought new surroundings, far from your places, would help. And at first you were better. I was starting to have hope. But one night you found a way back to that church, and this time you broke in…” I see him eyeing the scar on my wrist. “Because you damaged church property, the courts got involved. The judge looked at your records and drew his own conclusions. Ordered a minimum twelve-month commitment to Hanover and had you transferred.”
Paul sits on the desk beside me. “Then I get a call from Dr. Sherman saying you’d arrived at Hanover with no memory of who you were, of your life up to that point. So I decided not to tell you—or anyone—about the fire and Mrs. Engels. When Dr. Sherman asked if I knew what memory you might be blocking, I lied. Told him no. I didn’t want you locked away in their violent ward with no hope of release.”
I rub my eyes, let all this good news settle in.
Mrs. Engels was the mystery woman Paul lied about to get me into the Unit.
So my husband’s big deception, the one I etched into my hand so I wouldn’t forget, the one I faked a seizure in order to uncover—was all to protect me from learning the worst about myself: that I tried to kill an innocent person in order to accomplish my nutjob mission. Her mission.
That feels … exactly right, confirmation of a fact some part of me has known all along. My guilt-riddled heart makes sense now. I finally have my truth. About Paul, about us.
Yeah? Well, I call bullshit.
The voice. She’s alive?