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“Mr. Frasier.” I jump as someone taps on the window of my car.
When I see Michael, I almost roll my eyes. Not because I don't like the doctor but because I almost gave myself a heart attack over nothing.
I roll down the window.
“What are you doing here? Are you with Lily?” he asks.
I shake my head. “No. No. I came to see… I came to see Doctor Owen. I heard what happened.”
“Yeah. Nasty business.”
Something about the look on his face—absolutely no reaction to the news, puts me close to the edge. I know doctors have seen the worst, but I would expect that he would either show pity or remorse or a bit of anger that a doctor was shot by his patient.
Then, he sighs heavily, scrubbing his face with his hands. When his hand drops, I see the pain in his eyes, and his lips quiver. Oh.
He was trying to mask his feelings.
Once again, I’ve jumped to conclusions about an innocent man. Maybe it’s the time I took off. Retirement—that has made my instincts wonky.
“I was hoping to talk to you too,” I say, getting out of my car.
“Oh?”
“If you’re not busy, that is,” I add.
He shakes his head. “Not at all. I came out—” Michael leans towards me, his hand cupped over his mouth, “before I needed a smoke. Bad habit, I know, and I’m trying to kick it.
“I only do it when I’m having a terrible day… like today. But I saw your car, and I decided to say hi. I guess I’ll keep it for another day.”
I don’t see the cigarette in his hand, but I assume it must be in his pocket. Besides, I’m not one to judge a doctor’s vices. As long as they don’t affect the patient, it’s their life. They are well aware of the risks.
“Okay. I have a hypothetical question,” I say as we walk towards the hospital entrance. “If someone loses their memory and gets something like a vision, could it be their memory returning?”
Michael pauses and turns to me with eager eyes. “Lily?”
I quickly shake my head. “No. Not Lily. I have a friend who suffered an accident last year. He’s been dealing with amnesia for a couple of months. Retrograde amnesia,” I add, building on the lie. “His procedural memories are still there, but everything else before the accident is gone.
“Recently, he had some sort of vision where he could see himself in a scene. Could that be a sign that his memory is returning? Could it be part of the buried memories?”
“I take it that you’re not close to this friend?”
“Why would you say so?”
“Because if you don’t know if it’s a memory from the past, then it means you're not privy to a lot of things that happened to your friend.”
Sneaky.
I grudgingly smile at how he navigated my question, but it’s not enough admiration to tell him the truth.
“Yes. We live in different cities.”
“Hmm,” Michael strokes his chin, and we continue walking. “It could be. There’s a big chance it's his memory returning. Albeit not in its entirety. It could be a flashback that is fragmentary and transient. So, to some degree, it indicates memory improvement and retrieval. For some, it's an isolated occurrence that doesn’t happen again.”
I see.
I don’t know if I want it to be an isolated event or a sign of memory retrieval.If the first thing she remembers is something that is frightening, what will the other chunks be like?
“I don’t mean to pry, but the friend isn’t—?”
