But we have hopes the use of this drug in early stages could prevent--"
"Yes, well--" Cole rose abruptly from his chair. It was not good to remain seated too long in a psychiatrist's office, whether on a couch or a straight-backed wooden chair. It made Cole feel like a germ on a slide. "I'm sure, if he were aware, my father would welcome this chance to repay a part of his debt to society." Cole crossed to the window and frowned down on the terraced lawn below him, his hands clenched behind him to keep them from shaking.
"Exactly so. Mr. Brewer, I note from the charts that you have curtailed your visitation considerably in the past year."
He glanced at the dark, balding Fitapaldi whose eyebrows would soon boast more hairs than his head. "I've been away. Is there a problem with that? I believe I've kept the hospital aware of my whereabouts." As much as Cole, himself, was aware of them, in any case.
The psychiatrist leaned forward on his desk with his elbows and scrutinized him through a triangle made of his fingers. "No," Fitapaldi answered eventually, without much conviction. "Your visits have no long range effect on your father."
"The result is not mutual, I assure you."
"Then why come at all?"
"It is not always a conscious decision," Cole said, with more honesty than he had intended.
"I see. Have you sought counseling or treatment of any kind in recent years, Mr. Brewer?"
"Do I need to remind you, Doctor, that I was the victim here... one of the victims, not the patient? I doubt that any of the victims of Duncan Brewer have sought treatment of any kind in recent years."
"Yes, but the others are--"
"The lucky ones." Cole reached into his pocket and withdrew a scrap of paper. "I'm moving. You can note my new address on your chart. Thank you for informing me of the experimental treatment. I hope that you find some benefit to it. Good day, Doctor Fitapaldi." Cole tried to slip out from under the microscope, but Fitapaldi followed him to the door.
"I can give you some names. You should consider counseling. Or perhaps a surgical exam. The plate is still--"
Unable to stop himself, Cole lifted his palm to cover the right side of his skull where his hair grew in swirls and contrary patches. "Yes, the plate is still there. The payment for my debt is still being extracted."
"They were trying to help."
"So they said."
"It can be removed, you know. The procedure has improved in recent years. The survival rate is--"
"Forget it. I hardly notice it anymore. Except when it picks up transmissions from CIA wire taps." He laughed when Fitapaldi's dumbfounded stare showed he thought Cole was serious. "I have to see my father now."
"But you will call me?"
"Don't wait up." Cole mumbled his goodbye and strode from the office, knowing a periodic hour or two in his father's room was the only treatment he would ever seek. It was shock therapy for him, jolting him out of his haze of memory for a while. If the side effects were harrowing, the returned nightmares terrifying, at least they were familiar and clearly out of the past, preferable to no memory at all, or the strange snaps and flashes that sometimes attacked him and did not seem like memory at all. Nightmares were symptoms of sanity. Everyone had them occasionally.
Cole took the stairs to his father's floor instead of the elevator which he remembered reminded him of a padded cell and moaned with distress each time it hoisted itself to the next level. A bell and a light announced his arrival as he opened the stairway door to the fifth floor. No one paid any attention. He had to tap on the counter and clear his throat twice before the ward clerk glanced over her shoulder at him, then ignored him.
"Excuse me. I'm Cole..."
"The nurse will be with you in a moment."
"Fine." Noticing the balls of yarn and five-inch length of crocheting on the desk across from her, Cole shrugged off a bit of his tension. Yarn meant it would probably be Mrs. Hayes. He could handle her. She never looked at him as if he were the spawn of the devil.
"Mr. Brewer. A surprise visit? It won't be much of a one, I'm afraid. We haven't had a lot out of him in the last week." Mrs. Hayes had a voice of grandmotherly kindness. It always seemed too soft to Cole for the job she had