Love Water Memory

one

she became aware of a commotion behind her, yet it seemed important to keep scanning, searching for something out over the water, toward low mountains, a skiff of clouds. A bridge in the distance, familiar. And something else, something that shimmered on the periphery of . . . what, the horizon? Her vision? No, her mind. Something she was looking for. Voices called out; the people behind her. Seagulls shrieked from the pier on the right. Just past them, the masts of tall ships creaked slowly back and forth as though they’d been there forever, only she was just now seeing them.

Hello? A distinct male voice, closer. She tried to turn to see him, but her legs felt numb. No, they were cold. Ice cold. Dead legs. Was she dead? Where was she? What was this place?

She looked down and saw dark water to her knees. She held high heels in one hand and shouldered a large purse that made her neck ache. Her skirt was wet at the hem.

Excuse me, are you okay? Closer still.

I don’t know, she said, turning her head. That she could do, at least.

The man waded toward her from the beach, wearing only a skimpy bathing suit and a black swim cap strapped beneath his chin. She tried to move away from him—who was he? Why was he dressed like that? He was so exposed—his chest, his arms, his midsection—freckled and sun weathered, a thick white scar on his abdomen she didn’t want to see. Why was he so naked here with her? And then she noticed a crowd of people dressed similarly standing at the shore, men and women, some in wet suits, others in swimsuits. All with those black caps. All looking at her.

I can’t feel my legs, she admitted.

I bet, he said. You’ve been in here nearly half an hour and the water’s only sixty degrees. He stopped a few feet away. He seemed friendly, like someone’s brother, maybe. Laugh lines creased his face, but his smile was tentative. Do you want to come out now? He looked at her in a way that said she really should, so she nodded.

What’s your name? he asked.

She opened her mouth to tell him, but didn’t know what to say. He waded closer, slowly, carefully, like someone would approach a hurt dog or a crazy person.

Do you live around here? he asked. Or did you come down from the cable car?

Did he think she was crazy? She wished he would quit asking her questions. It hurt inside, trying to figure out how to answer. Her head throbbed now, or maybe it had all along.

She let him come right up to her and take her by the arm. His hand was warm, and his arm and body, and she realized she was freezing, even though the sun lit everything around them into a sharp, bright world she didn’t know.

Want to try to walk back to the shore? he asked, gently rotating her until they faced the crowd on the sand, a banner behind them that read Alcatraz Open Water Invitational. They were all going swimming, she guessed. All at once.

Is she all right? someone called.

I think we’d better call 911, he answered.

Already did, another replied.

It’s only my legs, she said. They’re so cold. I’ll just put my shoes back on.

Okay, he said, slowly walking her toward shore. Let’s keep moving.

She slid her feet like blocks across sandpaper. They hurt now. Everything hurt now. Something was changing inside her, trying to speed up to catch the cog, but there were only broken gears grinding against each other. She wanted to turn back and stay looking across the water, to find what she came for, but the man kept guiding her toward the crowd. Behind them were too many buildings, and behind those, a hill of more buildings.

She looked up and saw letters against the sky. Ghirardelli. Oh, she would love some chocolate.

A tall woman in a black swimsuit waded out and wrapped an arm around her shoulders as the man kept hold of her arm. They were so warm.

You’re going to be okay, the woman said, but she wasn’t sure. She heard a siren now, and shuddered.

An ambulance screamed down the pier next to the beach. Red lights, blue lights. Such a horrible loud sound. It hurt almost as much as trying to answer questions. She hated sirens, maybe the most of everything.

Others rushed forward with towels, swaddling her inside them, taking her shoes and bag away from her. People in uniforms pushed through the crowd, insisting she lie on the sand. Yes, that was good. She was exhausted.

What’s your name? they kept asking while checking her heart, her pulse, putting an oxygen mask on her face. Where’s your ID? What day is it? Do you know where you are? Who’s the president of the United States?

