“JUST THINK,” MRS. AMES REMARKED. IT WAS SUNDAY AND they were all at home. “A week from today is Columbus Day. And you, Miss Nurse, haven’t yet had a vacation this year.”
Cherry’s father lowered the sports pages of the Sunday newspaper. “I should think any nurse would need to get away from shop talk, and have a vacation and enjoy a little social life.”
“I do have a social life,” Cherry said indignantly. “Or sort of one.” She looked around for Charlie to corroborate this, but Charlie was absorbed in studying the want ads for aeronautic engineers. Either a new job or a promotion at his present Indianapolis job was his objective. “I went to Dottie Wilkinson’s party last evening, didn’t I? With George Baker, as Mother asked me to.”
“George is a very nice young man,” said Mrs. Ames.
“Yes, he is, Mother. I’ve known him since we met in the first grade and he still fails to interest me.”
Her father asked? “Where’s your old friend, Wade Cooper?”
“He’s overseas on a job.”
Cherry hadn’t much patience or interest these days in parties or even seeing old friends. The need to solve Bob Smith’s riddle—or Richard Albee’s?—allowed her no rest. Later on, she told her family, she’d make up for this period with plenty of fun and good friends.
As if on signal, the telephone rang for Cherry. The operator said New York was calling, and then Gwen Jones’s voice came on.
“Aren’t you ever coming to swell the ranks of the Spencer Club?”
“Of course I’m coming. … I don’t know when. With this special case. … Well, when I can get there. … How’s Mai Lee?”
“We’re all fine, Josie Franklin and Bertha Larsen got here Wednesday. … Well, I did say so…. In my letter. … What letter? … Wait a sec. Josie!” Cherry waited while one Spencer Club member conferred with another. Gwen’s voice came on again. “The letter is still in Josie’s coat pocket. Anyway, all I said is hurry up.”
“Yes, ma’am. I know an order when I hear one. What’s going on that’s so special?” Cherry asked.
“Not a blessed thing. Just a visit and a gabfest.” Gwen gave a sample—all their recent news.
The operator cut in. “There will be an extra charge for the next three minutes.”
“Ouch! Cherry! I’m going to hang up.”
“Save a bed and a hamburger for me,” Cherry said, and hung up, laughing.
Of all things, on Monday morning at the hospital Cherry found Dr. Hope poring over a map. Then she saw that the map showed the northeastern states and included Crewe, Connecticut. Crewe was not far from New York City, Dr. Hope explained, about an hour or two by train or car. It was one of a cluster of suburban towns that dotted the shores of Long Island Sound. Across the water from Crewe’s Connecticut shore lay the narrow strip of Long Island, on whose other side the open Atlantic pounded. The Sound itself was fed by the Atlantic Ocean.
“I’ve been sailing and swimming up there,” Dr. Hope said. “The waters of the Sound are really treacherous at times.”
“That’s where Bob’s accident with the two boys happened—if he’s not making up the story.”
“If he is, remember it reflects his feelings and ‘stands for’ the truth in his mind.” Dr. Hope put away the map. “We might try to find out whether there was an accident, because now we have some new information to work with.”
“We have?” Cherry’s hopes leaped up. “Did the Crewe police answer, Doctor?”
“We’re in luck. Look at this!”
He handed her a telegraphed report from the Crewe police department. It had reached Hilton Hospital late Sunday evening. It stated that a family by the name of Albee lived in Crewe and had been in business there for many years. The Albee firm manufactured chemicals and medicines and had been founded by the father, Justin Albee, deceased for some four years.
“So Bob’s father is dead, as he said!” Cherry exclaimed.
“Yes. But read the rest of it.”
The Albee family at present consisted of the mother, Mrs. Olivia Albee, and two sons, Richard and Merrill. Richard had been gone from Crewe for about six or seven months.
“His mother is alive! He does have a brother!”
“Yes.”
“Six or seven months—that was last March or April,” Cherry figured. The calendar in his pocket had its pages torn off up to April. “So he broke down in April—I mean, perhaps,” she amended as Dr. Hope cocked his head at her. She continued reading the Crewe police report.
Six months ago, Mrs. Albee had asked the Crewe police to send out a Missing Persons Bureau inquiry on Richard. However, the other son, Merrill, advised them that Richard had left voluntarily and there was no cause for alarm. Merrill told the Crewe police, in confidence, that Richard was under some cloud of a personal nature and wanted to be left alone for a while. The Crewe police department had therefore sent out a routine inquiry, as Mrs. Albee requested, but had not made any detailed investigation.
Bit by bit, carefully, Dr. Hope and Cherry imparted this information to Bob. They started by telling him that they had received good news about his mother: she was very much alive, despite his fears, and still residing in Crewe.
“She is? How can you be sure?” he asked.
They told him about the Crewe police report.
Bob seemed relieved to learn of his mother, yet not nearly as relieved as they might have expected. He did not want to talk about her. Dr. Hope did not press. He changed the subject, and then, casually, mentioned “your brother Merrill.”