Obama, she finally murmured into the mask. It was the only answer she had, and as good as it felt to know her president, it was nowhere near enough.

two

lucie

the color orange, the sweet of strawberries. The sound of women’s laughter in another room. It was the nurses, but they seemed to be friends, too, and all but one were nice to her.

Butter on bread. Hot showers. The silence of sleep. These were things she knew she liked immediately upon experiencing them. Had she always felt this way, or were these affections new?

The calendar on the dayroom wall said it was July 6, but this she found hard to believe. Clue one: the sky hung heavy and gray on the other side of the windows. She’d checked for latches, for sliders, wanting to let in some air, some normal life. The oxygen here got sucked away by outbursts of shouting, the crying jags that followed, the too-busy spinning of obsessive minds, and the thick, dull breathing of the sedated. But of course, the windows were not the kind that could be opened.

Clue two: none of the magazines on the coffee table were dated later than April, and some were years old. She rummaged through them, then noticed the address labels, all different and to private residences. Good Samaritans had donated them. Regular hospital waiting rooms surely didn’t have to rely on the kindness of others for magazines, but this was a psych ward. The only people waiting here were nuts, and they were waiting to get out. Which was why she would not be disagreeing with the nurses about what month it was, all evidence aside.

She sat thumbing through old news, desperate for distraction as the other patients acted out their various syndromes and maladies. The wandering mumbler with no teeth, the head jerker who stared into space. A guy so young he had pimples, who talked incessantly to no one in particular about God and his demons, one piston leg jumping to a beat no drummer could hear.

After three days of talking with doctors and police officers, it had finally sunk in: she was an amnesiac. She had absolutely no autobiographical memory, not in a general sense (name, rank, social security number) and not in a personal sense (Who am I? Where am I from? What happened to me?). Liking bread and butter held no secrets to her past, just as hot baths and deep sleep didn’t. They weren’t memories. They were pleasures, pure and simple.

The only parts left of her conscious memory were random chunks of useless information. How did she know, for instance, that the decor in this room was straight out of the early 1990s? The blue upholstery on the chairs was dingy and dull, the white laminate end tables scuffed. They had to be nearly twenty years old, but how did she know that, exactly? She didn’t even know her name.

Lucie Walker. That’s what her doctor had told her just that morning, coming through on rounds. One of the crackpot callers turned out not to be a crackpot after all, and everyone at San Francisco General now called her Lucie, which was better than the ma’ams and misses of the past few days. The Walker part was ironic, given that she’d apparently walked away from her life. Her fiancé, a man from Seattle, had now identified her from a photo shown on the TV news, the announcer having said, Can you help us find Jane Doe? Couldn’t they come up with something a little more clever than Jane Doe? And she’d been found; she just needed to be claimed.

So now this man from Seattle was coming all the way to San Francisco to retrieve her, like a piece of lost luggage with no ID tag. His name she forgot. Greg? Garrett? Something with a G. She didn’t think she knew anyone whose name began with G. Especially not a fiancé.

And that was the worst part of all of this. She didn’t know who she knew, or if she knew anyone at all. She didn’t know if anyone loved her or counted on her or might be missing her.

Inside her rib cage, sinew ripped from bone, steel fingers tearing her open. She gasped, an awful, crazy sound, and the incessant talker stopped talking. The mumbler let out a shout. The head jerker said, Are you all right?

Lucie dropped her head into her hands. What was happening? She knew this pain, this tearing open of something, but she had no knowledge of where it came from. Who did she miss? Who missed her? How could she not know that?

The man-whose-name-began-with-G had told the shrink he missed her, and even though she didn’t remember him—didn’t quite believe he was who he said he was, to be honest—she wondered if he was causing the tears. Or could it be her parents, her siblings? Her kids? No, Lucie thought. Please don’t let me be someone who abandoned her own children. Surely the man would have said something to the authorities if she had.

If she was a mother, she was a stylish one. The business suit she’d been wearing was Armani, the handbag Gucci, and the pumps Prada. Her short haircut had odd colors streaked through it: a flaxen white, an unearthly purple-red. The plain brown, she assumed, was hers.

And the makeup! Inside the massive, gaping leather handbag were several smaller bags, the largest containing enough makeup to paint a Las Vegas showgirl. Exactly how did she know about Las Vegas showgirls? Was this part of her history or brain fluff? Brain fluff, brain fluff, she thought, willing it to be so.

LUCIE HAD FIRST met Dr. Emma Gladstone (Dr. Emma, she called herself, like a TV personality) at the end of day one in the hospital. The doctor had sat on the edge of Lucie’s bed and explained that Lucie had a rare disorder—dissociative fugue. Dissociative. Wasn’t that what they called people with multiple personalities? Fugue, in addition to being some kind of amnesia, was a style of music composition, a melody played over and over in many voices. How did she know that? Many voices, multiple personalities. Did this mean something? Clue or random information?

Here’s why we believe we have the correct diagnosis, Dr. Emma said. You have the classic markers: sudden, purposeful travel for no reason; not remembering details of your personal life; not knowing your identity.

She looked up from her notes. The not-yet-named Lucie glanced away.

With no evidence of head injury or physical trauma. The doctor paused. Meaning, we believe it was brought on by some kind of emotional trauma.

Lucie shrugged. The only thing traumatizing was not remembering anything.

Dr. Emma put down the clipboard and sighed. This is a really serious condition. Most people with it get most or all of their memory back, in time. With work. But a small percentage never do.

Well, that sucks. The enormity of Lucie’s predicament was so vast all she could do was say something as dumb as that and look out the inoperable window. Whatever else Dr. Emma had told her that night filtered through without comprehension. She was transparent, a ghost. No identity. No past. No life.

This morning, the six o’clock sunrise had woken her as it had each morning at the hospital, and once the noises entered her consciousness—the banging of breakfast carts, the chorus of toilets flushing, the too loud voices of patients and nurses alike—she could no longer sleep. Dr. Emma appeared not long after, hooded sweatshirt beneath her white doctor’s coat (clue three, Lucie thought, feeling stubborn about the whole July thing), large pink sunglasses parked on her head. Dimpled, rosy, fresh as a buttercup, probably just out of med school.

You really have to be at work this early? Lucie asked from her bed, groggy, out of sorts. She sat up and eased her legs around so that she was sitting at the edge of the bed, blanket wrapped around her waist.

I’ve been on for hours, Dr. Emma said, reaching for her buzzing phone, punching a button, then dropping it back in her white coat pocket. I have wonderful news for you.

Lucie tried to swallow, to breathe, as she learned that she did indeed have an identity, a name, and a home. Not to mention a fiancé. She nodded and attempted a smile. She knew she should feel happy at this news, overjoyed, in fact, but her heart knocked out of rhythm, once, twice.

When’s he coming? she asked.

He wasn’t quite sure what flight he’d get on, but he was hoping to be here by noon or so. You might even be able to have lunch together.

And have we determined he’s legitimate? she asked, hoping for a small portal of uncertainty to escape through.

He scanned and e-mailed your birth certificate and pictures of you two together. Your wedding invitation. He got the DMV to send us your info. We’ve run a police background check on him to make sure he’s who he says he is, and he checks out. I mean, I suppose you could have a twin out there who’s also gone missing, but . . .

The doctor smiled and leaned her head to the side. What’s up? she asked. She didn’t speak the way Lucie would have thought a psychiatrist would. She should be more formal. She should ask, How are you feeling? or Does this make you uncomfortable? But she just said, What’s up? and all of the terror and confusion Lucie had been stifling volcanoed to the surface.

What if I’m not who he thinks I am? Lucie heard the anguish in her voice and was surprised. Where did that come from? Why was she so emotional? She was a blank slip of paper, but she was acting the way a person with a past, present, and an identity would. It was as if she were watching from outside her body, feeling someone else’s pain as gut wrenchingly as if it were her own.

But it was. Clue one.

After the two of you have had a chance to reconnect, Dr. Emma said, we’ll see how you’re feeling. Then we’ll need to sit down and talk—you, me, your fiancé—about your next steps. After a shoulder squeeze and an encouraging smile, she left to continue her rounds.