“Oh, yes, Merrill.” Bob’s expression was vague, then his face clouded. “Merrill. My older brother. That’s right. He’s all right, isn’t he? What does the police report say about him?”
“Nothing of particular interest,” Dr. Hope said. Cherry knew Dr. Hope must have some reason for evading. “Suppose you tell us something about Merrill. Well, Bob?”
“I guess you’d better call me Richard,” he said gravely.
“Very well, we will. Now, about Merrill?”
Bob—or Richard—smiled. “He’d be amused to see me weaving around on crutches. Oh, he wouldn’t gloat or anything, he’d be sorry, he’s such a good guy. But, you see, I’ve always been the athlete, the—Merrill calls me the eager beaver.”
Cherry heard an undertone here that she could not understand. She asked whether Merrill did not go in for athletics, too. Or for chemistry.
“Merrill?” Their patient sounded surprised. “Oh, no.”
Bob—or Richard—spoke in unrelated snatches. Then he began to remember more consecutively.
“I can see the walnut highboy in our room, when we were boys, and I remember the arguments Merrill and I used to have about who could use the top drawers. The more convenient drawers. Now it’s coming clearer. Merrill used to tell me—you know the way a kid brother gets teased—that I was the baby and shorter, so the bottom drawers had to be mine. Forever and ever, he said. Then when I shot up a head taller than Merrill, he said that I still ought to give him the preference—in everything, always—because of—”
Bob—or Richard—half laughed, remembering, but Cherry and Dr. Hope were listening closely.
“Because of what?” Dr. Hope asked.
The question was painful. Richard paled, wet his lips, but could not speak. Cherry started to prompt him but the psychiatrist gestured for her to be silent.
“Won’t you tell us? Was it perhaps because of your mother, in some way? Or because of some accident or quarrel? You remember, don’t you?”
Richard breathed hard. “It was—Just another boy. It was just a boy at the beach.”
Cherry remembered Richard’s agitation when he made up a beach scene for the misty TAT card. Another boy? That suggested in his boyhood.
“How would another boy know?” Dr. Hope asked.
“It was another boy.”
“Unless perhaps it was your brother?”
“No.” Richard turned his face away and refused to say more.
“Well, tell us something else, then. Was Merrill in this difficulty, too?”
“Please leave Merrill out of this.”
Dr. Hope approached the sore point via another route. “Something extraordinary must have happened,” he said gently.
“Something terrible happened. I’m sure of that much. Because I’ve never stopped feeling unhappy and guilty about him.”
“About your brother?”
“No, you mustn’t blame Merrill. Not for anything.”
“You’re fond of Merrill, aren’t you?”
“Yes, very fond of him. He’s my older brother. Four years older than I am. I’ve always looked up to him. But I—Funny I can’t remember exactly what happened—but I feel as if I’ve done Merrill some lasting injury, and have to make it up to him.”
It was plain to Cherry and the psychiatrist, from Richard’s agitation about Merrill, that there was a good chance Merrill had been the “other boy” involved in the unnamed difficulty. Equally plain, Richard resisted telling anything much about Merrill, out of some feelings of guilt toward his brother. Some very tangled relationship must have existed between the two boys—and what was it now, between the two men?
Guilty, Richard said. … Was the guilt imaginary or valid? Did it apply to their boyhood or to as recently as last April? Guilty of what? Whatever had happened, in Crewe or elsewhere, whatever other persons were involved—his brother, his mother, Susan—the truth was locked away in Richard’s memory. It was as if his memory had jammed, like a stubborn, complex piece of machinery, and all three people in this hospital room struggled to pry it open.
Under Dr. Hope’s gentle questioning, Richard remembered a few things about his brother, and his family. He recalled his father.
“I’m sure our father meant to be impartial,” Richard said hesitantly. “I’m sure he made every effort.”
Dr. Hope raised his eyebrows. “But he wasn’t?”
“Oh, he only favored Merrill a little, sometimes. Maybe I’d have done the same in his place. Merrill never was as strong as I am—not that Merrill ever complained. He’s a remarkable person.” He spoke kindly, devotedly of Merrill.
“Why wasn’t Merrill as strong as you?”
“In a way it was my fault.”
“How?”
“I don’t remember.”
The story sounded pretty thin to Cherry. Apparently it did to Dr. Hope, too. He put questions, with tact, about the boys’ mother.
“She’s the best mother in the whole world. But after what I did—I mean, after what happened to Merrill—After that, I felt my parents might never really want me. Especially my mother.”
“You mustn’t feel that way,” Cherry said. “Weren’t your parents good to you? Affectionate?”
“Oh, yes!” In answer to the psychiatrist’s question, Richard said, “I was about ten or eleven when all this happened.” He would not or could not say what “all this” meant.
“So you kept the incident to yourself,” Dr. Hope said, “whatever it was, and nursed your feeling that you were at fault.”
“Yes.” And this psychological wound, like any physical wound that is hidden and ignored, had festered. It was still painful, judging from Richard’s eagerness to change the subject.