Next steps. They assumed she’d be leaving; she must not be too crazy.

Lucie sighed, then stood and walked into the small bathroom. She’d been avoiding the mirror since she arrived. It was too disconcerting to stand in front of it and see a stranger staring back. Now, however, now she was actually someone. She needed to know the gory details. She turned on the light, stepped forward, and gripped the cool porcelain.

The hair was still alarming, but hair grew. She reached to touch the lines across her forehead. They were permanently etched. Lucie was glad she wasn’t a person who had succumbed to Botox. (Okay, she knew about Botox! That had to be a good sign.) She wasn’t young and she wasn’t old. She was somewhere in the middle.

Her features were acceptable, if plain: high, arching brows; a long, straight nose; freckles. A wide mouth, generous lips but crooked teeth—a picket fence knocked askew. She shook her head and stepped back, pulling off her gown to look down at her body. A few more freckles on her chest and arms, small breasts, a mole near her navel, a pinkish brown mark on her right thigh that reminded her of crop circles. That was enough for now. She quickly showered, pulled the gown back on, and returned to her bedside to ring the call button. The nice Filipino nurse from the night before was no longer on duty; the surly nurse of the day shift was back.

Yes? the mean nurse said from the doorway, as if stepping inside would admit defeat. It seemed to Lucie that the woman would be better suited to driving trucks.

I need my clothes today, Lucie said. This morning, actually. They’d taken her filthy suit and blouse and all her undergarments to launder them. All she had left were the scuffed pumps and bag.

They’re in your closet. Annoyed, the nurse shook her head and turned away, calling over her shoulder, Have been since yesterday.

No one told me, Lucie said, not loud enough for the nurse to hear. They must have returned them while she slept. She walked to the clothes cupboard, took out the plastic-covered clothing, and laid it on the bed.

The suit was structured unusually, cut in hard angles. An ecru kind of white, but they’d gotten all the stains out. She undressed and pulled on each piece of clothing she’d removed upon arriving at the hospital: the ivory silk bikinis, the body shaper–slip with built-in bra. Her body didn’t have any fat on it; she wasn’t sure why she needed the shaper, but Lucie had to wear something beneath the blouse, which was as thin as onionskin.

Then she attempted the makeup, but didn’t get very far before stuffing it all back in its bag.

And now it was almost one o’clock, and no fiancé. Lucie drew a deep breath and released it. Yes, he was flying all the way from Seattle. No, he couldn’t be held responsible for flight schedules and taxi availability and San Francisco traffic. Was this impatience part of her personality or just nerves? Nerves, she decided. After all, she was blank. Maybe she could now choose any personality traits she wanted to. She picked up another magazine and tried to relax.

National Geographic, November 2006, older than the Newsweeks and InStyles she’d been thumbing through, information dispersing as quickly as she took it in. What good did it do her to know that Congress had rejected the latest eco-jobs bill or that chunky heels were back in fashion, if it was all old news? Did she care about things like this, anyway, she as in she? Clothes? What Congress was up to?

It was the cover of the National Geographic that attracted her. Lucy’s Offspring Found! it proclaimed, and she felt a stab of panic again, shame at the thought that she might have left behind her own offspring, even though no one had mentioned she had any. She couldn’t shake the fear that she was some kind of horrible human being. What if this man from Seattle knew that about her? If he was who he said he was, he would know all kinds of things about her, and he could use them against her without her even knowing if they were true. And then she had another thought: What if he was some kind of pervert, or abusive, and she wouldn’t remember that, and then—

Jesus, she thought, heart pounding. I have to get a grip. They’d checked him out. They did this sort of thing all of the time, right? Released crazy people to family members? To fiancés? She had to trust someone, she decided, because she could no longer trust herself.

Lucie settled back to read the story about her namesake—a pile of bones that lived over three million years before in Ethiopia. Something fluttered inside her as she read. She remembered this story. She remembered that the small ape-like human had been called The Mother of Man, had been the first ape discovered that walked on two feet, and that in those days, the 1970s, a surprising number of people had been upset to think they might have been descended from an African, much less an ape.

Lucie must have been a child when she first read about her, perhaps in school. Had it been just the name that intrigued her, knowing she shared it with the first woman found on earth? And now that they’d found the little hominid’s descendants, Lucie felt a wave of unexpected emotion. Lucy the ape was indeed a mother; Lucie the woman did indeed have roots, primal ones anyway. She blinked her eyes, swallowed salt.

This was not just a clue. It was real pain at thinking about family she’d left behind.

The double doors at the end of the hall opened, and Lucie looked up. A couple walked onto the ward, looking nervous about the Careful: AWOL Risk signs. She relaxed. Not her fiancé. At least she didn’t think the man was. He carried a video camera, and the woman had a workbag strapped around her shoulders and wore a suit not unlike Lucie’s. They strode busily to the nurses’ station, talked with the nurse behind the desk, who shook her head and pointed toward the door. A quiet disagreement ensued, and the supervising nurse appeared, joining in the heated discussion, all in sotto voce tones. They kept looking at Lucie.

What? she finally called across the room, exasperated, and again, the incessant talker shushed. The head jerker, this time, remained silent, as if he, too, wondered what was going on.

Wait. Sotto voce. How did she know about that? It was a musical term, wasn’t it?

The nurse walked out from behind the desk toward Lucie, the man and woman at her heels.

These people are from the TV station that ran your photo, the nurse explained. Somehow—here she glared at the two people—they got someone to let them in. They know about your fiancé coming today and are requesting an interview. We’re about to kick them out of here, but if you want to talk to them, you can, as long as it’s off hospital grounds. Or you can say no.

The woman ignored her and turned to Lucie, smiling in a too eager way, extending her hand.

Ann Howe, Bay News Eight. And this is my cameraman.

Lucie didn’t shake her hand. Was this all just a big hoax, like the crackpot calls that came in after the TV newscast? She’d overheard the nurses talking about it; they didn’t seem to realize how their voices carried along the tile corridors.

They’d gossiped about all of the things Lucie had supposedly been up to during her time in the city. People had reported seeing her riding the bus and eating in a diner. Picking fruit from trees on Russian Hill. Giving money to panhandlers near Fisherman’s Wharf. But worse were the weirdos who claimed Lucie was the female Antichrist, a yuppie Cassandra, a murderer’s daughter.

Was the fiancé just someone’s sick idea of a joke, and now they were going to spring it on her for one of those cruel TV shows? She backed away from the woman, trying to escape.

The reporter looked excited. We were so happy to be instrumental in helping your fiancé find you, and our viewers have taken a special interest in your story. Has Mr. Goodall arrived? The traffic on 101 was a nightmare, so we’re running a little—

The nurse moved in front of the woman, arms up as if to shield Lucie, and the ward door opened once more.

A man entered alone. He was tall and lean with a mess of black hair, tanbark skin, the broad cheekbones of someone descended from Native people. He appeared to have dressed in a hurry, or without thinking: baggy cargo shorts hanging from his hips, a wrinkled white business shirt misbuttoned. He ignored everyone else and looked only at Lucie, and though she didn’t know his face, she felt a shift inside at the sight of him—an easing up, a sense of relaxation for the first time in three days. He saw her, really saw her. He strode quickly to her side.

Roll, roll, roll, the woman murmured to the cameraman. My god, are you getting this? It’s incredible.

The nurse ran to the desk and picked up a phone. Security on eleven, please. Security on eleven. Her voice echoed from overhead.

The dark-haired man was oblivious to the commotion, to everything but Lucie. His face twisted in emotion, his hands reached out as he arrived in front of her. She flinched, she must have, because he pulled back and wrapped his arms around his torso, saying, Oh, Luce, oh god. I’m . . . I’m sorry. Tears filled his eyes. It was extraordinary, she thought, and it made her own eyes well.

Lucie looked into his face. She saw intelligence there, tenderness in the expression lines and