Dr. Hope talked for a while about the family business, or his deceased father’s business—Richard was unclear on this. Again he could remember only that the business concerned the manufacturing of medicines and drugs. Cherry had observed Richard’s evident training in chemistry and biochemistry, from time to time, in conversation with him about the drugs that Dr. Hope administered to him.
“Did you take part in the business?” she asked. “Or did you plan to?”
Richard grew upset and protested he could not remember. This, too, was pretty thin. He apologized, saying he realized there were periods for which he could not account.
“Was Merrill in the family business?” Dr. Hope asked.
Richard had no recall on that, either. Apparently the business was another sore point. That, Cherry thought, brought the focus of Richard’s distress up into the recent past. A question occurred to her. She gestured to Dr. Hope, then said:
“Richard, I don’t understand what drove you away from home now. If you had foolishly run away from home when you were eleven and get all upset over that incident—well, some youngsters do foolish things. But why did you leave your home now—so many years afterward? Last spring, according to the police telegram. What drove you away?”
Richard grew agitated. This point, too, he could not remember. That is, he could not bear to remember his point of breakdown. But what was it? What had happened?
The only response their patient was able to make, out of his locked memory, was to repeat over and over that he was “guilty.” Especially regarding Merrill and his mother. He could not name what he had done, or not done, except to blame himself.
“He’s still badly upset,” Cherry thought, “in spite of all progress.”
In conference after the interview, Dr. Hope commented to Cherry that everything Richard had said tallied with the Crewe police report. But the report was all too brief.
“We need more facts,” Dr. Hope said. “We need to know what the patient feels guilty about.” He explained that guilt, actual or imagined, could have caused Richard to break down and wander away. The psychiatrist needed the actual facts; then he could help Richard sort out facts from fantasy, and resume his life. That was the only way to help their patient get well.
“Couldn’t we simply send Richard home?” Cherry asked. “Wouldn’t he remember everything once he got there?”
“I’m afraid not. Restoring Richard to his family and home will not necessarily cure his amnesia.” Dr. Hope said patients had been returned to their homes and continued to be amnesics. “You see, Miss Cherry, if there’s family trouble, and that’s what drove him away, then our restoring Richard to his family might intensify his loss of memory. No, that won’t do. Our problem is to cure Richard and then reintroduce him into his family on happy terms. And for that, we need to know more about his relationships with his mother, his brother, the business, and the rest of it.”
“We need more facts,” Cherry mused. “It looks as if somebody will have to go to Crewe.”
“It certainly does. That detective fellow—Hal Treadway—can’t go. I can’t go, too many patients at the University Hospital. Miss Cherry?”
Harry Hope looked down at her and Cherry looked up at him. They eyed each other, then burst out laughing.
“I see we understand each other,” he said. “You’re elected. Can you go?”
“If that’s an order, Doctor, I’ll make it my business to go.”
“Well, I think it’s part of your nursing job on this case. I also think you’re a good person to do it—you’re thoroughly familiar with the case and know what to look for, better than anyone but I would. A hired detective might get the facts but overlook the meanings. We haven’t funds to hire a detective, anyway. I’ll tell Hospital Administration and Mrs. Peters all this when I ask for time off for you from the hospital.”
“How soon do you want me to start?”
“The sooner the better. We can’t go any further with Richard until we have more facts. By the way, Miss Cherry, I don’t know how we’ll finance this trip of yours.”
“I have friends I can stay with in New York, Doctor.” She meant the Spencer Club’s apartment. With luck she might borrow Gwen’s car to drive up to Crewe. “As for the fare from Hilton to New York and back—the midnight coach flight isn’t very expensive, and I’ve been planning to visit my friends in New York, anyway.”
“Honestly? Well, I feel better about it, then. Let’s see. This is Monday. Maybe some fast telephone calls will arrange things—”
Dr. Hope offered to pay out of his own pocket any incidental expenses Cherry might incur. She thanked him but said that except for a few restaurant meals, these would not come to enough to matter.
“You’re an awfully good person to go.”
“I’ve been looking for an excuse to visit my friends in New York, Dr. Hope. This trip won’t be exactly a vacation, but it certainly should be interesting!”
They agreed not to tell their patient where Cherry was going, since it might distress him. Dr. Hope would tell him just before Cherry returned—bringing back what unsuspected information?
The hospital authorities promptly gave permission for Cherry to take a few days’ leave from the hospital. Mrs. Peters rearranged the schedule: Ruth Dale, two volunteer teenagers, and she herself would double up on Cherry’s ward work. Cherry telephoned Hilton Airport for flight information. And an hour later, when Mrs. Ames came home, she found Cherry in her bedroom packing a suitcase and wearing her gray suit.
“Cherry! Now what? I’ve learned never to be surprised by your impulsiveness but—You never said a word!”
“Didn’t know till now, darling. Will you or Dad drive me to the airport for the eight o’clock plane? I’ll explain at dinner.”
At eight Cherry boarded the plane to New York, leaving her astounded parents waving out the car window. A few hours later Cherry roused the astonished Spencer Club nurses out of their sleep.
“I’m here,” Cherry announced. “I told you I was coming. Isn’t anyone going to say hello?”